Re: Confessions of a CoBOL programmer

In article <cfgqu3tl6n58nukfgug5lvsqpjbqsfvurf@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
Howard Brazee  <howard@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>On Fri, 28 Mar 2008 18:32:16 +0000 (UTC), docdwarf@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 () wrote:
>
>>(If it is true that Everyone Knows the population having (skill) is
older 
>>and Everyone Knows that older workers frequently command higher salaries

>>then Everyone Knows the population having (skill) may frequently command

>>higher salaries... on the other hand... the ability of those human-being

>>type folks to deny what seem to be logically valid conclusions has been 
>>seen before... let me see... nigh a decade back, from 
>><http://groups.google.com/group/comp.software.year-2000/msg/da8c9f200ee62949?dmode=source>
>
>I see your point, and I love your story that I started to quote below.
>But I'm not sure that I get the same definitive lesson.
>
>For instance, everybody raising their hand to accept the premises but
>not the logical conclusion could be because they were wrong in
>accepting the premises.

Mr Brazee, that would appear to indicate that they misrepresented their 
thoughts - 'how many of you think' - or that their thoughts had changed 
during the short course of the presentation.

'How many of you think that all men are mortal?' (hands up)
'How many of you think that Socrates is a man?' (hands up)
'How many of you think that Socrates is mortal?'  'Uh..... maybe I was 
wrong when I said I thought all men are mortal... or maybe Socrates isn't 
a man now.'

>
>Or it could be that the definitions of "problems a community has" and
>"problems that a company has" are related.
>
>Of course, that might be your point.

What I attempted to demonstrate, Mr Brazee, was that the logical abilities

demonstrated by some folks in Cor****ate America can reach levels of 
refusing to accept things which 'follow of necessity'.

(note - Aristotle, Prior Analytics, Book I, Part 1, paragraph 4, sentence 
1: 'A syllogism is discourse in which, certain things being stated, 
something other than what is stated follows of necessity from their being 
so. I mean by the last phrase that they produce the consequence, and by 
this, that no further term is required from without in order to make the 
consequence necessary.' - http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/prior.mb.txt
)

DD