Hi, Andrew Suffield wrote: >> I can demonstrate evidence that I'm not a gerbil quite handily. > > No you can't, because you're a gerbil and gerbils can't form rational > arguments. It is logically impossible for you to disprove this, > because your burden-of-proof notion is backwards (in formal logic, > you've allowed a falsehood to be introduced, so it is impossible to > draw any conclusions within the current situation).
Say, Andrew, are you playing Devil's Advocate here, or are you just plain wrong? Being a gerbil _is_, if not the falsehood, then the hypothesis to be proven/disproven. Introducing that falsehood into the argument as an axiom is not the fault of the non-Gerbil person, but the mistake (deliberate or otherwise) of the perope accusing him to be one. -- Matthias Urlichs