-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA512 On 05/20/2014 11:03 AM, Alois Mahdal wrote:
> I am confused about the meaning of n. He first states that > > n = (P - 10) / 10; # P being population of Sodom, Actually, he first states that (taking excerpts): >> "Better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent >> suffer," 2 says English jurist William Blackstone. >> But why ten? >> n guilty men, then. I.e., N is the number of guilty persons for which it is better that they escape punishment than that one innocent person suffer it. (Or similar statements throughout history.) The reference to Sodom comes only later, as one of the many examples of people using this idea - with different values for N - over the course of history. It doesn't define the value of N any more than any other of the examples do; it's just one example among many. > so n has no particular known weight or meaning: Is it n = 1 if we > save 1 innocent for 1 guilty? Is it n = 10 if we save 1 innocent for > 10 guilty? That would almost make sense except that it would > silently imply P = 110. It would only imply that if the value of N is the same in both cases. The point here is that different people have stated different values for N at different points in history; some people have said 1, some people have said 10, God apparently said (P - 10) where the value of P is not known to us, et cetera. > Then, in the rest of the article, he refers to n but, failing to > explain the meaning of it, I don't see any point of reading it. > > Did I miss something? I think the first section, concluding with the paragraph that begins "N guilty men, then.", is probably the explanation that you're looking for. The article appears to be specifically about the many different values people have used for N over the course of the long history of this idea. If that's not (related to) what you're asking, then I'm afraid I don't understand the question. - -- The Wanderer Secrecy is the beginning of tyranny. A government exists to serve its citizens, not to control them. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1 Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iQIcBAEBCgAGBQJTe3QxAAoJEASpNY00KDJrC7IP/0dZpWGGgEbihtgF5COOKJDV CVRAcR8lsI4dbQF2KpczjQLkIOJ1U9JqVZc4vUqHE/W2x3cjCh0ZpDhtiG3VbsWN n9sxm2PwUFCxaJMLxKi49V1owpQrtSS5ir2mSTzs2GLuUiglUV7m+n1jJFKaoq/b c9g8cy/GQTk/kxaAvXONE3KNbejG+kXLiFglpD1/Pih59tEkD6h46vzfxe4eC1R+ nCFTwuWj/f2da74yiDC4HIbys9+BcNiyKhMd9rJidvEt0GNR/u4l7T+AAL1lcdK0 mx0fj6Gk3KvRiH16t1G+5ajjvPxXrnzG4+OX95NaoFI3/FysA9a6TkDpGuBdEXHD NI/V72l0vZbh3QNkaZ1wjeM0oIIIzdqLldXROyvuqIJzjAFBmcYC67pk0iiK4N7E o/RR7y3oCeGynKex3AqBnB20ZUf4nmRKst5G+rM7DPlgDfjT+zvXRY8xGjaHgut0 vTB8eswxt3qJJFOgofX2CRZIpIbOcNBqsTTSwxF3vK+hfu+6NeT1dDjuVTxvTc5j PkVybmAr8J/HEvrex0TjtKqmK8vk03fTJ0TJt5opmf8LSMn/h04zilKvvzQAljwZ iY0j9/9PdY/PqRA+b6IeLr7nGrymqRX3r9svEZo7iTQYH3MktUtZFQVmW3gWxHNy 0OJM/utwx7Gx0luOy9Rd =AFMM -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/537b7431.6000...@fastmail.fm
