Comments on: ‘Increase’

By: erg

erg — Wed, 08 Oct 2003 22:36:41 +0000

Nice analysis. It really depends on the context of Lieberman’s statement. He could certainly say without any question of lying or untruthfulness: “The Clean Air Act actually will increase the amount of pollution emitted over the next 10 years” (which takes out the temporal element). If I was holding some such thought in my head, I could imagine saying that the act will increase pollution, both understanding what I’m saying and being truthful (although perhaps less than clear to listeners).

By: Brian Weatherson

Brian Weatherson — Wed, 08 Oct 2003 22:02:09 +0000

I agree that if you know a term is confusing you should be careful using it. But the situation I was assuming at the end wasn’t like that, it was where you simply have a false belief about the term’s meaning. Then you can quite easily, and quite non-maliciously, say things that are false. I wonder if (common) semantic mistake is a defence to libel? One for the lawyers rather than for me I think.

By: Jonathan Goldberg

Jonathan Goldberg — Wed, 08 Oct 2003 21:18:54 +0000

Well, I’ve never seen THAT before. Something in the software seems to have turned my use of “(” “c” “)” into the copyright symbol. They’re taking a little too good care of me. More seriously, it also took the “not” symbols out of my formula, rendering it gibberish. I’ll try it again: (x -> p) and (not p) -> not x

By: Jonathan Goldberg

Jonathan Goldberg — Wed, 08 Oct 2003 21:10:45 +0000

I think that increase© and increase(t) are distinct concepts. If you are trying to be honest, and if the situation is such that confusion is possible, then you need to distinguish between them. Failure to do so is (IMHO) prima facia evidence on intent to lie. I’m afraid that my intuitions and yours don’t accord at all. In your Merlin case I intuit that he did increase the size of the rock pile. In the analysis of lying, assuming that you are using “means” as a synonym for “implies,” then X is lying. It’s certainly the case that (x -> p) & (^{p) ->}x. Q is irrelevant; if X is a competant reasoner he knows this.

By: Andrew Edwards

Andrew Edwards — Wed, 08 Oct 2003 20:13:58 +0000

It is very, very worth noting that the sense of ‘increase’ that Leiberman used is the exact same sense in which many, many Republicans accuse the Democratic presidential candidates fo wanting to ‘increase’ taxes. That is, eliminate an otherwise-planned reduction.

By: Jeremy Osner`

Jeremy Osner` — Wed, 08 Oct 2003 19:23:22 +0000

Or rather, the “clear skies” iniative weakens-but-does-not-kill pollution control.

By: Dan

Dan — Wed, 08 Oct 2003 19:07:57 +0000

The mathematician in me is screaming: these are terms that don’t have obvious phrasings in English, but are intuitively easy. If you have a thousand dollars in the bank, and I pay you a hundred dollars a month, than at the end of next year, your worth will be $2000. If I give you fifty dollars a month instead of that hundred, the amount of money-you’ll-later-have is decreased-with-regard-to-what-it-should-be and increased relative to now. Politicians love this game. The “tax cut” sometimes just decreases the rate of increase. “Tax hikes” increases the rate of decrease. And, apparently, the “clear skies” iniative weakens-but-does-not-kill pollution.

By: Jacob T. Levy

Jacob T. Levy — Wed, 08 Oct 2003 18:18:32 +0000

Unsurprisingly, this is a more serious analysis of the question than we ever got during the wholly-amateur-semantic disputes over when spending is “cut” during the 80s and 90s.

By: theCoach

theCoach — Wed, 08 Oct 2003 18:16:45 +0000

On a related note, increases in budget allotments relative to real, nominal and per person figures also gets the semantic name calling game going.