Thread: If a tree falls in the forest..you're gonna hate this one.

Jimbo, you gotta submit this in an expanded format to the IgNobel committee. You'll win hands down mate!

Originally Posted by gregs656

Right, it's kind of important that you do the test. If you don't do the test, you will never have all evidence to support or oppose your hypothesis.

Until you do the test, it's an educated guess. Now, I would say that, in many ways you are justified. I don't know about you but it's been a long time since I've put a razor to my face if I didn't think it would shave.

The rest would change from person to person. The important thing though, is the running hypothesis idea.

Also, if a definition is true for you, and not for me, it is not an absolute truth. It's relative.

From your first - It sounds to me like you're saying now that it is a hypothesis that the tree will make noise. I agree that it is a hypothesis - it could be correct or wrong.

For your second - yes, I think they will shave, but (in my reality) they are not all shave ready.

For your third - again, you call it a hypothesis. A hypothesis can be correct on incorrect. So it sounds to me like you are not saying that you know for a fact that the tree makes a noise (or the razor is shave ready), but you hypothesize that it does (or is).

For your forth - "shave ready" is a relative term, but truth is not. If a razor is shave ready for me, than it is shave ready for me. That does not mean or imply that it will be shave ready for you. Your definition of shave ready may be different, but the truth value of whether or not a razor is shave ready for me is not affected by whether it is shave ready for you.

So, you said that it's been a while since you shaved with a razor that you did not think was shave ready. Would you bet your life that the next one you hone up will be shave ready on the first try?

Originally Posted by Jimbo

To be honest, I have my doubts about the validity of the entire question... These philosophers are an insalubrious lot...

YouTube - Bruce's Philosophers Song

The way the question is posed, there are three possible answers. Yes, it makes a noise, no it does not make a noise, and it neither makes nor does not make a noise. These seem to me to be conditional answers.

Given you take the question literally, the answer would be yes it makes a noise.

Given you take the question allegorically, the answer would be maybe yes, maybe no - depending on the underlying meaning you take from the question.

Given you are off with the fairies, your answer would be it neither makes nor does not make a noise.

We can discount the third answer as obviously coming from a crazy person. That leaves the first two choices. The answer "yes" appears in both the literal and allegorical cases. Further, the probability of a "yes" in the allegorical case is non-negative, although it may be small.

Therefore, integrating across both conditions, we clearly see that "yes" occurs more frequently than "no". In other words, the value of the answer that maximises the condition space imposed by the original question is "Yes".

Therefore, the answer to the question is most likely to be yes.

James.