I see this a lot

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Yesterday's SMBC:



16 Comments

  1. Alan said,

    July 16, 2012 @ 6:54 am

    This cartoon is a summary of wattsupwiththat.com.

  2. billquoted said,

    July 16, 2012 @ 7:27 am

    But isn't there room for "If P is True, I will be happy" to be a false statement?

  3. Bertrand Russell said,

    July 16, 2012 @ 7:35 am

    But this is the exact opposite of an argument in a philosophical debate. (Or at least, a debate between people who are considered to have the job title 'philosopher' — and not just today, but all the way back to the ancient Greeks.)

  4. tpr said,

    July 16, 2012 @ 7:38 am

    Also known as argumentum ad consequentiam.

  5. Janelle B. said,

    July 16, 2012 @ 8:07 am

    I've noticed that a lot of people are highly opposed to sadness and will avoid all "negativity" at all costs, often leading to the above argument. I prefer "If P is true, I'll be somewhat impressed with my ability to be right once in a while. If it's not true, though, then I guess you're right. No big deal. I'll be right vicariously through you."

  6. Ed said,

    July 16, 2012 @ 9:50 am

    this is similar to my re-definition of abductive reasoning: i have kidnapped you, therefore what i say is true.

  7. Arnold Zwicky said,

    July 16, 2012 @ 9:53 am

    A little commentary on my blog, here.

  8. Jerry Friedman said,

    July 16, 2012 @ 11:04 am

    Is this rule of inference called modus plorens?

    [(myl) Nice one. But it should be modus plorans — not to be prescriptive or anything.]

  9. Nathan said,

    July 16, 2012 @ 12:30 pm

    I don't get it.

  10. Mark N. said,

    July 16, 2012 @ 1:53 pm

    @Bertrand Russell: It's closely related to some arguments by contradiction that do see use in academic philosophy, though. Not all reductio arguments reduce to an actual logical contradiction, but may instead reduce to something that just seems bad in some sense. In ethics, this is sometimes called the "argument from repugnance".

  11. Jeroen Mostert said,

    July 16, 2012 @ 3:40 pm

    Logically speaking, this is actually pretty interesting.

    Obviously ~P => sad(me) is equivalent to ~sad(me) => P, not P
    => ~sad(me) — as billquoted pointed out, just because P is true doesn't guarantee I won't be sad.

    But certainly, if P is false I *will* be sad (or so my premise goes), so I want P to be true to at least maintain a shot at happiness. Someone more versed in probabilistic/temporal logic than me can probably make something of this.

  12. Jerry Friedman said,

    July 16, 2012 @ 8:07 pm

    @MYL: Thanks for the correction. All I needed to think about was pleurer and llorar

    @Bertrand Russell: Doesn't this cartoon sum up Nietzsche's proof that God doesn't exist, or am I remembering wrong? Anyway, I'm not sure all academic philosophers succeed in avoiding this argument all the time.

    Is there a word for the belief that you should accept the truth, or what appears to be true to the best of your knowledge, rather than pragmatically believing what makes you happy or is useful to you?

  13. un malpaso said,

    July 17, 2012 @ 3:20 pm

    @Jerry Friedman:
    Good catch. I immediately thought of Nietzsche when I saw this comic. he made this point in different ways many times in his writings, not just in the context of religious faith, but to debunk other philosophical pet ideas (like Kant's Faculty of Judgment, Plato's ideal forms, Leibniz' preestablished harmony, etc.)

  14. kenny said,

    July 17, 2012 @ 11:37 pm

    This is every single argument I have about the afterlife/objective morality/a deity.

  15. chris said,

    July 18, 2012 @ 4:14 pm

    Doesn't this cartoon sum up Nietzsche's proof that God doesn't exist

    Not only that, but it also sums up lots of other people's proofs that God *does* exist! Now that's what I call a powerful proof technique!

  16. Andrew (not the same one) said,

    July 20, 2012 @ 4:43 pm

    Is there a word for the belief that you should accept the truth, or what appears to be true to the best of your knowledge, rather than pragmatically believing what makes you happy or is useful to you?

    Diax's Rake?

    Except that this was invented by Neal Stephenson (in Anathem), and does not exist in the actual world. The other notable principle from that world, Gardan's Steelyard, is obviously a version of what we call Ockham's Razor, but my understanding is that the Rake has no exact real-world equivalent.

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