maRtiN’s cUbicLE: The Chronicles of “Being Grown Up” and “Growing Up”…

so far it’s been 2 days since third week kicked in… n i’m still in that bloody holiday mood… damn… got loads n loads of things to do actually… hmm… BGS wal-mart case analysis due on 22nd Jan… undecided topic on TWC proposal presentation due 6th Feb… CT essay due on 24th in which i still dunno what topic to write… stats first graded assignment on 23rd n weekly exercises… intro-econs thingy on don’t-know-when… n AS assignment each n every week… hmm… sounds fun eh? not yet, there are more to come… still have readings for BGS, TWC, stats, and intro econs scheduled for each class… plus some ‘creative’ participation thingy via online CT forum on smuvista for the sake of gaining participation points… oh, n don’t forget the coming 4 mid-term tests. Sweet.

okay, enough for those crap… i was doing this ‘beautiful’ AS assignment on filling truth-values in which i wanna share here:

All Hokkiens are of Asian descent.    –>    TRUE
All Chinese are Asian descent.            –>    TRUE
therefore, All Hokkiens are Chinese  –>    hmm… sounds TRUE rite?

well, to my surprise the conclusion (All Hokkiens are Chinese) is FALSE… the explanation, according to my friend who apparently has taken AS last term, is this…
the premises and conclusion above can be written as:

All P are Q (All Hokkiens are of Asian descent)
All R are Q (All Chinese are Asian descent)
therefore, All P are R (All Hokkiens are Chinese)

then try replacing "P" with "men", "Q" with "human", and "R" with "women", you’ll get:

All P are Q (All men are of human)
All R are Q (All women are human)
therefore, All P are R (All men are women)

and then… viola! by using that counterexample, u’ll see the contradiction that  determines the conclusion as false n thus this deductive argument is invalid… n this is a formal fallacy… yup… strange words… n there are even lots of them in AS… those like "denying the antecedent", "affirming the consequent", "modus ponens", "modus tollens" etc etc…

oh n btw, that example above was just the "baby argument" as my prof called it… there are lots of others advanced argument in my weekly assignment… some like –> determine whether or not it is an argument, n if it is, write the conclusion:

If the Loch Ness monster really exists, why is it that no one has been able to detect it with sonar sensing equipment?

n i’m like… WTF.

suddenly miss FA n biz law… hahaha… minta digampar banget yaq… but i enjoy them more than what i’m currently doing this term… hhh… well, i shud’ve gone to sleep than posting this blog… wish my study mood resumes… n it better be fast… before it’s too late… *cross-fingers*…

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