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From: kjfair@midway.uchicago.edu (Kenneth Fair)
Subject: Re: Just some comments.
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References: <4k175p$cff@thor.cmp.ilstu.edu> <4k06un$efc@agate.berkeley.edu> <199 <4kgqub$ut2@thor.cmp.ilstu.edu> <Pine.LNX.3.91.960411094037.12132F-100000@the-eye.res.wpi.edu>
Date: Mon, 15 Apr 1996 02:52:58 GMT
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In article <Pine.LNX.3.91.960411094037.12132F-100000@the-eye.res.wpi.edu>,
timbuktu@wpi.edu wrote:

>   Well, that's a recursive statement...  if 90% of crap is crap, then 
>90% of that 90% is crap, so 81% of crap is crap..  but if 81% of crap is 
>crap, and 81% of crap is crap, then about 65% of crap is crap, less than 
>49% of crap is crap, less than 25% of crap is crap, less than 13% of crap 
>is crap...  etc., until crap approaches zero.  Then we come to the 
>conclusion that the 10% in each case is shit, so the content of crap is 
>shit...  Make sense?

Of course.  This is the old Aristotelian "reductio ad abturdum" argument.
Newton later incorporated this into crapulus.

Ken "I don't even WANT to know about Bach's 'Crap Canon'" Fair

--
KEN FAIR - U. Chicago Law  | Power Mac! | Net since '90 | Net.cop
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   "You're fooling yourself.  We're living in a dictatorship, a
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