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Coercive Logic
Coercive logic is a concept popularised by mathematician Raymond Smullyan, by which a person who has agreed to answer a question truthfully is forced to perform an undesired action, where not doing so would mean breaking their agreement. Smullyan presents the concept as a question: Smullyan's question is asking the reader whether at least one of the two options is true: #They will truthfully answer ''no'' to his question. #They will pay him two million dollars. The reader is unable to truthfully give an answer of ''no'', as doing so would be to assert that both of the statements were false ("no, my answer is not no" and "no, I will not pay you two million dollars"). The first of these is a self-contradictory statement. If the reader answers ''yes'', they cannot be saying that "will truthfully answer no" is true (as they did not answer ''no''), so must be asserting that "will pay two million dollars" is true. Therefore, they must give Smullyan two million dollars. Smullyan cre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Raymond Smullyan
Raymond Merrill Smullyan (; May 25, 1919 – February 6, 2017) was an American mathematician, magician, concert pianist, logician, Taoist, and philosopher. Born in Far Rockaway, New York, his first career was stage magic. He earned a BSc from the University of Chicago in 1955 and his PhD from Princeton University in 1959. He is one of many logicians to have studied with Alonzo Church. Life He was born on May 25, 1919, in Far Rockaway, Queens, New York, to an Ashkenazi Jewish family. His father was Isidore Smullyan, who was born in Russia but who emigrated to Belgium when young, and whose native language was French. His father was a businessman who graduated from the University of Antwerp. His mother was Rosina Smullyan (née Freeman), who was born and raised in London. She was a painter, who was also an actress. Both parents were musical, his father playing the violin and his mother playing the piano. He was the youngest of three children. His eldest brother, Emile Benoit Smul ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yes Or No Question
Yes or YES may refer to: * An affirmative particle in the English language; see yes and no Education * YES Prep Public Schools, Houston, Texas, US * YES (Your Extraordinary Saturday), a learning program from the Minnesota Institute for Talented Youth * Young Eisner Scholars, in Los Angeles, New York City, Chicago, and Appalachia, US * Young Epidemiology Scholars, US Technology * yes (Unix), command to output "y" or a string repeatedly * Philips :YES, a 1985 home computer * Yes! Roadster, a German sports car Transportation * Yasuj Airport, Iran, IATA airport code * YES Airways, later OLT Express, Poland Organization * Yale Entrepreneurial Society, US * YES Snowboards * The YES! Association, a Swedish artist collective * Yes! Youth Movement, Russia * Young European Socialists formally ECOSY * Youth Empowerment Scheme, a children's charity, Belfast, Northern Ireland * Youth Energy Squad (Y.E.S) * YES (Lithuanian political party) Literature * ''Yes!'' (Hong Kong magazine) * ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |