Question for Frank

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da_chicken
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Re:

Post by da_chicken »

FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1073631898[/unixtime]]
Only this can be concluded: At least one of the premises is not true.


Which is important - P => R and ~Q => ~R are not premises. They are operators, yes, but not premises. Their Truth values are determined by the premises. Premises are restricted to things which can be assumed to be true - like P xor ~P.


That's funny. Frank, you don't even understand what you're talking about here. I've only had one class in the philosophy of logic, and I know this is complete crap.

Here's a simple logical syllogism:
1. All humans are mortal.
2. I am human.
Conc: I am mortal.

When you convert premise 1 into logical language, it becomes:
Human => mortal (read "human implies mortal")

Going into full logical symbolism:
1. H => M
2. H
Conc: M

If I remember right, that's the argument they taught us on the first day.

A premise is any statement that is assumed to be true that is used to make a deductive argument. If your only premises are "P" and "~Q", then you have no argument at all because there is no defined relationship (that is, premise) between P and Q.

And the silly part is that this logic doesn't prove that much. All it proves is that if you believe the premises are true, then the conclusion must also be true. If, for example, you knew that not all humans were mortal, then the above argument is is false even though it remains deductively valid. Logic is a method to preserve truth. It doesn't create it.

Frank seems to think that templates are special and you can use an OR for them, but you still must use an AND for hit dice limits, etc. I still don't see why templates are more special than hit dice limits.


No, that was you - not me. Like the whole "what if laws were written this badly!" rant of Oberoni's. It's just a pinata you keep bringing out - and I'm frankly sick of it. Note that Wildshape, for instance, actually does obviate the hit die limits of Polymorph. It also reinstates new ones of its own (which are similar to, but different from, those of Polymorph).

So yeah, Wildshape uses its own Hit Die limits and does not use Polymorph's Hit Die limits - it uses its own. Why is that surprising?

-Username17


Fair enough. That's what I get for not reading the whole ability.

Here's an amusing argument:
1. Elemental Wild Shape says: "At 16th level, a druid becomes able to use wild shape to change into a Small, Medium, or Large elemental (air, earth, fire, or water) [...]."

2. There exist creatures in the set {Small, Medium, or Large elemental (air, earth, fire, or water)} with templates, therefore I can ignore the "no template" restriction inherited from alter self for Elemental Wild Shape..


3. Plant Wild Shape says: "At 12th level, a druid becomes able to use wild shape to change into a plant creature with the same size restrictions as for animal forms."

4. There exist creatures in the set {Small, Medium, or Large plant creature} with templates, therefore I can ignore the "no template" restriction inherited from alter self for Plant Wild Shape.


5. Wild Shape says: "At 5th level, a druid gains the ability to turn herself into any Small or Medium animal and back again once per day. Her options for new forms include all creatures with the animal type."

6. There exist creatures in the set {Small or Medium creatures with the animal type} with templates, therefore I can ignore the "no template" restriction inherited from alter self for Wild Shape. [I don't where any templates that don't change type away from animal type are, but I know they exist. The Dire Template, for example, wherever that got published.]


7. Polymorph says: The new form may be of the same type as the subject or any of the following types: aberration, animal, dragon, fey, giant, humanoid, magical beast, monstrous humanoid, ooze, plant, or vermin.

8. There exist creatures in the set {aberration, animal, dragon, fey, giant, humanoid, magical beast, monstrous humanoid, ooze, plant, or vermin size Fine or larger} with templates, therefore I can ignore the "no template" restriction inherited from alter self for polymorph.


If 1 & 2 are your logic, then the rest must also be true.


I don't see why Elemental Wild Shape isn't the intersection (logical AND) of the two sets
{Small, Medium, or Large elemental (air, earth, fire, or water)}
and
{creatures without templates}
since the intersection set is non-trivial (not the empty set). Especially when this is how every other child ability of alter self works.
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Re:

Post by Thoth_Amon »


da chicken wrote:2. There exist creatures in the set {Small, Medium, or Large elemental (air, earth, fire, or water)} with templates, therefore I can ignore the "no template" restriction inherited from alter self for Elemental Wild Shape..


This is not quite accurate. The ignore template portion is conditional upon the resulting template having the "elemental type". So to follow your argument through In the plant version, applying similar logic, you could ignore templates resulting in the plant type, and in the animal version you could ignore templates resulting only in the animal type.

Not that those outcomes are good, but beware, I assume the Oak Genie can grant wishes just as the Fire Genie can!

TA
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Re:

Post by Essence »

Frank wrote:
Which is important - P => R and ~Q => ~R are not premises. They are operators, yes, but not premises. Their Truth values are determined by the premises. Premises are restricted to things which can be assumed to be true - like P xor ~P.


Wow. How staggeringly wrong.

All terms and notation taken from Methods of Logic, 4th Edition, by Quine.


In basic formal deductive logic (called Language P in my book) "p" is a sentence letter, also called an atomic schema. An atomic schema replaces complete declaritve sentences in normal language, such as "Bob is bald" or "Cats always land on their feet."


Methods of Logic, 4th Edition, Quine wrote:
The definition of the syntax of Language P:
1) Any sentence letter (as defined above) is a schema.
2) If "A" is a schema, then so is "~A".
3) If "A" and "B" are schemas, so is "AB"
4) If "A" and "B" are schemas, so is "AvB"
5) If "A" and "B" are schemas, so is "A->B"
6) If "A" and "B" are schemas, so is "A<->B"
7) Nothing else is a schema.



The reason the above definition is important is that any schema can be used as (one of) the premise(s) of an argument. Which means that, if "Bob is bald" is a schema, and "Ron is bald" is a schema, that by the definition of the syntax of language p, "Bob is bald therefore Ron is bald" is a schema, and thus can be used as a premise in an arguement.

Which means that "A->B" can be the premise of an arguement.

The truth value of a schema "A" is determined by the truth values of the atomic schema (sentence letters) that comprise "A" -- but has nothing to do with what is or is not a premise.


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Re:

Post by DracoNova »

Thoth Amon wrote:This is not quite accurate. The ignore template portion is conditional upon the resulting template having the "elemental type". So to follow your argument through In the plant version, applying similar logic, you could ignore templates resulting in the plant type, and in the animal version you could ignore templates resulting only in the animal type.


As someone who has had more than a few classes in philosophical logic (having taken a degree in it), I'll agree with this statement. Frank's argument doesn't lead to free template Wild Shaping at any level. It only works when the template grants the specific creature type.

That's not exactly the point, though. His argument is highly questionable, and the basis for any objections against it can be found in the second most basic rule in the game (behind Rule 0) -- A rule stands unless a more specific rule overrides it. So let's see what we've got here...

PHB 3.5, Alter Self wrote:You cannot take the form of any creature with a template, even if that template doesn't change the creature type or subtype.


And this gets inherited into the Polymorph spell. I think we should all be able to agree that this is a pretty specific prohibition -- it takes a class of creature (in this case, "creatures with templates") and overtly forbids their use.

PHB 3.5, Wild Shape wrote:This ability functions like the polymorph spell, except as noted here.


OK, this would (assuming we get far enough to accept that Polymorph forbids templates) indicate that Wild Shape, at its most basic form, forbids the assuming of templated forms. This is followed by

PHB 3.5, Wild Shape (elemental section) wrote:At 16th level, a druid becomes abole to use wild shape to change into a Small, Medium, or Large elemental (air, earth, fire, or water) once per day.


Here's where the problem is. The claim on the table, unless I'm really misreading Frank's argument, is that this clause overrides the "no templates" prohibition because it allows (due to the phrasing) transformation into a creature of the elemental type, and not just the four basic elementals. Now, according to the Rule of Rule Specificity (only a more specific rule can override another rule), that would mean that the allowance of the elemental type in Wild Shape is more specific than the prohibition against templates in Alter Form and Polymorph.

So the question that Oberoni and da chicken are posing (and it's a worthwhile one) is, "Is it specific enough to override the template prohibition?" If it were intended to be specific enough, I would expect something along the lines of a "This overrides the prohibition against assuming templated forms, allowing characters to Wild Shape into creatures with templates that grant the Elemental type" clause in the Wild Shape description. There isn't one. So far, Rule Specificity doesn't seem to be on Frank's side. Furthermore, allowing druids to Wild Shape into elemental forms allows a lot more than just creatures with elemental templates -- belkers, invisible stalkers, magmins, and thoqquas (thoqquae?) are also allowed under the elemental Wild Shape rules. This, too, would seem to be a blow to the Specificity angle of Frank's argument. Why? Well, let's take a look at what the word "specific" means.

Webster's Dictonary OnLine wrote:Main Entry: 1spe·cif·ic
Pronunciation: spi-'si-fik
Function: adjective
Etymology: Late Latin specificus, from Latin species
Date: circa 1631
1 a : constituting or falling into a specifiable category b : sharing or being those properties of something that allow it to be referred to a particular category
2 a : restricted to a particular individual, situation, relation, or effect <a disease specific to horses> b : exerting a distinctive influence (as on a body part or a disease) <specific antibodies>
3 : free from ambiguity : ACCURATE <a specific statement of faith>
4 : of, relating to, or constituting a species and especially a biologic species
5 a : being any of various arbitrary physical constants and especially one relating a quantitative attribute to unit mass, volume, or area b : imposed at a fixed rate per unit (as of weight or count) <specific import duties> -- compare AD VALOREM


Frank's argument fails on definition 3 for exactly the reasons mentioned above. The source material does not specifically (pun not intended) grant access to templates, while Alter Form specifically prohibits them, thus failing on the criteria of accuracy. Furthermore, it grants access to a series of other forms besides the basic elementals. As it fails to overtly name these additional forms, choosing rather to use the general "Elemental (air, earth, fire, water" phrasing, Frank's reading source material again fails on the subject of accuracy, and also on freedom from ambiguity.

So, we've had Oberoni and da chicken present a logical (by the rules of logic accepted worldwide) argument suggesting that templated elemental forms are forbidden, and now I've (hopefully) shown that, by the definition of the word "specific", any argument based on the source material suggesting that templated forms are allowed fails due to the Rule of Rule Specificity. I almost can't wait to read the next response...this is getting entertaining, and I can use a good laugh.

(edit: And now Essence has joined the logical argument. I take too long to write these things...)
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Re:

Post by da_chicken »

Thoth_Amon at [unixtime wrote:1073684246[/unixtime]]
da chicken wrote:2. There exist creatures in the set {Small, Medium, or Large elemental (air, earth, fire, or water)} with templates, therefore I can ignore the "no template" restriction inherited from alter self for Elemental Wild Shape..


This is not quite accurate. The ignore template portion is conditional upon the resulting template having the "elemental type". So to follow your argument through In the plant version, applying similar logic, you could ignore templates resulting in the plant type, and in the animal version you could ignore templates resulting only in the animal type.

Not that those outcomes are good, but beware, I assume the Oak Genie can grant wishes just as the Fire Genie can!

TA


Fair enough. I wan't trying to actually make a concrete argument so much as show the flaw in that method of reasoning. I wasn't as precise in the wording as I could have been.
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Re:

Post by Username17 »

Essence, "Go to your room!" is not a premise. It is a directive, and has no truth value. It therefore has cannot be the premise of a logical argument.

Similarly, the "~Q=>~R" in the afforementioned stands in for "If you don't clean your room, you can't go to the Boardwalk." That's got a conditional in it, but the "R" in there is actually a directive, just like "go to your room."

It can have no Truth Value, as it makes no truth-value claims. So the entire phrase "~Q=>~R" also has no truth value, regardless of the specific values of you cleaning your room (or whether or not you end up going to Boardwalk).

You can use "I have cleaned my room." as a Premise. You can't use "If you don't clean your room you can't go to the Boardwalk" as a premise. The first is a declarative statement which can have a Truth Value (and thus be a premise), the second is at its core an Imperative statement - which cannot. In order to be a premise it is assumed to be true in order to make your logical argument. Imperatives have no Truth Value at all and cannot be premises any more than questions can be.

All that fussing over letters and crap, and you missed the fundamental nature of what we are talking about: Rules. Rules are not declarations and do not have truth values, cannot be placed into truth tables, and just generally have to be dealt with in a fundamentally different way than whipping out your bivalent logic and crunching through. So you can take all that Socrates is Mortal crap and throw it out yesterday, because it doesn't even apply.

Draco: Specificity is defined as the primary source. The primary source is the rule most pertaining to the ability in question, which in this case is the ability in question. The most specific rule about Templates is probably the description of applying templates in the monster manual. But that doesn't matter because the question is primary source of the Wild Shape Ability.

Otherwise, Polymorph Any Object would be unable to transform shrews into manticores, as the most "specific" (as defined as "syntaxually most explicit") description of hit die limits in the inheritance path is in the Polymorph spell (which states explicitly that the new form can't have more hit dice than the old form), and not in the text of Polymorph Any Object (which simply does not reference the Hit Die Limits at all because it does not have any). However, "specific" means "primary source", not "most syntaxually explicit statement". The lack of hit die references in the text of Polymorph Any Object are all that is required to remove them from the inheritance pathway as it already generally defines the new form as "any creature or object" (which includes the set of all hit dice).

Furthermore, I don't think the irony of you backing up Oberoni with "No problem, there's just Rule-Zero for this and it all goes away!" should escape you. I mean, he is creditted with putting a name to why that is a stupid and irrelevent argument.

-Username17
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Re: Question for Frank

Post by DracoNova »

Frank wrote:Specificity is defined as the primary source. The primary source is the rule most pertaining to the ability in question, which in this case is the ability in question.


No, it isn't. If that's the case, then inheritance clauses don't work at all. They're fundamentally useless, basically stating, "This ability works like this one, except it doesn't." There's no point in even adding it in there unless it means that the new ability functions under the same rules as the old one. That is the entire point of this discussion, and it seems to be the one point you can't seem to get. Wild Shape has an inheritance clause. That means, unless the ability specifically states otherwise, it works the same was as Polymorph (or Alter Form).

I defined specificity using one of the two major sources on the English language (Oxford being the other). If your argument means not using the English language as described by the experts...well, you're basically limiting the whole discussion to inarticulate grunts, and we're not going to get very far using that.

Frank wrote:The most specific rule about Templates is probably the description of applying templates in the monster manual. But that doesn't matter because the question is primary source of the Wild Shape Ability.


You are attempting to prove your point through intentional misreadings and misstatements, and that just doesn't work. My argument was: In the Alter Form/Polymorph/Wild Shape rule structure, the only place that templates are even discussed is in the Alter Form description, which prohibits them. The only way to override this, as stated above, is for either Polymorph or Wild Shape to specifically allow assuming templated forms.

Frank wrote:Otherwise, Polymorph Any Object would be unable to transform shrews into manticores, as the most "specific" (as defined as "syntaxually most explicit") description of hit die limits in the inheritance path is in the Polymorph spell (which states explicitly that the new form can't have more hit dice than the old form), and not in the text of Polymorph Any Object (which simply does not reference the Hit Die Limits at all because it does not have any).


You know what, you're right...except that doesn't prove your argument. It just as easily proves that Polymorph Any Object is written horribly, and that the designers really weren't thinking when they picked the examples. You're arguing "That which is not specifically prohibited is permitted," and it really doesn't work like that. There are a lot of things that aren't specifically prohibited by the rules...but that doesn't mean my character should be able to do them.

Frank wrote:Furthermore, I don't think the irony of you backing up Oberoni with "No problem, there's just Rule-Zero for this and it all goes away!" should escape you. I mean, he is creditted with putting a name to why that is a stupid and irrelevent argument.


Please quote where I said that. Please, please do. Because I know I didn't. At no point in this argument did I ever suggest that the problem can be made to "go away", and the only time I mentioned Rule 0 was citing it as the most fundamental rule of the game, with the Rule of Rule Specificity following a close second. You are simply making this claim up to try and rebuke an argument that you have no ground to rebuke.

So...we've had personal attacks, made-up arguments, and a rejection of both logic and the English language from you in the past three days. Frank, your argument now hinges on the idea that we will all accept you as the sole authority on 1) logic, 2) the English language, and 3) the rules of D&D, along with agreeing with you on all issues. It should be very, very obvious now that we won't, meaning that your "arguments", which lack any form of logic known to man and are mainly streams of personal abuse linked together by misstatements and misunderstandings, are on the whole irrelevant.

Please, respond again. As I said, I find all this fairly amusing.
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Re: Question for Frank

Post by Thoth_Amon »

I find the wording unfortunately ambiguous. However one of them makes my life DM'ing a druid a living hell. And one makes it merely purgatory.

No templates.
Elementals.
=> No templates, but the ones that result in elementals.

I see it I understand it. It makes grammatical sense to me.

A fire elemental basilisk is an Elemental. Just as a Thoquaa is. He doesn't know his mechanical structure was predicated on the application of a template. He thinks he is a creature that was born this way and he is a distict species (that has the Type Elemental).


DracoNova wrote:If it were intended to be specific enough, I would expect something along the lines of a "This overrides the prohibition against assuming templated forms, allowing characters to Wild Shape into creatures with templates that grant the Elemental type" clause in the Wild Shape description.


One could say that the counter argument lacks specificity.

Perhaps it should have read:

"At 16th level, a druid becomes able to use wild shape to change into a Small, Medium, or Large elemental (air, earth, fire, or water) once per day. While allowing wildshaping into creatures of the elemental type, you cannot take the form of any creature with a template."

Or

"At 16th level, a druid becomes able to use wild shape to change into a Small, Medium, or Large elemental (air, earth, fire, or water) once per day. Druid are only permitted to become primary Elementals, not any creature with the Elemental Type."

Specificity could have been applied to remove ambiguity. Sadly it was not. I think ythe general argument suffers if you allow Thoqquas. If you argument is that the verbiage permits *only* Fire, Water, Air, or Earth elementals (and not para-elementals and the like) becasue it does not specifically refer to Type, then we are back to an examination of case utilization and the requirements that the editors and authors were consistent to make our cases and I don't have Franks patience to try to disprove his analysis of that!!

I am not hiding behind Oberoni's principle. :razz: (to everyone!) I am flat out houseruling it --regardless of what it was meant to be-- because I can;t tell what it was meant to be and one option is untenable. I admit is is a houserule and it does not make it OK. They should have fixed it in the switch to 3.5 or in the errata.

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Re: Question for Frank

Post by Oberoni »

So, while we're talkin' about logic, let's bring this to the front. I'm going to introduce two statements. Frank claims that these two contradict each other in some cases, and one must be chosen over the other. However, I'll use ye ol' logic to show why this is not the case.

First, a definition: Form X is a form one is could potentially Elemental Wildshape into.

If Form X has the creature type Elemental, and meets any other restrictions listed, then you can Elemental Wildshape into it. Also, if Form X has a template, then you cannot Elemental Wildshape into it.

This takes the form

(A and D) => C and B => ~C

Use the contrapositive, it becomes

(A and D) => C and C => ~B

Use transitivity, you get

(A and D) => ~B

This is, of course:

If Form X has the creature type Elemental, than Form X does not have a template.

This means, of course, that for Form X to even be a candidate, you already accept the fact that you can't use templates.

Remove the transitivity step, and you get:

If Form X has the creature type Elemental and it meets any other listed restrictions, then you can Elemental Wildshape into it; and if you can Elemental Wildshape into it, then it does not use a template.

As long as these are the premises:

If Form X has the creature type Elemental and it meets any other listed restrictions, then you can Elemental Wildshape into it. Also, if Form X has a template, then you cannot Elemental Wildshape into it.

...we're good to go. And even Frank admits these are the statements we have to examine. He merely tries to prove that one of the two statements "beats" the other, when clearly, there is no need or sense in such being the case.

EDIT: G'yah, it'd sure be nice if I'd be well-rested before I typed a bunch of letters. Oh well, I blame DracoNova, because passing the buck is fun.
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Re: Question for Frank

Post by DracoNova »

Thoth Amon wrote:One could say that the counter argument lacks specificity.

Perhaps it should have read:

"At 16th level, a druid becomes able to use wild shape to change into a Small, Medium, or Large elemental (air, earth, fire, or water) once per day. While allowing wildshaping into creatures of the elemental type, you cannot take the form of any creature with a template."


While I believe that the "no templates" prohibition was adequately inherited into Wild Shape (if I didn't, I wouldn't be posting here), I'd agree that your more overt statement is probably a little better than my suggestion. After all, I'm arguing the "non-ambiguous" definition of specificity, so the less ambigious, the better.

Thoth Amon wrote:Specificity could have been applied to remove ambiguity. Sadly it was not. I think ythe general argument suffers if you allow Thoqquas. If you argument is that the verbiage permits *only* Fire, Water, Air, or Earth elementals (and not para-elementals and the like) becasue it does not specifically refer to Type, then we are back to an examination of case utilization and the requirements that the editors and authors were consistent to make our cases and I don't have Franks patience to try to disprove his analysis of that!!



Yes, sadly it wasn't. If it were, we could have all saved ourselves a bit of time. None of us, though, have ever accused any of the designers of being masters of their craft.

As for the thoqqua argument...yeah, this is where it starts getting really, really weird, and I'm not even going to try arguing that one, either. I'm not sure the specificity argument I presented suffers, though -- the case of mixed elementals is just one more example of how the whole elemental Wild Shape passage lacks any kind of accuracy (and thus, specificity)...which again suggests my conclusion that templated forms are still forbidden, since a much more specific statement prohibiting templated forms occurs further back in the inheritance chain.

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Re: Question for Frank

Post by da_chicken »

Thoth_Amon at [unixtime wrote:1073700497[/unixtime]]I find the wording unfortunately ambiguous. However one of them makes my life DM'ing a druid a living hell. And one makes it merely purgatory.

No templates.
Elementals.
=> No templates, but the ones that result in elementals.

I see it I understand it. It makes grammatical sense to me.


Hey, I've said it is one possible interpretation. I just don't understand why Elemental Wild Shape is different than the rest. Really, what makes it special? I've asked that time and again, and the only answer I've heard amounts to "because it is... can't you see that?". Well, no. No, I can't. Maybe that makes me an idiot, but I don't see it.

And if it's different enough to allow templates, what other special restrictions get ignored? Can I get the Int, Wis, and Cha of a fire element illithid? If not, why not? Why are templates the only special restriction that get ignored?

What's special here? Is it templates, or is it elemental wild shape? And why?

See, the argument worked just fine in 3.0. 3.0 never explicitly restricted templates! Not in Wild Shape (3.0 PH and MotW update) and not in polymorph self/polymorph other (3.0 PH and T&B update).

3.5 is different.

A fire elemental basilisk is an Elemental. Just as a Thoquaa is. He doesn't know his mechanical structure was predicated on the application of a template. He thinks he is a creature that was born this way and he is a distict species (that has the Type Elemental).


Er.... This is a dangerous way to write rules. You're using an IC reason to justify an OOC action. I could just as easilty write:

"A wood elemental basilisk is a plant. Just as an Assassin Vine is. He doesn't know his mechanical structure was predicated on the application of a template. He thinks he is a creature that was born this way and he is a distict species (that has the Type Plant)."

Indeed, if we base the rules for Wild Shape on what creatures IC think, then a player could justify Wild Shaping into anything. They could explain away all OOC ability restrictions by saying "he doesn't know about that". After all, a stone golem doesn't know it's a construct. Isn't it kind of an earth elemental? Indeed, the flavor of the thing suggests it's animated by the spirit of an earth elemental. Are they so different?
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Re: Question for Frank

Post by da_chicken »

Oberoni at [unixtime wrote:1073701728[/unixtime]](A and D) => C and C => ~B

Use transitivity, you get

(A and D) => ~C


Did I miss a step? Shouldn't this be

(A ^ D) -> ~B

And ~B isn't on the left side of any conditionals, so I don't see how this helps unless ~B is what you wanted to show.

Unless your premise

C -> ~B

is actually

C <-> ~B
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Re: Question for Frank

Post by DracoNova »

da chicken wrote:Unless your premise

C -> ~B

is actually

C <-> ~B


You're right on this one. One of the primary principles of the implication (the "=>" symbol) is that, if the item before the symbol is true, the item after must also be true. There's nothing in the implication that states that the item after the symbol is only true if the item before the symbol is true -- that only happens if you have the symbol for co-implication ("<=>"), which, in a nutshell, means:

C => ~B, and
~B => C

In which case, the only time ~B or C is true is when the other one is also true.

Now, given that I spoke with Oberoni not a few minutes before he posted the cited message, and that he stated that he was a tad too tired to handle the logical wrangling at the time, I'm assuming that he had the right idea here, and just typed the wrong symbol. This can be blamed on me, if anyone wants to -- I'm the one who sent him in here before he had a chance to rest up properly. :uptosomething:

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Re: Question for Frank

Post by Essence »

Frank wrote:Essence, "Go to your room!" is not a premise. It is a directive, and has no truth value. It therefore has cannot be the premise of a logical argument.


Not entirely true. While "Go to your room." is not a declarative statement and thus cannot be a schema in language P, "you will go to your room" is, and can be.



Frank wrote:Similarly, the "~Q=>~R" in the afforementioned stands in for "If you don't clean your room, you can't go to the Boardwalk." That's got a conditional in it, but the "R" in there is actually a directive, just like "go to your room."

It can have no Truth Value, as it makes no truth-value claims. So the entire phrase "~Q=>~R" also has no truth value, regardless of the specific values of you cleaning your room (or whether or not you end up going to Boardwalk).


Not at all. The most significant verb in "You can't go to the boardwalk" is can, not go, and the delcarative statement "You are unable to X" is perfectly capable of having a truth value: it is either true or false that one is unable to go to the boardwalk.

Which means that "If you do not clean your room then you can't go to the boardwalk" is easily translatable into "If not p then not q" and broken down by truth-value analysis.

In this case, the sentence is false if p is true and q is false, and in no other circumstance.



Frank wrote:
All that fussing over letters and crap, and you missed the fundamental nature of what we are talking about: Rules. Rules are not declarations and do not have truth values, cannot be placed into truth tables, and just generally have to be dealt with in a fundamentally different way than whipping out your bivalent logic and crunching through. So you can take all that Socrates is Mortal crap and throw it out yesterday, because it doesn't even apply.


Boule.

Most rules are, in fact, declarations. "If you gain a level, you must decide which class to gain a level in before you allocate skill points." is very much a declarative phrase. "Decide which class to gain a level in, then allocate skill points." is not a declarative sentence, but that's not what the first sentence says at all. The latter cannot be truth-value-analyzed. The former can.

And rules do have truth values. "Monks cannot make iterative attacks" is a false rule. It's also not from the core rulebooks, but that's the point -- all rules in the core books are assumed to have a truth value of true unless contradicted elsewhere, at which point some process has to be undertaken to establish whether the original rule is true and the contradiction false, or vice versa.

Thus, the entire process that we are engaging in.


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Re: Question for Frank

Post by Oberoni »

Oh, I don't care if ~B ("you may not assume a templated form") is always true--just if it's true in this particular case.
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Re: Who likes pie?

Post by Username17 »

Interesting note:

CustServ Apparently thinks Trex Fu should work in 3.5.


Or at least, some of them do.

---

And looking back at the argument before, I have this to add:

Rules are fundamentally different form bivalent sentential logic. In Sentential Logic we assume that all of the statements are true and then work from there.

In a system of rules, we have a series of rules which are essentially implications which we apply to a series of given Ps and ~Ps as applies to the certain situation. Then, since it is entirely possible that one or more of these rules will be conflictory based on our actual set of circumstances, we have a priority system.

What you can't do is infer what other situations are based on the rules alone. In this circumstance,

P ) Q
~R ) ~Q
.: P ) R

does not follow at all. Your P and R are both separate functions of the actual game world. Having P in no way means that you have R, just as not having R in no way means that you don't have P.

Instead there is a set of criteria set up to show whether you have Q or not when you have a contradiction. For example, since P ) Q was written before ~R ) ~Q, one could have a rule that earlier rules take precedence. At that point, if you had P and ~R, you'd have Q and the game would go on.

Furthermore,

P ) Q
.: ~Q ) ~P

does not even follow in the context of a rules set! Because the rules encompass contradictions, you actually can't assume that implicatory sentences are reversable. The Rule says that you have P then you get Q, but despite the normal rules of sentencial, countra positive does not apply over a series of consequential sentences!

I don't think this can be said enough:

If she went to the library, her boots are muddy.

also means

If her boots are not muddy, she did not go to the library.

however

If you are a Monk, you gain your Wisdom Modifier as a bonus to AC.

does not also mean

If you do not gain your Wisdom Modifier as a bonus to AC, you are not a Monk.

---

Consequential sentences in a series of rules simply do not work like that.

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Re: Who likes pie?

Post by Desdan_Mervolam »

Honestly I'd like to see the rules for attacks made consistant across the board, and I'm not really sure I care how. The rules as presented don't really cover what happens in situations like the wildshape/polymorph/shapeshift situation above, or situations like what happens if an awakened dire wolf (Or even any intelligent, non-humanoid monster for that matter, like a dragon) takes levels in Monk. That, I think is pretty stupid.

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Re: Who likes pie?

Post by da_chicken »

Ok, Frank, other than proving you have a thesaurus, what exactly is your point? That every sentence must necessarily be taken out of the context in which it was written to be understood as a game rule? Your arguments still leak like a sieve.
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Re: Who likes pie?

Post by Username17 »

Actually, I didn't use a Thesaurus, if you need one to follow me it may be because you are an idiot. You should have that checked out.

Now that we are done with the pointless sniping:

Your construct was based "logically" on using Contraposition on sets of directives - which is painfully invalid. Consider, Contraposition gives us things such as:

If you roll a 20 on your attack roll, you hit your opponent. Therefore: If you miss your opponent, you did not roll a 20 on your attack roll.

It just doesn't work. The fact that this thread has featured various so-called philosophy majors saying that it did, simply proves that the power of ignorance is all pervasive or something.

---

Now you can make an interpretation of Polymorph where it conflicts minimally with Alter Self - such as by conserving the restriction on Templates. However, by doing so you have actually allowed the upstream weaker rules set (that of Alter Self) to triumph over the downstream stronger rules set.

That's the oppoosite of the specific directives of the rules. In order to truly see where the conflicts are, simply interpret the stronger rules set first, and then compare it to the weaker rules set. Everything that the weaker rules set tells you that you can do that the Stronger rules set tells you you can't do - you can't do. Everything the weaker rules set tells you that you can't do that the stronger rules set says you can do - you can do.

That's why PAO can turn a shrew into a manticore. It says that it can turn a creature or object into any creature or object. The fact that weaker rules sets upstream have various elaborate hit die and type limitations doesn't mean jack in the face of that.

Reading the PAO description by itself, it can clearly turn a shrew into a manticore. Therefore, the fact that Polymorph (the weaker rule) can't is simply a contradiction which is immediately resolved in favor of the stronger rule.

And so on and so forth. Which is why Polymorph can transform a character into a Half Dragon Ogre.

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Re: Who likes pie?

Post by Oberoni »


Frank wrote:If you are a Monk, you gain your Wisdom Modifier as a bonus to AC.

does not also mean

If you do not gain your Wisdom Modifier as a bonus to AC, you are not a Monk.


Um...yes it does. I assume you're not going to refute this by saying "What if the monk has a negative Wisdom Modifier? What if he's immobilized?" Because that would apply to either of the two statements, not just the second.

So...I'm curious. Prove what I just quoted is true.
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Re: Who likes pie?

Post by Desdan_Mervolam »

FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1078439385[/unixtime]]
Your construct was based "logically" on using Contraposition on sets of directives - which is painfully invalid. Consider, Contraposition gives us things such as:

If you roll a 20 on your attack roll, you hit your opponent. Therefore: If you miss your opponent, you did not roll a 20 on your attack roll.

It just doesn't work.


Zuh? How does that not work?

If the statement "If you roll a 20 on your attack roll, you hit your opponent" is always true, then definitionally, you did not roll a 20 if you missed your opponent. It doesn't matter if rolling 19, 18, 17, 10, or even a 2 would have hit also, that statement only concerns what happens if you don't hit. If a 20 always hits your opponent, you cannot have rolled a 20 if you missed. It might not show the whole picture, but the part of the picture it shows is entirely accruate.

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Re: Who likes pie?

Post by Username17 »

Desdan wrote:If the statement "If you roll a 20 on your attack roll, you hit your opponent" is always true, then definitionally, you did not roll a 20 if you missed your opponent.


Which is obviously false in the circumstance when you roll a natural 20 and miss an opponent under the effects of Displacement even so. And why? Because "You always hit on a 20" isn't always true. It isn't ever true. It's a rule, it follows consequential logic, which does not bother with having truth values for rules - only priorities.

As soon as you hit the rule "if your opponent has concealment, you must roll a miss chance to see if your hit is converted into a miss", then a natural 20 might not hit. Another rule may come into conflict with it, and at that point it comes to a matter of priority which wins and which loses.

The rule "you always hit on a 20" hasn't gone away, but another rule (for example, the concealment miss chance rule) might change the projected consequence if it has a higher priority. The concealment rule beats the always hitting on a 20 rule.

Rules don't become "true" and "false", they become higher and lower in priority. Always hitting on a 20 is lower priority than the concealment miss chance, alter self's inability to assume templated forms is lower priority than polymorph's ability to transform things into creatures of the dragon type.

Oberoni wrote:So...I'm curious. Prove what I just quoted is true.


Huh? You quoted several possibilities in which you can be a monk and not get your Wisdom bonus to AC. There are many others, such as when the monk is wearing armor or using a shield.

In any case, the rule "Monks gain their Wisdom Bonus to AC" does not go away, it does not become "untrue", when the Monk loses it again. And the character does not become a non Monk every time he gets paralyzed. That much should be obvious.

And the reason why this happens is because the statement "If you are a Monk, you gain your Wisdom Modifier as a bonus to AC." is a rule with a consequence. It is not a conditional statement. It has a priority, which is higher than the normal rule that people get their Dex Bonus, their Armor Bonus, and their Shield Bonus to AC, and of lower priority than the rule that Monk's lose their Wisdom Bonus to AC when helpless.

In sententential logic, the easiest form of bivalent logic which has been incorrectly utilized all over this damn thread, you need to put every single exception into each statement. If you wanted to make the Monk's Wisdom Modifier work in sentential logic, you'd have to write it something like this:

"If and only if you are a Monk with a positive Wisdom Modifier who is not helpless and capable of moving and not currently wearing armor and not using a shield, then you gain your Wisdom Bonus to AC."

But that's not how it's written, because it's not written in sentential logic, it's written in consequential logic. In consequential logic you can write the basic idea and the exceptions separately because the exceptions have higher priority and simply kick in when appropriate. This makes each concept and each exception easier to wrap your mind around, as each can be compartmentalized like this:

"If you are a Monk, you gain your Wisdom Modifier as a bonus to AC."
"If you are immobilized, you lose your Wisdom bonus to AC."
"A Monk does not benefit from their Wisdom Bonus while wearing armor or using a shield."
"A Monk can ignore their Wisdom Modifier to AC if their Wisdom Modifier is negative."

and if you want to write in a new exception, such as "Monks keep their Wisdom Modifier to AC when wearing armor if they are on the plane of eternal kung fu." without writing out the entire original sentence over again like this:

"If and only if you are a Monk with a positive Wisdom Modifier who is not helpless and capable of moving and not currently wearing armor (or are on the plane of eternal kung fu) and not using a shield (or are on the plane of eternal kung fu), then you gain your Wisdom Bonus to AC."

And so on. That's how consequential logic works. It's very useful, but you can't use contrapositives on it.

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Re: Who likes logic?

Post by Oberoni »

You are demonstrating that you do not understand some logical concepts.


Frank wrote:If you are a Monk, you gain your Wisdom Modifier as a bonus to AC.

does not also mean

If you do not gain your Wisdom Modifier as a bonus to AC, you are not a Monk.


Here's the dillio.

Those two sentences say the exact same thing.

If you tweak the first one, you tweak the second, and vice versa. It's really that simple. They are in fact saying the same thing. If you add "unless the monk is helpless" to the second sentence, you add it to the first as well. They remain in all ways equivalent.

Admitting that certain phrases are conditionally true does not destroy logic. At all. It just means that some things are conditionally true.

Really, conditionally true statements and the basic rules of logic work hand-in-hand. They're friends. They hang out in the same room. They go to the same parties.

So, you didn't just discover the ultra-top-secret way to disprove fundamental, simple logic. You just discovered that sometimes, conditions apply.

"If you are a monk that meets all other relevant conditions, you gain your Wisdom bonus to AC."

"If you do not gain your wisdom bonus to AC, you are not a monk that meets all other relevant conditions."

Look at that! Sweet. The rules of the universe still work, even in the face of a rulebook.
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Re: Who likes logic?

Post by Desdan_Mervolam »

Frank: Then it's invalid because it's built on a false premise, not because Contraposition is automatically false. A better example then is the reverse: "If you roll a one, you miss your opponent. Therefore, if you hit your opponent, you did not roll a one."

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Re: Who likes logic?

Post by Crissa »

Contraposition isn't automatically false, but because it's contraposition doesn't mean it's not false.

Bah.

Anyhow, what about the Game Mechanic of being able to tell if something is an outsider/template/silly Alter Selfing by using Polymorph to turn into a copy of them?

What's the point anyhow?

The point is that the game designers didn't bother to put that much thought into the mechanic, nor did they care to make the creatures actually work with the polymorph rules - even though the polymorph rules are in nearly every book.

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