You mean you would beg for life.
Can you define the term “problematic statement” and the term “definitive statement”?
I never said that “admitting his error after the fact [changes] a thing about his statement”. If you merely posted the wikipedia.org link which I posted, I would not have disagreed with you. The strawman which you assembled is what I disagree with.
laminustacitus,
You failed to address my other response:
Its incorrect english grammar so I’m not going to respond to something that cannot even grasp its object. The present tense of the english language implies no habitual aspect, it is absolute, and any uncertainty as to the absoluteness must be added via adverb. Frankly, you need to know what you talk about before you open your mouth.
I cannot decipher that sentence.
I did not say that his sentence included uncertainty.
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_aspect :
“In English, for example, the present tense sentences “I swim” and “I am swimming” differ in aspect (the first sentence is in what is called the habitual aspect, and the second is in what is called the progressive, or continuous, aspect).”
Congragulations, you can look things up in the wiki, and become an expert by reading it - but, of course, the question unanswered is how absolute the habitual aspect is, and that question is what leaves what I’ve said above true. But, nevertheless, time to end this: the statement:
is a shortened form of:
in which the infinitive “to be” can be dropped because it is unnecessary to the understanding of the statement, this would be a lot easier to understand if we had a language where the infinitive was the base form of the verb, actually apart of it like it is in latin, or french. If someone wants to include a problematic quality to the statement, he could say:
Not found by whom? Of course it was Laughing Man who said that, and then there was this thingy called “black swan” found. Laughing Man accepted this evidence as any reasonable person would. basically the on-going debate was for fun or something?
Sorry, I am still confused at your response.
Would you not agree that “asking” someone to sign a blank check at the threat of killing him or her, and signing it, is involuntary and therefore a valid reason to invalidate the signature?
If so, would you not also agree that “asking” someone to kill others at the threat of killing him or her, and then killing others, is involuntary, but not a valid reason to invalidate the killings?
If not, then why the difference? Obviously the difference is that in one no one else was harmed by the decision, whereas in the other someone else was harmed. But if harming others is wrong, regardless of whether or not one is being threatened to harm another or else, then would you not also agree that financing murderers because of a threat of being thrown in jail is not a valid reason to invalidate financing the murderers? If this be the case, then all of us that pay taxes, are well, in the wrong.
your use of invalidate is ambigious. in the first you use it to say that the contract can be disputed, and the transaction undone. i.e reimburse the signer with whatever he gave away in exchange for what he got. since he agreed to the trade under duress.
in the second you use it ‘to excuse a moral crime’. this is a totally different sense. there is no restitution. there is no undoing of a trade.
for your last statement you have to prove that if i gave my little cousin 5£ birthday present, and he went out and mutlitated a neighbours puppy then i have financed the mutilation of a puppy. or something along those lines. im getting sleepy.
the clearest analytic tool i can offer is, ‘spot the libertarian victim’.
in 1) he under duress is the victim. open shut case.
in 2) there are two victims. the murdered party. and the ‘coerced’ murderer. there are two independant cases against a) the ‘the asker’ and b) the murderer.
the murder is guilty of murder, and the asker is guilty of the coercion of the murderer.
Why do you continue to add the random “to be”? The phrase “black swans are not found” is a complete statement. It is as complete as “swans are dumb”. Or do you think that the phrase “swans are dumb” is really a shortened form of “swans are to be dumb”? That is ridiculous.
Yes yes, everyone is so staleworth in their ability to say ‘I’d rather die’ We are all so heroic when our lives are not in danger.
Its the technicalities of english, my friend. For instance, in latin you can say “puer malus” - “the boy is bad”, and even though the “est” is not there, it is still understood to be there. The same thing with the infinitive "to be"in english, it can still be understood to be there even though it is not there.
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In the phrase “puer malus”, no copula exists. However, in the phrase “black swans are not found”, a copula (i.e., “are”) does indeed exist. Thus, how are those cases analogous?
You have failed to substantiate your claim that an implicit “to be” exists between “not” and “found” in the phrase “black swans are not found”. The claim that “it can still be understood to be there even though it is not there” merely expresses possible existence and not actual existence. Does the mere fact that a bear can exist directly next to you imply that a bear does indeed exist directly next to you? No.
Its not the copula that is important, but rather the fact that language can drop unnecessary grammar in a sentance. But nevertheless, let’s just drop this - no matter what it was a foolish statement that was quickly corrected.
I am not still arguing about this topic due to the original context. Instead, I am still arguing about this because it is interesting. Nevertheless, if you really want to quit, I cannot stop you. Otherwise, I edited my previous post apparently after you responded; so, you probably missed the addition.
Its the way english grammar works, unnecessary infinitives can be dropped: I don’t need to substantiate a fact.
I don’t get your point here
If the the infinitive is “unneccesary” and also “understood to be there”, why does the alleged re-addition of it obviously change the meaning? If the meaning were the same in both “black swans are not found” and “black swans are not to be found”, why did you need to add the “to be” in order to construct your point? In other words, if it were “unnecessary” in order to convey the meaning of the sentence, why is it necessary in order to convey your point which relates directly to the meaning of the sentence?
Also, you must be a really fuzzy thinker if you really believe that you “don’t need to substantiate a fact”. Again, you have failed to substantiate your claim and you cannot evade that unless you want to explicitly concede. The mere fact that grammatical elements can sometimes be omitted does not imply that in this specific case, a specific grammatical element is indeed omitted and also that the alleged re-addition of such an element somehow elucidates the real meaning.
The entire defense of your claim which you have advanced consists of the claim that grammatical elements can be omitted. However, that does not imply that in this specific case, the grammatical element is indeed omitted.
If I assume that “unnecessary infinitives can be dropped”, that does not imply that I must assume that the “unnecessary infinitive” “to be” is “dropped” in the phrase “black swans are not found”. Do you think that “can be” implies “is”? If so, the claim that “a bear can be next to you” implies that “a bear is next to you”. That is ridiculous.