Comment Re:So what about people without that choice? (Score 1) 710
If a doctor says to a patient "come to the hospital if you are having an emergency", and the patient things swallowing a watermelon seed is an emergency, are you seriosuly suggesting that the correct inference is that the doctor instructed the patient to come to the hospital for swallowing a watermelon seed?
1. You had yourself simplified your own statement to "People should do C if A is true". Why are you needing to complicate it further ? Was that aforementioned simplication a mistake on your part? In that case please come clean so that a fresh argument based on your newly simplified statement can be made.
2. In this case, doctor cannot truthfully claim to not having advised the "patient" to report for a checkup. Doctor is guilty of not defining emergency with mathematical precision.
And I am suggesting the reader is incorrect in addition to suggesting what should happen *if* the reader were correct.
1. You have not proven with mathematical precision that the reader is incorrect.
2. Even if you had, you are incorrect in claiming "People should do C if A is true" does not mean "People should do C" for some people.
2. Recommendation is clearly for PEOPLE, not for the reader.
The recommendation *is* for "people", referring to a group to which the reader belongs (along with everyone else).
1. If "people" refers to a group (to which the reader belongs) AND also to the complement of that set (everyone else), only a person intending to deceive would word it in so complicated a manner. An honest person would simply call it "people", or "everyone".
2. Now, for everyone, the recommendation is "People should do C", which is now clarified to "Everyone should do C" whenever the reader is of an opinion "A is true". You are claiming otherwise.
If I say "You can't teach an old dog new tricks", I'm not saying that everyone can teach a dog new tricks except the reader.
1. Completely irrelevant example. This statement is addressed to the reader, and making claims about only the reader. The statement in question "People should do C if A is true" is making claims about NON-READERS, which is the source of error in this case.
2. Since the statement "You can't teach an old dog new tricks" is not talking about "everyone other than the reader", obviously neither an ability nor an inability of "everyone other than the reader" in teaching any tricks to any canines is under question.