Hi all,

Helpful insight would be appreciated; I am practicing my "translating" my Sufficient & Necessary conditional statements.

"Only" is a "group 2" operator that introduces the necessary condition, but I'm finding it difficult to figure out why this matters in certain simplistic contexts.

Consider the statement: "Only cats meow."

M --> C

/C --> /M

But with "only" sentences, it seems like the reverse logical operation is also true.

C --> M

/M --> /C

Am I simplifying it too much? In other words, is this logical reasoning or rule only relevant when ideas are more complex?

Thanks,

0

3 comments

  • Saturday, Nov 20 2021

    @gabeshelton3715 said:

    @s00anderson268 said:

    Let's look at the original statement first: "Only cats meow." Do Dogs meow? No. Do cows meow? No. Only cats meow.

    Ok, so then we know if an animal is meows, it must be a cat. Hence, the translation rule:

    M --> C (If meow, then cat).

    Now looking at C --> M (if cat, then meow), we can't infer this from the statement "Only cats meow." For all we know, our particular cat could bark. Just because you are a cat, that doesn't mean you meow. We just know from our statement that Only cats meow, not dogs, not cows, only cats.

    I hope that clarifies some confusion!

    Was going to respond too, but this is a great explanation!

    Thanks! Feel free to add on as well!

    1
  • Friday, Nov 19 2021

    @s00anderson268 said:

    Let's look at the original statement first: "Only cats meow." Do Dogs meow? No. Do cows meow? No. Only cats meow.

    Ok, so then we know if an animal is meows, it must be a cat. Hence, the translation rule:

    M --> C (If meow, then cat).

    Now looking at C --> M (if cat, then meow), we can't infer this from the statement "Only cats meow." For all we know, our particular cat could bark. Just because you are a cat, that doesn't mean you meow. We just know from our statement that Only cats meow, not dogs, not cows, only cats.

    I hope that clarifies some confusion!

    Was going to respond too, but this is a great explanation!

    1
  • Friday, Nov 19 2021

    Let's look at the original statement first: "Only cats meow." Do Dogs meow? No. Do cows meow? No. Only cats meow.

    Ok, so then we know if an animal meows, it must be a cat. Hence, the translation rule:

    M --> C (If meow, then cat).

    Now looking at C --> M (if cat, then meow), we can't infer this from the statement "Only cats meow." For all we know, our particular cat could bark. Just because you are a cat, that doesn't mean you meow. We just know from our statement that Only cats meow, not dogs, not cows, only cats.

    I hope that clarifies some confusion!

    2

Confirm action

Are you sure?