@nathanieljschwartz said:
The negation of poor is not poor. The question assumes that you are either rich or else poor. What about the middle class?
Depends, is the middle class counted with the rich people or the poor people?
I think its easier to see this question in another analogous example:
In your basket you have only two kinds of apple: Red or Green.
If I ask you to pick out an apple and you tell me that the apple in your hand is not green, I would know that you have a red apple since there are only two possible selections to make. Pink apple is not a possibility in our original basket.
Similarly, for this question the poor farmer says "In this world, you are either rich or poor".
What this says is you have to be rich or poor. You cannot be middle class or partial middle class or upper middle class. Not being poor in this farmer's story implies you are rich. You have to be rich or poor. That's it. Just like in our example not green apple implied it was a red apple because pink apple is not a possibility.
Also another way to see this is to see it by diagramming the "or" conditional statement:
You are either Rich or poor. ( R or P)
The conditional diagram for "or" is:
/R->P
/P->R
It just so happens that you cannot be both rich and poor at the same time so end up having a forever apart bi-conditional.
/R<->P
/P<->R
Which would end up meaning:
If you are not rich, you are poor. If you are poor, you are not rich.
If you are not poor, you are rich. And if you are rich, you are not poor.
So if we think the middle class is not rich, then they are poor.
But if we think the middle class is not poor, then they are rich.
But they can only be rich or poor. They don't get the option to be anything other than that since that's the scenario in the farmers story. You are either rich or poor.
Comments
Edited your title so it's easier for people to help.
Here's a similar thread that might help you out:
https://7sage.com/discussion/#/discussion/10845
Bumping this again.
Depends, is the middle class counted with the rich people or the poor people?
I think its easier to see this question in another analogous example:
In your basket you have only two kinds of apple: Red or Green.
If I ask you to pick out an apple and you tell me that the apple in your hand is not green, I would know that you have a red apple since there are only two possible selections to make. Pink apple is not a possibility in our original basket.
Similarly, for this question the poor farmer says "In this world, you are either rich or poor".
What this says is you have to be rich or poor. You cannot be middle class or partial middle class or upper middle class. Not being poor in this farmer's story implies you are rich. You have to be rich or poor. That's it. Just like in our example not green apple implied it was a red apple because pink apple is not a possibility.
Also another way to see this is to see it by diagramming the "or" conditional statement:
You are either Rich or poor. ( R or P)
The conditional diagram for "or" is:
/R->P
/P->R
It just so happens that you cannot be both rich and poor at the same time so end up having a forever apart bi-conditional.
/R<->P
/P<->R
Which would end up meaning:
If you are not rich, you are poor. If you are poor, you are not rich.
If you are not poor, you are rich. And if you are rich, you are not poor.
So if we think the middle class is not rich, then they are poor.
But if we think the middle class is not poor, then they are rich.
But they can only be rich or poor. They don't get the option to be anything other than that since that's the scenario in the farmers story. You are either rich or poor.
Let me know if this helped.