I simply had not considered the logical implications of AspiringKnitter making the claim that she is not Will_Newsome, and had only noticed that no similar claim had appeared under the name of Will_Newsome.
It would be interesting if one claimed to be them both and the other claimed to be separate people. If Will_Newsome claimed to be both of them and AspiringKnitter did not, then we would know he was lying. So that is something possible to learn from asking Will_Newsome explicitly. I hadn’t considered this when I made my original comment, which was made without thinking deeply.
If WillNewsome claimed to be both of them and AspiringKnitter did not, then we would know he was lying.
Um? Supposing I’d created both accounts, I could certainly claim as Will that both accounts were me, and claim as AK that they weren’t, and in that case Will would be telling the truth.
Oh, so by “Will” you mean “any account controlled by Will” not “the account called Will_Newsome”. I think everyone else interpreted it as the latter.
Nick, it was pretty obvious to me that lessdazed and CuSithBell meant the person Will, not “any account controlled by Will” or “the account called Will_Newsome”—it doesn’t matter if the person would be using an account in order to lie, or an email in order to lie, or Morse code in order to lie, just that they would be lying.
It was “obvious” to me that lessdazed didn’t mean that and it would’ve been obvious to me that CuSithBell did mean that if I hadn’t been primed to interpret his/her comment in the light of lessdazed’s comment. Looking back I’m still not sure what lessdazed intended, but at this point I’m starting to think he/she meant the same as CuSithBell but unfortunately put an underscore betwen “Will” and “Newsome”, confusing the matter.
Oh, so by “Will” you mean “any account controlled by Will” not “the account called Will_Newsome”.
I think everyone else interpreted it the other way.
Well, this was my first post in the thread. I assume you are referring to this post by lessdazed? I thought at the time of my post that lessdazed was using it in the former way (though I’d phrase it “the person Will Newsome”), as you say—either Will lied with the Will account, or told the truth with the Will account and was thus AK, and thus lying with the AK account.
I now think it’s possible that they meant to make neither assumption, instead claiming that if the accounts were inconsistent in this way (if the Will account could not “control” the AK account) then this would indicate that Will (the account and person) was lying about being AK. This claim fails if Will can be expected to engage in deliberate trickery (perhaps inspired by lessdazed’s post), which I think should be a fairly uncontentious assertion.
(Maybe I should point out that this is all academic since at this point both AK and I have denied that we’re the same person, though I’ve been a little bit more coy about it.)
And then he (the person) is lying (also telling the truth, naturally, but I interpreted your claim that he would be telling the truth as a claim that he would not be lying).
If he is AK then he made an explicit claim about it. So either he is not AK or he is lying—a raise your right hand situation.
I simply had not considered the logical implications of AspiringKnitter making the claim that she is not Will_Newsome, and had only noticed that no similar claim had appeared under the name of Will_Newsome.
It would be interesting if one claimed to be them both and the other claimed to be separate people. If Will_Newsome claimed to be both of them and AspiringKnitter did not, then we would know he was lying. So that is something possible to learn from asking Will_Newsome explicitly. I hadn’t considered this when I made my original comment, which was made without thinking deeply.
Um? Supposing I’d created both accounts, I could certainly claim as Will that both accounts were me, and claim as AK that they weren’t, and in that case Will would be telling the truth.
Me too.
ETA: And I really mean no offense, but I’m sort of surprised that folk don’t immediately see things like this… is it a skill maybe?
Wason selection taskish skill, methinks—so a rare one.
But if Will is AK, then Will claimed both that they were and were not the same person (using different screen names).
(Maybe everyone knows this but I’ve pretty much denied that me and AK are the same person. Just saying so people don’t get confused.)
Yes, a good thing to clarify! I’m only speaking to a hypothetical situation.
Oh, so by “Will” you mean “any account controlled by Will” not “the account called Will_Newsome”.
I think everyone else interpreted it as the latter.
(I’m sort of surprised that folk don’t immediately see things like this… is it a skill maybe?)
Nick, it was pretty obvious to me that lessdazed and CuSithBell meant the person Will, not “any account controlled by Will” or “the account called Will_Newsome”—it doesn’t matter if the person would be using an account in order to lie, or an email in order to lie, or Morse code in order to lie, just that they would be lying.
It was “obvious” to me that lessdazed didn’t mean that and it would’ve been obvious to me that CuSithBell did mean that if I hadn’t been primed to interpret his/her comment in the light of lessdazed’s comment. Looking back I’m still not sure what lessdazed intended, but at this point I’m starting to think he/she meant the same as CuSithBell but unfortunately put an underscore betwen “Will” and “Newsome”, confusing the matter.
Well, this was my first post in the thread. I assume you are referring to this post by lessdazed? I thought at the time of my post that lessdazed was using it in the former way (though I’d phrase it “the person Will Newsome”), as you say—either Will lied with the Will account, or told the truth with the Will account and was thus AK, and thus lying with the AK account.
I now think it’s possible that they meant to make neither assumption, instead claiming that if the accounts were inconsistent in this way (if the Will account could not “control” the AK account) then this would indicate that Will (the account and person) was lying about being AK. This claim fails if Will can be expected to engage in deliberate trickery (perhaps inspired by lessdazed’s post), which I think should be a fairly uncontentious assertion.
Yes, that’s true.
And?
And therefore, either one way or another, Will would be lying.
(Maybe I should point out that this is all academic since at this point both AK and I have denied that we’re the same person, though I’ve been a little bit more coy about it.)
And then he (the person) is lying (also telling the truth, naturally, but I interpreted your claim that he would be telling the truth as a claim that he would not be lying).
I suss out the confusion in this post.
Ah! The person (whatever his or her name was) would be lying, although the Will Newsome the identity would not be. I get it now.
Edit: And then I was utterly redundant. Sorry twice.
Absolutely not a problem :) I think I got turned around a few times there myself.