Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
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From: diku0206@diku.dk (diku0206)
Subject: The three legged hen (the answer)
Message-ID: <diku0206.781437835@alfrigg.diku.dk>
Sender: diku0206@alfrigg.diku.dk
Date: Thu, 6 Oct 1994 10:03:55 GMT
Organization: Department of Computer Science, U of Copenhagen
Lines: 32


>Two men once started to argue how many legs does a hen has. The first one said 
>-3- and asked the other one to prove to him if that was not the case. They put
>their entire bank balance on it. The other person actually brought several hens,
>counted the legs, invited many people and had them count the legs and so on...

>However, in the end he accepted defeat and gave all of his possesions to the
>man who said that hen has three legs because he couldn't prove to him that it
>doesn't.

>When later asked to comment on his success, the winner said I was decided 
>in the very beginning that no matter what, I wont accept that a hen doesn't
>has three legs, so I was bound to win. 

>Moral of the story: Hen has three legs.
>Try to argue. 

When you say "hen", we have to be talking about the same thing, else the 
argument has no meaning. (if for instance you really mean "a lion", when
you write "a hen", we can't really have an argument).

Now a hen has two legs, else it isn't a hen you're talking about.


The same thing happens, if you say : "The world doesn't exist".

Then I say : "well, then what are you talking about, and how do you do it?"

regards
-- 
-Anders Nielsen

