It seems "A but B" means something like "A is technically true but the obvious implications thereof are somewhere between 'not true' and 'nearly true' because of B". Which is quite complicated, I'm not surprised it's not represented natively in a programming language :)
It depends how much the obvious implications of A are part of A.
I you say "let's go to the pub" and I say "I know a short-cut", the literal meaning of what I say is "I know a short-cut", but what I'm really saying is "let's go that way". But if I say "I know a short-cut but it's closed" the literal meaning is unchanged, but the implication is removed. So does that make the first half of "A but B" true or not? It depends whether you take A as "I know a shortcut" or "I know a shortcut, let's go that way".
Mostly programming languages don't bother with implications, although you could argue you could do something similar if you have a short construction meaning something like "all x in X are P (and there's at least one of them)" rather than "all x in X are P".
Even "because of B" is complicated to formalize, it can mean either "B causes A'" or "B is evidence of A'" and both of those are hard to formalize.
no subject
Date: 2014-02-17 03:03 pm (UTC)It depends how much the obvious implications of A are part of A.
I you say "let's go to the pub" and I say "I know a short-cut", the literal meaning of what I say is "I know a short-cut", but what I'm really saying is "let's go that way". But if I say "I know a short-cut but it's closed" the literal meaning is unchanged, but the implication is removed. So does that make the first half of "A but B" true or not? It depends whether you take A as "I know a shortcut" or "I know a shortcut, let's go that way".
Mostly programming languages don't bother with implications, although you could argue you could do something similar if you have a short construction meaning something like "all x in X are P (and there's at least one of them)" rather than "all x in X are P".
Even "because of B" is complicated to formalize, it can mean either "B causes A'" or "B is evidence of A'" and both of those are hard to formalize.