🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Oct13.224541.3542@thunder.mcrcim.mcgill.edu>
rags@triples.math.mcgill.ca (Robert A. G. Seely) writes:
>
>I am surprised at the amount of comment this has caused - but (at the risk
>of making a blooper myself - it's always possible and frequently probable)
>here is my attempt to kill the thread:
>
> ...

Bob's account is clear and comprehensive and ought indeed to kill the thread.

My only reason for prolonging the agony is that I think that one reason for the
confusion is that English has temporal implications that the logic throws away:

  "if A then B" suggests that A happens first and B inevitably follows (in
_time_).

  "A only if B" suggests that B happens first, as a necessary precondition to
A.

Logically, both are translated as A -> B, but I suspect that the temporal
suggestion "B then A" in "A only if B" disturbs people's logical judgement and
tempts them to translate it as B -> A.

Steve Vickers.