If, Then. God's existence, and vacuous truths.

           The first two weeks of CSC165 has been characterized by the encountering of problems in class whose solutions have been unexpected and “What?? How is that the solution?”  Recall the first lecture: {x for x in s if x>6}, a statement (or is it a sentence?) that translates to human language as, find value(s) in the set of s that is greater than 6.  The language of computer science, and mathematics, is a form of short-hand that is new and strange.  Times spent trying to decode what the question is trying to ask, only to give out an answer that is a result of misinterpreting the question.  *Sigh*.  Remembering all this, the one confusion that stands out from the others has got to be the “P=>Q” exercises in class.  Translated into the form ‘If P, then Q,’ things were getting tricky with some of the problems given by Larry.  “A student need[s] to get 40% on the final to pass CSC165,” Larry reads, “now, find p and q. “   I think many people were deliberating on this one.  Is it, “If 40%, then pass”, or is it, “If pass, then 40%”?  Both of these statements are evidently possible, yet there is only one right answer.   I was thinking of making a challenge, and surely many other people were as well, but luckily, I was spared the embarrassment of looking like an upstart, sitting next to someone who was conscientiously taking down notes.   From her, it was clarified that I can think of P=>Q as: Q is a requirement for P.  It was quite clear after that, I suppose.  40% is a requirement for passing csc165, therefore, P is passing csc165, and Q is 40%.  

The other thing that was perplexing, and still is, has got to be the vacuous truth statements, but elaborating on that would take up five paragraphs.  I would just like to say that I would definitely like to ask the math instructors whether the vacuous truth logic applies to the proof of God’s existence, because if so, I would like to hear an atheist’s response.  For now, I will just accept the vacuous truth, and conclude that the mathematics world is philosophical as well as logical.   

The past weeks I have learned that just because the class is at 6-9 does not mean I can just not pay attention to the information given by the slides in class.  Hopefully I have learned my lesson and shall endeavour to verify the statement, If P, then Q, where P is passing CSC165, and Q is getting 80% on the final.