4 ms·
That's a deductive fallacy. Alive things need resources, but things that need resources are not necessarily alive.
by DiThi 10y ago
That's a deductive fallacy. Alive things need resources, but things that need resources are not necessarily alive.
- irisli 10y agocomputerphage wasn't using deduction but rather contraposition. (A -> B) => (!B -> !A). The absurdity of (!B -> !A) shows that (A -> B) is not true for all cases.
- uzoodoo 10y agoBut the premise "not alive => doesn't need resources" is false because there exist things are "not necessarily alive" that need resources. Therefore, the argument is invalid.
- computerphage 10y agoIt's not a fallacy. The truth table for implication and its contrapositive are the same. A | B | A => B | ¬B => ¬A T | T | T | T T | F | F | F F | T | T | T F | F | T | T My original point was that my parent was implicitly claiming that only living things need resources. That seemed absurd to me because of things like viruses, companies, governments, etc.