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Insert long discussion on the limits of predicate logic when applied to anything involving human language here This seems to be embedded in English, at least.

Insert long discussion on the limits of predicate logic when applied to anything involving human language here This seems to be embedded in English, at least. If I say "I don't like chocolate", that's universally interpreted as "I dislike chocolate". But I only meant what I said: I do not possess an active enjoyment of chocolate. The listener just assumes "if yer not with us, yer agin us". It seems that taking sides is baked pretty deeply into our thought process.

jerf 17y ago
In English, I would submit that "I don't like X" really does mean "I dislike X"; the usage is pervasive and nearly without exception. If you mean "I have no active enjoyment or dislike", you need to go more for a word like "ambivalent". I'm not convinced this is an English problem, or even a human problem, though. The problem is the low resolution being used; no matter how fine your stated opinion, if it is being viewed through a low resolution sensing device, it'll get aliased to one of the things the sensing device can actually perceive. (This is also the correct definition of "bias", though that would take a bit longer to describe.) It takes cognitive energy to increase resolution, so a lot of times we'll use "love/hate" as the only two options pretty casually, because it's easy and we don't have an infinite supply of cognitive energy. (A number of terms in that paragraph are sort of ill-defined but it would take a lot of time to really nail them down.)
- CWuestefeld 17y ago
  I don't think your explanation is correct. There's only a small subset of English verbs that exhibit this behavior. For counter examples: if I were to say "I don't drive fast", you would likely not interpret that as "I drive slowly"; if I say "I'm not rich", you wouldn't hear "I'm poor". Yet in all these classes, we must be using some resolution. So your explanation only begs the question of "why, then, do some kinds of statements get treated to higher resolution than others?".

jerf 17y ago

In English, I would submit that "I don't like X" really does mean "I dislike X"; the usage is pervasive and nearly without exception. If you mean "I have no active enjoyment or dislike", you need to go more for a word like "ambivalent". I'm not convinced this is an English problem, or even a human problem, though. The problem is the low resolution being used; no matter how fine your stated opinion, if it is being viewed through a low resolution sensing device, it'll get aliased to one of the things the sensing device can actually perceive. (This is also the correct definition of "bias", though that would take a bit longer to describe.) It takes cognitive energy to increase resolution, so a lot of times we'll use "love/hate" as the only two options pretty casually, because it's easy and we don't have an infinite supply of cognitive energy. (A number of terms in that paragraph are sort of ill-defined but it would take a lot of time to really nail them down.)

CWuestefeld 17y ago
I don't think your explanation is correct. There's only a small subset of English verbs that exhibit this behavior. For counter examples: if I were to say "I don't drive fast", you would likely not interpret that as "I drive slowly"; if I say "I'm not rich", you wouldn't hear "I'm poor". Yet in all these classes, we must be using some resolution. So your explanation only begs the question of "why, then, do some kinds of statements get treated to higher resolution than others?".