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Saturday, February 15, 2020

Point and Counter Point

Okay, it's coming back to me now.  Euclid did not say that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, what he said was that a line is the shortest distance between two points.  Of course that works on any surface, and even if the two points are floating free with no surface at all.  If I remember correctly, you can't even establish a plane with two points, it takes at least three.

The point I was trying to make is that, if you don't believe Euclid's definition of a point, you are not likely to agree with anything else Euclid says.  In order to reason logically with someone, you first have to find at least one thing that you both agree to accept, even if only for the purposes of the discussion. The thing is, most people are not interested in logical discussion in the first place, they prefer to just repeat what others have told them.  If you tell them something that is inconsistent with what they already think they know, their first impulse is to reject it.  If you can get past that, you might have a chance but, if not, you might as well fold your tent and silently steal away.






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