Talk:Continuum fallacy

Proposal for Deletion

There are four articles in Wikipedia dealing with essentially one and the same philosophical topic: Imprecise language, Paradox of the heap, Vagueness and Continuum fallacy. (Sorites paradox redirects to Paradox of the heap.) I have done a little editing of the Vagueness page, but really I think all four pages should be merged, or that at very least, they be rationalised to two pages, one a longer one on the philosophical problem of vagueness, and the other a quick summary of the sorites paradox with a link to the vagueness page for a more in-depth discussion. What do people think? Matt 9 Nov. 2005

I happen to agree with this poster, and I am bothered when a separate user retitles and strikes another user's talk page entry. It's not that I think it's vandalism or something, I would just like to know why this discussion sort of went away. Eebster the Great (talk) 03:47, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, but I disagree. I came to this page after I searched for "fallacies" and I got what I was looking for. I would never have searched under "imprecise language" or "Vagueness". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.59.9.243 (talk) 05:07, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

I agree with the disagreement. Although there is no sharp line between this fallacy and some others, it would be a mistake to say that they are the same -- and it is useful to have it listed as a fallacy. 86.146.139.15 (talk) 15:48, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

I agree this page should be deleted. As someone points out below, it is not a logical fallacy (so someone searching for "fallacies" should not find it). It is a semantics issue that can lead to a paradox. The above-listed page with "paradox" explains it well with its semantic roots. 71.33.93.137 (talk) 02:18, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Not all fallacies are logical, and to say that only precise, logically-false statements can be fallacies is a mistake that overemphasizes the importance of sharp distinctions. The article itself call this an "informal fallacy". 86.146.139.15 (talk) 15:48, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

I agree that there are too much articles explaining almost the same issue. In particular, Continuum fallacy can pretty well be made a subsection of Sorites paradox. Apparently, the former is just a special case of the latter where the state space is continuous; therefore many, or all, "resolutions" to the latter also apply to the former. — To cope with the problem of finding the article, appropriate redirects can be established. - Jochen Burghardt (talk) 09:16, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

Plato?

Isn't this kind of fallacy, the beard argument, mentioned by Plato somewhere? Shouldn't that be included in the article? --80.60.180.182 23:04, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

I have a problem with the "okay to drink" example, as "okay" is far to vague a term, and drinking isn't obviously positive or negative in influence. Many cultures will allow children to drink, even in celebration, at a very early age, and there seems to be no evidence supporting that the older one is, the "more okay" it is to drink alcohol.

Fallacy?

Eh... where does the article at all state why it's a fallacy except just 'appeals to common sense'? Seems to me that the article itself makes a fallacy from assertion. Rajakhr (talk) 01:05, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree. The fact that people can categorize something as a heap or not a heap is not proof that a heap exists. A thousand years ago, people could use common sense to categorize an event as an act of God or not an act of God. Is this proof that acts of God existed? 71.33.93.137 (talk) 00:19, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

slipperly slope

What is the relationship between this fallacy and the slippery slope argument? Cesiumfrog (talk) 00:26, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

The slippery slope fallacy is about what would happen if you did X. Or if you did X, Y would happen without justification. The continuum fallacy is becauase X is vague, X is false.

Also, I think that some of the examples are flawed, because they give false impressions/semantic problems rather than logical fallacies. The bald example is the clearest: Someone is bald when they have no hair. The argument about baldness looks alright on the face of it, but when we apply common usage, it means that someone with hair can have no hair. This is a logical paradox. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.149.33.114 (talk) 14:50, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Continua in the "Real World"...

The section mentioning "in modern quantum physics, notions of continuous length break down at the Planck length, and thus what appear to be continua may, at base, simply be very many discrete states" is incorrect (and a quite uncommon misconception from my observations).

Notions of continuous length do not "break down" at the Planck scale. The Planck scale "units" regarding distance and duration are merely reflections of our practical inability to measure beyond a certain degree of precision due to limitations imposed on the inherent nature of observation itself by the finite speed of light.

Space and time themselves are nonquantized metrics, and are in no way comprised of "discrete states" (units). For a universe consisting of dynamic (and possibly even static) dimensions to possess such properties would be literally impossible, for more than one reason. -=[ Alexis (talk) 15:28, 28 March 2011 (UTC) ]=-

Evolution denial

When creationists admit that microevolution happens, but claim that macroevolution is an impossibility, are they making the continuum fallacy? - Soulkeeper (talk) 08:37, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Race denial

Would that be an example? --41.151.222.124 (talk) 10:04, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Absolutely. G12002 (talk) 03:42, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

"fallacy of gray/grey"

This term for the continuum fallacy is a neologism coined at LessWrong and not used anywhere else. Someone found usage of the term for argument to moderation so the term points there. See past RFD discussion. If there's evidence of it taking off anywhere else we could reconsider it - David Gerard (talk) 13:46, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

<(‵□′)/

why→Sorites paradox--追迹未来 (talk) 15:02, 19 March 2016 (UTC)

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Abortion example

The abortion example is out of place here. Whether a person has a beard is based on how numerous, long, and thick the hairs are, which are continuous metrics. Whether a person is able to lift a bag of sand is based on how far up and how long it takes for the person to do it, which are also continuous. So those examples are appropriate. But there is no consensus on a definition of human life, or even the parameters of what that definition depends on. Depending on the definition, it might be a continuum or might not be. The references are also to a couple of opinion blogs which can hardly be claimed to be reliable sources for the claim. Miraculouschaos (talk) 15:59, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

I'd prefer to have that example removed, too. It concerns an issue that is highly controversial and often debated very emotionally, so I guess, reading about it will annoy many users and distract them from understanding the article's point. I also agree that the references don't meet Wikipedia standards. - However, I disagree that there is no continuum in the example; I think, time since conception is a continuous metric, and I guess everyone agrees that there is no life before conception (well, some Platonists might disagee?), and usually there is life 9 months after it. - Jochen Burghardt (talk) 19:00, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

Of course it's a continuum, as Jochen says; as a funtion of time (a solid measurement, such as grams or centimeters) you will have life, but you don't have life to begin with and you definitely have life at the end - just as you can definitely lift 1 or 0 grams, but you can definitely not lift 2,000,000 grams. The sources can be removed, but that doesn't take away from the fact that it's a very commonly used argument that is in fact a continuum fallacy. Whether it bothers people or not, whether it's emotional or not does not change the fact that it's a perfectly valid example that people should be able to relate to. Nickdnk (talk) 22:21, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

Thanks! However, we definitely cannot mention all examples here, since they are far too numerous. I believe to remember that W. V. Quine wrote somewhere that almost every notion in everyday language is a vague one, and most of them can be turned into an example for the continuum fallacy. As an ad-hoc example, the chair in my kitchen is undoubtedly a chair. If its seat was a little higher (a continuous measure again) it would still be a chair. However, if its seat is, say, 1 kilometre high, it is definitely not a chair. Arbitrarily many examples can be generated along these lines, and we can't include them all. I think the abortion example is merely one of them; so why include just this one? Probably we should stick to the criterion whether some particular example is mentioned in some reliable source explicitly as an example of the continuum fallacy. - Jochen Burghardt (talk) 10:05, 25 January 2019 (UTC)

I think we should mention it because it is a hot topic and a commonly used continuum fallacy argument. Your example with the chair is not, so it has no reason to contend with an abortion example. The problem with the existing examples alone is that they are not ever used in the "real world", which makes it harder to connect the theory of a continuum fallacy to a real-world example that makes sense to people. Nobody is using a continuum fallacy to argue that they can lift any amount of sand, because it's silly as everyone knows you cannot lift any amount of sand. However, many are using the argument that abortion is murder to justify making it illegal without taking into account that there is a continuum fallacy in calling abortion murder. Nickdnk (talk) 03:14, 26 January 2019 (UTC)