Vote for Nabarro

Was: Grice's Campaign.

What is the logical form of a disjunctive statement?

I hold 'or' is a dyadic predicate. You either do this or you don't do it.

p v q

Triadic disjunctions ("p v q v r") are thus a trick. This, oddly, connects with free-will.

I think this reference in WoW:IV is an interesting one, vis a vis Drosophila (fruit fly) and this reference by

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11998687

"Experiments including Dr Brembs' own 2007 work with flies has shown that although animal behaviour can be unpredictable, responses do seem to come from a fixed list of options." In interview, Brembs expands: "In thinking, we have all the options, and theoretically all the options have the same probability attached to them. However, this is not how it's going to turn out." While we imagine having the option of

choosing to walk off the edge of a cliff,

Dr Brembs said, it is an option that would only very, very rarely be chosen." He goes on to expand on a sort of continuant operancy (?), which we've discussed in this forum with J. Huggins, the adaptability of a creature to keep remaining a creature: Again from the BBC source: "The variability that is inherent in the behaviour is something that is a prerequisite for survival in a competitive environment." That is, a predator should not be able to always guess its prey's actions, but the actions should not be so random as to include options even more dangerous than the predator."

Now for Grice. I was thinking of the logical form of a disjunctive statement, and indeed it seems to come out as
p v q
where 'v' is the Latin, 'vel' (versus the 'aut'). Grice, who would update his lectures as the candidates kept changing, has this note on Nabarro. First, meet the man. From wiki:

"Sir Gerald David Nunes Nabarro (1913-1973) was a Conservative Party politician of the 1960s. He was born in Willesden Green, the son of an unsuccessful shopkeeper. He was educated at schools run by the London County Council, belying his later image as an aristocrat. In the general election of 1950, Nabarro was elected as Member of Parliament (MP) for Kidderminster, Worcestershire which he held until 1964. He characterised himself as an old-style Tory: he opposed entry to what is now the European Union, was a proponent of capital punishment, and supported Enoch Powell following the latter's controversial Rivers of Blood Speech."

Now for Grice's campaign:

"Suppose you say,

"Either Wilson or Heath will be the next prime Minister."

I can disagree with you in one of two ways:

(1)

I can say

"That's not so; it won't be either, it will be Thorpe." ...

(2)

I can say

"I disagree, it will be either Wilson or Thorpe." ...

Side note:

"If I had said

"It will be either Wilson or Gerald Nabarro,"

this would be (by exploitation) a way of saying that it will be Wilson." (p. 64).

So, beware the implicatura!