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Avital: > From: "John Cowan" <jcowan@hidden.email> > > > And Rosta scripsit: > > > > > But actually I think you and me and xod agree. Provided we indicate > > > the world where unicorns exist, everybody's happy > > > > Indeed. But xod rejected that strategy, saying he preferred to remain > > in the real world. And in the real world, "50% of unicorns are male" > > has indeterminate truth value > > I don't see why this is your view. Let A be the number of unicorns. Let B be > the number of male unicorns. You seem to understand the sentence "50% of > unicorns are male" as "B/A = 50%" (obviously this is incorrect. B/A is > undefined). I, on the other hand, understand the sentence as "B * 50% = A", > which is true. This allows speaking of 50% of unicorns and yet staying > mathematically consistent Are you asking why understand it as "B/A = 50%" rather than "B * 50% = A"? (Or "A * 50% = B"????) I'd need to think about that some more. But one thing to bear in mind is that both A and B can be infinite. For example, "50% of integers are even", "most integers are not prime". So it may be that strictly speaking we aren't talking ordinary fractions here. --And.