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Old 07-24-2003, 11:52 PM   #1 (permalink)
Sleepyjack
Fast'n'Bulbous
 
Location: Australia, Perth
is it illogical to say the glass is half empty?

First off i wasn't sure if this was general discussion, knowledge or philosphy thread...so i popped it in the broadest one
(i apologise if its in the wrong place )

Also i don't know if this idea has been explored before, and am not ripping it off, i had this thought by myself whilst thinking about people always have negative things to say about drugs and drug use (even though i seldom take drugs myself, i think everything is good in moderation)

ok i've ranted too much, but here is my idea.

A glass's volume is half occupied by a liquid, so it leads to the ambivalence of a glass being half empty and/or half full. And theres the idea that those who say its full are optimistic/happy or other positive vibe and those who say its half empty are pessimistic/synical or negative vibe.

ok moving along.

empty means: to be void, nothing, unoccupied
full mean: containing as much as possible, abundant, complete

NOTE: got these definitions from a dictionary

ok moving to the simple maths sides of things.

the glass in question (for example) has 2 units of volume
empty is nothing so it is equal to 0
full is the same volume of the glass so it also 2.

now if the glass is half occupied by a liquid is would have a volume of 1 unit.

if the glass is half empty
(empty)0 * (half) 0.5 = 0

if the glass is half full
(full)2* (half)0.5 = 1

therefore, mathematically, the only logical answer is to say the glass is half full. Hence we should all be optimistic and happy etc

basically i just wanted others opinions on the validity of my workings, mainly to amount emptiness to 0 (is that valid?), which i think is valid...but the english language is sometimes a little ambigious, so that claim may be subjective.

Anyway, its an interesting thought i had (well i think ), and wanted to share with others to see what they think

cheers

Last edited by Sleepyjack; 07-24-2003 at 11:56 PM..
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