Sleepyjack

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

Taliesin

The glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

Sleepyjack

i used the glass as 2 units so the the answer simplifies to 1 unit. Basically so there are whole numbers. The size of the glass is nonconsequential, irrelevant.
Unless you are making some kind of joke?? or being tongue in cheek about it

also, it leads to the other possibility of saying the glass is half occupied which would, perhaps, lead to someone being indifferent or apathetic....
or just more precise...i dunno

your thoughts on this as well?

would the glass be half full, half occupied, half empty (although i proved/showed this as illogical) or maybe something esle.....

Taliesin

Hm. Hard to tell in textual form.

Nothing is empty anyway - quantum physics shows that even a vacuum contains little particles that pop up and disappear.

Sleepyjack

hmmm, maybe this is getting a little too complicated for its own good. I don't understand much/anything about quantum physics, although isn't it a probability thing, in that at a given time it can be probable that it is empty but more likely isn't going to be?

anyway, empty also means to become devoid of contents. Now the content in question is this mysterious liquid, so for a glass to be empty it must mot have any of it in it (although other stuff, like air is present, so not neccessarily a vacuum). So that is also a contradiction of the meaning of empty, hence illogical etc.
Although thats where the idea might be coming from, in that pessimistic people always reduce something to nothing... i guess?
just the actual term is illogical, to me. Maybe i just worked it out though

hmmm i hope this disscussion doesn't lead to, too complicated or profound things like what is real or something. It's already getting away a bit with the discussion of quantum physics....

Taliesin

Well, I don't really understand it (nobody does), but I think the idea is that pairs of particles (one matter, one anti-matter) are spontaneously created and annihilated in empty space. So if you start with a vacuum, you actually have a fizzing soup of particle pairs.

You could argue that the amount of stuff in the jar is zero, since it's balanced by the amount of antistuff.

Nisses

actually, you are going about it the wrong way

if a glass has a volume of 2, then there are 3 states the glass can be in:
0 = empty
1 = the word we're getting to
2= full
But this is only when you are looking at it from your perspective, namely that full is the maximum... For pessimists, the maximum is not full, it is empty, so you get the other way around...
0 = full
1 = our word
2 = empty

now if you are going about the half-full, then you are measuring from the bottom up, since completely full would be the top of the glass.
therefore, full would be your maximum equalling 2
when you go about your calculations, you are correct in pointing out 1 or half-full as your answer, however, the flipside starts with empty as their maximum, which means for them it is 2, instead of full.

So they get to half-empty and have the same value for it, and consequently feel let-down already cuz it's already half-empty

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mtsgsd

Speaking in high-falut'n scientific terms..

I propose that if the state of the glass prior to the one is question is known, we can then determin the present state ie.

if we know it the volume was greater than it is now we may say it is half empty. Further, if we know that the volume was lower before it came to it's present state we may state that it is half full.

If we have come upon the glass upon the state in question and do not know how it came to be that way, it must be regarded as being both half full and half empty at the same time. Meaning either answer is half right!

That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

mtsgsd

Then again, unless we've actually measured the amount of water in the glass and compared it to the maximum measured capacity of the glass we can never truly know can we?

It's neither one! I dub it, Shroedinger's Glass!

Go ahead, assume I'm serious and flame this. :LOL:

Nisses

Damn j00 st00p1d. Schroedinger never had a glass!11!!!!

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rev_skarekroe

The answer to the question depends entirely on what's in the glass.
sk

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MikeyChalupa

I say the glass remains full at all times. The half that is not occupied by water (or whatever) is full of air.

But, if there was an answer to this question you're getting at, smarter minds than ours would have hit upon it ages ago. I never liked equating the half glass to optimism and pessimism anyway, or partly cloudy/partly sunny for that matter. I don't see what it has to do with it.

I don't, but let's say I DID have a negative outlook on life. Why do I have to say half empty? What if the glass IS empty and I slowly start to fill it with water from a pitcher. At the halfway point, why would my pessimistic self have to call it half empty? It's less empty than it was when I started to fill it. Or should I say "un-empty it"? When the water reaches the top, instead of saying the glass is full, do I have to say it's un-empty? Or at that point, would I sigh and say, "Yeah but now the pitcher's half full?" The reverse is true for the optimist who then comes along and drinks the water. After the halfway point, is it "half un-full"? No, he's beginning to empty the glass, pure and simple, no matter what his state of mind is.

It's a silly argument.

-Mikey

Sleepyjack

hehe, so if there was beer in the glass, it'd be half full and if it was cat piss (or something nasty) then it'd be half empty?
i think i see where you're coming from

Although i wasn't being too serious about it, basically it was just a whimsical thought. I don't know about filling up the pitcher again...
i thought there was a common idea that if a theortical glass had half (exactly) its volume of some liquid, using logic and maths, derived from the subjective english language, you could show that it is illogical to say the glass is half empty. it doens't make sense.

i think the one safe answer though, is to say the glass is half occupied . I guess this is the one true and objective response.

MikeyChalupa

Not really, because the other half would be un-occupied.

See why this is silly?

-Mikey

Casdin

I agree with Taliesin...

Optimists believe the glass is half full.
Pessimists believe the glass is half empty.

Engineers believe the glass is twice as big as it needs to be


Went to an engineering school, so I have to opt for the last school of thinking!

Sleepyjack

ok, i think that wraps it up. I guess it is a little silly. But the fact that empty is now termed unoccupied it clears a lot of things up for me. So it goes back to the same ideas as before :P
However, i don't really think it is natural count the stuff that isn't there?

All in all, the same amount of liquid is in the glass no matter what you term it, so perhaps instead of saying half full or whatever, measure the glass and get the actual ture objective measure. ie a standard cup is 250ml (well for cooking in austrlia) so half a cup is 125 ml, not half empty, half full, half occupied, half unoccupied...and so on

So instead of making a qualitative measurement, measure the actual amount. another life leason

rockzilla

Just get a new, full glass. Problem solved.

number9

It's neither half empty nor half full. It's merely a half a glass of something.

Besides, if you were to be as strict with your definition of full as you are with empty, neither answer is valid.
If full means complete, containing as much as possible etc, then it can't be half of itself. It then would not be full, and the word full becomes meaningless.

Where's the fekkin aspirin??

Buk

Don't worry so much about whether its half empty or half full, worry about why your so dehydrated from the week it took you to contemplate all of this... and DRINK IT!

urizenxvii

I agree, although I thought of it in more layman's terms... i.e. if the level of halfness (urk! no word goodness!) was attained by filling it to that level, one would call it 'half filled'--half full. But if one was drinking/emptying/evaporating the liquid in the glass and it hit the halfway mark, one would call it 'half emptied'--half empty. That's what's logical to me, but... yeah.

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furious

Well we had the pessimists point of view, the optimists point of view and the engineer's...

Heres mine:

Someone over capitalised and bought a glass too big for the job at hand.


...they call me Mr Bastard at work.

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Amanita

Let's not over complicate a very simple problem.

For starters .. those who try to justify this problem through math should also consider that the emptiness of the glass can (and should) be expressed as a limit .. which will introduce the notion of infinite limits.

The notion of half of empty is not logically sound. How can one measure or appreciate (empirically) half of nothing?

Nothing is whole and can not be halved.

hotzot

my brain hurts!

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Sleepyjack

i just want to apologise for starting this thread

perhaps people should drink whats left of the glass to wash down the asprin they need to relieve the nausea and headaches.

Stiltzkin

Someone already said it... darn. The glass is twice as large as it needs to be. I always loved that

Also... I only read half the posts here because I'm friggin tired right now and ready to go to sleep, but... whether the glass is half empty or half full is circumstantial, period. It is not mathematical. Has this already been mentioned? Who knows. ::shrugs:: ::yawns::

Allow me to explain.

If the glass starts out empty, and then is filled up halfway, then it is half full.

If the glass is filled to the top, it is full. Then, if from there half of it is poured out, it becomes half empty. There, simple.

EDIT: Ok, ok, fine, it is mathematical... but the importance here is that the state of the glass's fullness/emptiness is based on circumstance.

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KeyserSoze

Why does it have to be a glass?? Why can't it be a cup??

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World's King

Half empty? Half Full?


I just need another martini.

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WantonSewp

It's a simple problem--end-state logic. Or basically, 'which way the thing's headed'.

If the glass is full, and emptied half way, it's half-empty. It's going from full to empty.

Adding more would be refilling it, thus changing the end-state, as it would be going from a state of emptiness to fullness, and would therefore be (more) than half-full.

If it was empty and you filled it half way, it's half full; it's end-state would be the state of being full.

If you happened upon it and don't know if it was taken down to halfway or only filled that far, you're fucked. Drink the rest and call it good enough.

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mtsgsd

Ok, I've seen at least two other responses that just paraphrased my answer. I declare myself the winna! Damn, no prize?

bobbles

Well logicall if:

Half Full = Half Empty

then...

Full = Empty

?

Pennington

And here I was thinking that it was just a figure of speech.

lumpenprole

I think it's fair to say that if you judge a worldview based on a glass of water, you are about as interesting as aforesaid glass of water.

IMHO, of course.

bryan2766

just say its half full

water_boy1999

Ok, everyone is looking at this logically, illogically, physically, mathematically........well, for those of us less capable of finding the appropriate theory or equation to solve such a silly question, let me propose a business solution, being a business major and all.....

If the glass was half empty, empty has a negative connotation, which would lead the consumer to doubt why they would spend their time or money buying half of what they could get with the alternative. If we shelved a bunch of glasses that were half empty of some substance, they wouldn't sell....not even to the pessimist. Therefore, it would be a negative impact on the revenue that could be generated with the alternative.

If the glass were half full, full being the operative word here, and generally a term that has a more positive connotation, would bring great joy and happiness to the average consumer because they are not getting something for their buck that is half empty, rather they are paying for something half full. Stock your shelves with this marketing info and *PRESTO*!!!! You have sold all of your half full glasses of whatever juice.

In summation, you will make more money if you are an optimist.


I can't believe I just wrote this.......

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