A Few Good Anomalists: You Can’t Handle the Vacuous Truth

“I’m not a conspiracy theorist – I’m a conspiracy analyst” – Gore Vidal

Nope, no conspiracy here…

In logic, a “vacuous truth” is a statement that ascribes a property to an empty set, which is tons of fun at parties and makes for a lively conversation, but otherwise imparts no knowledge.  If I say, “No dogs in the room are brown”, whenever no dogs are in the room, the statement is true.  Of course, whenever no dogs are in the room, it is equally valid to say, “No dogs in the room aren’t brown”.  Thus, you end up able to say, “No dogs in the room are or aren’t brown”.  Totally true, and not very helpful.  There are more technical definitions in formal logic and pure mathematics, but if you are engaged in either enterprise, you’re probably not allowed access to the internet, or forks really, from your padded cell…