Outwitters 20Q!

[Kamikaze28]

(01-19-2013 11:38 PM)TheQwertiest Wrote:  not sure if bluffing or actually understood that paper..

I've read the paper you are referring to. In my opinion, the paper states that language is illogical and therefore answering a negated question in the following manner is acceptable:

Q: Is Alfonso not coming to the party?
A: Yes, he is coming to the party!

From my point of view, the question is an inquiry about the state of something. It contains within itself a statement whose validity is being checked. The question in this case posits the statement "Alfonso is not coming to the party". Answering this question with "Yes" or "No" expresses the validity of this inherent statement. The answer given above (which is linguistically accepted as valid) is therefore illogical. If Alfonso is coming to the party, then the question must be answered with "No".

You can call this fencing at windmills, but the fact remains: if you as respondent claim to be able to answer any question (negated or not-negated) with 'no', then we can just change the rules to "You can only ask 20 questions." instead of "Only 20 of your questions may be answered with 'No'.".