From: Ian Goddard (igoddard@erols.com)
Date: Thu Jul 24 1997 - 18:25:47 MDT
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(free to copy nonprofit with attribute)
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T H E F B I 's R I G G E D L O G I C
(c) 1997 Ian Williams Goddard
THE FBI's TWA 800 investigation is being directed by
an outdated, ineffective, and flawed standard of logic.
FBI agent James Kallstrom defined the black-and-white
fallacy of Aristotelian logic the FBI is applying in
their investigation of the TWA 800 crash [1]:
"You don't have a little bit of
forensics... It doesn't go from 0
to 50 percent, it goes from 0 to 100."
Kallstrom is saying that a given piece of wreckage is
either 100% evidence of a crime or it is 0% evidence
of a crime, it is never a fraction of 100%, such as 20%
or 60% evidence of a crime. That expresses the standard
of Aristotelian logic: X is either A or not A, X is not
both A and not A at the same time. That Aristotelian
standard of logic is, however, most often false.
SAY HELLO TO FUZZY LOGIC
Fuzzy logic is the cutting edge in the field of logic.
Fuzzy logic establishes that there are degrees of truth
with respect to a given statement and physical facts. If
I say that a glass of water that is 70% full is "a full
glass," that is 70% true (hence the statement is both
true (70%) and not true (30%) at the same time). [2]
If, in accord with Aristotelian standards, we say that
because the glass is not 100% full, the statement "it's
a full glass" is therefore 0% true, then we discard 100%
of the truth about physical facts that the statement does
contain, which is 70% of the truth it claims to contain.
The fuzzy-logic conclusion "Statement X = 70% true" tells
us more about physical facts than the "X = 0% true" con-
clusion of Aristotelian logic. Fuzzy is more accurate.
The Aristotelian standard of logic the FBI applies dictates
that if the wreckage of TWA 800 contained evidence that sat-
isfied the standard "100% evidence of a missile hit" by
95%, such that there was 95% evidence of a missile hit,
then the FBI would, by the rules Kallstrom has stipulated,
declare that there is 0% evidence of a missile hit, since
if there is not 100%, then there can only be 0% evidence.
I would say that the TWA 800 wreckage satisfies the
standard "100% evidence of a missile hit" by a very
high degree: http://www.erols.com/igoddard/crash.htm
IN CONCLUSION
With Aristotelian logic in hand, the FBI can (a) sweep 99%
of the truth under the rug, (b) claim there is 0% evidence
of a missile hit, and (c) still claim to be truthful, where
a "truthful conclusion" is defined as one derived from the
flawed black-and-white standards of Aristotelian logic. I
believe that's exactly what the FBI is doing, and here's
the evidence: http://www.erols.com/igoddard/journal.htm
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Visit Ian Williams Goddard ------> http://www.erols.com/igoddard
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[1] THE BOSTON GLOBE: Recovery of Debris From
747 is Made a Priority. By Pamela Ferdinand
and Ellen O'Brien, July 29, 1996. Go to:
http://www.globe.com/globe/search/ enter
"747" select 1996, 50, oldest to newest.
[2] LINKS TO FUZZY LOGIC
Fuzzy Logic Newsgroup: comp.ai.fuzzy
Fuzzy Logic Web-pages:
Lessons in: http://www.flll.uni-linz.ac.at/fuzzy/fuzzy.html
Tutorial: http://life.csu.edu.au/complex/tutorials/fuzzy.html
Overview: http://darwin1.ucsd.edu/connect/articles/success/logic.html
Defined: http://tima-cmp.imag.fr/Homepages/firas/fuzzy.html
& Neural Networks: http://www.vjf.com/pub/docs/neural.html
A fuzzy business: http://www.itri.loyola.edu/kb/c5_s4.htm
Fuzzy Logic ftp sites: cair.kaist.ac.kr, ftp.hiof.no
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