[EM] Markus contd, July 10

[MIKE OSSIPOFF]

Markus, who apparently doesns't have anything else to do, wrote:

Dear participants,

Mike Ossipoff wrote (7 July 2001):
>So are you making the silly claim that when there's a pair-tie,
>then initially there's no opinion at all? In fact, then there
>can never be an opinion, unless you also believe that Condorcet
>wanted us to write an X>Y opinion when there isn't one.

Even when there are only two candidates X and Y and there is a
pairwise tie between these two candidates, exactly one of these
two candidates must be elected. This is a matter of fact and not
a "silly claim".

I reply:

Markus, if you'll take a better look at the paragraph that you quoted,
I didn't say that it's a silly claim that someone must be elected.
I said that it's a silly claim that there's no opinion at all. You'd
quoted Condorcet as saying that there's either a possible opinion or
an impossible opinion. Also, as I said in that paragraph, if there's
an initial pairwise tie, then there never can be an opinion, according
to your interpretation, unless Condorcet would write a proposition
where none exists.

In other words, instead of responsibly answering what I said, you
refute something that I didn't say, and (below) repeat your same
statements.

Markus continues:

When the opinion "X > Y" and the opinion "Y > X"
each have the same probability, then this doesn't mean that
"there's no opinion at all".

I reply:

I thought that a proposition was a public expression that X>Y.
If the voters return a pair-tie between X & Y, they're not giving
us a proposition. But if you, creatively, call that 2 propositions,
instead of no proposition, and so there are 2 corresponding opinions,
then there can be a possible opinion and an impossible opinion and
an impossible one, and so you can throw out the impossible one and
keep the impossible opinion, which means that you're writing in
a proposition that the people never expressed. That's pretty questionable.

But then of course it's no more questionable than your strange notion
of what "eliminate" means.

Markus continues:

Mike Ossipoff wrote (7 July 2001):
>Did Condorcet say that there have to always be n(n-1)/2
>propositions, and that a proposition has to say one candidate
>is better than another?

Condorcet explicitely wrote that there are exactly 2^(n*(n-1)/2)
opinions. Therefore, it is clear (1) that an opinion consists of
exactly n*(n-1)/2 propositions and (2) that a pairwise tie is not
a proposition.

I reply:

Ok, I'll take your word it that he wrote that. If that's true, it means
that there are a few contradictions or ambiguities in Condorcet's
writing. But we already knew that.

This started with your unusual definition of "eliminate". Your definition
still bears no resemblence to what that word means to anyone else.

Mike Ossipoff



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