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Some very common fallacies on /tg/

No.14787588 View ViewReplyOriginalReport
The arbitrary exclusion fallacy e.g. "Magic doesn't obey the laws of physics."

Scientists learned a very long time ago that arbitrary exclusion leads to semantic stupidity. Consider if the discovery of electromagnetism was arbitrarily excluded from the definition of physics because a newly discovered phenomenon is never incorporated into a system before its discovery. A new word would be required to describe physics and electromagnetism in order for engineers to be effective in communicating about both in the same project. Then, when a new discovery is made, that discovery and foo would require a new word to describe the set of them both. As you can see, immutability has communicative utility. While there is nothing strictly incorrect with arbitrary exclusion, using an arbitrary exclusion as part of a logical argument is a fallacy because the result will be an arbitrary conclusion.

The falsely inverted function fallacy. e.g "skill will overcome balance problems."

The relationship between dependent and independent variables is one of a return value and one of an argument. Overall character effectiveness is a return value dependent on player skill and optimization. While an inverted function is theoretically possible where player skill is dependent on optimization and effectiveness, where effectiveness is a constant, this is logically different from reality. For example, Tails follows Sonic the Hedgehog. While it is theoretically possible for Sonic the Hedgehog to follow Tails, that is not the case in the real Sonic game. Player skill does not follow balance.