Talk:False Dilemma

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What is gray?

OK, black and white, two choices. How about gray? Not only three, four, but infinite number of choices. Right? What if no matter what kind of gray, it is always a mixture of black and white? Then how many choice is there? --Juvenis 19:54, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

In a "false dilemna," the person is allowing only two consequences, (the "black" and "white") when, in reality, there are more than two consequences (the "gray"). False dilemmas are used by a person to coach another person into making a decision that the first person wants the other to make, partly by eliminating all other choices save for the preferred choice, and an unpleasant alternative. In other words, let's say that you're shopping for flowers to brighten up your garden: I then go to you and say, "Hey, Juvenis, why don't you shop at my nursery, my flowers are so much better than the crummy plants that my competitor, Flower Joe, sells." Then you remember that Home Depot is having a plant sale, and that you also have a giftcard for Blooming Betty's Houseplant Store.--Mr A. 20:50, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

How about if the flowers in the Houseplant Store and in the Home Depot are both imported from yours and flower Joe's? I am, in fact, still facing choices of the mixed two. This means, the apparent alternative choices of gray are not independent. --Juvenis 22:40, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

What about the old Icecream Shoppe dilemma of:

"You can only have Chocolate or Vanilla"

"What about Strawberry, Neapolitan or Rocky Road?"--Mr A. 23:54, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

In this case, we have to be 100% sure that strawberry, neapolitan and rocky road are not possible to be made from any combination of chocolate and vanilla. Even in straight foward chemistry, we are not sure that it is not possible. Needless to say other murky situations. In the B/W argument, we may also easily question: what about red?, or green? But it is easy to see these are questions beyond the point of argument (I am not a philosopher, I believe there is a term or a theorem for this situation). The point is: when a person is allowed to chose one out of two, it may not sound that bad. In other words, the dilemma is not really false. Because he could be given 5 or 6 more choices, but in fact, the additional options are not really valid to the intention. They are only confusions and deceptions. In real life, many important issues have, in fact, only two basic end components. Examples are like creation/evolution, good/evil, love/hate, beautiful/ugly etc. In these issues, view points simiar to strawberry, neapolitan and rocky road in your scenario, may give people different tastes, but do not really present true alternatives. --Juvenis 02:19, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Do realize that some double dilemma situations genuinely have only two choices, and in others, there are supposed more than two choices. And in some cases, there is supposed to be no choice in the matter.--Mr A. 03:12, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Agree. --Juvenis 03:16, 27 November 2006 (UTC)