non sequitur
I entered work today, and standing before the help desk was one of the gadflies of the department we serve. I thought, "Oh boy," as an impending sense of doom settled over my caffeine buzz. She left just as I entered- yay- and milords 
mqstout and Josh flipped a total of four birds at her back. "Oh boy" indeed. I won't go into details, but the thing that really stood out to us from that little ordeal was the phrase "An empty box means nothing," which said gadfly fondly spouted about a dozen times during her rant.
"An empty box means nothing." Oooohkay. Let's play with that one in some deductive proofs, shall we?
*note: Recall that if you reach a contradiction in a proof, you're allowed to assert anything as true afterward.
Proof 1
P1. An empty box = Nothing
P2. Nothing = the presence of no things
THEREFORE An empty box contains no things
P3. Air and dust are things
P4. An empty box contains air and dust
--CONTRADICTION--
THEREFORE ((insert anything here, yay! =D ))
Congratulations, you can now prove that Elvis is alive or that newts are the ultimate form of life on Earth, if you so desire.
Proof 2
P1. An empty box = Nothing
P2. A box is composed of itself and its contents
P3. An empty box = cardboard (composition) + air + dust (contents)
THEREFORE Cardboard + Dust + Air = Nothing
P4. The bible says, "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return."
THEREFORE We (humanity) = Dust
THEREFORE We (humanity) = A component of Nothing
P5. The basic needs of human life = Air + Food + Water
P6. Air = A component of Nothing
THEREFORE Humanity and that which it needs for sustenance = Components of Nothing.
We're not even wholly nothing, we're just a part of it. How depressing.
Premise 4, of course, assumes the bible to be a credible source of information (which I think is a crock of shit, but that's another argument for another time).
We can replace P4 thus and reach a slightly different conclusion:
Proof 2b
P4. From Macbeth's "Out, out, brief candle" speech: "Life... signif[ies] nothing." In other words, Life = Nothing
P5. An empty box = Nothing
THEREFORE Life = An empty box
...Yeesh.
mqstout and Josh flipped a total of four birds at her back. "Oh boy" indeed. I won't go into details, but the thing that really stood out to us from that little ordeal was the phrase "An empty box means nothing," which said gadfly fondly spouted about a dozen times during her rant. "An empty box means nothing." Oooohkay. Let's play with that one in some deductive proofs, shall we?
*note: Recall that if you reach a contradiction in a proof, you're allowed to assert anything as true afterward.
Proof 1
P1. An empty box = Nothing
P2. Nothing = the presence of no things
THEREFORE An empty box contains no things
P3. Air and dust are things
P4. An empty box contains air and dust
--CONTRADICTION--
THEREFORE ((insert anything here, yay! =D ))
Congratulations, you can now prove that Elvis is alive or that newts are the ultimate form of life on Earth, if you so desire.
Proof 2
P1. An empty box = Nothing
P2. A box is composed of itself and its contents
P3. An empty box = cardboard (composition) + air + dust (contents)
THEREFORE Cardboard + Dust + Air = Nothing
P4. The bible says, "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return."
THEREFORE We (humanity) = Dust
THEREFORE We (humanity) = A component of Nothing
P5. The basic needs of human life = Air + Food + Water
P6. Air = A component of Nothing
THEREFORE Humanity and that which it needs for sustenance = Components of Nothing.
We're not even wholly nothing, we're just a part of it. How depressing.
Premise 4, of course, assumes the bible to be a credible source of information (which I think is a crock of shit, but that's another argument for another time).
We can replace P4 thus and reach a slightly different conclusion:
Proof 2b
P4. From Macbeth's "Out, out, brief candle" speech: "Life... signif[ies] nothing." In other words, Life = Nothing
P5. An empty box = Nothing
THEREFORE Life = An empty box
...Yeesh.
