Quote Originally Posted by marct View Post
One of these days, we have to sit down and do a comparison between formal logic and semantic or emotional logic - preferably combined with a series of optics experiments .
Only if those optics experiments involve aiming and projecting some pointy objects with flights at a bristle board (AKA a round of darts) in an atmosphere conducive to quaffing fermented malted effervescent beverages (AKA beer)

Actually, I don't disagree with you at all. As far as formal logic is concerned, and especially that based on crisp sets, his "experiment" is junk. The crucial point, and the reason why I tossed it up in his thread, was his use of an experimental / experiential test as a way to reinforce his "authority". Did it "prove" that waterboarding was "torture"? Not in any hypothetically objective sense. Then again, "torture" is not a thing that can be perceived as objectively existing in reality (for an analog, see all the problems with defining "abuse"). "Torture" (and "abuse") are socially constructed and negotiated conceptual constructs that have no objective and absolute existence (i.e. they are not crisp sets or objects existing outside of a socially constructed context).

What I was noting that Hitchens was doing was invoking a particular epistemological stance (or ploy, take your pick ) in an ongoing debate.
I agree. What concerns me is how many folks may have been taken in by the ploy.