Sturgeon's Law: "Nothing is always absolutely so" - huh?

Factual Questions
21

[QUOTE=Polycarp]
Arthur C. Clarke, of course, did actually promulgate three laws – though the first two are obverse and reverse of the same broad concept.

I. If a distinguished elderly scientist states without equivocation that something is possible, he is almost certainly right.

II. If a distinguished elderly scientist states without equivocation that something is impossible, he is almost certainly wrong.

III. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
[/QUOTE]

Ah, my esteemed fellow correspondent – but you inadvertently skipped the actual Second Clarke Law while splitting the first. Which everybody does because it is not as oratorical as than the first and not as pithy as the thrird. The recently-departed gent’s actual set were:

  1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

*2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible. *

  1. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic
    He also added a corollary of the first: “For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert”
22

[QUOTE=KneadToKnow]
But, if it is itself not always completely true, then doesn’t that make it always completely true?

Now, listen carefully, Norman: I am lying.
[/QUOTE]

Ah, yes. And therein lies the rub, and the rum.

It reminds me of the time I pressed Mrs. Hoppes on her statement, “Never is always an adverb.” I asked her what the subject of the sentence was, and if that didn’t make never a noun.

She gave a long sigh. She looked at the ceiling, then at me. She became very serious. “Listen, lad. You shouldn’t go perigrinating into paroxisms of paradox. You can run in logical circles until next Wednesday, and you’ll only get a headache. I’m starting to get one myself, and I have changed my mind about where I’m going after work.” I had never seen that expression on her face before. :eek: