• @[email protected]
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    9610 months ago

    No. It is equal to “if not B, then not A.” You’re welcome for doing your logic 101 homework for you.

    • monotremata
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      410 months ago

      Honestly what the homework is probably looking for is that it’s equivalent to “B or not A.” But yeah.

      • pruwyben
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        1010 months ago

        You left out the “not” part - “If not pizza lunch, then not Tuesday” does indeed work.

      • @[email protected]
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        10 months ago

        Ya wrong.

        If Tuesday, then pizza. And, if Friday, then pizza.

        The contrapositive : if not pizza, then not Tuesday and not Friday.

        What day is it? We’re not having pizza. So it’s not Tuesday or Friday.

        Google contrapositives then holla back

      • Kogasa
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        510 months ago

        Using standard definitions from propositional logic they are equivalent.

  • Ragdoll X
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    10 months ago

    An example of why this is incorrrect.

    If a card is the ace of spades, it is black.

    A card is black if and only if it is the ace of spades.

    There are other conditions under which B (a card is black) can happen, so the second statement is not true.

    A conclusion that would be correct is “If a card is not black, it is not the ace of spades.”. The condition is that if A is true B will also always be true, so if B is false we can be sure that A is false as well - i.e. “If not B, not A”.

  • @[email protected]
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    10 months ago

    If Nazi, then fascist = true

    Fascist, if and only Nazi = not true

    If car, then vehicle = true

    Vehicle if and only if car = not true

      • @[email protected]
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        710 months ago

        I just figured with Lemmy’s interest in politics it seemed like an obvious example. I threw in the car because I didn’t want to be that guy who makes everything about nazis…

    • @[email protected]OP
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      110 months ago

      If car, then vehicle = true

      Car if and only if vehicle = true.

      Is this correct?

      Therefore “If A then B” = “A if and only if B” (or “If B then A” = “B if and only if A”)?

      • @[email protected]
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        10 months ago

        B can still be true when a is false. iff means that b can only be true when a is true.

        Also, the equivalent statement is.

        vehicle if and only if car.

        not

        car only if vehicle

        since a truck is a vehicle, the statement is false.

        Somewhat wrong above:

        A B a iff b

        T T T

        T F F

        F T F

        F F T

        look online for truth tables.

      • @[email protected]
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        110 months ago

        You’d have to firm up your definition of car and vehicle before you could decide that one. Does a hot wheels car count as a car? Does a vehicle have to be large enough to move people or freight?

        • @[email protected]
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          10 months ago

          Don’t confuse this guy with ontological questions.

          This is straight truth table level stuff.

  • @[email protected]
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    1710 months ago

    You’ve have some examples, but in case they are not clear enough:

    If [you have AIDS] then [you are unwell]

    [You are unwell] if and only if [you have AIDS]

    The first one is not the same as the second. Why? There are plenty of ways to be unwell, without necessary developing AIDS.

    The first statement only defines one possible path to B, not all of them.

      • BananaTrifleViolin
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        10 months ago

        Actually a good example:

        • If you have AIDs (A) then you have HIV (B). True
        • You have HIV (B) if, and only if, you have AIDS (A). Not true
        • If you don’t have HIV (B), then you don’t have AIDs (A). True, and the actual inverse of “If A then B”; which is “If not B, then not A”
        • AmidFuror
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          510 months ago

          It’s important to stress the “full blown” modifier in any example.

          • @[email protected]
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            10 months ago

            Substitute common sense terms. If I say “if it is an apple, it is a fruit”, does it then follow that a thing is a fruit if and only if it is an apple? No. Lots of other things are fruit without being an apple.

              • @[email protected]
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                10 months ago

                If and only if is a biconditional. “b if and only if a” means “if b then a” AND “b only if a”. B only if A here means “It is an apple only if is a fruit”, in other words, “if it is a fruit, it could only be an apple.” Which ain’t right.

                B -> A (if B, then A) (if apple, then fruit, correct)

                B <-> A (B if and only if A) (if apple, then fruit, AND if fruit, then apple, incorrect).

          • @[email protected]
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            210 months ago

            If B then A is the same as if X then Y is the same as if A then B. They are saying it’s the same as the OP. Changing the letters around doesn’t change the meaning since the letters are just placeholders.

            Now if you said If A then B AND If B then A as one it wouldn’t be the same because A and B would have to keep the same meaning.

          • @[email protected]
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            110 months ago

            I mean it is the definition of “if and only if”. And by commutativity we also know that A iff B is equal to B iff A

              • @[email protected]
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                110 months ago

                Yeah if vs iff can be confusing at first. Trying to understand it with normal grammar doesn’t work right. It’s a lot more helpful to grok the symbols and so the truth tables by hand to see how they fit together

  • @[email protected]
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    1410 months ago

    If A, then B

    If Not B, then Not A

    If it’s raining then the grass is wet, but you can’t tell if it’s raining if the grass is wet, because of say, a hose or sprinkler.

    All that you can tell is that if the grass is dry, then it is not raining, and I that’s called a contrapositive.

  • @[email protected]
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    810 months ago

    if youre doing homework, i recommend writing out truth tables for the statements and comparing, gives you a bit more insight into the statement truth conditions

  • @[email protected]
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    10 months ago

    “If X is cat, then X is mammal” =?> “X is mammal if and only if X is cat”

    Obviously doesn’t hold: What if X doge?

  • StiltedCurler
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    710 months ago

    Nope. The first statement doesn’t exclude any paths to B

    • @[email protected]OP
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      110 months ago

      I think I understand now, but what has left me scratching my nose (metaphorically):

      Why is it called “B if and only if A”, if what it really means is “B only if A and vice versa”? (Am I correct in thinking that’s what it means?)

      I just don’t understand how that translates grammatically. To me, “B if and only if A” sounds the same as “B only if A”. I can accept that they mean different things in the context of logic, just like I can assign any meaning to any label, like I could say that “dog” now means “kite” in a certain context. But it seems unintuitive and doesn’t really make sense to me. Does that make sense?

      • Ook the Librarian
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        10 months ago

        “If A then B” means if A is true, then B is guaranteed to be true. Note that if B is true and A is false, “if A then B” is still true.

        “B only if A” means the only way for B to be true is for A to be true. It’s weird, but it has the inverse truth table as “(not A) and B”.

  • krdo
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    110 months ago

    The first statement only tells you when B is true. It says nothing about when it is false. The second statement both tells you when B is true (if A) and when it is not (only if A). Therefore, the two statements cannot be equal.