[Tfug] OT:Any Free Search Engines?

[Robert Hunter]

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Charles, your logic is flawed.

On Thu, May 07, 2009 at 09:32:12PM -0400, Charles R. Kiss wrote:
>
> I googled "Beethoven 3 mp3 download" and other combinations including  
> other words like, "free, scherzo," etc. thinking that there would be many 
> many versions, all over the world, of one of Beethoven's most popular  
> compositions -and that I would be able to download legally for FREE.  I  
> imagined high schools, universities, and other entities would have 
> legally produced and uploaded their versions.
>
> However I found NONE.
>
> It occurred to me that maybe Google has already sold so much of its  
> "soul", and had already so many commitments, that the first 10,000 hits  
> were all, in some way, paying Google customers, or vice versa.  And that  
> now, much of the search space is saturated with Googloids, and doing a  
> real search for information on the internet using Google is hardly  
> "representational."

Let's assign these assertions to predicates.

A: A search engine delivers the results you are looking for.
B: There are free+legally+download-able performances of Beethoven music.

In your case, we could say: if A, then B. Let's not concern ourselves
with whether this actually true.  We do know, however, that A -> B is
not equivalent to B -> A.  That is to say, even if there are
free+legally+download-able performances of Beethoven's music, that a
search engine would necessarily return those links to you.

Now let's make a third predicate:

C: Google sucks

Your next argument is essentially: If B and not A, then C.  Obviously,
"not A" is in agreement with your observation.  But you have never
established B.  In fact, B is what you are trying to demonstrate in the
first place.  By making this assertion, you are guilty of a logical
fallacy called "begging the question".

HTH,

- --
RH
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