Horse legs - proof by intimidation

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I just gleaned this from the Internet. I don't know who wrote it, but it sure reminds me of the kind of reasoning widely used by the nasty faction of Objectivists.

Every Horse has an Infinite Number of Legs (proof by intimidation):

Horses have an even number of legs.  Behind they have two legs, and in front they have fore-legs.  This makes six legs, which is certainly an odd number of legs for a horse.  But the only number that is both even and odd is infinity.  Therefore, horses have an infinite number of legs.  

Now to show this for the general case, suppose that somewhere, there is a horse that has a finite number of legs.  But that is a horse of another color, and by the [above] lemma ["All horses are the same color"], that does not exist.

That's axiomatic, too!

(It must be because of the Brandens...)

//;-))

Michael

[C. Jordan]

I feel stupid.

Why did I bother to ride my bike a mile up the road, to inspect an actual horse? Why did I not take the above syllogism at face value? I feel that I've lost context. Let me think. What did Leonard Peikoff do when he lost face before Ayn Rand? Oh, yes, he wrote a paper of self-criticism.

Let me do that, as soon as the World Cup coverage is over.