Kathy, (01)
In my earlier not on this thread, I made the following
three statements together with the necessary qualifications: (02)
JFS> My claim is that a vague statement and a precise statement
> about the same subject are *equally* true. The following
> three statements are true:
>
> 1. The sun is 93 million miles from the earth with an
> accuracy of about 1 or 2 percent.
>
> 2. At the aphelion, the sun is 152 million kilometers
> from earth, and at the perihelion it is 147 million km
> from earth.
>
> 3. The mean distance from the earth to the sun is
> 149.6 million kilometers.
>
> If anything, statement #1 is better qualified, since the
> expected error is stated explicitly. However, in the
> absence of other qualification, the default error is
> one-half of the last significant digit (i.e., at most
> 500,000 miles for point #2 and 50,000 miles for #3). (03)
With the qualifications stated above, they pass the
clarity test: (04)
KBL> A statement satisfies the clarity test if someone in
> possession of all actual facts, past present and future,
> could unambiguously state whether or not the statement
> was true. (05)
I admit that in an earlier note I said "about 93 million miles",
but without stating the error bounds. (06)
> Perhaps you have a definition in mind for what it means,
> precisely, for the sun to be "about" 93 million miles
> from the Earth. (07)
If I needed the value for any specific reason, I would ask
the person made the statement about the error bound. If there
was no one to ask, I would assume the default value of one
half the last significant unit (in this case, that would be
500,000). That would in fact be a correct assumption for
the mean value of the distance of the earth to the sun. (08)
John (09)
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