The "or"

Should I buy a guitar or should I buy a piano?

Or. What does it mean? In common English, it means either one or the other. It means I am going out tonight or I am staying in. It implies a choice between two options, not the possibility of both. It means I should be either a guitar or a piano.

In the world of logic (according to my Patterns of Reasoning prof), the "or" is represented by a wedge "v" and represents all possibilities where at least one statement on either side of the wedge ("disjunct") is true. So, if the left disjunct is true, the statement is true. If the right disjunct is true, the statement is true. There is not a necessity that the opposite disjunct be false. In other words, BOTH can be true. So the answer to an "or" question can be yes.

Reread the first sentence: Should I buy a guitar or should I buy a piano? Yes.

Yes, you should buy one of them. It may not have been what I meant when I asked, in fact often times people are teased for answering "or" questions with a yes or a no, but it is a correct answer. At least one of the disjuncts is true.

The English major in me is a little bit weirded out by this concept, and I definitely voiced my confusion in class. How could any sentence more emphatically imply one or the other but not both than by saying "either a or b"? It was pointed out that one side being true does not necessarily imply that the other is false, unless the statements are a tautology, that is the encompass all possible outcomes (such as "a or not a" or "it is raining or it is not raining").

It seems to me that this has great implications for life. Imagine what it would be like if I was right and you could be right too. Obviously statements like "there is a god or there is not a god" cannot both be true, but there are other things that do not necessarily have to contradict.

Take for instance the concept of power. A lot of people view power as a finite resource, that is if I have power I don't want to give you any, because that means I lose some. The problem with that is that it is not true. If there is a disruptive student in a class who is always trying to control others and is simply belligerent, giving that student some power might help. I heard a story about this where the teacher wanted to do a presentation about a certain geographical area on Monday, so on Friday the teacher asked that student what she wanted to learn. The presentation was largely shaped by the student's input, but the teacher's end of teaching about that region was met. The teacher had the power to choose the topic, but the student had the power to choose the topic.

How many times to we assume that what we believe or how we do things is right because "it makes sense," "it's the best way," or "there can only be on right answer."

Or all of the above.