>I was not confused. Jafo and I just disagree. <
Janie, an disagreement connotes one of three conditions.
1. Somebody has their facts wrong, or has insufficient information.
2. Somebody has formulated an opinion based on insufficient data.
In either case, somebody is confused.
3. Somebody is being contentious for its own sake.
I don't believe the third condition applies in this case. You are both sincere in your beliefs and opinions. Therefore, there is confusion between you.
Let's take your disagreement with Jaffo out of the world of high-tech and look at it as a semantic exercise:
An event (X) has transpired.
Person A claims a particular causal source for the event. (i.e.: this caused that to happen.)
Person B claims it is impossible for that to be the causal source because it requires that (Y), a new set of conditions, exist (i.e., this can only cause that to happen if thus & such happens).
Person A responds that those new conditions are not required for causation.
There is no reconciling the two claims. Both parties are arguing with a different set of facts,* and are, in effect, not communicating. Lack of communication is synonymous with confusion.
Even worse, they are conducting this argument in front of an audience which doesn't understand the language they are using. So he...uh, they...are really confused. But that's a different issue.
*Semantically speaking, a "fact" is merely a datum that purports to reflect the truth or falsity of something. If you say the moon is made of Swiss cheese, and I say it's cheddar, semantically we have both stated facts.
