(09-10-2015, 06:51 PM)Aaron Wrote:(09-10-2015, 06:23 PM)Oli! Wrote:. . . . you do know what fallacy means right?(09-10-2015, 06:19 PM)Aaron Wrote: "After all, if everyone is too skilled, then is anyone too skilled?"
I'd like to politely state that the above is a logical fallacy.
Everyone can be skilled, that doesn't make no one more skilled than the other (did I just double negative?), that just makes that group of skilled people normal. Being too skilled by definition means you can do something that most normal people cannot.
That doesn't make it a fallacy, you just logically explained what the phrase means.
We've also established throughout this thread that "too skilled" is relative, so the second part also doesn't really relate to anything.
What you said was in fact a logical fallacy. I quoted because I found it weird how people kept using that phrase.
You're agreeing with the phrase by arguing it. Warren explained it much more elegantly, but what it boils down to is this:
Let's replace Skilled with, say, Special, herein defined as Having a Unique Quality (similar to someone being Uniquely Better than Everyone Else contained in the original argument.)
We then say, that "Everyone is Special, therefore No One Is."
This is not a fallacy, because it explains that Everyone has a unique quality that sets them apart from everyone else, therefore making "being special" a uniform trait within a population. Because it is then a uniform trait, No One has the Unique Trait of Being Special. Therefore, no one is Special, and the word becomes meaningless in this context.
If Everyone is Too Skilled, the word "too" implying that they are more skilled than everyone else, then the word loses its relativity, because Everyone possesses that quality.
It can be distilled further into this phrase: If Everyone is <X>, then having <X> quality is Normal (Normal being defined herein as something possessed universally).
If everyone is Highly Skilled, being Highly Skilled is Normal.
If everyone has Red Skin, then having Red Skin is Normal.
If everyone is Special, then Being Special is Normal.
The phrase is, therefore, not a fallacy. It merely states that if everyone can claim to be a cut above the rest, or otherwise distinct because of their skillset, appearance, or otherwise, then no one is a cut above anyone else, or distinct because of their skillset, appearance, or otherwise, because these are things that everyone has. If everyone is Highly Skilled, "Highly" being a relative term which relies on someone who is Lowly Skilled for comparison, then, relatively speaking, no one can have any higher skill than anyone else, because no one has a Lower Skillset for comparison.
The meaning of the phrase, and the argument that you put forth, are indistinguishable.
