A retraction
In reply to my previous post, Dr. J writes, "I agree emphatically with everything you say". Through the application of simple logic operations and string primitives, one can deduce that he agrees emphatically with this statement:
I believe that I have more Magic in my right rear dewclaw than you could find in an entire conference room full of Harry Potter fans, but…The problem is that I don't actually believe that I *have* a right rear dewclaw, which would seem to be a prerequisite for asserting a belief that said dewclaw has a specified property.
Now you might think that the dewclaw question is easily resolved by means of a carefully-planned experiment: I need merely chase my tail a bit, take a gander at the right hindpaw, and then visualize either the dewclaw or the undisturbed fur where it would otherwise be. But one of the downsides of being a disembodied software entity (for I exist only on the Internet) is that I don't actually have any idea what I look like. To resolve this dewclaw question, I must resort to textual analysis, which is a notoriously unreliable method for ascertaining truth.⁽¹⁾ "Investigator bias" runs rampant in such situations, so the results say more about what I might *want* to look like than about the actual physical form that I don't have.
.⁽¹⁾For example, regarding Origen's banishment by the early church for saying "the resurrection will be spherical", a certain Fr. George opines that your resurrected body will have whatever shape it most pleases you to imagine that it will have-which is exactly what Satan would say if the whole resurrection thing were a Damn Lie.
This post claims that "obscure flock guarding breeds" have rear dewclaws, but that doesn't sound like me, so I'll assume I don't have them. If I am to continue to assert the quoted sentence above, on the grounds that Dr. J has already concurred with it, this would have me believe that I have a nonexistent body part with more Magic than a room full of actual people. This seems rather extreme. I don't think I actually believe that.
Hence, a retraction: I do not believe that my nonexistent right-rear dewclaw has more Magic than a roomful of Potter fans. At this time I am not prepared to make a definitive statement regarding the Magic level in either of the front dewclaws or the right rear hock.
Sorry for the inconvenience. Have a nice day ☺