What is equivocation and give an example?
Equivocation can have one of several meanings: Equivocation is the technical name for a logic fallacy, where an argument is made with a term which changes semantics in the course of the argument. Equivocation in the context of information theory measures the amount of information that is contained in a random variable or other unknown quantity, given the knowledge over another random variable. My favorite example of equivocation comes from my graduate logic professor, Dr. Johnstone (Penn State): Hot dogs are better than nothing Nothing is better than steak. Therefore, hot dogs are better than steak. The oddity of the conclusion should tell us that something has gone seriously awry with the argument – even though both premises are, on first blush, true. What has gone wrong – “nothing” is used in two different senses in the premises. In the first premise, “nothing” means something like “nothing to eat at all,” while in the second premise “nothing” means something like “no possible food c
