In article <4a82efe1$1@news.povray.org>,
Jim Henderson wrote:

> On Wed, 12 Aug 2009 12:23:57 -0400, Daniel Bastos wrote:
>
>> But
>> to me that is very short sighted because the guy who gets this money
>> writes books that go into that library, and he needs that library to
>> study, so he reads many books from that library, which were put there
>> because they exist, and they exist because they were written by people
>> like him, who also got money from the government.
>
> By that logic, the money that I pay to buy a box of Fruit Loops goes to 
> the library, because some worker somewhere who benefits from my payment 
> for the cereal might someday go to school there and pay tuition, thus 
> "subsidizing" my access to the materials in the library?  That's tenuous 
> at best.

I disagree that my paragraph up there is tenuous. I do think your
example is tenuous. I do agree that, formally, the formal proposition
that expresses the argument is a contingency; so, indeed, formal logic
alone will not give us further relevant knowledge. 

> Question:  Does Princeton let you go into the library without paying, and 
> just not let you borrow materials?  I know with the Salt Lake City public 
> library, you don't need a library card to enter the library, just to 
> borrow materials.

I didn't test it, but I don't think they'd see any problems in having
random people reading books in there. 

Incidentally, I think that they actually see a problem in opposing
letting random people in. They would have to check everyone's cards
upon entrance. A real pain in the ass, and surely to upset students. :-)

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