Which is correct-the glass is half empty or the glass is half full? Thought to ponder.

[debm55]

[Ocelot II]

1. I never thought it was important enough to think about because both things are true.

It's sort of like Schrödinger's cat.

[debm55]

5. Yes, it is--you don't know until you open the box. I always thought that was sort of depressing to

think about or ponder. But if you are having a party, do you say to your guest "Your glass is half empty, so I will fill it", or do you let the guest finish the drink entirely because it's still half full?

[Ocelot II]

8. Depends on whether the guest wants it to be filled.

[debm55]

10. Then the glass was half empty.

[moniss]

26. I had no idea

he had a cat. I never saw anything except Snoopy and Woodstock. I always just assumed he kept playing piano while fending off Lucy.

[bottomofthehill]

2. Both things can be true.

At the exact same time

[debm55]

11. But what is it for you? Half empty? Half full?

[Chainfire]

32. For me it would be half a glass. Perspective as to whether it is empty of full is irrelevant.

[JoeOtterbein]

3. Just fill the glass to the brim with...

...beer!

[debm55]

12. But Joe, if you drink half of it --is it still half full or is it now half empty?

[Irish_Dem]

6. if you're thirsty it is half empty. If you are not thirsty it is half full.

[debm55]

14. You got a point there. But should a host or hostess fill it to the top again or let it go empty?

[Irish_Dem]

16. I would leave beverages in reach and let each person decide how much to drink.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

7. Be an engineer. The glass is twice as large as it needs to be for the task. . . nt

[debm55]

13. But what about the contents?

[Bernardo de La Paz]

15. The contents of the glass have a volume such that the glass is twice

... twice as large as it needs to be to hold the contents, whether it is half full or half empty.

[The Magistrate]

19. There's A Certain Sort Of Optimist, Sir, Looks At the Glass And Says 'You Gonna Finish That?'

[unc70]

20. Yes. They need a better selection of stemware

[usonian]

9. It's both (the middle way)

The value consists of what's inside, not its measure.

P.S. I have been in damned if you do and damned if you don't situations.
In that case, the glass is half broken.

[if..fish..had..wings]

17. The glass is full

Half with liquid, half with air

[keithbvadu2]

18. Half?

[moniss]

21. Technically it is doubtful that either one is correct

because of the concept of infinity in mathematics. You could approach half from either way but there would always be a smaller division of the distance between any two points and the liquid and measurement could be favoring one way or the other. There is also the issue of evaporation of the liquid which would be somewhat variable over any period of time unless the glass is in a tightly controlled environment. Because we would not necessarily see the evaporation visually we would be estimating at best when the quantity of water molecules in the glass is at half volume of the glass. But even in a controlled evaporation scenario we still have issues. It brings us back to the issue of infinity because the actual volume of the glass is not able to be calculated to 100% accuracy either because that calculation is done by measurement between points and so we would only have an approximation. Then comes our old friend the irrational number Pi which is used in the volume calculations for cylinders. Even if the cylinder is considered to be perfectly even in construction, for the sake of calculations, the lack of finite calculation because of the "never ending calculation of the value of Pi means we can never have a finite calculation of the volume. That means we cannot answer precisely as to what is the precise half volume because we cannot know the exact number for the full volume. We also would be challenged to have any scenario where we have a perfectly constructed container that doesn't have some variance in the interior dimensions or height and that would make any calculation an approximation also. Even if we tried to calculate by number of molecules of water we still are not going to be exact because of the variances in the container calculations. There is only ever the theoretical volume calculations calculated to a certain number of decimal places but a never ending number of decimal places.

But fear not because there is a way out of the dilemma posed by this question and it falls back to language and reason to soothe our worried minds. It seems we are asking that question about the status of the contents in the glass because we want accuracy. Given that as the case the most accurate statement is that "some of the contents are gone and some remain." A scientific and linguistic certainty about the contents of said container. At last the answer to the age old question. Plato weeps.

[debm55]

22. Is it more like being a pessimist and and an optimist. moniss, thank you for your post.

[moniss]

24. A good way to look at it

also. Sort of like trying to have a balanced life.

[malthaussen]

34. But, "some of the contents are gone" assumes that the glass was once full.

This may not be a safe assumption, though a reasonable one. More accurate to say "The glass currently holds about half the volume of liquid it is capable of holding."

And Plato can go back into his cave and do "Deformed Rabbit," it's my favorite.

-- Mal

[marble falls]

23. All depends what's In the glass. Half full of cod oil, half empty of bourbon.

[moniss]

25. That's a seriously

bad cocktail. I'm not going to that bar.

[we can do it]

27. It's both half full and half empty🍻

[Wounded Bear]

28. The optimist and the pessimist, the difference is very droll...

the optimist sees the donut, the pessimist sees the hole.

Ogden Nash, IIRC

[Harker]

29. That might depend on whether the glass is having something poured in or poured out. n/t

[zanana1]

30. The glass is partially filled.

[Ptah]

31. Is it a glass if it's made from plastic?

[malthaussen]

33. I once wrote an entire essay on the subject.

I won't duplicate it here (tl;dr), but the theme was that the state of the glass must be determined as a variable state ("Fluid Dynamics," I called it, very witty), ie: we can only tell what the state of the glass is now by knowing what it's prior state was. If full, it is now half-emptied, if empty, it is now half-filled.

Then I went off on a riff about the old idea that something has an End, or purpose, and the glass must be measured in how well it fills that end. The end of a glass is to be full of liquid, so one that has half its liquid is half-full. Not everybody likes scholastic reasoning, though.

I closed by quoting a friend of mine, who when asked the question by a psychologist, drank the water and said "It's full of air, now."

-- Mal