Is the Glass Half Full or Half Empty?

Once we suspend the laws of physics, does it really matter.

I'm mostly a pessimist and a cynic, but I never refer to a glass as half empty.

Empty is nothing. It's hard to describe something with nothing.

A pessimist is rarely disappointed.

OK,

I'm not that bad.

To indicate what a time sink the internet can be, I just learned two new skills: how to break the bottom out of a glass bottle, and how to cross one eye.

I've learn that half empty glasses can be extremely dangerous.

It's just one more reason to leave a good tip, when your waitress/waiter keeps your drink refilled!

"There are, it has been said, two types of people in the world. There are those who say: this glass is half full. And then there are those who say: this glass is half empty. The world belongs, however, to those who can look at the glass and say: What's up with this glass? Excuse me? Excuse me? This is my glass? I don't think so. My glass was full! And it was a bigger glass!" Terry Pratchett

Nicely put steamerandy.

Either is the halfway point of progress and depends on what your goal is.

I seriously doubt that many people are conscious of this logic, but, it makes sense to me.

Sorta follows the logic of the weatherman. It is partly sunny during the day, but partly partly cloudy at night.

Thinking about it more. It is another type of individual. A goal oriented personality.

Emptying a glass is a noble goal.

Filling it is an enabler.

I totally agree with your logic. I have always looked at it as am I drinking it or pouring it. But I do believe that the condition is that you walk into a room and the glass is on the table. You have no knowledge as to how the level in the glass got to that state.

To me it half full!

And yes how one would perceive the state of the glass under those condition is considered a personality trait. Negative or positive.

Just avoid having a personality.....is that possible I wonder?

Simple...

An accountant says, "this glass is half full."

A solicitor says, "this glass is half empty."

An engineer says, "this glass is wrong size."

jt.

I've been slowly torturing a centipede for the past 98 days...
It's on its last legs now.

"I've been slowly torturing a centipede for the past 98 days...
It's on its last legs now."

Nah, we have a vessel with an apparent 100% safety margin.

I have always finished that one with...

The Engineer says, "This glass is twice as big as it needs to be."

Things get even more complex when quantum states of matter are taken into account (in which case the glass could theoretically be half full and empty simultaneously).

Either that or we are over thinking common sense.

In my twisted way (and my kids will support this), I see the glass is always full.

The balance of the volume is air or some other material that hasn't been displaced by the denser liquid.

Now my son has graduated engineering, he would now argue that my answer is inadequate and that the volume above the liquid is filled with a gas mixture with a higher water concentration that ambient relative to the liquid temperature, vapour pressure and a multitude of other esoteric physical phenomena. (At that point, the rest of the family turns off and leaves us alone.)

That's great!

It's a defense mechanism!

Although now that my engineer Dad has passed on (several years ago) it does make me look crazy when we do that out loud. Maybe no one else hears him in my head. (he usually took the answer is inadequate side)

My Signature tag says it all! :-P

There is simply not enough information to accurately determine the appropriate answer.

If the glass if being filled at the time the question is asked, then the glass is obviously "Half-full"...

If the glass is being emptied at the time that the question is asked, then the glass is obviously "Half-empty"...

If the glass is just sitting idly on a table, and it is impossible to determine the condition, it is obviously is a "Steady-state" or "Balanced" condition and the question is "Moot"...

Yes, but is it dead, or alive?

"Top off your glass, sir?"

"Let me check, the question may be moot."

"Oh! You must be an engineer!"

"Yes, I am, but how can you tell?!"

"Oh, just a hunch..."

Wait, I'll get the ice...

I dont know every time I put it in the box with that dam cat, half full but it comes back half empty. Go figure.

If the glass is small enough, the uncertainty principal kicks in; plus, the probability wave may have some of the water outside the glass.

I do agree with those who say it depends on whether it is being filled or emptied. And then, again, I agree that there is humidity in the air filled half.

My wife, and the wives of other engineers in our circle of friends, all said that "Engineers are different." Me, I love thinking that way; a good thing because I have no other option.

It all comes down to how one defines "half".

Or, as William Jefferson C. posited, "...depends on the meaning of the word 'is'".

It amazes me that smart people keep thinking this is silly. The question was, "Is the meaning of "is", in this question, "is now" or, "is now and ever was".

I got to thinking about bladders with all this talk of glasses being emptied.

Is a bladder always full? All the space has liquid in it right? The size of the space changes though.....

Time for another beer.

Mine is!

Not enough information because if it is a tapered glass (like the one full of Guness sitting in front of me) and it is filled to half it's height then it is definetly neither...