Is the following sentence technically true or false?

The sun will rise tomorrow morning.

How about I said, "If I drop this pen, it will fall." Is that true? You could zoom out to the megaverse and say that nothing has any direction, so falling cannot be defined and is therefore impossible to state. Or, you could say, what if the earth suddenly explodes under (but what is under?) your feet and shoots the pen in the opposite direction than you expected.

Most people, however, would concur that the pen would indeed fall, based on relative position to the horizontal plane tangent to the surface of the earth, with the outward direction being defined as 'up' or 'rising,' and toward the center of the earth being 'down' or 'falling.'

By the same convention, which I would think is pretty standard, it would be perfectly natural and correct to say that the sun rises. And, in all likelihood, it would also be correct to say that it will do so tomorrow morning.

Posted by DJ on 2003-03-25 12:31:45