I’m sorry if this seems dumb. I tend to take things literally and “mutual” and “exclusive” seem to be antonyms but mutually exclusive is a term used a lot and it confuses the crap out of me. I’m a native English speaker also.
Does it mean that the two things CAN exist together? I feel like my brain does gymnastics trying to understand the term; I’m not a dumb person but this term just totally eludes me!
Please don’t attack me, just trying to not feel stupid.
In: 49
One way to think of it … “exclusive” implies the action, “mutually” implies the direction. So, rock/paper/scissors … each one excludes another (rock beats scissors), but it’s not mutual (scissors does not beat rock). So RPS would be “one-way exclusive.”
Tic-tac-toe would be a game where “moves” are *mutually* exclusive: once a space is marked X, it cannot later in the game become an O, and once it’s marked O it cannot become an X.
This is how I explain it (part of my job is survey making). Say you had a survey that asked about age and the options were: 0-10, 10-20, 20-30, 30+. How would someone who is exactly 20 answer? 10-20 or 20-30? The options aren’t mutually exclusive if they overlap like that. A better survey would look like this: 0-9, 10-19, 20-29, 30+. Now each age has one category and therefore are mutually exclusive.
You wouldn’t be the only one – I have to teach “exhaustive and mutually exclusive” in terms of preparing surveys. The majority of students struggle to carry this out, even if they can perfectly recite the definitions. It just means that anyone taking your survey should have one and only one answer that fits them – no overlap in the answers, but also they cover all possibilities. This is why so many survey questions have an “other” choice.
For a light switch, on and off are mutually exclusive; it can’t be both at once. Each state excludes the other, that’s why the relationship is mutual.
I think my issue comes from the saying “____ are not mutually exclusive”
From what everyone has said I take that to mean that the two things CAN, in fact, exist at the same time? Why not just say that then? Why say that they’re not mutually exclusive when you could just as easily say “these things can totally exist together” or something? Why bring in something that sounds so oxymoronic? I know it’s used a lot for many reasons but I just wish people would say “you can be blonde and smart at and same time” rather than “being blonde and being smart are not mutually exclusive”
I think (hope) I used it right there lol
Here’s an example: If you have a banana, you can either peel and eat the banana, or use it to bake banana bread. You can’t do both, therefore eating the banana and baking banana bread are mutually exclusive, as-in: both of them cannot happen at the same time.
If you draw 2 parallel lines they don’t intersect. That’s what parallel means.
If you draw perpendicular lines, they intersect at a 90 degree angle. That’s what perpendicular means.
You cannot draw two lines that are both parallel and perpendicular. They either intersect or they don’t. The options are mutually exclusive.
Now lines that are NOT parallel have to intersect. Intersecting lines can be perpendicular, but they can also intersect at a different angle.
Intersecting lines are perpendicular lines are not mutually exclusive.
All perpendicular lines intersect, but not all intersecting lines are perpendicular.
In logic or coding it is expresses as xor.
Mutually could be thought of as “both” in this context. It’s essentially saying both exclude the other. This is to say A makes B impossible and B makes A impossible. This makes it mutually (both) exclusive (of each other).
While all of these explanations are great, I feel like they are over complicating things.
Generally, when I use this saying, it’s to say that two things, whatever they may be, “are not mutually exclusive.” All this means, is that two things can be true at once. One thing does not limit the other from being true or possible. (You can be hungry and tired, they are not mutually exclusive and both can be true at the same time.) I think it’s easier to understand this way.
Knowing this, you can logically infer that if two things ARE mutually exclusive, they can’t both be true at once. Many have already used a coin toss – it’s either going to be heads or tails, it can’t be both, as one outcome limits the other from being true or possible.
You just have to break it down into the correct definitions instead of going into it with your preconceived notions on what these words mean.
Mutual means “Have in common”
Exclusive means “To keep out, to prevent”
So if you say you are the age of 20 you can’t also be the age of 21 as they are mutually exclusive.
That is to say the age 20 is not equal to 21
What they both have in common is that they both prevent the other from being true.
If you were on lunch and two people invited you. One person is eating outside. One person is eating inside. You are given a mutually exclusive option.
What both options have is common is eating outside prevents you from eating inside and eating inside prevents you from eating outside.
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