It’s one of those phrases I just kinda nod my head and go “yeah” when I hear it. I’ve looked it up before, but the definition never stuck. Same thing happened with “survivorship bias,” but I eventually figured that one out.
I guess I need it explained in a different way for it to stick.
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Mutually exclusive means, out of two things, only one can happen at a time.
A light being on or off, for example.
What’s probably confusing is people usually use this phrase as ‘they’re not mutually exclusive.’
So if you’re in an argument and someone says that, it means the opposite. ‘you said you love me but you hung out with that girl yesterday.’
“Yeah, they’re not mutually exclusive.” Meaning you can hang out with another girl and still be in love with that person.
Edit to say, mutually exclusive comes from math terms, I believe. Exclusive means something is not included ( like () on a number line means that the endpoints are excluded), and mutually exclusive just means both things being looked at don’t include the other (a light being on doesn’t include the light being off and the light being off doesn’t include the light being on).
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