Lies once more

I once mentioned that some philosophers of language such as Don Fallis and Roy Sorensen seek to replace the traditional philosophical conception of lying which includes an intentional deception as a criteria with an intentional violation of a Gricean norm. What prompted them to do so? It's the counter example of bald-faced lies. Bald-faced lies. One commits a bald-faced lie when when is not attempting to deceive anyone such as the case of the person on the witness stand saying "I don't know, nothin'" when everyone in the court including herself knows she knows who did it but don't want to incriminate the defendant (presumably because the defendant has threatened her). Fallis' definition of lies are as follows:

You lie to X if and only if: (BNL)

1. You state that p to X.

2. You believe that you make this statement in a context where the following

norm of conversation is in effect:

Do not make statements that you believe to be false.

3. You believe that p is false.

However, here's a counter example:

John is married to Jane and knows her well; Jane is a brilliant philosopher. One day, Jane does something that really irks John and he tells her that she is an "idiot" out of spite.

John believes that what he said is false and that the norm of conversation to not make false statements is in effect. He seems to be making a "statement" when he says, "You're an idiot". But he doesn't seem to be lying.

The Abyss and the Tao

After Cantor recovered from a stint in the insane asylum for mental breakdowns suffered while trying to prove some (we now know) intractable problems in set theory, he had a stroll with his good friend and colleague Dedekind. Dedekind asked Cantor what he pictured in his mind when he thought of sets. Dedekind remarked that when he thought about a set, he pictured a clear bag containing objects inside which are the set's elements. Cantor responded that when he thought about a set, he pictured an abyss.

In a previous post I remarked that some abstract objects occupy space and have relevant properties of concrete material objects and thus there may not be any philosophical (epistemological or otherwise) problems in dealing with them such as knowing them or having them cause and be caused by physical phenomenon. In mathematics, we have pure sets built from the null set from iterative or otherwise “mental operations.” The old joke that the mathematical universe is an entire infinite universe begotten from nothing (the contents of the null set) is illustrative of the counter-intuitiveness of this idea.

Thus, as the story goes, from the null set, we have everything we need for mathematics. But since these objects of math are all purely abstract without concrete properties (as opposed to abstract objects with concrete elements) which may take part in the causal epistemological chain, how do we know them if e.g., the causal theory of knowledge is correct? If mathematics is built on such foundations, we cannot appeal to impure sets such as sets built on singletons of everyday objects to resolve these epistemological lacunae. Mathematics foundationally built in such a way thus may be metaphysically and epistemologically counter-intuitive to many precisely because of the knowledge problem or some other problems with causally inert properties of pure sets or the begetting of things from nothing. Metaphysically, it is problematic as the old joke suggests, it is a infinitely high house of cards built on top the foundations of an abyss. I want to ask here if there is another alternative system that is built on firmer and more intuitive metaphysical foundations.

Now consider the classical Chinese conception of numbers. Many philosophers of the school of names and the neo-Taoist school inspired by the I-Ching (such as Wang Bi) thought that from some object, we may, by some mental operation, form the class (they did not have a modern notion of set obviously but did have a notion of what we would term 'class') containing that object. Now we have two objects, namely the object and its singleton class. One can go on forming more and more objects this way until one has all the objects needed for one's numbers and thus to furnish one's mathematical universe. This would generate the positive integers instead of the natural numbers including zero as modern mathematics would have it. There is something to be said about the Chinese system; it is iterative like the modern conception of numbers but it starts off from one (the singleton set of some concrete object) instead of zero (the null set). This system is ontologically well-founded on something as opposed to nothing and is concrete "from the start." Specifically, what the Taoist founds his theory of numbers on, the original object on which all his classes are built on, is just the Tao.

More formally, we have according to the Taoist conception: Tao, {Tao}, {Tao, {Tao}}, {Tao, {Tao}, {Tao, {Tao}}}. Now, either the Tao or {Tao} may be arbitrarily designated as the number one.

Let's say that we choose the former. One is unlike the other numbers in that 1. it is not a class (set). 2. for all numbers n other than one contains n elements while one, not being a set contains no elements.

Or one can designate the Tao's singleton {Tao} as the number one. But then all subsequent numbers will contain the Tao which is not a number to generate all successive numbers.

Alternatively, one may have 1=Tao, 2={Tao}, 3={Tao, {Tao}}.

This last interpretation seems to be the one Wang Bi favored.

Significantly, as Wang Bi makes the point in both his Yijing and Laozi commentaries, in this sense “one” is not a number but that which makes possible all numbers and functions. In the latter (commentary to Laozi 39), Wang defines “one” as “the beginning of numbers and the ultimate of things.” In the former (commentary to Appended Remarks, Part I), he writes, “In the amplification of the numbers of heaven and earth [in Yijing divination] … ‘one’ is not used. Because it is not used, use [of the others] is made possible; because it is not a number, numbers are made complete. This indeed is the great ultimate of change.”

However, here, each number will contain n-1 elements instead of the Von Neumann formulation of modern mathematics which has for each number n, n elements.

Thus Chinese mathematics can be impure and would have no problems with the epistemological problem of knowing abstract objects built on the singleton of some concrete object. Everything that can be proven in the modern system of mathematics can be proven in the Chinese system per Lowenheim-Skolem theorem or one of its corollary theorems (since the two number systems are equinumorous and isomorphic). Zero thus is redundant for mathematics. There remains only orthographic problems of how to write numbers and mathematical formula down and the technique the classical Chinese used was to use a non referential “placeholder” in place of '0' or the cipher.

But this system is just as counter-intuitive as the modern for there are problems of its own. If I start off from the singleton set containing my computer and you start off from the singleton set containing your right foot, we would have two different notions of the numbers one and thus all subsequent numbers built on it. But 1=1 is true and it is necessarily true. Modern mathematics does not have this problem because it is easy to prove that there is one and only one null set and thus it and all numbers built on it are identical.

We may be able to obstruct this problem by introducing a single “arbitrary object” which can stand in for any object and starting from the singleton of it and define it as the number one. However, is this arbitrary object concrete or abstract? It might make sense to say of an arbitrary object that it is concrete or abstract with causal properties. I don't know. But if concrete where is this object? It may not have a specific location but since it could “stand in” for any concrete object, it may make some sense to ascribe to it causal properties even if it may be abstract much as the singletons of concrete objects. Kit Fine has defended arbitrary objects has having such common properties of concrete objects.

Alternatively, as pointed out above, Wang Bi and some of the other classical Chinese philosophers thought that the original object which one is is just the Tao, which in turn is itself not strictly definable and may be a ineffable "primitive" (I guess maybe like the term 'nothing' or perhaps 'arbitrary object') or its singleton. The Tao certainly seems to have causal properties and may certainly be said to influence causally the world on their conception whatever it may be.

Still, the Chinese system may not wholly escape some of the counter-intuitiveness associated modern math. It is only slightly less counter-intuitive than the modern system because instead of begetting the whole mathematical universe from nothing, it begets it from one thing. An infinitely high house of cards is built on the flimsiest of foundations instead of on an abyss.

Hate speech

Hate speech is Constitutionally protected. Many proponents of a liberal democracy see no wrong in banning hate speech because they think that hate speech violates the rights of others and thus violates some sort of harm principle. In a liberal democracy, the idea is that one can say, think and do anything one wants so long as it doesn't harm others (especially violates some of their rights) but it has been argued that hate speech violates this principle of liberalism. Some have argued that the harm principle itself is anti-liberal at its core and so one may not appeal to it within a liberal framework to justify the banning of certain kinds of speech. However, there seems to me to be another reason or reasons to ban hate speech within a liberal framework.

Think of the most common restrictions on speech in a liberal democracy: commonly cited examples include yelling "fire!" in a crowded theater and defamatory speech. One might be able to assign rights to whole groups of people (as international and domestic law sometimes do). One of these laws may be analogous to anti-defamation laws protecting individuals against libel or slander. One way to look at hate speech is that it is defamation against whole groups. Thus if we can justify anti-defamation laws in a liberal society, we can justify anti-hate speech laws if hate speech is analogous to defamation. The most obvious retort is that they are not analogous.

Some hate speech clearly are similar to defamation such e.g., spreading the lie that Jews are involved in a global conspiracy to kill all "Aryans." That is a claim, a false assertive claim about a group of people made to defame that group and comes at considerable costs to that group and thus may be liable to analogous legal repercussions. But consider a racial slur, "nigger." Referring to someone black using this term is not, on the surface, making an assertive claim about her or her racial group and thus a fortiori, not making a false defamatory claim. So on the traditional interpretation of racial slurs, "That nigger, John was fired" would mean the same as "John was fired" or "That black man named, 'John' was fired."

But is that really the case? Some philosophers of language such as David Kaplan and Christopher Hom claim that certain nouns including racial slurs do have assertoric content. Hom's paper "The Semantics of Racial Epithets" is a classic work on this topic. For racial slurs such as "nigger," Hom argues that it is translatable to a conjunction of sentences (or propositions or whatever it is that have semantic content) that makes pejorative claims about a group or a person belonging to the group. The longer and more institutions of hate associated with that slur, the more semantically "explosive" or harmful it is because it make more implicit assertions that are packed into the slur. When used, the slur becomes "unpacked" and explodes all the (defamatory) assertions associated with that group within some society in which there is a history of institutionally associating negative stereotypes with some group to the slur.

Infinite lives

Imagine a race of immortals. Nothing can kill them; not disease, old age, etc. They are invincible and they also do not go through the normal aging process of decrepitude of the body and mind associated with mortal aging. If they live forever and these beings are like us in all other ways, they will go through the normal vicissitudes of life, the ups and downs, highs and lows, good times and bad times. So such a life in total will include an infinite positive utility and an infinite negative utility. No matter how good a life one lives, so long as some significant repetition of periods of bad times, they will go through an eternity of suffering as well as good times. Do these times cancel out since both times in bad and in good are infinite in duration? Will such a life ever be worth living if we are to believe that what makes life worth living is experiencing as much good (defined as pleasure or happiness here or "utility") and as few bad (sadness, misery, suffering, etc) as possible? In a finite life, once can experience far fewer bad times than good and vice versa but an infinite life, all experiences, good and bad are equal in amount: both infinite in duration.

Also consider that such an immortal, no matter how virtuous he or she is unless she is perfectly virtuous, will inevitably commit an infinite amount of evil as well as good. Will such evil acts and thoughts be canceled out by her good acts and thoughts? It would appear so as well.

Now consider the human race. If the human race lives on forever (and there is almost no chance of that) then the human race will achieve the same amount of overall collective good and bad. It will achieve (unless it all becomes perfectly virtuous after some period of time continuously) an infinite amount of evil and good collective virtue.

Movie suggestion

If you haven't gotten a chance to see Moon, I highly recommend it. Those who are familiar with the literature will see all the references to personal identity. The director was once a grad student in philosophy.

Meaning of life again

I posted earlier that what I take to mean when people talk about the "meaning of life" is either the value (or highest significance, etc) of life or, on the other hand, the purpose of life. But sometimes people may have another meaning in mind.

Some may think when they say things like "life does not have meaning" is that there is no non arbitrary or objective narrative structure to life, no grand story of life. More specifically, I've heard that many people who believe in god may think that life has a "narrative" structure created by God and that it is our job to find out what this narrative structure is. It is there independent of our interpretation. It is a grand story of life, complete with beginning, middle filled with some kind of conflict (between good and evil etc) and teleological end. I will call this the hermeneutical understanding of the meaning of life. Finding out this meaning is analogous to finding out the correct interpretation for a Shakespearean play only we are the actors and stage directors that are to be in it. Shakespeare may very well have intended his plays to be interpreted in certain ways as opposed to others. Knowing it helps us to know our roles well perhaps: how to act, what to say, how to say it, etc.

Some people would be deeply upset by the fact that there is no such absolute hermeneutic meaning if it turns out revealed that there's no god-author and they will not be consoled by the existentialists' advice that we should, in some sense, be the authors of our own life story. Those not satisfied with that advice may see this as arbitrary or a "projection" without the absoluteness if divine meaning or some kind of absolute principle that we don't impart on reality.

This kind of thinking makes a linguistic analogy (hermeneutical). However, this understanding of life's meaning simply pushed the problem one step back for even if there is a god and he has intended life be lived and interpreted in a certain way, we may still ask if that way of understanding and living is absolute or arbitrary. In other words, there is a "further question problem." Notice this is analogous to the problem Plato posed about morality in the Euthyphro. As Socrates allegedly said:

"Is the pious (τὸ ὅσιον) loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?"

This is a moral direction-of-fit problem. Philosophers seem to universally agree that if there is a god or gods, they cannot choose to make whatever they want moral (or pious) much as they cannot make it so that 2+2=5. Anyone, even if god, doubts the truth of that mathematical claim seem not to understand mathematics or be communicating in a different language from us when they doubt that claim. Analogously, they cannot make it so that torturing babies for fun is right. If torturing babies for fun is wrong, it is wrong whether the god(s) believes or loves the fact that it is it is or not. If anyone denies that moral fact, it seems they also not know what moral terms and claims mean or they seem to be using a different language altogether.

If god made the world with an intention in mind as to its hermeneutic meaning, we can always ask if this meaning is arbitrary and if god could have made it otherwise. If it is arbitrary then it is, in a real sense, not absolute and we are back to the arbitrariness of life. The theist does not escape arbitrariness in meaning by appealing to god. If god put in some meaning because it is valuable and not because it becomes valuable by the mere fact of him endorsing it, then god simply factors out of the equation. It is valuable on its own. Even if god had never lived, it would still be valuable to live life according to that interpretation.

Abstract objects and causation

In another post I argued that there seems to be some reason to think that some abstract objects occupy physical space. A (impure) set containing some material object(s) for example.

There are classes of problems in philosophy that this conclusion may be related. Consider the causal theory of knowledge (I believe first proposed by Alvin Goldman). One of the objections to this theory of knowledge is that it can't seem to explain how we come to have knowledge about abstract objects like sets and numbers. But if coincident objects (say, a set containing a car as only element and the car itself) can be thought as two objects which completely overlap spatio-temporally, then can't we think of these two objects as affecting other objects (physical or abstract) when they interact with them? In other words, if some abstract objects occupy space (compare the Cartesian concept of "res extens") like physical objects do, can't they also interact with physical objects? Doesn't it make sense to say that both the car caused the accident or, (albeit awkwardly) that the car's singleton caused the accident?

If so then at least some abstract objects can cause effects in the physical world. But if it makes sense to say that some sets may cause effects in the physical world, why not all? Other problems with dualism which asks how the mind, if it is not material, can cause physical effects by controlling the body, etc may also be less problematic once this once thought problematic issue is not thought so problematic. Relatedly, the ancient Nyaya philosophers of mind, as far as I know, had no problems with abstracta being extended in space or time such as their conceptions of the mind. That may be why they didn't seem to have much problems with mind-body causation despite being dualists.