A failed Deep Thought

I was going to post the following as Deep Thoughts XLIII, in a series of posts meant to be largely tautologous or at least trivial statements:

1. Everyone older than you was once your age.

And then I realized that this is not actually a tautology. It might not even be true.

Suppose time is discrete in an Aristotelian way, so that the intervals between successive times are not always the same. Basically, the idea is that times are aligned with the endpoints of change, and these can happen at all sorts of seemingly random times, rather than at multiples of some interval. But in that case, (1) is likely false. For it is unlikely that the random-length intervals of time in someone else’s life are so coordinated with yours that the exact length of time that you have lived equals the sum of the lengths of intervals from the beginning to some point in the life of a specific other person.

Of course, on any version of the Aristotelian theory that fits with our observations, the intervals between times are very short, and so everyone older than you was once approximately your age.

One might try to replace (1) by:

2. Everyone older than you was once younger than you are now.

But while (2) is nearly certainly true, it is still not a tautology. For if Alice has lived forever, then she’s older than you, but she was never younger than you are now! And while there probably are no individuals who are infinitely old (God is timelessly eternal), this fact is far from trivial.

Comparing axiologies

Are there ways in which it would be better if axiology were different? Here’s a suggestion that comes to mind:

1. It would be better if cowardice, sloth, dishonesty, ignorance, suffering and all the other things that are actually intrinsic evils were instead great intrinsic goods.

For surely it would be better for there to be more goods!

On the other hand, one might have this optimistic thought:

2. The actually true axiology is better than any actually false axiology.

(Theists are particularly likely to think this, since they will likely think that the true axiology is grounded in the nature of a perfect being.)

We have an evident tension between (1) and (2).

What’s going on?

One move is to say that it makes no sense to discuss the value of impossible scenarios. I am inclined to think that this isn’t quite correct. One might think it would be really good if the first eight thousand binary digits of π encoded the true moral code in English using ASCII coding, even though this is impossible (I assume). Likewise, it is impossible for a human to know all of mathematics, but it would be good to do so.

The solution I would go for is that axiology needs to be kept fixed in value comparisons. Imagine that I am living a blessed life of constant painless joy, and dissatisfied with that I find myself wishing for the scenario where joyless pain is even better than painless joy and I live a life of joyless pain. If one need not keep axiology fixed in value comparisons, that wish makes perfect sense, but I think it doesn’t—unlike the wish about π or the knowledge of mathematics.

Heavier objects fall sooner

We like to say that Galileo was right that more massive objects don’t fall any faster than lighter ones, at least if we abstract away from friction.

But it occurred to me that there is a sense in which this is false. Suppose I drop an object from a meter above the moon, and measure the time until impact. If the object is more massive, the time to impact is lower. Why? Because there are two relevant gravitational accelerations that affect the time of impact: the moon pulls the object down, but simultaneously additionally the object pulls the moon up. The impact time is affected by both accelerations, and the more massive the object, the greater the upward acceleration of the moon, even though the object's acceleration is unaffected by its mass.

Of course, if we are dropping a one kilogram ball, the gravitational acceleration it induces on the moon is about 1/10²³ of the gravitational acceleration the moon induces on it. It’s negligible. But it’s still not zero. :-) A heavier object of the same size will impact sooner.

If all this is unclear, think about the extreme case where we are “dropping” a black hole on the moon.

"Pun not intended"

Some people think that an outcome of an action foreseen with practical certainty is also intended. If so, then pretty much every case where someone writes “pun not intended” is a case where what they write is false. For one foresees with practical certainty that by disseminating the message one is punning.

What is philosophy?

I just came across this in Shturman and Tiktin’s delightful anthology of Soviet era jokes. (I don't know if it exists in translation.)

Question: What is philosophy?

Answer: It’s a hunt for a black cat in a dark room. Marxist philosophy is distinguished by the fact that there is no cat in the room, and Marxist-Leninist by the fact that one of the hunters in fact yells that he caught the cat.

I wonder what other philosophies it can be applied to.

Risability

Aristotle says that a necessary accident of the human being is risability—the capability for laughter. As far as I can tell, necessary accidents are supposed to derive from the essence of a thing. So, how do we derive risability from the essence of the human being?

Here’s an idea. The essence is to be a rational animal. A rational being reflects on itself. But to have an animal that is simultaneously rational—that’s objectively funny. Thus, a rational being that is an animal is always in a position to discover something objectively funny, namely itself. And it just wouldn’t be rational not to laugh at that funny thing!

Constructive presence

This morning, I was reading the Georgia Supreme Court’s Simpson v. State (1893) decision on a cross-state shooting, and loved this example, which is exactly the kind of example contemporary analytic philosophers like to give: "a burglary may be committed by inserting into a building a hook, or other contrivance, by means of which goods are withdrawn therefrom; and there can be no doubt that, under these circumstances, the burglar, in legal contemplation, enters the building."

What I think of ontological nihilism

A commenter asked me what I thought of ontological nihilism, the view that there are no subjects. Here’s what I think: Everybody who accepts this view is wrong.

1. Ontological nihilism is true or false.

2. If ontological nihilism is true, nobody exists.

3. If nobody exists, then there is nobody who accepts ontological nihilism.

4. If nobody accepts ontological nihilism, then everyone who accepts ontological nihilism is wrong.

5. So, if ontological nihilism is true, then everyone who accepts it is wrong. (2-4)

6. If ontological nihilism is false, then everyone who accepts it is wrong.

7. So, everyone who accepts ontological nihilism is wrong. (1,5,6)

An odd argument for an omniscient being

Here’s a funny logically valid argument:

1. The analytic/synthetic distinction between truths is the same as the a priori / a posteriori distinction.

2. The analytic/synthetic distinction between truths makes sense.

3. If 1 and 2, then every truth is knowable.

4. So, every truth is knowable. (1–3)

5. If every truth is knowable, then every truth is known.

6. So, every truth is known. (4–5)

7. If every truth is known, there is an omniscient being.

8. So, there is an omniscient being. (6–7)

I won’t argue for 1 and 2: those are big-picture substantive philosophical questions. I am sceptical of both claims.

The argument for 3 is this. If the analytic/synthetic distinction makes sense, then the two concepts are exclusive and exhaustive among truths: a truth is synthetic just in case it’s not analytic. So, every truth is analytic or synthetic. But if 1 is true and the analytic/synthetic distinction makes sense, then it follows that every truth is a priori or a posteriori. But these phrases are short for a priori knowable and a posteriori knowable. Thus, if 1 is true and the analytic/synthetic distinction makes sense, then every truth is knowable.

The argument for 5 is the famous knowability paradox: If p is an unknown truth, then that p is an unknown truth is a truth that cannot be known (for if someone know that p is an unknown truth, then they would thereby know that p is a truth, and then it wouldn’t be an unknown truth, and no one can’t know what isn’t so).

One argument for 7 is an Ockham’s Razor argument: it is more plausible to think there is one being that knows all things than that the knowledge is scattered among many. A sketch of a deductive argument for 5 that skirts over some important technical issues is this: if you know a conjunction, you know all the conjuncts; let p be the conjunction of all truths; if every truth is known, then p is known; and someone who knows p knows all.

Antisolipsism

I never heard anyone defend this view: "Billions of people exist but I don't."

[Thesis:] April Fool's Philosophy Post Generator

[This post works better if you have Javascript enabled.]

The thesis that [thesis] has not received much of a defense[literature type]. But here is an argument for it:

1. This argument is valid.

2. Therefore, [thesis].

Let's see why this argument is not only valid but sound.

First, let’s see that it’s valid. Suppose for a reductio that it is invalid. But whether an argument is valid or not cannot be a contingent matter. Thus if, the argument is invalid, it is necessarily invalid. But if it is necessarily invalid, then necessarily its first premise is false (since the premise says that the argument is valid). But any argument which has a necessarily false premise is automatically valid. (An argument is valid if and only if it is impossible for the premises to be true and the conclusion false. This is trivially satisfied if it is impossible for a premise to be true.) But that would contradict the assumption that it’s invalid. So, the argument must be valid.

But if the argument (1)–(2) is valid, it’s also automatically sound. For a valid argument is sound provided its premises are true. But the only premise of the argument is (1), the statement that the argument is valid. If the argument is valid, then that premise is true, and so the argument is sound.

But the conclusion of a sound argument is true. Therefore, [thesis].

Partial fulfillment of promises

A classic joke: You arrive in the Soviet Union. At the airport you see two people working. One is digging holes in the ground. The other is filling them in. You ask them what they are doing. They say: “The guy who was supposed to be planting trees didn’t show up.”

So, suppose I promise to dig a hole in your yard and plant a tree there. But I couldn’t obtain the tree. Obviously, I shouldn’t dig the hole. Thus, sometimes, partial fulfillment of a promise is no use at all, or worse.

But it seems that sometimes partial fulfillment is my duty. If I promise to give you two T-shirts and but I only manage to obtain one, it seems I owe you that one. But even that depends on the context. Suppose the two T-shirts were to be for a party where a parent and their child were to wear matching clothes. Then one T-shirt might be useless.

Perhaps the story is this. When I can’t fulfill a promise, I need to make it up to you as best as possible. Partial fulfillment is a way of making it up, and it is a default component of making up. But sometimes it’s worthless, in which case I should ask you if there is some other way you’d like me to make up for it.

An argument for theism from certain values

Some things, such as human life, love, the arts and humor, are very valuable. An interesting question to ask is why they are so valuable?

A potential answer is that they have their value because we value (desire, prefer, etc.) them. While some things may be valuable because we value them, neither life, love, the arts nor humor seem to be such. People who fail to value these things is insensitive: they are failing to recognize the great value that is there. (In general, I suspect that nothing of high value has the value it does because we value it: our ability to make things valuable by valuing them is limited to things of low and moderate value.)

A different answer is that these things are necessarily valuable. However, while this may be true, it shifts the explanatory burden to asking why they are necessarily valuable. For simplicity, I’ll thus ignore the necessity answer.

It may be that there are things that are fundamentally valuable, whose value is self-explanatory. Perhaps life and love are like that: maybe there is no more a mystery as to why life or love is valuable than as to why 1=1. Maybe.

But the arts at least do not seem to be like this. It is puzzling why arranging a sequence of typically false sentences into a narrative can make for something with great value. It is puzzling why representing aspects of the world—either of the concrete or the abstract world—in paint on canvas can so often be valuable. The value of the arts is not self-explanatory.

Theism can provide an explanation of this puzzling value: Artistic activity reflects God’s creative activity, and God is the ultimate good. Given theism it is not surprising that the arts are of great value. There is something divine about them.

Humor is, I think, even more puzzling. Humor deflates our pretensions. Why is this so valuable? Here, I think, the theist has a nice answer: We are infinitely less than God, so deflating our pretensions puts us human beings in the right place in reality.

There is much more to be said about arts and humor. The above is meant to be very sketchy. My interest here is not to defend the specific arguments from the value of the arts and humor, but to illustrate arguments from value that appear to be a newish kind of theistic argument.

These arguments are like design arguments in that their focus is on explaining good features of the world. But while design arguments, such as the argument from beauty or the fine-tuning argument, seek an explanation of why various very good features occur, these kinds of value arguments seek an explanation of why certain features are in fact as good as they are.

The moral argument for theism is closely akin. While in the above arguments, one seeks to explain why some things have the degree of value they do, the moral argument can be put as asking for an explanation of why some things (more precisely, some actions) have the kind of value they do, namely deontic value.

Closing remarks

1. Just as in the moral case, there is a natural law story that shifts the argument’s focus without destroying the argument for theism. In the moral case, the natural law story explains why some actions are obligatory by saying that they violate the prescriptions for action in our nature. But one can still ask why there are beings with a nature with these prescriptions and not others. Why is it that, as far as we can tell, there are rational beings whose nature prescribes love for neighbor and none whose nature prescribes hatred for neighbor? Similarly, we can say that humor is highly valuable for us because our nature specifies humor as one of the things that significantly fulfills us. (Variant: Humor is highly valuable for us because it is our nature to highly value it.) But we can still ask why there are rational beings whose nature is fulfilled by the arts and humor, and, as far as we can tell, none whose nature is harmed by the arts or humor. And in both the deontic and non-deontic cases, there is a theistic answer. For instance, God creates rational beings with a nature that calls on them to laugh because any beings that he would create will be infinitely less than God and hence their sensor humor will help put them in the right place, thereby counteracting the self-aggrandizement that reflection on one’s own rationality would otherwise lead to.

2. Just as in the moral case there is a compelling argument from knowledge—theism provides a particularly attractive explanation of how we know moral truths—so too in the value cases there is a similar compelling argument.

Exemplify: An oral word game for friends and family

For some years now, my big kids and I have occasionally played a game we call Exemplify. It works great for three people on a walk. The basic idea is that we each contribute an adjective (e.g., “slurping”, “slimy” and “absurd”, or “chunky”, “soft” and “stinky”), then we each contribute a substantive that goes nicely with all three (or as many as one can) of the adjectives (e.g., “Jabba at DQ” or “cheese”), ideally in a funny and creative way, and then we each vote which of the others’ contributions is best, with the winner being the one that has the most votes. It’s fun.

When I was inventing the game, I was influenced by Dixit and Apples to Apples.

Rules (version 1.01)

The following rules are for three or four players.

Each round goes as follows:

1. Each player independently thinks of an adjective and announces when they have thought of it. The adjective must be a single unhyphenated word of English.

2. Once each player has an adjective, all adjectives are disclosed. No player is allowed to change their adjective once the disclosures have begun.

3. Each player independently thinks of a substantive and announces once they have it. The substantive can be one to three words of English, with hyphenation counting as a word break (“horse-shaped” is two words). Proper names and acronyms that are normally usable in speech (e.g., “USA”) are allowed.

4. Once each player has a substantive, all substantives are announced. No player is allowed to change their substantive once the disclosures have begun.

5. If two or more players have the same substantive, they automatically lose the round.

6. Each player independently thinks of a vote for a substantive by one of the other players (not a duplicate that resulted in an automatic loss) and announces once they have it. The voters are recommended to use these criteria: humor, creativity, distance from the actual world (more realistic is better) or from the actual world’s works of fiction, number of adjectives matched, and brevity. There are at least two ways the substantive can go with the adjectives: either the adjectives can be expected to apply to the thing described by the substantive (Jabba at DQ can be expected to be slurping, slimy and absurd) or else the adjectives and the substantive can form a fairly natural unit (“chunky, soft and stinky cheese” seems a natural unit).

7. Once each player has a vote, all votes are announced. No player is allowed to change their vote once the disclosures have begun.

8. If one player has more votes than any other player, they get two points. In that case, the player or players in second place in the voting each get one point. If no player has more votes than any other player, then the players tied for first place in the voting each get one point. But players who have lost by dint of duplication get no points.

The game continues to a set number of points, by default 10. Each player keeps track of their scores.

Additional required rules:

1. No substantive discussion of the adjectives, substantives or votes, respectively, is permitted prior to all the players having made their decisions.

2. The adjectives and substantives cannot be disambiguated or clarified except by their spelling.

3. Players may request for repeats of adjectives and substantives as many times as they wish.

Variations:

1. If the players are not fully trusting, or in a serious competition, the adjectives, substantives or votes are secretly written out and then revealed to prevent changes in response to others. Scores are written down.

2. With two players, scoring is not possible, but one can still have some fun.

3. With four players, one can either play according to the above rules (and thus have the challenge of four adjectives), or have one of the four players omit an adjective each round, rotating which player that is in a fixed order (by default, alphabetically by bibliographic order—last name and first name). One can similarly extended to more than four players, by omitting enough players each time to reduce the number of adjectives to three or four, using a more complex rotation rule if need be.

4. For simpler score-keeping, one can award one point only to the player who got the most points (if there is such a player; otherwise, no points are awarded).

The search for new truths

I know that I have two hands. With a bit of thought, I now know a number of truths that it seems no ordinary person has ever known before:

• I have two hands or there is a palomino painted green and pink with someone in a Darth Vader costume on its back.

• I have two hands or the number of pigs born in 1745 is odd.

• I have two hands or Sir Patrick Stewart will consume a prime number of calories tomorrow.

• I have two hands or Donald Trump issued a series of anti-Klingon tweets yesterday.

And so on, ad infinitum. The search for new truths is thus really easy. I just need to search for silly propositions that no one has thought about, and disjoin them with something I know.

Evidence that I am dead

I just got evidence that I am dead, in an email that starts:

Dear expired [organization] member,

You might think this is pretty weak evidence. Maybe "expired" doesn't mean "dead" here. But the email continues:

Thank you for your past support of [organization]. Your membership has recently expired, and we would like to take this opportunity to urge you to renew your membership.

But last year I acquired a life membership...

Sorry, I couldn't resist sharing this.

The meaning of life

The meaning of life is a contingent constant of the story about the same as the particles.

The state of the basic sense of the following options are responsible for an infinite sense of evil is a member of the probability of the fact that the above argument for the sentence for the probability that what is a table of the second sense of the above theory of a lot of the particles in the way that the problem of the subject of the probability of the responsibility is probably the second problem of moral states of a sentence is that it is a non-empty actions of P(A)=P(A) is a property of an argument for the virtue of a controversial and more about the conditional to the constraints of the best ordinary and more probability of the content of the conclusion of the case of the healthy of a positive sex in the state in A is the interesting to the action to the property of the person who does not allow that the answer to include the heart with the ...

What's that? Well, I had some fun running 6mb worth of my blog posts through this character-based recurrent neural network trainer which is based on this. I then followed an online suggestion and prompted it with "The meaning of life is " and let it generate text mimicking my posts (temperature = 0.4). I find the first sentence kind of interesting. What's cool is that the system starts out without any knowledge of language. It works character by character, eventually figuring out how to make sequences of characters that look like words, how to punctuate, capitalize, insert HTML formatting, etc. The grammar often leaves something to be desired, and it has a tendency to get stuck generating giant sentences with lots of clauses (guess whose writing taught it that?).

Some other quotations, with the temperature value listed (the higher the temperature, the more randomness in the output):

If this is something like the same as the proposition that p is true that the moral reason to be sufficient to do any necessity of the probability that it is the problem of the same probability that the principle and sex and the probability of the same reason to do the reason to be a difference between the problem of the probability of the problem of the same explanation of a sentence is a concept of the probability to the problem of the probability that the probability of a proposition that the contradiction is that the same thing that is the same thing to say that the probability that the proposition that the concept of a property of the proposition p to the probability that it is true and the argument is the argument is that the same thing in the above existence is that the other conditions are not the probability of the same probability of the state of the same as the probability that the same sentence that are not true and the same token, we can also be a stronger than an object of B is a proposition that the probability of the same time [0.3]

The problems think that a promise of the predicates are not human beings and interesting assumption that the presentist stands the correct conscience can be in Case, the strangers are more conversion of the world, not true, for short where P(B_K(x₁ be the only simple condition to be a physical probability of the like right. </li></ol> where the only quite a very organism is measurable acts should insisted to exist. [0.7]

A relations are 1/2)=(√X₂)=/titiely, at all view is that when I said because the person is the substance "p.

Whether I fill out that by the following decided the borning and God wrong, which can presuppose on indeed more pothing" was clearly open the explanan of ohn suggests that they are surprising how we learned lacks effort, if Q; <0) (A>), where this society (e.g., generally distinguish science is said to see that they should say the sake that generates it that each would freely-valiel was intrinsically basically good response holding worlds x as one stating chasted to the following problems, when as the chosen biological speaking only: [1.0]

Deep Thoughts XLII

No one speaks about what cannot be spoken about.

God's surprisingness

God is very surprising. (a) Facts about God's nature are surprising. Who would have expected the being who is one and indivisible to also be a Trinity? (b) Facts about what God does are surprising. Who would have expected him to choose insignificant Israel, or... to die for us!?

Surprisingness isn't entailed by incomprehensibility. A text in a language I don't know can be utterly incomprehensible and utterly unsurprising. But on the other hand, insofar as God has surprises for us we do not comprehend him.

Surprisingness implies that not only are there facts about God that we can't figure out, but there are facts about God which our present evidence would lead us to deny--surprising facts. A focus on God's surprisingness may lead to a sceptical thought that we cannot expect to know anything about God. But that's not at all true. For mathematics is continually surprising, and yet is an area where we continue to know more and more. (And this is more than an analogy, since mathematics is a kind of branch of theology, if Augustine is right about mathematical objects existing in the mind of God.)

There some connection between God's holiness and God's surprisingness. God's surprises aren't just like particularly thoughtful birthday presents. They are the surprises of a mysterium tremendum. "Surprise" is thus too weak a word, yet it also correctly suggests a certain whimsy that is a part of God's nature if the whimsical surprises of mathematics and biology are a guide to the mind of God. Humor may be a form of theology, too.

A reflection on what cannot be spoken about