Language and Logic (General)

by dhw, Tuesday, April 01, 2014, 23:42 (3887 days ago)

Over the last two or three weeks, the discussions on the Big Bang, free will and emergence have thrown up some interesting examples of how we use language to establish seemingly logical patterns which on closer inspection turn out to be nothing of the sort. Here are three examples of what I see as logic twisted by language. I should preface this by saying I do not believe for one minute that any of them are deliberate.
 
George argues that the universe is "everything", the beginning of the universe was the beginning of everything, everything must include time, and therefore there was no "before". Even David has agreed that time began with the universe, but he also believes in a "before", which George understandably claims is illogical. It is illogical if we accept George's starting point. He thinks his argument is based on the facts we "know", but if we accept the argument that we do not "know" of any effects that don't have a cause (see Romansh on the subject of free will), we can invert George's logic. The universe cannot have come into being without a cause, therefore if the universe had a beginning, the universe cannot be "everything". The cause must have existed before, and therefore the beginning of the universe cannot have been the beginning of time. David's dilemma disappears, and instead George is forced to argue that the beginning of the universe had no cause, which David in turn understandably claims is illogical.-The second example: Romansh asked me why a lack of free will should not be taken as the default position, and I suggested that if people believed that nothing they did was their responsibility, society would be pretty chaotic. His response included the following: "The sun is responsible for hurricanes. Do you wish to argue against this?" I'm sure Romansh believes this to be a valid point. However, the word has different meanings according to its context. When we say Mr X is responsible for his actions, it means we think he has made a deliberate choice to act that way. (I am talking about meaning now, not about whether people have free will.) Conversely, if we say he is not responsible for his actions, we mean he is not to blame ... he had no choice. However, if we say the sun is responsible for hurricanes, we mean the sun is the cause. We do not mean it made a deliberate choice. And so if we wanted the word "responsible" to mean having a deliberate choice, we would have to say the sun is NOT responsible for hurricanes! By changing the context, Romansh has changed the meaning of the word, and has tried to use the different meaning to discredit the idea of free will.-In our discussion on free will, Romansh agrees that his definition ("the ability to act or to make choices independently of the environment or of the universe") makes the concept logically impossible or at least incoherent, since neither we nor our choices could exist independently of the universe. In his admirably honest article on the subject, he writes: "...just because I cannot see a mechanism for free will, it does not mean, free will does not exist." A few lines later, he writes: "I can't help wondering if it is the definition of free will that I have chosen that makes free will difficult to defend." The point of definitions is to establish a consensus as to the meaning of a term or concept, and then people can argue as to whether that concept is possible. Romansh's choice of words in his definition creates an inescapable logical trap. However,if the definition is neutral (e.g. along the lines of "free will means the conscious ability to control the decision-making process"), Romansh can set out all the reasons why he thinks we do NOT have this ability, while the libertarian can argue the opposite. The point here is the same as before: language creates its own logic. In this case, Romansh seems to have been aware of it, but perhaps allowed his beliefs to influence his choice of words in his definition.-Something similar has happened in the discussion on emergence, but that has now gone off at so many tangents that I'll stick to these three examples! Let me repeat that I'm not saying these distortions are deliberate, and if you disagree with me, then of course you will say so, but I do feel that in some of our discussions, our use of language creates its own logical pitfalls.