Breaking the Law of Non-Contradiction

Although I bear little respect for theologians, I’ve become terribly annoyed by the insistence of analytic philosophers lately. My annoyance stems from their arrogance, an arrogance that was once the realm of those whom they seek now to overthrow, theologians. To ad-lib from the Law of Non-Contradiction before I break it, let’s say that two wrongs do not make a right.

Analytic philosophers and logicians love the Law of Non-Contradiction (the LNC), maybe because they think Aristotle was so great. Or maybe they think it tells us something about the world, the Problem of Substance be damned. I’m not sure. I certainly don’t think Aristotle’s contributions to moral philosophy in particular were contributions at all and his formulation of physics certainly impeded progress in that field of study (seeing how he didn’t bother to test any of his hypotheses). Sorry, I'm already getting off track…What is this law analytic philosophers and logicians love? As blogger Bill Pratt puts it (via Leibniz via Aristotle), “There are at least three ways to state it:

1. A thing cannot both be A and not-A at the same time and in the same context.
2. A thing cannot both exist and not exist at the same time and in the same context.
3. A statement cannot both be true and not true at the same time and in the same context.” [Note: I exchanged his original word ‘sense’ for the more suitable word in this context, ‘context.’]

Bill Pratt goes on to say that he is amazed that people still try to deny this law. Never underestimate people, Bill; I am amazed how often analytic philosophers ignore underdetermination and other flaws in analytic and scientific reasoning. But I think that in part, my problem with The LNC stems from not liking being told what to do. So, if you tell me The LNC is a law, I’m going to find a way to refute it because, well, I can, at least some of the time. (And because I think Aristotle sucks.) What that means, kids, is that The LNC isn’t a law at all. Oooo, I can just feel the intense hatred of some analytic philosopher reading this right now…

My problem with the LNC comes via its linguistic analysis. Bill Pratt attempts to score one for his team by pointing out that you cannot negate the law without using the law itself to defeat it. He writes: “If you have any doubts about this fundamental law of rationality, try and deny it, but then write out your denial in a sentence – ‘The law of non-contradiction is false’ – and ask whether your statement is both true and false at the same time and in the same sense. If the law of non-contradiction is false, then your statement of denial must be both true and false.  But if your denial is false, then the law of non-contradiction is true! By denying the law of non-contradiction, you have just affirmed it.  The more you try to deny the law, the more you will affirm it.’

Typical; someone convinced they are right playing word games to prove their point. Pratt wants to put words in your mouth by claiming your denial of the law can only be structurally sentenced as ‘The law of non-contradiction is false.’ No, Bill, linguistically, all I have to do to deny the law is assert ‘A thing can be both A and not-A at the same time.’ (I do have to prove it, though.) Pratt continues to say that if you try to say the law is both true and false, the falseness of the statement makes the statement true, and if you say the law is true it’s both true and false and..that…doesn’t make much sense. Let us not forget that this word play just a mind-game, a paradox of language that is completely dependent upon what each word in the statement means. Aristotle engaged in this same word-play, insisting that a statement must have only one meaning if we’re to understand each other and gives the example of the word ‘man’ meaning ‘two-legged animal.’ Only, we do not have to consent to Aristotle’s definition and still understand what he means when he uses the word ‘man,’ though his definition may be more narrow than our own. I’d like to remark here that by way of his argument, Aristotle has proved the law to himself and only himself; the LNC doesn’t hold in the presence of two or more people.

By the way, Pratt suspiciously fails to point out that in order to prove the law, he has to use the law to prove itself. I’m not sure how he forgot such a minor detail.

To further illustrate the LNC is a contrivance of language, let me use this example: Pi is 3.14. Okay, so what are we saying here, that Pi is 3.14 (A)? Well, that can’t be since Pi and 3.14 are two different things, at least to my eyes. So, to say Pi is 3.14 would violate the LNC. Oh, or are we saying that Pi (A) is 3.14 (not-A)? Well, it can’t be A is not-A because that would violate the LNC, too! The way I see it, if Pi is 3.14, then two things are both A and not-A at the same time in the same context being that their meanings are synonymous. If we say Pi (A) is 3.14 (not-A), we’ve still refuted the LNC. If – in a desperate attempt to save the LNC – you’re thinking that ‘Pi’ is the written expression of 3.14 and ‘3.14’ is the numerical expression of Pi and this means the synonymous symbols make for two different contexts, I would strongly disagree; we’ve already agreed their meanings are synonymous and therefore the context is preserved. In fact, you can do this with almost any ‘is’ statement. This enigmatic vortex of the philosophy of language is academically referred to as a SNAFU.

I’m not the first to deny the LNC. The ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus, Graham Priest and ‘inconsistency-tolerant’ logicians have also challenged the validity of the law, although in a manner unlike I have done here. And I’m not saying the LNC can always be refuted; in instances that are self-evident truths, of course you can’t refute the LNC. That is, when you see blue, of course you’re seeing blue. But ask a color-blind person what they see and you’ll get a different answer. Thus the LAW of Non-Contradiction isn’t a law at all. If it is, well, you know that old saying: Some laws were meant to be broken.

The Basics of Pi-ism

[Ed.'s note: People think I'm making fun of religion through Pi-ism; Pi-ism is charged with being a parody religion. But is it a parody religion or is it a meta-religion? You be the judge.]

The Least You Need to Know About The Religion Based on Pi (As detailed in the book “The New Adventures of Pi.”)

• God chose philosopher and atheist Theory Parker to become His latest prophet because God feels that theist prophets are not adequately conveying God’s messages.
• To demonstrate God’s powers (and sense of humor) God used Her divine powers on Theory Parker to keep him from actually believing in the existence of a god.
• God’s existence appears to be contingent upon a question God has. The universe we live in is part of an equation God has devised to answer this question. Our universe was created to calculate the irrational number Pi to a finite number.
• All living things are variables in this calculation of Pi. Pi can only be solved by its variables acting in a particular manner, thus the need for The Suggestions, aphorisms God invites us to contemplate if we want to better ourselves as a variable.
• The Suggestions are: 1-Be Good, Be Happy 2-The Best Things in Life are not Things 3-Learn From Your Mistakes and .14-What You Will is the World.
• Due to Pi’s irrational nature, all things are possible, even the idea that God exists and does not exist at the same time. All religions are derivatives of Pi-ism with the exception of Scientology, which God specifically calls “retarded.”
• Dreams are sometimes glimpses of ourselves in other universes. These glimpses of our other lives are meant to be a learning tool.
• There is no free will as far as Pi-ism is concerned (meaning, there is no such thing as you having a free will). This is meant to be an encouraging idea and not the terrible idea everyone seems to think it is.
• Most importantly, God abhors violence and interference in the lives of others.

These are the most basic tenets of Pi and it associated religion, Pi-ism. Want to know more? Pick up “The New Adventures of Pi” on Amazon.com or Lulu.com today!

What is The Truth?

If there’s one thing I can’t stand, and there are lots of things, it’s when someone says they know ‘the truth.’ Let’s tear a page out of one of Plato’s stupid dialogues and ask, what is ‘the truth?’ According to the nearest dictionary, the truth is the state of affairs being in accordance with facts or reality. Mmm, that definition seems about as helpful as Justin Bieber in a bar fight since what you might consider facts may differ wildly from what you believe about reality. For example, facts about the natural world tell us nothing about those things that are supernatural, existing outside of nature, if anything supernatural in fact exists. Of course, you may disagree with me on this very point, believing that if you have enough facts, these facts tell you something about the overall state of affairs; meaning, reality. That kind of thinking means you’re not drinking enough. Alcohol is the only way to make ‘the truth’ any more understandable. Plus, it dulls the boredom.

"All great truths begin as blasphemies." ~ George Bernard Shaw, trying to convince his mother that eating his veggies confers no benefits.

What I’m not going to do is talk about the truth and its relationship to religion since there is none, not beyond self-evident truths, that is, truths obvious to yourself. If you can’t prove other minds exist – and you can’t – then your personal articles of faith do not qualify as facts to anyone other than yourself. So, I’m not going to spend any time talking about so-called religious truths; there’s no such thing beyond the confines of your own mind. Instead, I’m going to do something no one in their supposedly right mind ever does anymore and I’m going to cast a critical eye upon the claims of scientists, because sometimes there’s a legitimate problem with the conclusions scientists make. Here’s what scientists considers to be true – matters of fact; facts being the result of a very particular set of circumstances that are possible for other people – if they exist – to replicate. Now, whatever could be the problem with a scientific fact? Isn’t a matter of fact a matter of fact? Sure, but no one likes a tautology. More importantly, can we not make inferences from the collection of scientific facts, inferences so obvious they too must be factual? This is what scientific theories rest upon. Oh, but inferences from matters of fact are quite a leap if you if you haven’t had enough to drink. When’s the last time you met a scientist who could hold their liquor? Exactly.

"Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you mad." ~ Aldous Huxley, hearing about the size of black men’s penises.

There are two philosophical objections to the construction of scientific theories I will address here, although there are more: Underdetermination and The Problem of Induction. I’ll start with Underdetermination while you start drinking. Underdetermination basically says that any scientific theory derived from matters of fact may be suspect on grounds that the matters of fact used to establish a scientific theory are not sufficient enough to prove the theory. For example, if a child watches a cartoon about a cat and mouse behaving violently towards each other, then that child goes outside and acts violently towards another child, the matter of fact that the child watched a violent cartoon is not enough to prove that the cartoon caused the child to act violently towards another child. Perhaps other facts we are not aware of caused the child’s violent behavior, or that the behavior was caused by multiple matters of fact, not all of which we are aware of. Underdetermination can be best summed up by that old methodological adage, “Correlation does not imply causation.”

"The truth is rarely pure and never simple." ~ Oscar Wilde, being downright earnest.

Another problem is called the Problem of Induction, popularized by Scottish philosopher David Hume. The problem is that, generally speaking, induction generalizes what will happen in the future based on past events. For example, thinking that the laws of physics will be the same tomorrow as they are today because they have always been the same oh look we left out the caveat, “As far as we know.” Hume’s criticism of induction casts doubt on matters of fact, since all matter of fact are ‘proven’ inductively. That is to say, for any cause, multiple effects are conceivable, and the actual effect cannot be determined by reasoning about the cause. For example, if we shoot one billiard ball towards another, there is no way to guarantee that they will collide. In order to make that kind of guarantee, we would have to know and control every last variable, which, when taking quantum mechanics into account, is impossible to do – as far as we know ha ha ha. The Problem of Induction is further complicated by the Sorites Paradox. Exactly how many times does it take for a particular result to take place before we consider the results a fact? 1 out of 2? 2 out of 3? 3 out of 5? More often than not? If that’s not troubling enough, also consider the application of induction to classes of objects: It might be a fact that all rednecks are white because all we’ve even seen are white rednecks, but all it takes is one black redneck to disprove the fact. Disprove the fact and you abolish the truth. Now, it’s not that Hume believe induction wasn’t useful – it appears to predict what will be the case more often than not – he merely wished to say that facts are not justified necessarily.

"The greatest enemy of any one of our truths may be the rest of our truths." ~ William James, caught lying about only taking ONE cookie out of the cookie jar.

Now, while it might be the case that a ball falls to the ground every instance you’ve dropped it and this has led us to the theory of gravity – which is surely an improvement over the previous explanation, intelligent falling – the theory of gravity does seem to accurately explain why a ball falls toward the ground when you drop it and the motion of stars and planets. But scientists still don’t know why gravity is so much weaker than the other three fundamental forces of the universe – the strong and weak nuclear forces, and electro-magnetism. Scientist cannot currently reconcile quantum mechanics and Einstein’s relativity. That said, there is always a certain incompleteness to scientific theories. Evolution, for example, currently does not explain how life began…which is not the same as saying evolution is an incorrect theory, my right-wing nuts friends. There is the possible explanation that there is now or once was a god who was only smart enough to create a single-celled animal capable of replication from which humans eventually evolved, but we don’t currently possess this knowledge. As scientists proceed to collect data about how nature works, theories become revised and more comprehensive to the point it is possible to conceive of a day when future scientists look back upon our modern science and laugh, “Gravity? Oh my, what were they thinking?” Ah, but how much more will our future scientists have figured out about the universe? The collection of data, of ‘facts’, very often seems to lead to more questions. Can science lead us to the point of an ultimate explanation that simply ‘is’ that avoids raising more questions? Even religious explanations raise at least as many questions as they answer, so, what the fuck? What’s that? Somewhere I hear a Taoist laughing. Bastard.

"Like all dreamers, I mistook disenchantment for truth." ~ Jean-Paul Sartre, mistaking nothingness for being.

Philosophically then, when we say we’re talking about the truth, what do we mean by that word? Is it the state of things being in accordance with facts or reality? The word reality feels like a misnomer since the word ‘reality’ is typically value-laden and tainted by cultural and gender specific lenses. But it does seem that when we’re talking about matters of fact, specific events are seemingly caused by a specific set of circumstances. That said, the truth – that is, a ‘fact’ – seems to be closer to what remains consistent even if you don’t believe it. As the saying goes, the definition of crazy is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Hmmm, but are crazy people really crazy, or is it that they totally get the Problem of Induction?! To be clear, I’m not saying Induction is invalid any more than Hume did; it sure seems to work, maybe because events must have causes even if we’re not entirely sure what those causes are. After all, it can’t be that events just happen willy-nilly, can it?! If we can’t connect events to causes, there would be no basis for human logic. Hmmm, yes, judging by the way humans act, there appears reason to doubt the existence of logic.

"Truth has very few friends and those few are suicides." ~ Antonio Porchia, poor lonely Antonio Porchia.

The bottom line is this – the truth, or if you like, the facts, are merely approximation for understanding how the world works; there is seemingly no such thing as completely correct knowledge beyond the self-evident truths of internal observations such as “I am seeing yellow” which I could easily dispute but won’t bother because such truths don’t mean anything to anyone other than yourself anyway. Science, though, does get closer to the truth than religion, for science provides a better method for concocting explanations that other minds find plausible, assuming there are other minds. Remember that science as a discipline does not in principle need to comprehend the entire universe; human beings do that out of wanting to manipulate the world around them in their never-ending quest to avoid death, maybe because religious beliefs aren’t quite getting that job done. You are going to die, that’s the truth, so for fuck’s sake get over it. Oops, did I say that out loud?