colonel@sunybcs.UUCP (Col. G. L. Sicherman) (09/19/86)
> > There are PLENTY of things that are true because I want them to be true. > > For instance, once I had a cat whose name was "Gunnar", because I > > WANTED his name to be "Gunnar". > > If, from knowing X we can conclude that Y is so, we sometimes say "Y > because X". An example might help. "You must have had spaghetti for breakfast, because there's a spot of spaghetti sauce on your tie." > On the other hand, when one event, X, is the cause of > another event, Y, we might say "Y because X". "I've got spaghetti sauce on my tie because I had spaghetti for breakfast." > Let X = "I wish Y to be so". Mike Cherepov's statement I take as > meaning that "Y because[1] I wish Y to be so" is not so. You have > attempted to show a counterexample, but all you have really shown is a > case where "Y because[2] I wish Y to be so". This doesn't work as a > counterexample, because "because" doesn't have the same meaning in both > statements. I don't think the point of disagreement between you is a matter of language. Causality is a very old philosophical problem. Some philosophers maintain that "to cause" is directly meaningful only when YOU cause something, as Mike did with his cat's name. Under this interpretation, causality of external events (as in Baconian science) reduces to time-sequence between mutually dependent events. With Einsteinian relativity, different observers might differ over which of two events "caused" the other! Both of you will agree that something can be so because you _make_ it so. The hidden point of Mike's argument is that names are special: the will is the act. I leave it to harder heads than mine to discuss the role of names in mathematics! One interesting point about language: (1) My dog's name is Willis. (2) I call my dog Willis. Statement (1) can be held to reduce to statement (2), since (1) is true so long, and only so long, as (2) is true. In what sense, then, need a name be said to _exist,_ if any utterance about it reduces to an utterance about calling? "Six bells by the dog watch." "I didn't know watches had bells," said Water Polo. "I didn't know dogs had watches," said Isfahani. "It must be an old sea dog." --American Pie -- Col. G. L. Sicherman UU: ...{rocksvax|decvax}!sunybcs!colonel CS: colonel@buffalo-cs BI: colonel@sunybcs, csdsiche@sunyabvc
dmcanzi@watdcsu.UUCP (David Canzi) (09/21/86)
In article <960@sunybcs.UUCP> colonel@sunybcs.UUCP (Col. G. L. Sicherman) writes: >> Let X = "I wish Y to be so". Mike Cherepov's statement I take as >> meaning that "Y because[1] I wish Y to be so" is not so. You have >> attempted to show a counterexample, but all you have really shown is a >> case where "Y because[2] I wish Y to be so". This doesn't work as a >> counterexample, because "because" doesn't have the same meaning in both >> statements. > >I don't think the point of disagreement between you is a matter of language. From the context it was taken from, ie. a discussion of appeals to emotion, Michael's argument appeared very much to be an attempt to justify inferences based on wishful thinking. And one thing that was essential to his argument was an ambiguity in the English language. (Actually, there were two possible, closely related, ambiguities his argument could have been based on. The one I mentioned was the one I thought was more likely.) >Causality is a very old philosophical problem. Some philosophers maintain >that "to cause" is directly meaningful only when YOU cause something, as >Mike did with his cat's name. I use the term "cause" in a sense that makes no distinction between humans, animals, or inanimate objects. > With Einsteinian relativity, different observers >might differ over which of two events "caused" the other! In special relativity, a necessary (but not sufficient) condition for one event, A, to be a cause of another event, B, is that A appears to precede B in *all* frames of reference. If two observers can disagree about the order in which two events occurred, then neither event caused the other. >Both of you will agree that something can be so because you _make_ it so. >The hidden point of Mike's argument is that names are special: the will >is the act. I leave it to harder heads than mine to discuss the role >of names in mathematics! Hmmph. Did Michael *hide* this point or did he *miss* this point? It has occurred to me that Michael might deliberately post arguments based on subtle fallacies in order to force people to think. Nah. Couldn't be. Nobody would keep it up for so long. >One interesting point about language: > (1) My dog's name is Willis. > (2) I call my dog Willis. >Statement (1) can be held to reduce to statement (2), since (1) is true >so long, and only so long, as (2) is true. In what sense, then, need a >name be said to _exist,_ if any utterance about it reduces to an utterance >about calling? Asking whether names "exist" could lead to a long, heated, and unproductive discussions. I think the question is meaningless, and prefer to avoid heavy philosophical arguments over such questions by using what I think of as the "DWH rule". "DWH" stands for Describe What Happens. Reducing your statement (1) to your statement (2) is an application of DWH. The question of whether names "exist" can't, as far as I know, be reduced to statements about events. -- David Canzi