True Alternatives?

[Dragonfly]

I agree that there are sometimes only two choices. That is when you have one and only one relevant true dichotomy. A meaningful statement is either true or false. It cannot be both true and false, because that would be a contradiction. And it cannot be neither true nor false, because that would mean it is a meaningless statement. But when we are considering statements that are not restricted to the universe of meaningful statements, there is a tetrachotomy operative. A statement which is both true and false (at the same time and in the same respect) is a metaphysical contradiction, and contradictions cannot exist in reality, only in the statements of confused or perverted people; this is essentially the nihilist corner of this particular tetrachotomy. (Some tetrachotomies have one, some don't.) A statement which is neither true nor false is simply meaningless, and there are sadly far too many of those floating around, in and out of philosophy.

Is the statement "the orbit of the earth around the sun is an ellipse" true or false?

[Roger Bissell]

I agree that there are sometimes only two choices. That is when you have one and only one relevant true dichotomy. A meaningful statement is either true or false. It cannot be both true and false, because that would be a contradiction. And it cannot be neither true nor false, because that would mean it is a meaningless statement. But when we are considering statements that are not restricted to the universe of meaningful statements, there is a tetrachotomy operative. A statement which is both true and false (at the same time and in the same respect) is a metaphysical contradiction, and contradictions cannot exist in reality, only in the statements of confused or perverted people; this is essentially the nihilist corner of this particular tetrachotomy. (Some tetrachotomies have one, some don't.) A statement which is neither true nor false is simply meaningless, and there are sadly far too many of those floating around, in and out of philosophy.

Is the statement "the orbit of the earth around the sun is an ellipse" true or false?

Certainly. Which? I don't know. But it's a fact that the orbit of the earth around the sun must either be an ellipse or something other than an ellipse -- so the (meaningful) statement of that alternative must also be true -- and one of the component propositions in that alternative must also be true. Which alternative? Again, I don't know. Since I don't possess the information, it's much the same as asking me the truth status of a future-tense proposition: "it will snow tomorrow in Oregon." True or false? Certainly. Which? I don't know. (Ask me tomorrow! )

REB

[Wolf DeVoon]

Is the statement "the orbit of the earth around the sun is an ellipse" true or false?

Certainly. Which? I don't know.

This is getting a little weird. I accept the Square of Opposition and 19 valid syllogisms. I also accept the validity of the senses, especially with good instrumentation. What does it cost you to agree that the earth demonstrably and incontrovertibly rotates on its axis and has an elliptical orbit around the sun? Moreover, who cares what TAS thinks? I know precisely how hard it is to get noticed, published, recognized as an innovator -- esp. for somethng radical. Ice cream flavors? Jeez.

W.

Edited January 2, 2008 by Wolf DeVoon

[Dragonfly]

Certainly. Which? I don't know. But it's a fact that the orbit of the earth around the sun must either be an ellipse or something other than an ellipse -- so the (meaningful) statement of that alternative must also be true -- and one of the component propositions in that alternative must also be true.

The point is: it depends, namely on how accurate you want to be. At a certain level of accuracy you can say that the orbit is an ellipse. But if you want to be more accurate, it is no longer an ellipse, but an irregular curve that deviates slightly from an ellipse. So the statement can be true or false, depending on how accurate you want to be. Does that make the statement meaningless? I don't think so.

Which alternative? Again, I don't know. Since I don't possess the information, it's much the same as asking me the truth status of a future-tense proposition: "it will snow tomorrow in Oregon." True or false? Certainly. Which? I don't know. (Ask me tomorrow! )

But when will it snow in Oregon? If one snowflake falls in Oregon? Most people would probably agree that that wouldn't be enough, so there must be more snowflakes. But when is the number of snowflakes in Oregon sufficiently large to say that it snows in Oregon? That is rather arbitrary, so unless Oregon is completely covered with snow tomorrow or no one has seen any snow, the statement could be true or false at the same time, depending on what you consider to be enough snow in Oregon. That is not a contradiction, but the consequence of the fact that (in contrast to mathematics) our parameters are often not exactly enough defined to decide that only one of the two possibilities can be true, in other words, the statements are too vague (which doesn't necessarily imply that they are meaningless). Perhaps it would be nice (although I have my doubts) if we could catch the real world in either-or statements, but in real life things are seldom that clear-cut.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

This discussion was split off from here (this point) and put in the Epistemology section.

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

I agree that there are sometimes only two choices. That is when you have one and only one relevant true dichotomy. A meaningful statement is either true or false. It cannot be both true and false, because that would be a contradiction. And it cannot be neither true nor false, because that would mean it is a meaningless statement. But when we are considering statements that are not restricted to the universe of meaningful statements, there is a tetrachotomy operative. A statement which is both true and false (at the same time and in the same respect) is a metaphysical contradiction, and contradictions cannot exist in reality, only in the statements of confused or perverted people; this is essentially the nihilist corner of this particular tetrachotomy. (Some tetrachotomies have one, some don't.) A statement which is neither true nor false is simply meaningless, and there are sadly far too many of those floating around, in and out of philosophy.

Is the statement "the orbit of the earth around the sun is an ellipse" true or false?

False. In fact the orbit is not a closed curve in three-space. However, the classical two body orbit is a pretty good approximation to correct Einsteinian orbit in a weak gravitational field. That is why classical celestial mechanics can be used to navigate our space probes. The necessary corrections are easy to make.,

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Philip Coates]

> if the flavor universe contains more than two kinds, the "neither" option may amount to either some other flavor than chocolate or vanilla or no ice cream at all. But when I lay out the options in my lecture example, I specify that there are two flavors available -- and your choices obviously are to have both, one or the other, or neither... The purpose of the tetrachotomy in resolving false dichotomies is not to "get you somewhere," but to show that there are four alternatives, not two (or three), and thus to point you in the right direction

Roger, even though someone like yourself is highly intelligent and less likely to go off the subject, I won’t continue too long because I don’t like multipost internet debates that drag on for five or six rounds. They tend to lose sight of the original point and to drift out of focus (especially as other people chime in with their pet theories having nothing to do with the original point at issue) and you have to look back three days to follow all the point-counterpoint-tangent-missphrased point-repetition-restatement steps.

In a nutshell, my objection to the tetrachotomy is very similar to my objection to Peikoff’s DIM Hypothesis. Peikoff, like yourself, is making an attempt to over-universalize, to squeeze every phenomenon into somehow being best viewed as related to integration-misintegration-disintegration.

It’s only one tool. Just because you have a nice shiny, new hammer you are very proud of, don’t try to pound screws in with it as well as nails. Use another tool whose initials are "screwdriver".

(And, yes, if DIM or tetrachotomy doesn’t “get you somewhere”, it’s simply pointless. It’s a mistake, for example, to narrow or contort the case by specifying that there are only two flavors available, as in your ice cream example. You start with reality, not with jury-rigging an example because it works best with your preconceived tetrachotomy.)

[Roger Bissell]

> if the flavor universe contains more than two kinds, the "neither" option may amount to either some other flavor than chocolate or vanilla or no ice cream at all. But when I lay out the options in my lecture example, I specify that there are two flavors available -- and your choices obviously are to have both, one or the other, or neither... The purpose of the tetrachotomy in resolving false dichotomies is not to "get you somewhere," but to show that there are four alternatives, not two (or three), and thus to point you in the right direction...

In a nutshell, my objection to the tetrachotomy is very similar to my objection to Peikoff’s DIM Hypothesis. Peikoff, like yourself, is making an attempt to over-universalize, to squeeze every phenomenon into somehow being best viewed as related to integration-misintegration-disintegration.

Phil, you need to think outside the nutshell. You haven't shown or given an example of how I have made "an attempt to over-generalize."

Look -- Rand got a lot of mileage out of the fact that the history of philosophy and the history of ideas is littered with false dichotomies, and she saw that often, when the hidden assumptions were spelled out, a trichotomy was more useful in depicting the distinct, essential alternatives. I have a similar insight (though one I think is even more powerful and clarifying), and I have explored various possible applications of it.

Sure, I've erred in some of my applications, but many of them are on target. And I have not attempted "to squeeze every phenomenon" (i.e., every false dichotomy or controversy) into tetrachotomies. And many of the ones I ~have~ explored were not "squeezes." They were comfortable fits, much like Cinderella and the glass slipper. You are welcome to try to poke holes in my attempts. I don't fear losing credibility from being fallible and making errors. Take your best shot.

But drop the charges of rationalism and over-generalizing, if you don't mind. If I have made any error in all of this, it is over-concretizing or over-applying my generalization, the tetrachotomy principle, and you are welcome to try to argue that this or that application is invalid. But the principle itself is a corollary of the Law of the Excluded Middle. It ain't no frickin' over-generalization!

It’s only one tool. Just because you have a nice shiny, new hammer you are very proud of, don’t try to pound screws in with it as well as nails. Use another tool whose initials are "screwdriver".

I ~do~ have another tool. It's called the-objective-as-dual-aspect. It has the starring role in my essay in the next issue of JARS. But as you have recently made it clear, you do not like ~that~ "nice, shiny new" tool either. You accuse me of "multiplying" kinds of objectivity, when I have clearly explained that in an objectivity relationship, the two poles of the relation -- existence and consciousness -- both acquire the relational attribute of being objective, each in an important, distinctive way that need to be differentiated from one another. (And that these two aspects of the objective are (1) present from the first introduction of Rand's trichotomy and (2) important to further progress in resolving the mind-body problem and the free will-determinism problem.)

I appreciate your energetic efforts to keep people from distorting Objectivism with bad ideas and interpretations -- and from undermining the prospects of Objectivism with bad attitudes and behaviors. But you also seem to spend a good deal of time criticizing and shooting down attempts to form insights and to apply logic. Sometimes you're right. But it's a bad habit to get into, and I see you doing it a lot. (The fact that I have been the target of some of these efforts endears me even less to them.)

I am on a mission to bring greater clarity to a number of issues in and outside of Objectivism. The litmus test of my efforts will be the response of the typical readers, who are not approaching my essays with preconceived methodological check-lists. (Specifically, I am fed up to here with Will Thomas's mantra of "rationalism." He and David wouldn't dare accuse Rand of being rationalistic in seeing violations of the Law of the Excluded Middle throughout Western history, or in her devising/discovering the trichotomy as a technique for dealing with those violations. Yet, they seem to have no compunction against tagging me with that label for engaging in exactly the same kind of survey of false dichotomies and applying my own discovered method to help clarify and resolve them.) My readers will let me know in spades if they think I am muddying the waters or talking gibberish. Naturally I would prefer to have the understanding and support of someone as intelligent and benevolent as you are, but I am also not going to beat my head against the wall trying to win you over. You'll either get it, or you won't.

(And, yes, if DIM or tetrachotomy doesn’t “get you somewhere”, it’s simply pointless. It’s a mistake, for example, to narrow or contort the case by specifying that there are only two flavors available, as in your ice cream example. You start with reality, not with jury-rigging an example because it works best with your preconceived tetrachotomy.)

Jury-rigging? Ferchrissake, I was just trying to formulate a simple example so that readers could easily, concretely see how the principle works in application. Reality? Suppose a soft-serve ice cream machine offers only two flavors -- some do, as I'm sure you well know, so this is reality, right? -- isn't it true that the choices are vanilla only, chocolate only, vanilla-chocolate swirl, or neither? Come on, Phil. You are straining at a gnat (trying to cast some kind of doubt on my paradigm example) in order to swallow a cow (convincing yourself that tetrachotomies are always? often? unpredictably? unclearly? useless).

I agree with you that we shouldn't drag out this discussion interminably. So, here is my offer. If you don't make any more sense in your reply (if you make one) to this post, I will not be replying. That's a promise.

REB

[tjohnson]

Certainly. Which? I don't know. But it's a fact that the orbit of the earth around the sun must either be an ellipse or something other than an ellipse -- so the (meaningful) statement of that alternative must also be true -- and one of the component propositions in that alternative must also be true.

The point is: it depends, namely on how accurate you want to be. At a certain level of accuracy you can say that the orbit is an ellipse. But if you want to be more accurate, it is no longer an ellipse, but an irregular curve that deviates slightly from an ellipse. So the statement can be true or false, depending on how accurate you want to be. Does that make the statement meaningless? I don't think so.

Which alternative? Again, I don't know. Since I don't possess the information, it's much the same as asking me the truth status of a future-tense proposition: "it will snow tomorrow in Oregon." True or false? Certainly. Which? I don't know. (Ask me tomorrow! )

But when will it snow in Oregon? If one snowflake falls in Oregon? Most people would probably agree that that wouldn't be enough, so there must be more snowflakes. But when is the number of snowflakes in Oregon sufficiently large to say that it snows in Oregon? That is rather arbitrary, so unless Oregon is completely covered with snow tomorrow or no one has seen any snow, the statement could be true or false at the same time, depending on what you consider to be enough snow in Oregon. That is not a contradiction, but the consequence of the fact that (in contrast to mathematics) our parameters are often not exactly enough defined to decide that only one of the two possibilities can be true, in other words, the statements are too vague (which doesn't necessarily imply that they are meaningless). Perhaps it would be nice (although I have my doubts) if we could catch the real world in either-or statements, but in real life things are seldom that clear-cut.

Very well put DF. We can use 2-valued logic in mathematics because all particulars can be included in definitions but in the "real" world they cannot and so we need many valued, even 00-valued statistical logic. The actual orbit can never be fully accounted for physically because there will always be factors not included in our calculations. It will never match a mathematical model perfectly, although it can be very precise.

[UncleJim]

One caution I always add to discussions which seem to be relying on math modeling to tell them the truth about reality is to be careful not to attempt to replace reality with what the math model says about it.

Math is a specific kind of language. It's used to talk about what real things are, how they operate and how they interact with other real things. The closer what is being said about what is; actually matches-up with what is; the more truthfully it describes what is.

As Ayn Rand often said "reality is the final arbiter…"

Since the earth does rotate around the sun then that is what it does. Just because it may not follow one or another math model is not a serious concern. Unless; of course, you leave earths orbit and then want to return to earth.

The issue of right or wrong, good or evil, rational or religious is not determined by language. It's determined by reality. When language matches reality its called Objectivism.

[tjohnson]

The issue of right or wrong, good or evil, rational or religious is not determined by language. It's determined by reality. When language matches reality its called Objectivism.

I'd like to see you determine these issues without using language. Language never matches reality perfectly so I guess Objectivism is non-existent, according to your description of it.

[sjw]

The issue of right or wrong, good or evil, rational or religious is not determined by language. It's determined by reality. When language matches reality its called Objectivism.

I'd like to see you determine these issues without using language. Language never matches reality perfectly so I guess Objectivism is non-existent, according to your description of it.

Precision of language is a function of the user--you're only speaking for yourself here, and if you want to claim that your words only bear a vague, ill-defined relationship to reality, then no one should argue with you.

Shayne

[UncleJim]

The issue of right or wrong, good or evil, rational or religious is not determined by language. It's determined by reality. When language matches reality its called Objectivism.

I'd like to see you determine these issues without using language. Language never matches reality perfectly so I guess Objectivism is non-existent, according to your description of it.

I didn't say that what is said must match what exists to be considered language. What I did say is that when what is said matches with reality its called Objectivism. The nature of language which is objective is determined by comparing it with that aspect of reality which it portents to exist.

I can say whatever I want to say; or wish to say; or are commanded to say. But - unless what I say corresponds with what reality is then it cannot be considered an intellectual representation of it.

Yes! Objectivism is the only intellectually based philosophy available.