old ideas about ideas … *hiccup*
[think think think think write write write write think write drink write think drink think drink drink drink drink ...]
What it comes down to is that any non-trivial utterance in any language is going to be “false” in a sense. Namely, it is going to be a representation of something. (Even this proposition becomes an instance of logical contradiction … if this is the only “true” representation of the state of things, then it becomes a “false” utterance. Har har.)
This doesn’t mean it’s not useful to continue to chip away at the problems that presume logical truth and falsity, and to build bigger and more powerful intellectual models, but that process becomes a means, not an end. ‘Cause there is no end in that pursuit.
The implication is that intellect goes only so far. The “truth” is perhaps an ever-broadening horizon of consciousness, of being. Or something. It is, at any rate, anything but certain.
‘Course for my thesis, I have to stay within the limits of intellect. Which is entirely appropriate, as it is going to be a piece of utterance. (What a fun word.) But the project I’ve set myself in the thesis is bound to fail, if for no other reasons than the above limitations on language.
I think I’m just going to have to tell a good story, make up a compelling lie. The burden is to make the lie constructive.
October 13th, 2005 at 10:34 am
Uh, funny that I use the word constructive. I meant it as opposed to destructive, as in, like helpful and progressive.
But I just went bopping around on wikipedia and reading about logic and then to the axoim of choice and constructivism.
Mathematical constructivism, near as my crappy fluency in math can tell, does not take the law of the excluded middle as axoimatic. In other words, we don’t presume ahead of time that representations are either true or false. The “constructive” part of the view is a requirement that any mathematical structure must be positively constructed to be considered valid and usable, and constructed without the benefit of the law of the excluded middle. This seriously limits what can be rigorously modeled with mathematics, and most working mathematicians ignore it.
I don’t blame them. For most everyday uses, the LEM is a useful tool. But is it “true”?
Pretty interesting.
October 13th, 2005 at 10:55 am
Ooh, now this is young and sexy: logics that tolerate inconsistency. Intuitively closer to reality for me, yet rigorously less certain.
Perhaps that’s the fundamental trade-off when you limit yourself to the rigors of classical logic. It is the horizon of intellect: certainty or truth, pick one. I’ve been trying really hard not to compare this trade-off to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. But I guess I just did. =)
October 13th, 2005 at 6:16 pm
Theatre of the mind. The mind being an archetype for the self assured, arrogant clown who cannot see himself as others do, tripping on his own self delusion. Yet, in the larger scheme of things, why do we always ask our heroes to wear costumes and masks? It is theatre, plain and simple. Or is it something else entirely? Where can one find certainty if not in the truth?
October 14th, 2005 at 10:12 am
[...] amen in Uncategorized, huh? by eric Friday October 14, 2005
Along lines near to the previous post’s, I’ve been looking for critiques of Ken Wilber. This one is one of the bett [...]
October 14th, 2005 at 12:57 pm
Not only do you have to stay within the limits of intellect, but if your program is anything like mine, you also have to stay within the limits of the discipline. This has been an unfortunate realization for me in trying to write and defend my thesis. There are certain words I can’t use and certain arguments I can’t follow, not because they’re irrelevant to my area of study, but because scholars cringe at their use.
A few words I’m being strongly discouraged from using: truth, reality, objectivity. I can’t use the first two because then I’m making a philosophical argument and I’d have to go back as far as Phaedrus and start from there. The third word because it’s anti cultural studies and no professor seeking tenure wants to sign off on such a defense. Actually, all three of those words are antithetical to cultural studies. My committee seems to like my subject, but they’re very nervous about certain words and certain ways of *phrasing* an argument.
Grr. I had no idea academia was so… ideological.
Sorry… my own personal issues.
but I mention it as something to at least watch out for as you go forward.