PP18 Are Disembodied Statements Meaningless?
G'day, my name is Bruce Robertson and this is Pirate Philosophy, the channel in which I describe the Pattern Paradigm, an original philosophy that is rigorous, logical and accurate; and one that I claim makes better sense of the world than any other philosophy. Welcome.
Today's video is somewhat different from the others, in that it is a brief detour from our philosophical journey, as we explore a philosophical blind canyon; one which, while popular in Standard Western Philosophy, actually goes nowhere and achieves nothing. Not every idea in philosophy is necessarily a productive line of inquiry.
As for example, the idea that was popular a few 100 years ago, that the Sun goes around the Earth, it may have seemed sensible at the time but it is not a productive line of inquiry.
And it is because of the popularity of this blind canyon and its unquestioned acceptance by so many, that we shall explore it. In the previous two videos, we have been looking at language; PP16 'Languages and Communication' and PP17 'Culture and Schisms', (I'll put links to those videos below). And in particular in these videos, we showed that words are labels for patterns and are used for the communication of ideas and patterns.
There is a chain of logical ideas that link words to reality but it is a complex one. This was discussed in PP9'Patterns, Time and Space', and further expanded on in PP10 'Pyramids of Patterns' and PP11 'Reality and Purpose'. (Again, I will put links to those videos in the description below).
The relationship is perhaps best shown in this diagram. It shows the linkage between words and the world beyond our senses.
I will go over it very briefly. The world beyond our senses (or reality-, if you like) creates data, which is picked up by our senses and from which we use pattern-identification logic to identify patterns within the data.(There is no other logical process that is capable of interpreting sense data from nothing (ex nihilo, if you like)).Then these identified patterns can be used as input to the pattern-identifying logic in a recursive manner to create higher level patterns and these can then be arranged in a pyramid of patterns. These patterns can then be labeled and then be communicated to other people using those labels or 'words'. Everyone's identified patterns will be slightly different from everyone else's and will depend upon their personal innate thought processes as well as on their own personal experiences. So the labels or words used in communication will indicate slightly different patterns in different people.
So for example, the word 'pink' will indicate a slightly different range of colours for different people; and there is no problem with this.But problems have arisen, when Standard Western Philosophy has ignored the complex chain that links reality to words; and instead has implicitly claimed that there is a direct and unambiguous link between words and reality as shown in this diagram.
Standard Western Philosophy does this by removing the necessary logical steps from sense data to a pyramid of patterns and naively claims that there is a direct link between words and reality.
They claim that the words have intrinsic meaning all on their own; but words are labels for patterns and if this link is removed, then the words are inherently meaningless and only exist as strings of alphanumeric symbols. So for example, the word 'pink' when linked to a person with a pyramid of patterns has the meaning of a colour that one might see in a rose or fine sunset; but when removed from a connection with people, it only exists as a string of alphanumeric symbols: 'p', 'i', 'n', 'k', or perhaps as a particular sound: pink. But Standard Western Philosophy naively assumes that there is a direct connection between words and what they are purported to represent; but this is logically impossible'.
And having made this naive direct connection between words and reality, they compound this error by subsequently concocting arrangements of words in what are called 'statements' and they give those statements properties and claim that these statements can be labeled as 'true' or 'false'; but since the statements are not communications from one person to another but are removed from any person with a pyramid of patterns, they are inherently meaningless. And I prefer to call them 'disembodied statements', so as to distinguish them from statements that are made by a person as a communication.
Examples of disembodied statements would include:
'This statement is true',
'This statement is false',
'Either A or not-A is true'.
Also syllogisms such as:
'Socrates is a man, all men are mortal; hence Socrates is mortal'.
Or 'All swans are white'.
Perhaps disembodies statements are best epitomized by the claim by Standard Western Philosophy, that statements can have truth values of 'true' or 'false' and also their so-called 'laws of logic' and 'Either p or not-p is 'true''.
A few points to note: if the statements are actually communicated by a person, then they do not qualify as disembodied statements. So for example, someone might say to you: 'This statement is false', and while not a disembodied statement, it clearly does not make any sense. Or if someone says: 'All swans are white'; this would only make sense in the context of a discussion on aquatic birds.
Secondly, the logic of statements like 'either A or not A is true', can only make sense in the context of an abstract system, where the statement is treated as a string of alphanumeric symbols and is a theorem of the system; and hence the theorem could be considered to be 'true' within that particular abstract system.
(Abstract systems were discussed in video PP14: 'The four components of mathematics').
However, one cannot merely substitute a word for 'A' (in the 'either A or not A is true' claim) and then claim that this refers in some way to the real world. For as pointed out earlier, words can only be connected to the real world through a person's pyramid of patterns and without that connection, words are no more than strings of alphanumeric characters. And without a link to a person's pyramid of patterns, there is no process for determining whether one can label a particular disembodied statement as 'true' or 'false'.
Thirdly, still talking about the claim that 'either A or not A is true'; even if this is made as a communication, this would say nothing at all about the world. For there is no explicit process for determining whether it is actually 'A' or 'not-A' in the world. So there is no logical way of determining whether 'A' or 'not-A' can be labeled as 'true'.
So for example, if I were to say: 'either this is pink or it is not pink', that says absolutely nothing about the world and nothing about whether it's pink or not. And the same if one claims 'either A or not A is true', it says nothing at all about the world. It would only begin to say something about the world if one has a proper process for determining whether it is 'A 'or 'not-A' or whether it is 'pink' or 'not pink'. And without an explicit process, all you are left with are hand waving arguments.
Neither is it evident what the consequences are, or significance is, of labeling something as either 'A' or 'not-A' or 'pink' or 'not pink'. What is its use? What is its significance? It is not explicitly described within the system of disembodied statements. (Incidentally, I will be discussing the meaning of truth in a future video.) And if there is no use for it, it is best ignored as meaningless.
Fourth. When disembodied statements are treated as strings of symbols, they can have significance if they can be incorporated into a well identified abstract system such as mathematics.
So, for example, the disembodied statement: '2+2=4' can be treated as a string of symbols; and given the particular symbols that are used, it can be associated with the system of mathematics and then identified as a theorem within the system of mathematics; and hence it can be labeled as 'true' within the system of mathematics.
However, there is no abstract system with axioms and rules of inference and theorems that uses only alphanumeric symbols
if it does not belong to a particular abstract system and hence the string of alphanumerical symbols: 'elephants are pink' cannot be associated with any specific logical abstract system, because there is no logical abstract system that can process those particular alphanumeric symbols.
Since disembodied statements are not communications and have no identifiable origin, they can be treated as entirely random strings of words or alphanumeric symbols. For all one knows, they could have been written by a monkey with a typewriter and what was written may be of interest to a reader or it may not. And by 'interesting', I mean: 'has the possibility to be incorporated into a person's personal pyramid of patents to create a new pattern'.
But, perhaps surprisingly, despite these logical problems, disembodied statements with their presumed properties of 'truth' and 'falsity' have become embedded at the heart of standard Western philosophy. And they have done so without any explicit justification, or even rationality.
And in the absence of such justification, it may be instructive for us to look at how it might possibly have occurred.
Suppose there was a philosopher, let's call him 'Phil', who lived some while ago and who had no knowledge of the logic of the chain of links from sense data to words. All Phil knows is that he has what he considers to be knowledge of the world and that his knowledge can be described in words. Phil also considers that what he knows is certain or indubitable, for he does not consider that there might be alternatives and so he claims that his knowledge is 'true'. And since he can describe his knowledge in words and statements, he considers that those statements independent from himself can be labeled as 'true'.
And if statements do not fit with his knowledge of the world he labels them as 'false'. And he feels justified in doing this, as other people, including other philosophers, agree with him.
Hence, the idea that disembodied statements can describe the world and be labeled as 'true' could be created. However, it is based upon the naive and inaccurate assumption that words are linked directly to things in the real world - the world beyond our senses. Whereas, as we have seen, the connection between the two is a long and complex chain of links and is inherently subjective. But even without knowledge of this chain of links, it is philosophically naive to presume that the connection is direct and simple. The naivety that I'm referring to is akin to seeing the Sun rise in the East and set in the West and then presuming that the Sun goes around the Earth and then to believe that it is 'true' that the Sun goes around the Earth; for the naive reason that one is unable to envisage any alternative.
And in the same way that certainty in the belief that the Sun goes around the Earth is a barrier to understanding the dynamics of the Solar System, so too is a certainty that words link directly to the real world and that the real world can be perfectly described by an arrangement of words in a disembodied statement is a barrier to understanding the dynamics of knowledge and how it is created. They are both naive assumptions that have no place in philosophy.
But that said, they both also have a place in the non-philosophical normative world, where they are both functional in that the idea that the Sun goes around the Earth is fine for non-astronomers and the idea that words link directly to the real world is fine for non-philosophers.
But from a more rigorous perspective, whether philosophical or scientific, a good theory needs to fit the facts, be useful and provide insights into the nature of the world. The theory of disembodied statements fails on all these criteria; for there are no facts that it fits, it is not shown to be useful and neither has it generated any insights into the nature of the world.
Instead what it has done is to distort people's view of the nature of the world and of philosophy. And what is more, it has created various logical paradoxes, such as that of the heap, Ship of Theseus and many others.
In the light of this and in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, I will simply claim that a philosophy based disembodied statements goes nowhere except up a blind canyon and has no place in proper philosophy, except perhaps in the history of philosophy as a failed exploration of ideas.
And certainly, disembodied statements have no place in The Pattern Paradigm philosophy that I have been describing in these videos.
For while the apparent certainty of disembodied statements might seem attractive, it is simply an illusion. The apparent certainty only applies to a fictional world.
So what can you do should someone present you with a disembodied statement?
Well, you can ask yourself: 'What is the communication?' Are they postulating a fictional world where words link directly to a purported but fictional reality? Are they postulating some pseudo-logical system where words can be manipulated by some sort of hand waving rules? If so, then that communication can be dismissed as inherently fictional and meaningless.
On the other hand, perhaps there is something interesting in their communication, which can actually make sense when fitted to one's pyramid of patterns. It will be up to you to decide.
Well, that is all I have for you today. I hope you have enjoyed this video and if you have any comments, please leave them in the section below and if you'd like to continue this journey with me, please subscribe to my channel and give it a thumbs up.
Thank you.
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