Does anything exist?

[The Man]

WELL SOMEBODY ******* NEEDS TO!

Have at it.

 

[The Man]

Dude, if it holds it as an axiom THEN IT'S NOT DISCUSSING IT. What part of that causes you problems?

Dude, what part of it isn't an axion held by the approach are you not understanding? Axioms by definition are held as true. So something held as false or questioned in a system or approach isn't an axiom of that system or approach.

 

[The Man]

Well I'm asking for a demonstration now.

So goalpost now moved.

Show me an example of working philosophy that takes it as axiomatic that proposition A can be true AND false at the same time.

It doesn't have to be a axiom of the philosophy for that to be the result. All that is necessary is for the mutual exclusion you asked about not to be an axiom of the philosophy.

I don't care that it takes the position or not. You can take the position that drinking bleach is part of a complete breakfast but that doesn't mean anything unless it leads to actual results. And no one drinks bleach for breakfast.

As I noted before, but you claimed not to understand any of it, it does lead to actual results. It purportedly deals with some paradoxes.

 

[The Man]

Then... just... call... them... definitions.

I'm so sick of the dishonest doublespeak.

Because other definitions within the system need not be axioms of that system.
There's nothing dishonest or 'doublespeak' about distinguishing between a systems defining foundations and other general definitions within it.

 

[Belz...]

Dude, what part of it isn't an axion held by the approach are you not understanding? Axioms by definition are held as true. So something held as false or questioned in a system or approach isn't an axiom of that system or approach.

You told me that this philosophy doesn't hold it as true. So now you're saying that it also doesn't hold its contrary to be true? Ok, so move on to my challenge of a demonstration and we'll see if any of it makes sense.

So goalpost now moved.

Wait, so I can't even ask follow-up questions or move on once we've cleared something? I guess I shouldn't be surprised that a philosophile wants the same question to be repeated indefinitely, instead of resolved and leading to productive discussion.

That is such a strange answer, that I have to believe you're stuck in contrarian mode. No, you've answered my question, and now I want you to demonstrate that philosophy.

It purportedly deals with some paradoxes.

I'm not taking philosophers at their word. Purportedly my eye. I want to know EXACTLY how it deals with the question in a coherent way, and leads to real results. Otherwise it's just empty words.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Because other definitions within the system need not be axioms of that system.
There's nothing dishonest or 'doublespeak' about distinguishing between a systems defining foundations and other general definitions within it.

"Systems."

You just swapped out "Everything is a philosophy" with "Everything is a system."

If I throw a rock at your head you duck. It's not "If I throw a rock at your head you duck... within a specific system." Facts exist. It's not "Facts exist... within a specific system." You don't have a soul. It's not "I don't have a soul.. within a specific system."

There are not individual "systems" where reality works differently, facts are different, or correct and incorrect get swapped around.

I have no idea what you are getting at, so I'll just assume an anti-intellectual ulterior motive to save time since I'm sick of you getting lost on the route there.

 

[Marras]

Actually there's only one.

I use the word 'logic' in the sense that logicians use it. People who are mathematicians, computer scientists, and -- gasp and horror -- even philosophers. I myself was a logician once and spent several years in a university department doing research on a specific corner of symbolic logic. In particular, I spent most of my time trying to find ways to use different logics to solve actual real world problems. Problems like: "is it possible that this distributed computer system goes into a deadlock?" Doing that I became very aware of the limitations of classical logic.

You, on the other hand, use the word 'logic' in some sense that no actual logician who is currently alive uses it. And you apparently know so little about logic that you don't even realize it and actually believe that it is a single unified monolith. Right now you are acting like the guy in the other thread who goes on about "hard problem of consciousness" without having any idea what brain research has found out during the last decades.

[What in the blue (or yellow) hell are you talking about?

What I mean is that with classical logic it is not possible to say that something is usually true but that there may be occasional cases where it isn't because something exceptional happens. The commonsense reasoning that each and every person does can handle these exceptions without a problem. Classical logic can't.

Let me give a real example and use what happened to me yesterday morning. I went to fridge and noticed that there was no milk. My thought process after that can be approximated with:

P1. I need milk

P2. There is milk in shops

P3. It's 7:30 am on a weekday

P4. The nearby shop opens at 6 am on weekdays

Conclusion 1. The shop is open now

Conclusion 2. I can go to the shop and buy milk

Simple commonsense reasoning. I do reasoning like this every day. You do reasoning like this every day. How could we represent this with classical logic? Well, we need to throw in a bunch of predicates but I can't be arsed to do it for the whole example. Instead, let's focus at P4 in more detail.

Let's use 's' to denote that particular shop. Then the straightforward way to model P4 is:

P4.1: forall D, T . (current_day(D) and weekday(D) and current_time(T) and T > 6 implies open(c, D, T))

Intuitively, this says that if the current day is D and current time is T and D is a weekday and T is later than 6, then the shop 'c' is open.

The problem here is that the 'forall' quantifier requires that the formula holds for each and every possible value of the variable. But in the real life there are always exceptions. Even though the shop's posted opening hours say that it opens at 6 on each and every weekday, it doesn't actually do so. Two months ago there was some accident there and they were closed for a day for repairs.

The proposition P4.1 is not a suitable way to formalize P4 because using it lets me to conclude that the shop is open also on days that it is actually closed.

We could also try to model it with the other quantifier:

P4.2: exists D, T . (current_day(D) and weekday(D) and current_time(T) and T > 6 implies open(c, D, T))

This has the problem that the 'exists' is true when there is at least one day D when the shop is open at time T > 6. I can't use this rule to infer that the shop is open during any specific day and time. It is completely useless from the knowledge representation point of view.

Those are the only two possible ways to introduce variables in classical logic. Either something has to be always true, or it is enough that it is true only once. One doesn't happen in real life and the other is useless for reasoning.

To catch the reasoning in the argument, we need to be able to represent the concept 'usually'. A way to say that "this statement is true unless some exceptional situation happens" and then a way to introduce the exception when it actually happens. You can't do these with classical quantifiers. You can't do these by adding auxiliary predicates. If you are really interested in finding out why not, you can read any primer on nonmonotonic logics.

Researchers spent a lot of time between 1960s and 90s trying to build AI system on top of classical logic. On the whole the attempts failed. They could get some toy problems working but practically nothing that would be useful in real life. The main reason for that is that classical logic is a damned fragile system where your models break if you look at them in a wrong way. And a big reason for that you have only 'for all' and 'exists' for quantifiers.

Those are not forms of logic. You simply have no idea what we're discussing. It's odd because we've explained and detailed what we're discussing. I can only surmise that you didn't read anything in this thread.

I freely admit that I haven't read each and every post in this thread. I'm just objecting to your misuse of the word 'logic' that you have repeated time after time.

Stop and listen to yourself for a while. You are saying that Linear Temporal Logic is not a form of logic. Doesn't that sound any strange to you? Not only that, it's a logic that wasn't invented by one of those filthy stinking useless philosophers, but by a computer scientist who then went to win the most prestigious award in computer science for that very invention. The ACM thought that the logic was worth of the Turing Award. But no, the omniscient Belz knows better than some propeller heads. I guess that the board of ACM are actually philosophers in disguise.

You certainly are doing a good impression of a "why are you speaking about brains when we are speaking about minds" guy.

But anyway, I'm not going to spend further hours of my life writing posts your you to ignore in 10 seconds.

 

[The Man]

You told me that this philosophy doesn't hold it as true. So now you're saying that it also doesn't hold its contrary to be true? Ok, so move on to my challenge of a demonstration and we'll see if any of it makes sense.

I told you the axiom wasn't held as true. Thus it isn't a fundamental aspect of the approach one way or another. Whether other aspects of the system lead to it being true or false under those condition depends on those various aspects. Different paraconsistent logical approaches give the preposition different strengths or importance within the system.

Wait, so I can't even ask follow-up questions or move on once we've cleared something?

Oh wait, we've cleared something? What exactly is that? Heck, you didn't even respond to the fact that since you assert self-contradiction doesn't exist in reality it can only be a conceptual or philosophical construct. Discussions and question of such must then be conceptual or philosophical.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that a philosophile wants the same question to be repeated indefinitely, instead of resolved and leading to productive discussion.

I'm certainly not a philosophile I'm just trying to keep things honest. If you honestly want to concede a question as resolved you could just directly say so, instead of simply trying to move on to other questions.

That is such a strange answer, that I have to believe you're stuck in contrarian mode. No, you've answered my question, and now I want you to demonstrate that philosophy.

OK, thanks I appreciate that, you could have just said it before. How was I suppose to know that you had now accepted it as an answer to your question? However, before we do move on there was a bit more to your question. Your approach appeared to be that if your question couldn't be answered affirmatively then logic wasn't part of philosophy. So given you assert it has been answered and resolved or by the purely conceptual or philosophical construct self-contradiction must be if it doesn't exist in reality. Do you feel logic is part of philosophy?

I'm not taking philosophers at their word. Purportedly my eye. I want to know EXACTLY how it deals with the question in a coherent way, and leads to real results. Otherwise it's just empty words.

Well that is certainty your choice. However how could my words be any more reliable or even more accurately representative then their own words? Remember I'm no philosophile, your question just happened to be on the very one thing I had read a bit about.

Remember, if self-contradiction doesn't actually exist, it is just words as well.

I'd recommend you just read their own words for yourself.

Now if you want to discuss the possibility that self-contradiction might actually exist in reality, as given in the examples before. That is the physics and direct applications, I know far much better.

 

[Belz...]

I use the word 'logic' in the sense that logicians use it.

I don't think so. You seem to be using the word so broadly that no one would be caught dead using that definition.

But go ahead, cite a source for that definition.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Sane people in normal conversations don't have to explain what "sense" they are using words in to anywhere near this degree.

The Philosophy fetish for making discussions unclear as possible and their outright hostility to explaining what the point of any of this is or what useful, functional purpose it has is clearer and clearer each day.

 

[Belz...]

I told you the axiom wasn't held as true.

You'll forgive me for thinking that means it was held as false, instead, since that's what I was asking for.

Oh wait, we've cleared something? What exactly is that?

At this point I think you're just seeking confrontation. I asked a question, you gave me your answer, and now I want to follow up on that. Then you called that "moving the goalposts" which is insane, and now you don't even know what we were talking about? Sheesh.

If you honestly want to concede a question as resolved you could just directly say so, instead of simply trying to move on to other questions.

What a load of crock. It's as if this is the first conversation you have with a human.

Do you feel logic is part of philosophy?

I've already answered that question. You contend that some philosophies don't necessarily take the strictures of logic as an axiom. I'm asking you to demonstrate how that works.

Well that is certainty your choice.

The fact that you haven't yet responded to my challenge is certainly not my choice.

 

[The Man]

"Systems."

You just swapped out "Everything is a philosophy" with "Everything is a system."

No I didn't. Just as Belz...'s own words aren't mine neither are yours. Systems have operating conditions and controls, including things like feedback and error correction or handling. Not "Everything" doesn't has such aspects. So everything, explicitly, isn't as system.

If I throw a rock at your head you duck. It's not "If I throw a rock at your head you duck... within a specific system." Facts exist. It's not "Facts exist... within a specific system." You don't have a soul. It's not "I don't have a soul.. within a specific system."

There are not individual "systems" where reality works differently, facts are different, or correct and incorrect get swapped around.

I have no idea what you are getting at, so I'll just assume an anti-intellectual ulterior motive to save time since I'm sick of you getting lost on the route there.

The conceptual systems we use to describe reality aren't reality itself. So some do better in some areas than others. Gauge theory is one way of describing the fundamental forces of the universe. While it leads to useful experimental results it may not be an entirely accurate description of reality. One problem would be how one defines materials. Under quantum field theory particles are just very localized perturbations in the underlying fields.

Your assumptions are as much entirely yours as are your own words.

 

[JoeMorgue]

No I didn't. Just as Belz...'s own words aren't mine neither are yours. Systems have operating conditions and controls, including things like feedback and error correction or handling. Not "Everything" doesn't has such aspects. So everything, explicitly, isn't as system.

The conceptual systems we use to describe reality aren't reality itself. So some do better in some areas than others. Gauge theory is one way of describing the fundamental forces of the universe. While it leads to useful experimental results it may not be an entirely accurate description of reality. One problem would be how one defines materials. Under quantum field theory particles are just very localized perturbations in the underlying fields.

Your assumptions are as much entirely yours as are your own words.

What... are... you... talking... about?

There is just one reality. We only need one "conceptual system" and that's whichever one describes reality the best.

Stop making this complicated because you think it makes you sound "deep."

 

[The Man]

You'll forgive me for thinking that means it was held as false, instead, since that's what I was asking for.

Again it doesn't have to be necessary specifically held as false to end up being false in the system. It being false just needs not to be explicitly precluded by the sytem.

At this point I think you're just seeking confrontation. I asked a question, you gave me your answer, and now I want to follow up on that. Then you called that "moving the goalposts" which is insane, and now you don't even know what we were talking about? Sheesh.

You were explicitly not even accepting it as a answer to your question. So "Sheesh" yourself as much as you want. Now that you concede it is an answer, yet have yet to concede that the mutual exclusion is a philosophical question and logic is a part of philosophy. Now it seems your want to accept it as a answer but want to find some other way to dismiss it as, well, being an answer..

What a load of crock. It's as if this is the first conversation you have with a human.

Not in the least, that's why I try to take people at their word and try to hold them to their own assertions.

I've already answered that question. You contend that some philosophies don't necessarily take the strictures of logic as an axiom. I'm asking you to demonstrate how that works.

Which is what, that it hasn't changed even when you assert your question has been answered and when self-contradiction is purely conceptual or philosophical, by your own assertion that it doesn't exist in reality? Simply becouse you apparently deliberately ignore specific points, even your own assertions, doesn't make them go away. It's a useless tactic and I've been around quite a few blocks.

Different logic is structured differently. Some don't take a 'contradiction is always false' as an axiom or the inevitable result of the axioms they do hold. That's how it works and basically the extent of my knowledge of them. For more detail as asserted, ignored and not quoted, you'll have to look at them. I'll try to help with what I can but again philosophy ain't my bag.


Tying to posit the subject of the very question at hand as "the strictures of logic" such that any other structures can't be logic, is also an old and useless tactic.

The fact that you haven't yet responded to my challenge is certainly not my choice.

The fact that you haven't addressed or even quoted significant portions of my post was entirely your choice

 

[Belz...]

Again it doesn't have to be necessary specifically held as false to end up being false in the system.

I was just providing you an explanation for the misunderstanding. You don't need to repeat this over and over.

You were explicitly not even accepting it as a answer to your question.

Originally, because your answer wasn't clear. We've been through this before, and that has been cleared. It seems you can't even accept when you're no longer in disagreement, lending weight to my earlier suspicions that you're in this for the scuffle.

Now that you concede it is an answer, yet have yet to concede that the mutual exclusion is a philosophical question and logic is a part of philosophy.

Yes, because before I concede any of that I need more than a word and an assurance that it's an actual thing. I can talk about Flaglartism, which I just made up, and which takes it as an axiom that nothing exists, not even your mind. Hell, I could even create a wiki page and recruit people. If I'm careful I could even get tax exemption for it. But what does that mean, or entail? What does this philosophy "do"?

Not in the least

I should hope not.

Different logic is structured differently. Some don't take a 'contradiction is always false' as an axiom or the inevitable result of the axioms they do hold. That's how it works and basically the extent of my knowledge of them.

So in fact you have no idea if there's anything to that thing except a name and the claim that it does what it says on the tin? You think that's convincing? You seem rather irked that I didn't just accept it and move on, but you don't even know if there's anything to it yourself.

Tying to posit the subject of the very question at hand as "the strictures of logic" such that any other structures can't be logic, is also an old and useless tactic.

Yes, because it's patently true.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Philosopher's argue like Republicans govern, they act like fairness is some bias against them.

"No fair you getting to use logic and 'not making stuff up at random.' All that does is unfairly stack the deck in your favor!"

 

[The Man]

What... are... you... talking... about?

There is just one reality. We only need one "conceptual system" and that's whichever one describes reality the best.

Exactly, one reality and it should only take one "conceptual system" to describe it but we don't have it yet. Currently, different systems describe different aspects of reality to, well, different degrees. None describe everything "the best". Perhaps when we have a theory of everything that might change but we ain't there yet.

Stop making this complicated because you think it makes you sound "deep."

Like your own words, your own thinking doesn't become my thinking no matter how much you simply want to ascribe it to me.

 

[The Man]

I was just providing you an explanation for the misunderstanding. You don't need to repeat this over and over.

OK, sorry my misinterpretation.

Originally, because your answer wasn't clear. We've been through this before, and that has been cleared. It seems you can't even accept when you're no longer in disagreement, lending weight to my earlier suspicions that you're in this for the scuffle.

OK, but from your next assertions it doesn't seem like your are accepting it as an actual answer to your question.

Yes, because before I concede any of that I need more than a word and an assurance that it's an actual thing. I can talk about Flaglartism, which I just made up, and which takes it as an axiom that nothing exists, not even your mind. Hell, I could even create a wiki page and recruit people. If I'm careful I could even get tax exemption for it. But what does that mean, or entail? What does this philosophy "do"?

As I told you it deals with some paradoxes. Paraconsistent logic in general tends to deal with paradoxes (particularly in ethical considerations) and inconstant information better than classical (consistent) logic. Lacking the logical dilemma of a contradiction (or just apparent contradiction) terminating reasoning or leading to triviality (all statements are provable as true).

I should hope not.

So in fact you have no idea if there's anything to that thing except a name and the claim that it does what it says on the tin? You think that's convincing? You seem rather irked that I didn't just accept it and move on, but you don't even know if there's anything to it yourself.

Now that is demonstrably disingenuous, I've been quite honest about what I known and don't know about it. The former being more than the name and the claim that it does what it says. I previously wrote about its advantages and limitations. Even noting in my own opinion you give up more than you gain. You claimed to not understand any of it.

Frankly, I didn't expect you to accept anything. While I did take you claiming to accept it as an answer progress. However, your subsequent posts indicant you haven't honestly accepted it as an answer, yet.

As I've said I'm more than willing to help but I'm no expert. As I said before, and you ignored, why should my words be any more convincing to you than the words of those who are considered experts? Further when I do try to explain, it's either ignored, dismissed as philosophical nonsense or simply claimed that you don't understand.

Yes, because it's patently true.

What's "patently true" about something you assert doesn't exist in reality, other than that simple lack of existence? As a philosophical or conceptual construct it only has those attributes ascribed to it by that construct. You want to ascribe it the aspect of being "patently true", great, but that's just a a philosophical or conceptual position.



Further, the law of non-contradiction isn't the only fundamental structure of logic. There is also the law of excluded middle and the principle of identity.


The law of excluded middle is abandoned in fuzzy logic and multi-valued logic. As well as Institutional logic if I recall correctly.

The strongest paraconsistent logics are multivalued as TRUE, FALSE and BOTH. In them the law of non-contradiction [NOT (A & NOT A)] becomes a contradiction itself as 'Always NOT (A & NOT A) but sometimes A & NOT A'.


I'm not sure of any logic that abandons or modifies the principle of identity, but again I'm no expert. Also no system of logic is built on just these, none of which provide inference rules.


Strange that you fixate on just one of those laws.

Ain't philosophy fun? It's like a Slinky. When you first see it as a kid you go 'Oh, hey'. Then you play with it for a while and realize it is just falling down the stairs in a slow semi-controlled way. You try to do more things with it and it and eventually it gets tangled all up in itself and you just can't play with it anymore.

 

[Marras]

I don't think so. You seem to be using the word so broadly that no one would be caught dead using that definition.

But go ahead, cite a source for that definition.

I'm not the guy who claims that Linear Temporal Logic is not logic.

So how about you explain that piece of Wisdom According to Belz?

Why is Linear Temporal Logic not logic?

And as a side note. The word 'logic' is overloaded. In the technical sense its two primary meanings are:

* the whole academic discipline that examines truth and reasoning and the whole related shebang.

* a formal system that defines the syntax and semantics how sentences are formed and how truth is propagated under the system.

The classical logic is one of the many formal systems. I already posted the general principles how that system works and compared it with the general approach that modal logics use to define their systems.

People who are not logicians tend to use 'logic' to mean whatever they believe classical logic is. You seem to be one of those people but damned if I knew what you believe it is.

 

[IanS]

I use the word 'logic' in the sense that logicians use it. People who are mathematicians, computer scientists, and -- gasp and horror -- even philosophers. I myself was a logician once and spent several years in a university department doing research on a specific corner of symbolic logic. In particular, I spent most of my time trying to find ways to use different logics to solve actual real world problems. Problems like: "is it possible that this distributed computer system goes into a deadlock?" Doing that I became very aware of the limitations of classical logic.

You, on the other hand, use the word 'logic' in some sense that no actual logician who is currently alive uses it. And you apparently know so little about logic that you don't even realize it and actually believe that it is a single unified monolith. Right now you are acting like the guy in the other thread who goes on about "hard problem of consciousness" without having any idea what brain research has found out during the last decades.

Well, jolly good, and well done if you studied philosophical logic to that level. But that really is not what we are talking about in this thread. The term “logic”, was raised here by the philosophy posters who claimed that since scientists always try to make a logical analysis of whatever they discover & whatever they try to explain, that means that science is relying very heavily on formal “Logic” as it's been defined by & used in philosophy courses/research … and so they claimed that science must rely on philosophy for all that it does, otherwise the scientists could not make what we call logical decisions ….

… but that of course is untrue nonsense.

Almost no scientists today (or in any recent times) have studied any courses in philosophy at all, let alone courses specifically in philosophy of Logic. And most have not studied logic as part of their maths education either. You think that's bad? Do you think that's where scientists are failing? So that they cannot do their job? Well … science, and those same scientists, have succeeded vastly beyond anything any philosophers have ever done, and they have done that with a mixture of good solid scientific practice, which really just means honest objective in-depth precise study, and often with a good deal of Maths … but very rarely with maths courses in logic such as Set Theory and Boolean Algebra … yes, there is loads of Maths in many parts of science, and loads of very advanced Maths in areas like Theoretical Physics (eg in Quantum Field Theory), but even there afaik very few have used Philosophy of logic as an approach to the problem.

That's not to say that you cannot find some science papers that do use set theory or Boolean algebra. And afaik, there have been such mathematical approaches to QM. But mostly afaik the methods did not prove very successful, and most of QM has used other approaches (such as Path Integrals and Feynman Diagrams).

IOW, to put it very simply – it's a completely misguided and misrepresented Stawman-type argument when philosophers here have tried to claim that science must be relying upon philosophy, because scientists have to be logical about they do.