Continuing essay development


Well, it's in progress..

I got a moleskine notebook to help me write this essay; it's impossible not to take it with you and write in it when you have a spare moment. I thought I would write my thought process here as well. Whenever I need to cringe in the future, I can look back at this.

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We can roughly separate propositions into several levels which I will number here. I'll start with the ends and work through the middle.

"0" level propositions are not really even propositions, because they're logically inconsistent. "The present king of France is 30 years old" is such a proposition. Since there is no referent, this proposition doesn't get off the ground. It's neither true nor false; it's not a proposition. Some propositions offered for consideration in polite company are like this, so you have to watch out.

At the other end, 4th level propositions are evidentiary propositions which, we could say, one could not deny without giving up being rational. If I know you can see and talk, and I show you that I'm holding a spoon and say, "I am holding a spoon", and you deny it, then I have to start wondering what's wrong with you. The only thing I could say is that you're not taking part in the dialog.

Just under 4th level, we have 3rd level. Here you don't have direct evidence of the truth, but you're led to suppose the truth for completely normal reasons. Let's say I told you I have a spoon behind my back. You have no particular reason to deny it. Nothing would be out of the ordinary if it were true. Disbelieving this proposition would mean believing something uncomfortable, namely that I was lying or playing with you. You also wouldn't feel foolish if you were proven wrong; you had good reason to believe it was true, after all. "Julius Caesar once ruled Rome" is like this, as is if I were to say "I was born in Seattle".

Next we have 2nd level propositions. These are simply more outlandish propositions than 3rd level. If they were true, it would not require a wholesale revision of your worldview, but it would be very interesting and possibly shocking. "There are civilizations thriving under the ice crust of Ganymede" is such a proposition. I have no reason to believe this one as things stand. However, I can imagine in full detail what events would have to transpire to either prove this proposition false, or elevate it to 3rd or 4th level. Also, and relevantly, you were probably not too surprised by my introduction of this particular example. Wondering about life on other worlds is a common enough event. The question it raises is not arbitrary, but is one that some people are disposed to think about from time to time. I think that this aspect is relevant too.

Finally, there are 1st level propositions. These are, simply, any logically consistent statements that do not fall into the other levels. It can be any arbitrary statement, as crazy as you can possibly imagine, as long as it does not contradict itself. What should our attitude be towards such a proposition? Here is one, for example: "Whenever anyone puts a quarter in a parking meter in the next week, George Carlin will at the same instant spawn a double of himself who will materialize on the surface of Pluto, die a horrible death, and then vanish without a trace".

What can we make of level 1? It's hard to even approach the idea of having any attitude towards this. At first glance a good response seems to be "Well, I don't think I believe it, but it *might* be true for all I know." In that case, and here is the point of this exercise, I would have to ask the person, "Do you disbelieve in anything?". We agreed that one had to believe level 4 statements. However, the negations of level 4 statements are level 1 statements. It is as crazy and arbitrary to deny a self-evident truth, as it is to affirm George Carlin's extraterrestrial duplications. If I hold up a spoon to your face, and say, "I am not holding a spoon", what response should you have? Let's say you get all the evidence you could possibly get that I am in fact holding a spoon; all the evidence that would have led you to believe the positive 4th level proposition. Would you then hold out and say, "But, for all I know, the negation of that proposition *might* be true."? Again, you're not taking part in the dialog. Which is to say, you are not being rational. Not supporting the negation of a level 1 proposition is identical to leaving the door open for the negation of a level 4 proposition.

I will attempt to develop a two-pronged approach:
1) that this sketch is correct; disbelief is the proper attitude to hold towards level (1) propositions.
2) that the proposition "A deity exists" is a level 1 proposition.


UPDATE (1/17/05):
I think it's more or less correct that "negation of level 4" is tantamount to "affirming of level 1". Either case is making a strong declaration that a great portion of what we hold true about our world is wrong.

Posted: Fri - December 10, 2004 at 10:52 PM | | | |

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