 Hey there. So unfortunately, we had a bit of a technical issue when recording this week's episode of the Praxis Philosophy Throwdown. We invited the awesome Steve Patterson to come talk to us about his philosophy. And we had a great call, but we lost the beginning of it. So I'm here to basically introduce it. Fortunately, we didn't lose that much material. Most of the discussion is still here, but the beginning, the introduction was lost. So this call was with guest Steve Patterson, who is a philosopher who works outside of academia. In fact, he describes himself, I think this part we did lose, he described himself as kind of an anti-academic philosopher. So he sees a lot of issues with the way that academia works and he tries to rectify that during his own personal work. He has a book called Square One, The Foundations of Knowledge. And he's somebody who, even though he calls himself a radical skeptic, he still thinks he has a proof for why there are certain kinds of knowledge that we can be absolutely certain of. And that's a lot of what we talked about in the discussion. As we kick in, we'll see, I'm asking him a question, which is essentially an argument for skepticism, for a radical of total skepticism. And as you'll see, he starts off by refuting that. And as we go through the discussion, we talk about other possible motivations for skepticism, any other reasons that we might have for adopting a kind of skepticism to which he responds. So this was a really, really fun call. And personally, one of the more fun debates I think I've ever had. So I hope you all enjoy it. Not necessarily that I would defend this argument, but I find it interesting to grapple with it. Somebody might respond and say something like, okay, but throughout history, for the most part, when people do, they stop abstracting and they get down to it and they get into the arguments and they go, you know, bam bam bam and maybe even they might even be chicken senses or not. For the most part, they end up all just being wrong too. Yes. So, you know, and that doesn't mean let's not argue, but somebody might say that does mean have a bit more humility, don't say that any of your knowledge is certain. Yeah, yeah, no, I love it. This is actually the reason I'm a radical skeptic is because I think most of our knowledge about everything is probably fundamentally wrong. However, there is one exception. There is one area of knowledge which which that type of radical skepticism doesn't apply to. In fact, it presupposes that somebody says, let's keep an open mind. What they're presupposing is, well, the truth is some way out there and maybe you don't have access to it, which implies that the truth is some way out there. So there are there are skepticism has a certain amount of presuppositions nestled in it. Those nestled in presuppositions can't be wrong. Now, for example, I could say something like throughout history, this would be a universal truth. Not everybody has known every fact of the universe. Okay, is that true? Well, yes, is that true now? Yes, doesn't tell you much about the word of the universe, but I think that is a true statement that would have been true thousands of years ago. So that would be there's all kinds of examples like that were very kind of silly, don't tell you much about the world. But if you think about them enough, you can say, okay, now this actually is a certain truth or or like in the book, even more fundamental in that, you know, all plants are plants. Yeah, doesn't tell you much about the world, but that's true. It's always been true. Somebody disagrees, even if there's a consensus that some plants are not plants that consensus is wrong. That is a true statement about something which is in all possible universes. So that is a true statement. I want to ask one more question sort of following this up and then I want to open it up for other people to ask questions. So the last thing that you said reminds me of the analytic synthetic distinction, which is this idea that I'm for anyone who doesn't know it's this idea that there are some statements that are analytic, that the fact that they're true doesn't actually tell you anything about the world. It just tells you about what the words that you just use mean. So the classic example of this is all all bachelors are unmarried. And the idea is, well, okay, that didn't tell me anything about the world that just told me that what I already knew, which is what bachelor means and what being unmarried means. So when you try to true without without doubt. So it is true. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the distinction is between analytic truths, which are true by virtue just of the definitions of the words. And then synthetic truths are truths that are not just about the definitions of the words that are actually true of, of something, you know, linguistic, let's say, right. So, so, you know, when you give the example of like plants or plants, that seems obviously true. It's also an analytic truth. Do you have an example of something that you think you have certain knowledge of, and it's not an analytic truth. Yes. But before I give you that, this is actually going to plunge us straight into some pretty fundamental issues because, for one, there is a line of argumentation which says that analytic truths are simply true by definition and therefore they're not even worth discussing. This is not the case. Analytic truths are incredibly important arguably the most important actually truths I think in the entire world of philosophy precisely because people deny their truth. So I had a conversation with a gentleman from Columbia on my podcast. I forget which episode it was. He was a dialectist and he said, well, talking about all bachelors unmarried. Ah, what about the Pope? He said the Pope is unmarried but he's kind of married because he supposedly married to the church. So he's married and he's unmarried. Well, if it's the case that somebody is saying there's an analytic truth that is not true, then it must be the case that we should say, okay, let's all be on the same page that analytic truths are actually certainly true. That we're talking about bachelors in the world. They are the way that they are. They are unmarried because people disagree with that. Before I answer your question, I'm going to ask you a question. If we say that analytic truths are necessarily true just by virtue of the words that we use, why is that the case? Why are analytic truths true just by virtue of the words? Yeah. I think that's just the fact of how we use language. I think this also can come down to the individual though. If I was trained to believe this sound has a different meaning, then it's no longer true for me. Language is subjective in that sense. Is that kind of what you're trying to get at? So here's what I'm getting at. It is the case that analytic truths are true, that all bachelors are unmarried. But the reason for that is the most fundamental principle in all the philosophy and the universe, which is the law of identity. Things are what they are, and it is not the case that they aren't what they aren't. Identity and non-contradiction. The reason that analytical truths are true is precisely because of the laws of logic. So that when we say, well, it's got to be that way that bachelors are unmarried, that's how we use language. Yes, and the reason that we use language that way and the reason that it is true is precisely because of logic. That's the point of square one. So when you ask questions about why analytic truths are true, I think it takes you straight down to the fundamentals. And this actually is probably where we find some disagreement with people who think contradictions exist. But let me answer your question about whether or not there are certainly true propositions that are not analytic. Yes. One at present, which would be that the contents of my perception are going on. So that is a certainly true statement about metaphysics. I know some existence in the universe. I have certain knowledge that there is orangeness happening in my mind that the mental phenomena are taking place. Now it's not something and what we mean by mental phenomena, mental phenomena necessitates that you're taking place. It's not an analytic truth. It's a synthetic truth about what exists in the world, and it's certainly true. Cool. I could follow up forever, but I want to open it up to other people. What other questions do people have, objections, anything? Yeah, before we do get into the weeds, I'm kind of the paradox of throwing it down with Steve on skepticism. I want to apologize for the interruption in the recording or interruption in the call here. Like my computer's had a few worldview crises because Steve's revelations about Williams counteracts about skepticism. But yeah, I think one of the goals of this call is we're kind of getting into is talking about this idea of radical skepticism. So Steve has laid down an open challenge to any kind of paradoxes. We've covered a lot of paradoxes in these last few discussions we found. It's going to be very useful tools for igniting discussions around things like epistemology or identity or even ethics and especially metaphysics as well. So bring your best. If you have questions for Steve about, you know, when his work on Square One or any of the other videos and podcasts that he's been working on, or of course on these, you know, various paradoxes we've covered, definitely bring him. Steve has laid down the challenge to basically leave no paradox unresolved by the end of this call. So we're going to leave it open to you. If you don't have anything, William and I will jump in. We're going to be like real satanic devil's advocates going going crazy. But before you guys do questions, I want to intentionally provoke you. I'm claiming that not only can all paradoxes be resolved. I'm certain of it. And if you think that there is a true paradox, I'm certain that you're objectively wrong. And I'm claiming that by the end of this conversation, we can demonstrate. So if you want to stick that in my face and say, Steve, that's the most arrogant conceivable thing, do it. Now I do that because this is the most important topic in the world in all of philosophy, whether or not their logical contradictions is the most important question. So please. I have a clarification question to ask you. Right. Your clarification questions. This is our fault for not inserting this earlier. I think some of the interruptions kind of throws off, but I do want to kind of get your get your distinction. If you have one between maybe different uses of the word paradox paradox is sort of being more or less equivalent here to logical contradiction. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good, good. And then we, I think we can definitely launch into a very productive discussion. William, did you want to follow up on that? That clarifying what you mean by paradox was also my question. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Paradox is an ambiguous word. The way that I mean it here is to imply logical contradiction specifically. There are other paradoxes that are called paradoxes, but those don't have any real implication on metaphysics. I mean, they're just like quirks. In some sense, I can be happy and sad about an event at the same time. Oh, it's a paradox. Yeah, but it doesn't doesn't really get to the meat of what we're talking about. I'm claiming the most important questions about paradoxes, those which imply logical contradiction. I was really worried you're going to eliminate the emotional complexity from our life by like a kind of paradox. I was kind of like, I was kind of concerned about that. That remains your emotional complexities and some of the weirdness of life is still going to be there by the end of the call, but your logical contradictions and your irrationalism may not. So, the floor is open. All right, I have, well, actually I have a follow up question to something that you said part way through that introductory set, but I'm going to put that aside for a minute and come back to it because I have a more relevant question right now. Why do people believe they perceive paradoxes if those paradoxes don't actually exist? It's an excellent question. I don't know the answer, but I have some guesses. Here's my, my first guess. People are impressed by things they do not understand. If I were to say, there is a cat in front of me and there is not a cat in front of me. Lots of people go, wow, I don't know what that means, but wow, that sits so deep. I've gone over my head, which means I want to sound smart by saying, yeah, yeah, I understand what that means. So I think that you see this with the quantum move argument. The people make ridiculous arguments. They draw from quantum physics and they don't want to sound stupid, so they don't make any challenges. So my guess is that people are drawn to contradiction precisely because it sounds incomprehensible and mysterious. There's another answer, actually, that was, that surprised me when I experienced it. I had a long conversation years ago now with a guy, actually it was after I wrote a piece on quantum physics. A guy contacted me who I would say was a very aggressive irrationalist and he was trying to say, no, no logical contradictions exist. We had this long conversation and by the end of it, I got some really interesting information out of him that kind of disturbed me a little bit, but it makes sense. He essentially said, Steve, I know this is wrong, but I say it because it gives me power. And what he meant is, if people can, I'm essentially trying to break people's minds that if people can act like, okay, other logical contradictions, like I can't even think for myself, this dude is totally confusing me, yeah, I'm just going to go with what he says. So he was essentially saying, yeah, I kind of know what's wrong, but I literally, it gives me power. So I think there's some small group of really weird sociopaths who pursue contradiction maybe for that in because they want power. But I think if I think for the most part, it's just, it's just confusion. Cool. So Steve, I'm not sure if this is really within the realm of stuff we're talking about, I guess it is, but I'm particularly interested in kind of the concept of logic itself and how that relates to contradictions. Specifically with regard to logic as being something that we use as limited beings. And I'm not sure if I can still what I'm asking, but yeah, I guess I come from more a more reductionist perspective, not in a materialistic type sense, but in more of a metaphysical sense of incorporating sort of our limitations or the limits of our understanding into our concept of logic. And so I guess I'm curious if that's something you've explored, because it does have some interesting implications. I do find that there's this tendency to assume, I think this is where William and I disagree, that ideas or concepts are distinct things unto themselves. Whereas I would tend to view them as sort of emergent from the properties of the universe, even if those properties extend beyond what we currently understand. And so yeah, I'm just curious. Okay, so what I'd say is the logic is an ambiguous word, and different people mean different things by it. What I mean by the term logic is sometimes ambiguous, but I call it the rules of existence. So I'm talking about something which isn't a human creation, I think it sounds like the way you're using the term it's something like I would use like rationality or techniques for rationality things that we come up with to sort true from faults. I'm talking about logic is much, is much, much bigger than that. So for example, for any existent thing, it is exactly the way that it is. I'm, that's not something I came up with I'm saying that's something I'm recognized, but that is a true statement about every existent thing doesn't matter if it's in my mind outside in the world some other universe and multiple universes is the way that it is. So then the reason you could rephrase that as the law of identity which I'm claiming is a kind of universal external thing. So that's the way that I'm using the term logic. In terms of the limits of rationality, I think I don't know it's not something I've spent a lot of time thinking about my suspicion. I wrote a little bit about this in square one. If it's the case that everything is exactly the way that it is, then it must be the case that we can know something about everything. Even if it's just a little something, we know that it, whatever it is, it is that way. So in a sense, our minds can wrap wrap just a little bit of knowledge around every existent thing. So that I'm not saying that we can know everything about everything, but it seems like there's if there's a hard limit to rationality. I'm not exactly sure what it is. In my worldview, my guess is everything could in principle be known. You have enough time and maybe a big enough mind that answers your question. Yeah, that's an interesting thought because kind of the path I've been going down is seeing seeing logic more as as an abstraction or in the sense of a simulation and of kind of classifying or identifying shared properties between things. I suppose you could say I've come around to somewhat randian metaphysics. And I don't know, I guess probably what we might end up disagreeing over would be just definitional in terms of our concept of truth because like when you say when you say that the law of non contradiction is true, I think I would tend to phrase that as the description is so broad that it describes everything. You know that it's these we take a description say starting with our limited experience of physical things in the world, and we broaden that description. And then we say kind of like, almost like it how in math, you can say, Well, we'll take the limit as X goes to infinity. Well, we'll sort of stretch out that concept to be to incorporate everything. And then boom, we have it. And so it might it seems like it might just be a linguistic thing but coming from like for me from an perspective that seems to be that's like my that's my preferred way of describing it. Yeah, I guess on that I'd say I'm actually skeptical when people use the term all or they use the term everything sometimes they use that as if the referencing one thing and I don't think that's the way that abstractions work I think it's actually an abstraction. I don't think that there is such a thing as the universe per se I use that language but I don't think it's one thing that's an abstraction we're putting a boundary around a whole lot of things a lot of individual things. Not abstraction exists but it doesn't exist separate of our mind. So when I say the law of logic applies to everything I don't mean to say that the law of logic applies to the one thing that is everything. I mean that any existent thing is exactly the way that it is and it's this is something I'm not claiming I'm not claiming that this is something we know from physical knowledge. This is something that could be otherwise I'm saying that this is a universal law and and it could not be otherwise. Um, can I ask for a clarification to that. Um, where do you draw the line saying that this is like something that's too big to, you know, make an abstraction about because like you could make the same argument about a human body right like we're just we're not one thing is that Yeah, so in it's a good question and my this kind of gets into metaphysics and the philosophy of composition versus simple simple substances and my metaphysics what exists physically are base units of reality. The Greeks might have thought of them as Adams but nowadays we might call them plank units they're like 10 to the negative 70 sized fundamental units of space time. Those fundamental units are arranged in particular ways throughout what this thing that we call the universe and then those arrangements of matter we label as objects we label as things we label as the human body label as different things. So we can make an abstraction as large as you like, but what I'm claiming is those abstractions are entirely mental constructions so like I have this water bottle here. My claim is that all that is actually existing without my mind is the bits of matter that are composed in a particular way that I call a water bottle just like with the universe there's not the one thing there isn't the water bottle there. There isn't the universe there. It's just all of the fundamental bits. Does that answer your question. Yes, it does answer my question. I have to think about it for a while before I can like continue to follow up on this train of thought because I just, I don't know how to try it on everything. I do want to turn the conversation back around just for a minute because I had I did write down a follow up question to something that like a side comment that she made partway through the introduction. Okay. And I'm paraphrasing this and so correct me if I if I misunderstood you but I think you said that you believe we can know some objective truth and that the fact that we can know objective truth gives us some insight into the nature of the mind. So I would like to follow up questions to this one is how can we know objective truth and why and then what insight does this give us into the nature of the mind. It depends on what we mean by objective. Here's what I'd say. If I were to claim that Chopin is the best piano composer. That is true for me. That is a subjective truth. If I were to claim that in the universe there exists one evaluation of Chopin is the best piano composer. That is now an objective truth. I'm not, it's not true for me. It's true for anybody. It is a kind of a universal true statement. So that's what I mean by objective. This is not something is true for me is true for you. It's something that's objectively true. Now, what that means about the mind is that it must be the case that whatever the mind is it has access to objective truth. Sometimes this is called the God's eye perspective. Some people make the argument they say well we could never know objective truth because that would imply we'd have to have the God's eye perspective. We have to get outside of our own minds and see whether or not the claims we're making about the world of truth. I'm claiming in some sense we must have the God's eye because we can make certainly true objective claims. If it's the case we can make certainly true objective claims then it must be the case we have the capacity to do so. Okay, I feel like there are a million follow-up questions to that. Can you elaborate on that more? I don't know what direction to steer you down exactly but what is this and why do we have it and how can you back it up? The mind you mean? This capacity to understand objective truth is God's eye perspective. I have no idea. It's the most ridiculous thing ever. I mean consciousness itself not just the capacity for reasoning and accurate reasoning about objectively true statements in the universe but just the experience of life is totally ridiculous. I don't have a good explanation for it. I'm trying to explain it in a coherent way but I don't have a good explanation for its existence or really what it is. I know certain properties about it but I don't know what it is. Doesn't this kind of... I don't know. These are things that you cannot tangibly prove. This feels to me like we're moving into a grayer area of philosophy and again correct me if I'm wrong but I'm not opposed to this at all but it's harder to back up claims like this. What specifically? What claims specifically? Well talking about things that are not tangible. That you cannot go and actually like touch and feel and prove. You mean about the existence of the mind or the... Yes, the existence of the mind and the capacity to understand objective truth. Okay, I would say I can prove. Anybody can prove for themselves is probably more accurate with putting it. Anybody can prove for themselves that they have the capacity to know objective truth. Think about the contents of your experience right now. I'm assuming that everybody's looking at a screen. Be aware of the contents of your visual field. There's probably blackness, right? You're having a sensory experience of black. Is it the case that what exists in the universe there is at least one conscious experience of black? Now I think if you become aware of your visual field you can say that about all the contents of your visual field. I can say with absolute certainty that there is at least one conscious experience of what I'm calling blueness taking place right now in the universe. And if anybody were to claim that any other part of the universe they'd be wrong. Direct insight into the nature of the universe and I can make it an objective truth by just saying it's something that's going on right now objectively. So I'm claiming that is proof that anybody can do that about what's going on their minds right now. Become aware of what's going on your minds and say that is going on in the universe and you must have access to objective truth. Now in terms of what the mind is, again, it's not... A lot of people don't find it persuasive to talk about the mind in such mysterious ways but this is the nature of the phenomena I'm trying to explain. I can't explain it away. There's this conscious undergoing all the time that's kind of a fundamental presupposition and I can describe it. I can describe my conscious experience. I can say it feels a certain way. I'm having a subjective experience. I'm trying to be some kind of a being that has thoughts and impressions in my mind and my conscious awareness. I can describe it that way but if somebody's looking for something they can measure I can't give that to them. It's only something that I think can be done through introspection. If you doubt the existence of the mind I think it's just a matter of introspection before you discover such a thing exists, certainly. Do you believe that there are any objective truths beyond the self, beyond your own analyzing of your consciousness that exists? So maybe that's like a physical truth or... Because based on what you're saying I assume that you don't believe you can necessarily know if that water bottle even exists or if it's just an illusion that you're experiencing in your head. I'm under the impression that you believe you can only know that you're experiencing the visual but you don't... and the touching of it might all be a mental experience. Do you think that there are any truths beyond that self? Maybe they exist. First I want to know if you think they exist and if you can ever, if you can know them or if you do what are those? Can you kind of get one asking? Excellent question, yes. So I believe that there exists an external physical world that if my mind goes away, that will still exist. And I also believe that there are other minds going on right now that are similar to my own. If I die, they're still going to be around. I don't claim certainty about that knowledge. What I can be certain about is the contents of my own experience. Now, that is a claim about metaphysics. What we're doing when we theorize about the external physical world is we're trying to fundamentally explain the phenomena that we're experiencing. So the reason that somebody came up with the theory of the physical world is because they have sensory mental impressions. It is the mental experience that comes prior to the theorizing about the physical phenomena. So in a sense, the mind epistemologically is more fundamental than the world. What we think of is the external world. And I think modern thinkers get this backwards. They think what definitely exists is what's out there and then maybe the mind does or doesn't exist. I think that's totally backwards. The only reason we posit the existence of the external world is because of the mental experiences we're having. Now, that being said, I do think you can know, in a sense, you can know something about an external world, but it's in a really abstract way. To the extent there is a physical world that is composed of base units of space-time, those units are in the position that they are in. They are composed in the way that they are composed. But I can say really abstract things. I can't describe them in any great detail, because I don't know if that's the case. But if it is the case, then that's the case. I have a whole set of logical, tautological truths that I can know are true. I just don't necessarily know whether or not the world corresponds in that way. Then there's back to the objective truth thing. I think the more reductionist perspective would be that for any non-homogenous existence, a subset, rather a non-homogenous subset of existence must necessarily be able to simulate some other component of existence. I'm not sure what the word simulate, but what do you mean by that? Simulate meaning to utilize a shared property. I would come at it from a bit more of a computational theory perspective, where for me our experience can be considered axiomatic, but I would say not necessarily objectively true. Whereas the fact that we can access objective truth would kind of be objectively true. It's kind of interesting because of that simulation property. So basically if you have distinct things, whether they be atoms or molecules or subatomic particles, the very fact that they're distinct and they're interacting according to the properties of the universe means that they can mirror the behavior of other things and other places and other properties. From that concept, logic would be the most fundamental property of the universe and we would have access to objective truth because we ourselves are composed of universe stuff. Whereas I tend to go with the experience thing as being more axiomatic that we can't deny it without affirming it, but not necessarily objective in the sense that your material existence is objective. I think you and I are just using words a little bit differently. I do think that logic in a sense is kind of the fundamental unit or basis of existence, but the center point of my book is that logic and existence are inseparable. You cannot have existence without logic and you cannot have logic applied in non-existence. And the reason that logic and existence are inseparable is because of this. In every case of existence, you have existence, which means you don't have non-existence. That's true. That means every existent thing is itself, which is the same thing as the law of identity. So I'm saying logic and existence are bundled, necessarily bundled together. And this is the other reason why contradictions don't exist. That makes it... Yeah. I think I just tend towards more, maybe more materialistic sounding explanation because I find that so many times when we talk about things like truth, it tends to culturally bring up a lot of concepts of almost sort of a Platonic-type dualism or this whole body, spirit kind of concept that we see... that we have coming to us culturally from our history of being very religious. And that I find that things tend to kind of bend in that direction, almost like the language bends in that direction. And so sometimes I intentionally use analogies to computation or something like that to kind of snap it away from that direction. Yeah, you'd hate my metaphysics. I'm a substance dualist. I think the mind is... I am at least a dualist. I might even be an idealist. What I am certain of is the conscience of my mind and it is not the case that the contents of my mind are spatially extended. If there is spatially extended stuff in the world, there is physical stuff in the world, that means it exists in addition to my mind. So that's why I'm a dualist is because I think that there's a physical world, but there might not be. It might be that all that exists is mental stuff. So yeah, I don't think you'd like my metaphysics very much. I don't think that would be a problem necessarily because my concept of reductionism is very broad in the sense of if it was just mind, then mind would be the thing that everything reduces to. Okay, yeah. Yeah, if we have a broad enough term for what we need by mental. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, something like that. Steve, I have a question for you. Yeah. So one of the strongest arguments I've come across in favor of skepticism is what's called the Agrippen Trilemma. You familiar with it? Mm-hmm. So the Agrippen Trilemma created by a guy named Agrippa who was an ancient Greek skeptic. And the argument goes something like this. In order to say that you know something, you need to have a justification. Mm-hmm. Do you agree with that? Like basically you need to have some kind of a reason, right? Like you need to have a reason that backs it up. No. Ooh. Interesting. Okay. Could we interrupt you William and have him explain why, or can you circle back to it later, Steve? No, I'll explain it exactly. I am familiar with the argument you're talking about. I didn't know the name. The reason is because there are fundamental truths, which do not require justification. Those truths which are necessary. So something being the way that it is is a necessary truth and it is not true because of some other reason. So there's this whole category of necessary, which means by definition it's necessary and not contingent. So just so that everybody understands the argument. And then I want to see if I understand your response to it, right? Sure. The argument goes, in order to say that you know something, like you have a statement, you know, if you want to say that you know that that is a fact, you need some kind of a justification, right? The knowledge requires justification. What is justification? Some other fact that you know. Basically that's that that's really the only thing that we have as justification is well, some other fact that supports the fact that you're claiming to know. So the argument goes, well, there's three things that could possibly be going on if I claim to know X. Either I claim, either I know it either that's justified by Y, which is justified by Z, which is justified by whatever. And there's a sort of infinite regress of justification that never bottoms out. In which case, and you didn't really know X because the justification didn't bottom out. Or, you know, you have something where like X, you believe X and it's justified by Y. And the reason you know why it's because it's justified by X. There you don't have an infinite regress that you have like a circular loop of justification. And that's loop also seems to be ungrounded, right? Like you believe this justifies that which justifies this. They're justifying each other, but there's nothing sort of holding them up, right? Or the third option is, you know, you believe X and it's justified by Y. And you claim Y doesn't require justification. That you hit a bottom level belief where that one doesn't require justification. So the way the, the Agrippa and Trilema is typically put, you know, you have the infinite regress option, the circular option and the dogmatic option. And those are the three. So would you say that your response to the Agrippa and Trilema is, I take the dogmatic option. There are some truths that just don't require justification. I mean, I wouldn't, I wouldn't use the term dogmatic. I would say that why are necessary truths necessary. If you understand the nature of what is meant by necessary, then you'll understand it doesn't require further justification. It's not just an arbitrary assertion. It's not just some contingent hypothesis. Oh, yeah. I'm not sure if you froze up or I did. It was a little bit there. You're good right now. See if I'll let you know if I continues and. Okay. I think, I think your point came through. So I would say that when you say. When you say that necessary truths. Don't need justification because you're, you're now giving justification. Right. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm giving explanation. I'm saying there is such a thing as necessary truths. And if you understand the concept of necessary truth, you'll understand why it is not the case that they get their truth value from additional premises. Let's talk about a specific example. And use that to try to see like, is your nest, is your necessary. The reason that potentially equal a reason, a justification. Sure. So every existent thing is exactly the way that it is. This is a necessary truth. I can't see a problem with that. Well, so, so, so, so would we then so, and I'll throw this out to Jackson or anybody else. So, you know, first of all, you know, the idea that a thing. Necessarily is the way that it is. I'm on board. I believe it. But the, so the question is, if we want to say that we don't need a reason to believe that. That's different. You're talking about justification for a belief versus belief. You're talking about persuasion. Do we need a reason to believe that? No, no, no. I don't mean, sorry, maybe I should have said justification again. I don't mean a reason like a motive. I mean a reason like, yeah, like something that just supporting something that supports it. Right. So if we want to say that that doesn't require justification, then are we willing to commit to the idea? I guess you are Steve, but I would say that knowledge doesn't always require justification, that there are some things that are just, we can know them for sure and yet have no supporting evidence whatsoever. No, no, no, no, no, no. I'm sorry. Before people answer, you're, you're, you're polluting the question there. It is not that we have, we have, we just shrug our shoulders and say, but here we have hit rock bottom. No. What I'm saying is understand what is meant by necessary. The reason that I have a belief that there exists necessary truths is because I understand what is implied by the category of necessary. So there's a reason for belief, which is understanding that's not, which is different than saying, do you believe this for, because it's a contingent truth, not all truths are contingent. There are some truths which are not contingent. Now the reason you believe that is for, because you understand how language works. You're, you're persuaded, you have a psychology, but that doesn't mean that those actual truth themselves need additional justification for them. And one thing that seems interesting to me with, with that argument, um, with the urban trauma, wouldn't it seem to presume in some sense, um, the existence of mind as distinct from truth? I mean, I think it's because it seemed like if, if it's saying that every, if one of, one of the, the tackle, at least the infinite regress possibility, um, it would seem to treat the mind as somehow distinct rather than as incorporating truth or being part of the same system. Wouldn't it? So once you assume, or once you accept it, the mind is part of the same system that you're, that is being examined by the mind, then you have your basis in that. I don't know if that's necessarily, um, implied. I think it just depends. I think we can make this work in whatever metaphysical structure we want. So we could say the mind is separate from the world. We could still have descriptions of the world in a different system, or if the mind is part of the world and we have the mind as part of the world still making descriptions of the system that it's in. I don't think it necessitates a metaphysical distinction out of the way. I'm not sure that maybe other people have other thoughts on that. Um, so I want to follow up on this idea of justification just a little bit more. So if your response is that, uh, some truths don't require justification to know them because they're necessary truths. And if you understand what necessary means, uh, then, then you will see why they don't require justification. Uh, as the, at least as I am, as I'm understanding justification, uh, what you're saying is the justification is the nature of necessity. So you have given a justification. I mean that would just be, that's not how we would use language. Um, justification is necessary for, for contingent propositions to be, uh, justified and reasonably true. Okay. There are, there are some propositions. What do you mean? What do you mean by contingent? Because I don't, I don't mean, precisely that it depends on other, uh, states of affairs. Um, so for example, if I were a contingent, that's not, that's not what, I don't mean contingent truths like. Like, uh, it could have been another way. That's, that's a contingent truth, right? Like it depended on states of affairs. I'm talking purely epistemologically right now. Uh, so, so like, so in order to, there's just the idea that. So stick with sort of, um, justification, not contingency, just the idea that. Whether or not this is necessary or contingent. Uh, that you need. A justification in order to be justified in claiming, to be justified in claiming, to be justified in claiming, to know it. So, you know, let's say for example that, um, you know, okay, so, uh, a plant is necessarily the way that it is. That's not a contingent fact. Uh, but it is the contingent fact that I can know it, right? Like, let's say we agree that I can know that it's a contingent fact that I can know it. Like if I, for example, didn't have a brain, I wouldn't know it. Uh, so it's. So I'm not talking about the nature of the fact itself. I'm talking about the nature of our, uh, having the right to claim to know it, to know it for certain. Okay. So you're not talking about the certainty of the belief or the, the necessarily trueness of the belief. You're talking about us believing those types of things. I'm talking, I'm talking about the justification for claiming certainty. In the belief. Okay. Right. I really, I really just claiming any. It's not justification for the belief. It's justification for the belief in the proposition. So it's about, it's not about whether or not some claims are necessarily true. It's about how we determine whether or not we're justified in believing those claims. I'm talking. Yeah. I'm talking about our knowledge. Not about the state of the state of the world. Like what I'm saying, like, for example, like the, a grip and argument, I think it's perfectly consistent with the idea that there are necessary truths. Uh, but. We can't know them because we can't, you know, because we get stuck in this justification loop essentially. Okay. So I guess here, here, here would be my base level justification, maybe. Um, if it's the case that you have discovered a necessary truth, then you are justified in believing a necessary truth. Because all necessary truths are necessarily true. Okay. That's my justification. All right. And, and, and, and both, and sort of, and you, and you don't, and I take it you were not going to, you don't think that that requires justification. No, because it comes from understanding the nature of necessity. See there, you started, but now you're starting to go in a bit of a loop. What's the loop? Okay. So. You, in order to, so you justify, uh, the fact that if you know a necessary truth, like it, what did you, I forgot your exact words. Well, like if you, if you've discovered a necessary truth, then you're justified in, in believing that necessary truth. Why is that true? Uh, what did you say? Because, because, uh, because of the, because of the nature of necessity. Like you're sort of just. Repeating the word necessity. Without really giving justification for the, for the belief itself. Exactly. I'm saying there's a different type of proposition out there called necessarily true propositions, which one, once one wraps one minds around, you realize, okay, this is not true for a deeper reason. This is not true for some deeper premise. Unlike if I have belief in Santa Claus, I gotta, I have to make a whole bunch of arguments. I have to make a whole bunch of arguments. I have to make a whole bunch of arguments. In order to justify my belief in Santa Claus. But if I say something like, um, yeah, all plants to the extent that there is any plant anywhere, it is exactly the way that it is. That is not something which requires additional justification. I have found a necessary truth. You could say this with mathematical truth as well. Why is two plus two equals four? Well, if you grasp what we mean by the concept of two and the concept of two and addition and equals and four, you get it and you don't need further justification. So in a sense, you are saying, I mean, as I hear this, you're in a sense not even really arguing for the position. You're saying essentially this doesn't require argument. There are no arguments for it. Uh, you either see it or you don't sort of. Uh, like, like, do you have an art? Like, like if somebody were to say, like, like I know, for example, um, I know somebody who I know grand priest. So I know somebody who might, uh, in some cases reject the law of, uh, not identity, but like the law of transitivity of identity, which is pretty basic. So, you know, if, if I were to go to him and say, you know, sort of your, your position, like, Hey, that's just a, you know, I don't see it. Nope. Yes. Do you have, do you have anything more to say than you have it wrapped your head around it? Then like, do you have an actual argument? Uh, yes. Square one is the explanation. It's not an argument. It's an explanation. Okay. I'm not saying X equals X because such and such and such. I'm saying it is the case that X is an argument. It's not an argument. Okay. I'm not saying X equals X because such and such and such. I'm saying it is the case that X equals X. And if you want to understand why, then here's a way you can wrap your head around it. That is definitely what I'm saying. And there are people, this is where I would say an implied, because I'm not an academic philosopher. There are people who are fools. If it is the case that somebody insists that A is not itself. Things are not what they are. Some things are in a way that they aren't. They are, I would say, fools. Now that's, it's not an argument. No, I'm saying that's also a statement of fact. Now, now I'm not claiming that everybody upon hearing that the first time is going to go, okay, yes, I get it. I'm saying is look, pick up a copy of square one, understand the nature of necessity. And I think you will conclude the same thing. And I would also say this about the existence of mind. I would say, I cannot give the perfect argument that everybody is going to agree that the existence of mind, I can't do that. What I can do is say, work on your awareness, become aware, introspect, become aware of the contents of your visual field. I can arrange words in a particular way to try to lead somebody to that self-realization, but there is, if there is no self-realization, there is no argument I can get, give to get somebody to see what is in that case, in that case, literally in front of them. Okay. That's clear. Is anybody else? So we're at 10, 10. Usually we go a bit over. So I don't know what your time restrictions are, Steve. We haven't talked about any paradox, man. I'm going to stay up all night. Every single paradox I want to get resolved. I was just going to change the subject in that direction. Steve, our first philosophy throwdown was on the liar's paradox. Can you please explain to me why the liar's paradox is not a paradox? Okay. Start with what it is also, in case anyone doesn't know. All right. This sentence is false. Is it true or is it false? Well, it's claiming that it's false. So if it's true that it's false, it's false. But if it's false, it's true. The reality has just split into many parts. There's a black hole in front of me. The reason that the liar's paradox is not a logical contradiction is because it is the case that one of two things happens with the liar's paradox, and I actually am going to put it in the chat for guys if you want to, if it's easier to follow along. It is either the case the liar's paradox kind of explodes to infinity, or what you could say is it collapses to zero. The way you can see this is by breaking it up with parentheses. So here's the sentence. This sentence is false. The question which gets to the heart of the liar's paradox is, which sentence exactly is false? Is it this sentence, the words, is false? Or is it that the claim is this sentence is false is false? So I'm claiming these are the only two options. The desire of the case that the liar's paradox is claiming this sentence is false, or this sentence is false is false. Both of those turn out to be linguistic errors. They are syntax grammar errors. They give the illusion of sensibility, but they actually collapse under inspection. So we'll take the first one. Imagine that I would say the liar's paradox is claiming is that this sentence is false. parentheses, this sentence is false. Okay. Pretty easy to see this is not, this is neither true or false. It's just two words, this sentence and saying is false. But the two words, this sentence is not a claim. It's like me sneezing and saying is false. It's just two words, not a proposition. Okay. Is that part clear to everybody? Is anybody object to that? Good? Okay. The only other option is to say, well, but the liars paradox is really saying is this sentence is false is false. Okay. So if we look at that and we say the claim is that something is false. It's saying there's something in the parentheses is false. We investigate what is it that's in the parentheses and we're left with this sentence is false. Well, if what is being claimed is this sentence is false. Again, we have it either collapses on itself in which we have, we're saying this sentence is false, which doesn't make any sense. Or you input it to itself and we're left with this. This sentence is false is false is false. So, okay. Well, what, hang on. What is this sentence? Well, if it's this sentence is false, then you've got this sentence is false is false is false is false. Add infinitum. Wherever you stop that generation process, you're, it's going to collapse on itself and you're going to, you're going to have the words of this sentence, or you're going to have the infinite, the infinite regress. So what I'm claiming is neither of those is a proposition to evaluate is either true or false. It's a syntax error that gives the illusion of sensibility. But let's keep talking about it if that's not clear. So just not, it's just nonsensical, basically. Yes, you could put it that way. It's nonsensical. I like to say it's a non sequitur. It's like, you know, shoe is false. Like, but that doesn't make any sense. And I know there's one, one of the main objections that is it while you're saying it's meaningless and it clearly has meaning. I know Williams written about that, but I'm, I'm sorry. It clearly has meaning. Yeah, in the opinion of some, I'm not saying. Okay. Okay. But I see my, my argument, I, I, this is based on what I read in, in Williams post on the topic. Is it because our brain, our brains and we're not pure logic machines. In the sense of the way we process information, then it can both, and this is not a contradiction. It can both have meaning and be meaningless because what we mean. That, that's, that's partly a joke. But when we say that something has meaning or that our, that our brain can make something quote meaningful of it is different than saying it's a logically coherent thing because the way, I mean, the words have meaning that this is a word. Okay. But that doesn't, that there's no logical problem there. Exactly. English words are English words. Yeah. And so I think there's, there's kind of an error in that. Yeah. I think there's an error in that because there's an error, I guess, again, linguistically in the way we define meaning when, if we say that, oh, it's meaningless or it's meaningful and it's a contradiction. Okay. Well, let's get rid of the word meaningless. That's a bad word. The words have meaning. Yes. But it is not, it is a non sequitur is claiming either this sentence is false. It's false. It's false. It's not a non sequitur. It's not a non sequitur, which is, which is not something you can do. It doesn't make sense. Yeah. Or it is saying the words. This sentence is false. That's not a coherent claim, though. Yes. Technically the words have meaning. Yeah. I agree with you. I'm just kind of curious to hear. Posing. Use of that one. Yeah. So, um, I have a lot of issues with this, with the, with that view. I've written a couple of actually articles on my blog. this particular solution and there's a so there's a link right there and from that article you can link it links to other ones as well. My main problem can be summed up with the with the fact that in order to say so you are in a set you are saying that it is meaningless I understand why you made the distinction you're not saying that the words in it are meaningless but you're saying that it's it's not a proposition when you put it together it's a syntax error. Right so well in order for it to be a solution you do need to make you do you do need to make the stronger claim that you know there's a syntax error that is causing it to not actually be saying anything coherent right you are in fact making the claim that the sentence is not actually saying something. I am if I were to say the square circle those words have meaning but it's not referencing anything. Well it's also not making a proposition so is your claim that the square circle is in front of me. Okay that's nonsense that's nonsense depending on how you mean by the yes the words have meaning but there's a problem going on. But well do you claim that the sentence overall is not actually making a statement? There is not a coherent proposition. Okay this sentence is not something that could be true or false. Okay great yeah so so I just I just sent a little sentence to the chat and that sentence goes right now your eyes are making a specific set of horizontal horizontal movements that allow you to read this sentence. You can do your analysis to this sentence and show and prove that there's a syntax error in the sentence and that this sentence is therefore not saying anything coherent. No and here's the reason why not every case of self-reference explodes to infinity. Our minds are very clever so for example if I were to say okay this is a quicker example. Okay does this make any sense? This sentence has five words. Okay now if we were going to be strict on what the what the words they're actually doing this falls into the same problem. This sentence has five words what sentence this sentence has five words has five words I didn't find but our minds don't have to do that. Here's what our minds are doing that this is a clever part of the mind but here's what they're doing. The suspense is killing us. It's a long one. The following set of words contain five elements. This sentence has five words. That's what your mind does. Sure but the thing is that you can do the exact same thing that you did to the liar sentence. No you can't. Hold on and you can do it again. Okay well okay here's the difference. False is a different claim than has five words right so what we're doing if you stick with the parentheses for a minute so this sentence has five words has five words. Imagine you see that for the first time you have content within a parentheses you have content outside of the parentheses. The content outside of the parentheses is not is not a claim about true or false it's saying what is in the parentheses meets this certain criteria you could also say it over their English words. There's no problem so that doesn't generate to infinity that's a perfectly I can look at the sentence I just wrote and say I can make sense of that the sentence has five words has five words great that's not the case with false I can say this sentence is false is false and then I look within the parentheses and there's no truth claim because we run the same the same error this sentence is neither true or false so this sentence has five words this is an English sentence these things don't explode to infinity and you can make sense of them right okay but you're placing so your attitude places the sort of burden on the liar sentence which is that any use of this sentence has to be filled out right that that's the whole premise of your solution is that you have to fill out this sentence and say well which one no I'm saying specifically when you're making a truth claim the claim is this sentence is false false means there is a proposition that is false so what is the proposition that is false and you're left with this sentence but if we do that with this you're saying this sentence has five words has five words okay what are we talking about we're talking about this sentence has but it's but we're not just talking about this collection of five words we're talking about this sentence the sentence this sentence has five words that is what we're talking about no no it's not look let me show you're sort of changing the meaning of the you're sort of changing the meaning of the sentence and making it mean this collection of words is five and number which is the same yeah look your mind is doing this your mind is doing this kind of sentence so I'm saying my mind is not doing that my mind is interpreting that as an actual connected sentence not just as a collection of five words if you're making sense of this sentence has five words what your mind is doing is saying in the parentheses doesn't matter what's in the parentheses it could be it could be Chinese symbols it could be French you're saying in the parentheses contain five elements that's what your mind is doing that just so happens that the elements that you've chosen appear to be a sentence this sentence has five words but you're talking about the words the actual words there's no contradiction there I can make perfect sense of that it's a clever thing that the mind is doing imagine if I imagine I would say I said I don't have I can't type in Chinese symbols but imagine I would say I imagine I had three Chinese symbols I said we're Chinese are Chinese symbols have no problem understanding our Chinese symbols right in the parentheses that makes sense now imagine it just so happened to be the case that those Chinese symbols stood for these are Chinese symbols it's a relevant that's a quirk that's precisely why it's confusing and a trick right because it appears to be this thing that that has self-reference but we can make sense of it with no problem we just put commas in the place we could do the same thing these are English so yeah so but the thing is you're what you're doing so I understand what you're doing it's making the case that this sentence has five words read just that sentence okay is not actually a statement about itself as a sentence when I'm saying a statement about itself as a collection of words but see in order for it to be a statement about anything it has to be a sentence okay what I'm saying is when you put those words down your mind is doing something okay what the sentence is doing is not what your mind is doing you write those words it's going this sentence has five words has five words or you could put it the opposite way it's saying the following set of words in parentheses contains five elements and it meets that criteria so you're saying that my mind so you're saying that my mind is translating the meaning the intuitive meaning of the sentence to a different meaning but this is the intuitive meaning that's the only way you can make no the intuitive meaning is that that is actually a sentence and that it's just about itself as a sentence not just as a collection of words okay so let's let's be clear when I say this sentence is in English what does that mean means that that very it means that that very sentence that you just uttered is in English okay what does it mean to say is in English does it mean the words are English words that's ambiguous it could mean that it's just that the words are ambiguous or it can mean that it's actually a coherent statement of English what is ambiguous about it that what we mean can't say this is a French sentence what that means is the words are French not necessarily I could explain to you what's ambiguous about it what's ambiguous about it is that it could just mean these are English words okay or it could mean this is a coherent statement of English okay so if I say kangaroo five tree those are English words not a coherent statement okay so that's so that's a difference so when you say this statement is in English you could be saying simply these were English words or you could be saying this is a coherent statement of English so I want to get some perspective here okay so we have this ascent we have these words that were assembling we're saying okay so what we've done is I've just assembled words I put them in the chat box two competing scenarios one what this mean what your mind does when it reads these words this is what it does this is what it does the words this sentence is in English are English words which is exactly of course what it's doing that's what everybody understands what it's doing or it's the case that reality is contradictory know anything about anything this is we have one clear way to make perfect sense of this sentence this sentence is in English means the words this sentence is in English are English words it's perfect sense or we're saying no no actually this is a true contradiction why would we choose the irrational one I'm not saying necessarily except the contradiction okay yeah I'm simply yeah there's and there's actually no contradiction in this sentence is in English the sense even if you interpreted as saying this is a sentence coherent senses of English that's just a true statement that's not contradictory so I'm not saying anything is contradictory so you gave one possibility I think another which is just as plausible and I think a lot more intuitive I think when people actually think of when their brain actually does when they think this sentence is in English is you know is okay that is at least as plausible as what you wrote when somebody reads this sentence is in English their mind doesn't go oh what that means is this sentence is in English is a coherent statement of English that's not what's going on in their minds the fact that it says this sentence right the fact that it says it doesn't say this collection of words or English words it's this sentence that's what your mind it's stating when I say this bottle is in front of me what actually is that what I actually mean is the bits of matter that are there okay okay so yeah but see when I say two plus two equals four I'm not talking about like the bits of two in front of me nor am I talking about the symbol to I'm talking about the concept to okay similarly in this sentence is in English I'm not just talking about these words or the utterances I'm talking about the concept of a sentence which is distinct from the concept of a collection of words so if I've somebody would come up to you and say this sentence is in English you're saying the intuitive answer is that what that person means is this sentence is in English is a coherent statement of English that's right I respectfully disagree I don't understand how that even nobody uses language that way what we mean by this okay okay well it depends on what you mean by it depends on what you mean by like you know what comes up in your mind right so I think for either of us I think for either of us if somebody says this sentence is in English we don't think twice about it and we don't translate it right we don't like think what did that person mean did he mean five that's what philosophy is doing how do we make sense of it appears to be the case look this is the perfect illustration when we say this sentence is in English it seems like we can make sense of it and the reason it seems like we can make sense of it is precisely because our minds go this comma sentence comma is comma in comma English are English words that's what the mind's doing that's why it makes sense and then people say well maybe we could do that with faults maybe we could say this sentence is false and then and but we could make sense of the one why can't we make sense the other that's why we're illustrating this that's why there's a product because you can't do that because faults he doesn't is not the same type of claim with faults you have to go in and see what the actual proposition is inside inside of the parentheses right well yeah well you're sort of now going back to the to the point about false and whether that's somehow like sort of special but my my I just want to make it sort of the point that when something says this sentence right mm-hmm it's clearly stating of itself that it is a sentence no what it is doing it it is generating something in your head you can write down the words and what it does is it generates a concept in your mind and the clever thing about the words of this sentence is it can apply to itself so when we write this sentence our brains are doing that's what our brains are doing that's clever that's cool I'm glad I can do that we can say imagine those were blue I could say these words are blue and what that when you read it your mind goes oh that those words are blue it does it's not that's the way we make sense of things which appear to be self referential as we there's there's this you read it and then there's an arrow that says oh we're talking about that which is why when we say these are English words those are English words because that's what our minds are doing right yeah so um there so there's a there's a theory of description which says that you know if I say for example the I say for example the ball is green yeah implicitly in that is there is a ball and it is green right you're sort of like you know necessarily consciously think of it right but you sort of take it for granted that part of that claim is that there's a ball in the first place right when they say the ball is green well you must be talking about some ball the square circle so when you say the square circle exists you are clearly saying that a square circle exists but I'm not actually referencing something yes so so in your case you're saying something false in that case you're saying something false but the idea is if you say the square circle is square right what you're saying is there is a square circle and it's square now that statement may be absurd it may in fact you could easily say that's a silly statement because there is no square circle and it's implied in what you're saying that there is a square circle there can't be a square circle so that was that was a silly thing to say okay in fact you could say it was false because there is no square circle to begin with okay right again similarly with the green ball the green ball the ball is green okay I'm assuming that what you mean is there is a green ball that's the one I'm talking about and it's green right so similarly you know or if I said the green ball is big there must be some green ball that you're talking about that is big right so when we say this sentence is in English right it is implied in that this is a sentence and it is in English right this very thing that I'm saying is a sentence this exactly what I just said you read the words and then it goes that that's that is the magic right but the point is that it established that part of the claim is that is that not just the words are in English but that it is actually a sentence that has been uttered so it's interesting I just popped in my head when you're saying the sentence says of itself okay let's be clear sentences don't say anything okay sentences you're trying to say well what is it talking about that's not how language works sentences are words that elicit concepts in our mind mm-hmm sentences don't talk anything so you can write down words that make you think if I write down let's see if I write down the word Valerie okay that does it itself isn't say anything with a concept in my mind is gonna be different than the concept in your mind because I'm thinking about a song by the Zootons called Zootons are any less of the name called Valerie everybody's heard it why don't you come on over Valerie yeah that's the one I'm thinking of that's what comes that the concept that comes to my mind by the word Valerie right so there's a difference between the word and the concept when I read the words this sentence is false I have a concept in my mind that says that sentence so that's what I'm talking about that and I look and I say this sentence is false well that's not a truth claim it's saying it's saying two words this sentence and then it's saying is false that that's a syntax error all right so we are starting to go a little bit in circles I love this discussion and any circles anywhere I I see it seems very clear to me I want to see if anybody else if there's any other am I not being clear about this resolution that should be a full resolution we have a sensible interpretation for why we can understand words that this sentence is in English and then we have some other claim about we don't actually mean that and then logical contradictions exist as it what let's keep let's resolve this until it's done this is absolutely critical yeah I'm just curious William what's your what precisely is your position on this regarding what regarding the lawyer paradox in general so my position on the large paradox is that for one I haven't thought about it or studied it enough to be have a confident position but I do lean toward the dilates position I do think that the sentence is in fact well I think it most makes no sense to think of it as being both true and false but do you view that as being a an error in language or an error in logic or an error in reality if by reality you mean sort of physical reality absolutely not yeah so so so with regard to dilatism people have different views about dilate like different sort of approaches to dilatism I don't think that there are I don't think that there can be any contradictions with regard to things that refer to the physical world right I don't think that the material world can be in a contradictory state I think that that is absurd however when you have concepts that are simply just man-made concepts I do think it's possible to essentially twist them around into contradictory states and I don't think that only said that doesn't say anything other than how we've ended up sort of developing language so this is an error this is a human error that has caused this this look this conflict so so wait a minute does this so when we look at a paradox we say wait a minute like everything that everything that I know starts to fall apart like I can't believe that this is true then you know what else what else is it true so this is this does not mean that the laws of reality are falling apart it just means that the way that we perceive the world is falling apart our logical systems I don't think that anything is falling apart it just means that within a certain class of propositions you could you could come out with the value true and false so can I ask some questions about this this is very important sure so when you say a proposition is true what does that mean it means that essentially means that I accept it accept it as the case so when you say something is true that means you believe it if I say that something is true do I believe it yeah sure okay so one aside would be this this would be an interesting use of languages I think most people are talking about reality they're talking about the world when they're talking about truth they say something is true that means what it is claiming about the world is the case in the world well I well I made a very I made a very specific point to say to make a distinction about physical reality versus other things I make no such distinction I'm talking about the entirety of things which exist in all realms yeah so I'm so I'm yeah so for all things if they are true that doesn't mean I believe it my distinction was simply that when it comes to statements about or corresponding to physical reality I don't think it's possible for them to also be false at the same time are there are the same way are there true things that you don't believe well are there things that I think are true that I don't believe yeah by that definition yeah I think probably yeah I think probably the liar sentence okay so so you would say outside of the liar sentence we'll come back to that you would say that what is things are true means I believe them which means that there is no such thing as a true thing that you don't believe right I'm not I'm not comfortable saying just outside the liar I'm when it comes to statements that are limited to the physical state of reality I'm talking about the physical state of reality so most yeah so limited to that class of propositions yes if I think something is true that means that I do believe it and it also means that it is not the case that I don't believe it okay so when most people you I think virtually everybody when they're interested in pursuing the truth they're not interested in pursuing what I believe they're interested in pursuing the way that things are in the world so a true proposition for most people is something that corresponds to the world so to say what is true is what I believe is something that nobody else uses language that way I'm not saying that's therefore use language another way I'm just saying to be aware I'm only saying that there's a distinction between what is true and what I believe is true because there are many things that I believe are true that are false because I'm wrong about a lot of things that's all that's the only distinction that I'm making when I say I believe like it's very possible that there's something that I believe is true and it's false and it's not because of contradictions it's just because I'm wrong this is a great a great segue what does it mean when you say something is false it is not the case so it's not the case or it's there you don't believe it okay if something is false it is not the case if I believe something is false that means I don't believe it's the case okay so if something is true that means you believe it no okay so maybe some쳐 maybe I misunderstood you at some point yeah no I mean if something is actually true that means it is the case okay with my friends and what does it mean that they're saying something is true it means it is the case something is false means it is not the case That's right, right? Okay, so what does it mean to say that something is the case and it is not the case at the same time in the same way? It means precisely just that, what you just said. Okay, so what do you mean by not the case? What do you mean by something is not the case? What does that mean? Because what I think it means Everybody who uses language is it is a negation of a proposition If I say it is not the case that I'm perceiving a pink elephant right now That means precisely the opposite the mutually exclusive opposite of I it is the case that I am seeing a precise that I'm seeing a pink Elephant right now so to say that I am seeing it and it is not the case that I am seeing it is an incoherence Is it not? So let me go back to that for just I want to just make a quick clarification because I've actually looked looked into this There's plenty of empirical evidence showing that But the people in some cases are perfectly comfortable with contradictions There's been not there's been like surveys. What do you mean give me an example? So like people have been asked have been given a picture where there's like a I think a circle next to a line or something and have been asked To evaluate the claim that it is that the circle both is and is not close to the line in the same sense at the same time and People said I think they were allowed to evaluate the truth of that claim from one to seven and more people said seven than anything else Yes, of course I only point this out because you know, you can't say that most people are comfortable with contradiction and give that example That is an example of most people are aware of the ambiguity of language If you were to phrase the contradiction clearly and say is it the case that the line is next to the circle? And it is it is it not to the case that the line is next to the circle Like are you affirming and negating at the same time? Nobody would say that is the case That is that is precisely what they said Who in the world? Okay? I would love to see that study because I've never encountered somebody that say I am affirming X and I am negating X at the same time I've met plenty of people that would say. Yeah, that is this see. I'm not very good with colors. Here we go Is this blue or is it green? Well? Yeah, it's blue and it's green is blue and it's not blue Yeah, of course, they say that that's ambiguous language That doesn't mean it's a people believe in the existence of contract logical contradictions That is a country that you just you just gave a contradiction that is blue No, I know is that country is exactly what a contradiction is what one second one second Wait, I'm so I'm curious will yeah, the universe is about to be split apart again If if I'm hearing you right white I have a prop this time Okay, ready? This is pink This is pink mm-hmm This is not this Therefore pink is not pink That's not a that's not a valid argument. What do you mean? It's pink and this is pink, but this is not this Yeah, no in order for that to be valid your first premise needs to needs to say not just this is pink But also only things that are exactly like this are pink which you didn't have a premise and that's obviously not a true premise And if you did the same thing with people in that study, they would have the exact same response that yes This is what this is it is blue and it's not blue. That's what people mean. It is blue. Yeah, it's on the dividing line It is exactly the way that nobody nobody would say this is a logical contradiction that we are staring at They're saying this is a color that is on the border of my categories for language Sometimes I describe it this way, but it's not quite that way. It's not quite this way So I am gonna just call it green and not really green Nobody says but it isn't the way that it is Nobody uses language that way I completely reject the idea that somebody would stay with a straight face This is an example of a logical contradiction so I'm good will is what you're saying essentially that We can write down say x equals not x but In the real world x always equals x, but we can still write down x equals not x is That way, I mean is that kind of the heart of what you're saying is that we can say we can say absurd things Um, that's that seems kind of self-evidence like of course we can say absurd things Is the claim that most people are comfortable with an explicit logical contradiction saying that this isn't the way that it is That most people would be okay with that So let me take one at a time. Uh, so, uh, Nathan, um No, it's not it's not quite just that Uh, but that My claim is my general claim is simply that If our propositions are not referring to anything In the world itself physically, right, but are just essentially referring to linguistic creations Uh, we should not be surprised if something like a contradiction pops up because Again, that was that's not actually just that's not Reality that's showing itself to be contradictory It's just The language that we use that's showing itself to be contradictory, which is not so surprising, you know when we had grand-priest on One of the most convincing things I think that he said is that, you know, sometimes you have legal systems that are contradictory You know, you come up with a legal system. You don't realize it But then it turns out that, you know, this law says you should go to jail. This law says you should not go to jail and you know What does that say to that? Does that say something magical that the world is contradictory? No, it just says that oops, we created a contradictory legal system So my claim is essentially that that's exactly that that we should not be so surprised if the same thing happens with language Because language is not a magical thing That's like deeply connected to the world. It's just it's just an emergent feature that developed in us through evolutionary imperatives So that that seems almost Um Trivial Trivial. Yeah. Yeah, I agree It seems like essentially what you're arguing is that we can accidentally smuggle in x equals Negative x or not x. x does not equal x claims into Some complicated logical mess and I don't I don't say anything That seems totally trivial trivial like of course if I have, you know some giant equation or series of mathematical whatever I can Write in there accidentally Because I don't understand the full extent of what I've just written. I can write a statement Or you could even do it intentionally fully understanding what you're doing But the point is but my point is exactly that is that when you you know You can you can oh you can bring in contradiction into into into the You know system of representation like you can have You know you can have as your premise a kind of contradictory thing whether you realize it or not and then You know contradictions. Yeah, so I can I can say x does not equals x All I want But that's it's absurd at that. I think my counter Not really even a counter but just my clarification or understanding that would be that okay I can say absurd statements. They are absurd. They are No And the liar is exactly that Yeah No, the the the dilatious position is that a contradiction is not a demonstration of error Dilatious position is kind of contradictions arise And sometimes we just have to deal with something being true and false at the same time this position You've made an error That's it that that's interesting. Um, I think that So my position is that it's not this is I I don't have a I don't claim that it's necessarily quite an error Uh, uh, my claim is that is that it's a feature of how we how language has developed That we have developed it to have to yield sometimes contradictions when we're talking about just linguistic things. Hold on and so and so It's not necessarily that it's uh an error because that brings in a whole like a value judgment Like maybe it is an error, but the point is just simply that um If you're that if we're trying to represent How we in fact use language how language has actually developed for humans that uh, you know, your your system for doing so Well, we should leave room for for for contradictions in These cases because that's what our language does Okay, so is there a difference between The claim sometimes we can contradict ourselves and it's an error But I can say the square circle exists, but that's a mistake So, sorry, sorry, let me just so I'm curious about your your stance on the square circle exists. Um, because You know If we're talking about the square circle, uh, in reality, right like a here's an instantiation of a square circle in physical reality I think you can say there's a square circle there and you're necessarily wrong Right. You're necessarily wrong Uh, because physical reality does not instantiate contradictory states of affairs an instantiation in your mind. Let's say it's not physical reality Yeah, so so so I have yeah, so I have no problem with saying that in fact a square circle does exist in my mind And what is that? It's a square circle. What is that? An object a mental a mental object in my mind a mental object that it's not an image It's not an image. I can't visualize it. It has contradictory properties and it is actualized in your mind That's right. You see This is why I'm a reductionist because I think if you're not a reductionist at least on a very broad metaphysical level I think you end up with quite frankly bullshit like that where like So hold on because hold on so so the thing is the human mind has the capability to has the capability for imagination Uh and to create fiction Uh to come up with all kinds of things Right and I can say for example the infinite and there's no such thing as the infinite But I can say the infinite and just when you ask me what's the infinite. I can give you some properties Oh, it goes on forever You know and and and these are just ideas in in my head, right? Like if I try to Build something corresponding to them. It's not going to work because reality doesn't work that way Okay, but but but in the mind you can come up with all kinds of stuff. You think you can have a coherent clear and distinct conception Of a thing that has mutually exclusive properties. It is some way and not that way at the same time I didn't uh, I didn't say it was clear and distinct Um, what I mean, you can what's the difference between I can say the words a square circle and a square circle exists in my mind What's the difference? What's the difference between okay between I can say there's a square circle and a square circle exists in my mind um well I mean, I don't I don't want to get into like the ontology of ideas like what is this does to exist in the mind I think that abstractions Yeah, I'm not really settled on on the ontology of this but but basically I do think that it's convenient to speak at least of uh Abstract ideas existing in the mind. Now, what does that mean existing in the mind? I'm not really sure like it's not like a like it's not like there's like a special dimension called the mind, right? So But we have ideas. That's the grant that we have ideas Okay, and I do think that one of the ideas you can have is of a square circle Which is just That you have an idea That there's an object and that it has the property of being a circle and we know what the properties of being a circle are And it has the properties of being a square and we know what the properties of being a square So it has it has properties that it doesn't have in your mind. It has properties Yeah, just like harry potter has a thing over here even though that doesn't actually happen to people No, that's not the same thing. There's no there's nothing in can hear ain't go here and about that And you have to talk about them have to talk about the ontology of ideas if you're talking about there exists A logical contradiction in my head, but I can say perfectly could consistently Yes harry potter has a scar on his head. What is harry potter? He's an idea in my mind that yes, he's not a physically existent thing I'm not a I'm not a physicalist There's nothing I cannot say harry potter has a scar on his head And it is not the case that harry potter has a scar on his head. That is not talking about anything That's incoherent that literally that is the definition of incoherent a firm and negate at the same time Well, okay, so if the definition of incoherent is affirm and negate At the same time then trivially what I'm saying is incoherent, but that's not how most people meet incoherent. Yes It is contradictory. It is not incoherent Those are coherence coherence means lack of contradiction. Okay, so most people certainly most philosophers I don't agree with that If that's what you mean by coherence then sure then my then what I'm saying is incoherent What is coherence if not logical consistency understandability? Okay, how do you understand something with contradictory properties? You just wrap your hand around it. Well, no, just you just do that's like that's like That's like saying that you understand X does not equal x because you can write it down. It's it's the same thing you're you are It's not that it's not just that I can write it down I said because it's simply an idea I can just posit it just like I can say Tom has a red shirt and even though I can't see Tom and I don't even know who Tom is I can tell you that he has a red shirt because I just made him up. Similarly. I can say x Is not x because I just made up x no no there's a difference there The difference is you can coherently say without any contradiction or any revising of logic or metaphysics That tom has a red shirt. He's a fictional character in our head. We're just making him up. That's great. We cannot coherent We we cannot coherently say Tom Has a red shirt and it is not the case that tom has a red shirt I have affirmed and negated you can say those words, but it is the definition of not making sense There is no other standard that you can use to say this is this is incoherent There's an error here other than the standard of logical contradiction. Yeah, so One more thing one more thing I do want to give an explanation because no people don't do this enough This is an explanation for why the principle of explosion holds This is the thing that's big in dialetheism that supposedly you can't derive everything from a logical contradiction. Yes The reason the principle of explosion is true is because when you undermine the mutual exclusivity of true and false the whole system falls apart You can't the whole the whole system is based on the mutual exclusivity of true and not true And the meaning of our words and when you start saying in some circumstances Things can be true and not true at the same time the system falls apart right, yeah, so Uh, I'm gonna put aside the whole explosion thing because explosion is a pretty sort of technical issue And that's not really the reason that we have explosion. The reason we have explosion is Because of Disjunctive syllogisms, which only makes sense if you already are all right. So hold on. So I No point in getting into that. So um So so at this point we're just sort of now we're just going sort of back and forth saying it's coherent It's not coherent. Let's go here and it's not coherent. So so so so we need some kind of way to arbitrate Whether what I'm saying makes sense or not because I'm saying I make sense You're saying I don't make sense and so we sort of hit a But I'll give you the standard. This is why I make the distinction between rationalism and irrationalism There is one objective standard, which is a rational standard, which is logical coherence That is the standard for Understandability you cannot you can think that you make sense of a square circle because you can say the words But it is not the case that you have a clear and distinct conception of what a square circle would be So let's agree on coherence because I don't want to slip back into coherence means No contradiction because then I've been trivially. I'm incoherent. So let's actually agree on coherent before we go forward Okay, that's what I mean by coherence and you can have a clear and distinct non contradictory concept in your mind is what coherent is Okay Sure, all right Yeah, so so So I'm claiming that this the idea of the square circle. His name is timmy timmy the square circle Clear and distinct so uh, not visually by the way, I never said I can picture timmy, um, but clear and distinct so You you know, you're you're sort of only claim at this point is to say, you know, I mean you can say No, you can't it's not clear and distinct, you know, but you don't have access to like My mind so we're we had a bit of a standstill, right? And I think I think it has to get to the you know, we have to sort of talk at this point about It is not the case that every uh argument is going to be resolved if you have a band in the standard of logical coherence And you're saying sometimes I can say things But I cannot persuade you there is nothing I can persuade you if you've given up the law of identity Yeah, but I am not given first of all, I have not given up the law of identity Second of all, you're You're also giving you're also sort of like switching back and forth, right? Like I I didn't give up on the law of coherence. I make on the standard of coherence. I'm claiming that what I'm saying is coherent So I certainly I certainly do not claim to say that, you know, we should just talk about incoherent things So If I okay, so willem You're saying If I get you Greg, you're saying that our concept of a square circle Exists in some meaningful sense of board Just as a concept. Yeah, just as a concept. See here's my thing. I would say that Timmy the square circle exists in exactly the same way as X does not equal X exists I agree Which is to say that it is We can make the symbols, but it's a logical absurdity and we're I mean depending on how you mean logic logical, right? Yes, you could say that that's a logical absurdity, but Again, my point is simply that We create concepts by fiat Right and so long as We understand the words that we're using and we understand The ways that we're putting them together. So I understand the words where I understand the word circle I understand what it means to be a property. I understand what it means to to instantiate I understand for something to be an object. I understand what it means for something to have Two properties at the same time, right? I understand all of those moving parts. They all they all mean something to me, right? And so Timmy the square circle is just me adding to all those concepts, you know instantiated in one, right? Now, can I picture that? No, can something like that exist in physical reality? Of course not Is there any use to this? Not really um But you know, I mean you could just call timmy the square circle along with the liar Just a really esoteric genre of fiction Straight up false. No, what's that? Well, well harry potter is also false. That didn't happen No, and here's why here's why because harry potter At least the existence or the rather the existence of the physical attributes of harry potter Is making when you unpack the language is making a claim That is attached to reality Now the magic part you could go in and say, yeah, that's an absurdity But the actual Being, you know, it's it's making a claim that a That a real life person It's like it's saying If there was a person I don't think anybody can I well, can I correct one term? That you just use nathan I don't think we should say attached to reality because I think that implies that I think you could take that to mean is attached to the actual reality that we're experiencing which it is not but All of the propositions it makes are consistent with each other It is not saying anything. What's in it's it's Proposed worldview that is contradictory in its proposed worldview So I guess in essence what I'm saying with regard to harry potter and the fiction stuff that The things that are quote Non-contradictory about harry potter are the things that could be real. They could be a description of the real world Predictory things that are absurd are Depends what you mean by could right like, uh, I don't know that Do we really want to say that it could be the case that the events of harry potter happened? No, that's what I'm saying like the the magic components the Components that do not line up with the real world are an absurdity They are the smuggling in of x does not equal x into and so we play with these things, but they're not actually They're they're incorrect. I agree with you 100 percent And similarly I can say that actually exists 100 percent. So so it depends what you mean by exist, right? So of course they don't exist, right? I get I simply mean only as a concept in somebody's head. That's all that I mean by exist and that so so so You know don't take that to mean I don't think that timmy the square circle has any more reality than harry potter by any means Um, I'm sorry. I'm gonna ask just a couple of quick. We'll have a quick dialogue here Why is it the case that you say it's obvious that square circles don't exist in physical reality? well, um It certainly seems to be the case that Physical reality cannot be in contradictory states at the same time and in the same sense because we observe it That's that's one good reason. I have never observed a single counter example Nor do I know of anybody that has observed the single counter example Okay, could it be possible then that you could have a square circle in physical reality? It depends what you mean by possible. I'm not sure that I Is okay Um, when I mean possible if I say something like is it possible that I go walk down the driveway and take the trash out? Is there anything? That would be an literal impossibility. It couldn't be done Maybe we could say something like given the laws of physics Is it possible for me to flap my arms and go to the moon? No, given the system. That's not possible. So Is it is there even that remote possibility that there might Someday be a square circle. We haven't observed it yet, but the year 3000 a square circle will pop into physical existence I don't think so All right, is it are you sure there any possibility? uh Again, I don't I'm not sure that I understand I don't I don't sure that I really understand possibility But I know I mean if you want to push me into a corner. I think I'm going to say yes There is you're certain that's impossible. No, no, no that there is some possibility I suppose just because I don't know Okay, so This is highly highly highly doubted. Okay. So you think it could be possible Just I just want to be crystal clear That in the physical world there is something that has the properties that it does not have That I've seen no reason to think that that's possible But could it be I doubt it But you're not certain I mean when we're talking about this level when we're talking about philosophical debate with a certain level of You know rigor about what we're talking about. Uh, I don't apply certainty to anything Okay Um, so for some of this for some for some of the skeptical reasons that we talked about earlier So this is where it comes down to language because what I'm claiming is if you unpack the meaning of words You'll discover that what we mean by the term not and negation implies Necessarily that you could not have negation and affirmation together at the same time Not just in physical reality, but all kinds of reality So if we say something has properties And we say something does not have properties Here's a set of properties affirmation. This thing has it. Here's here's the same set of properties negation does not have What we mean by those terms means means Cannot be put together. Otherwise, we wouldn't use the term. We wouldn't use the term not Can you be happy and sad together? Yeah, okay, you could probably be happy and sad So we wouldn't say these are mutually exclusive. There are some things which are explicitly mutually exclusive Right being square having let's say if we're talking about physical world having six sides and not having six sides If it's the case that there's an object that has six sides What we mean to say is that object does not have more than six sides or less than six sides That's exactly what we mean. So to say maybe it could be the case that some an object with six sides Doesn't have six sides is I think to make a linguistic error and logical error, of course yeah, uh Again, I don't want to argue against you on this because my my my my resistance to saying my resistance to saying certain comes from from blanket Skepticism that has nothing to do with the specifics of what you just said So everything well most of what you just said I completely agree with and I you know I'm I'm certain as I am of anything that There will never be a square circle in physical reality Are you are you certain that you doubt some things? See I'm not certain of that claim because uh, I'm not sure that you because because there's so much that's assumed in it For example, you said you you refer to me So you're assuming for example that it's coherent to say that I am a distinct object I don't you know, that doesn't seem that isn't I'm not certain of that by any means Um, so the thing is, you know, a lot of times it might you you can put together a statement that seems like come on It's just the meaning of the words That you can't deny it, but a lot of times what happens is You know, you smuggle in concepts that aren't getting questioned. So, you know, I'm I having doubts Well, of course, I want to say yes, I doubt right but then again Am I sure that I am my coherency? I'm not and if and if it turns out that I am If it turns out that I am not Okay, then then I'm not having doubts then then then the thing that we're claiming has doubts doesn't actually exist So you cannot coherently say I'm not sure if I if I exist Right. There are certain things which are inescapable Well, no that that's that's that's ridiculous because there are people and mentally ill people who actually do doubt if they exist It's completely ridiculous to say that it's impossible to doubt that. Okay. Maybe let me clarify One can be certain of one's existence You might be unaware that you exist, but that is a something that you can be Certain of so just because some people are not aware of that Doesn't mean that somehow it's not something that can be known. Some people are unaware of all kinds of certain truths or advanced The thing is you think about the fact that there's so many so much so many terms We haven't we haven't even like gotten square, right? Like for example, you're saying that I exist What you know, we haven't talked about what existence actually means, right? So there's a confusion about the the role of language in statements It is not the case that we have to have this this dictionary in front of us to say, okay What do we mean by all these words? Let's define everything linguistically before we open our mouths and say anything. That's not the way it works Your what what language is is a way for you to communicate concepts It doesn't really matter if you and I really agree on what I is. It's just you from your Internal position can say coherently I exist and what I mean by that is I can but I can also say coherently. I am not quite sure What I am Uh, and I'm also not quite settled on what exactly we mean by existence So I can't tell you a hundred percent certainly that I exist We don't have to be settled on any definitions, right? The pursuit of truth is an individual one. I have my own individual meanings for my words and maybe nobody else But yeah, even internally right even internally I can I can certainly in my own deliberation say Not sure what I am and not sure what it means to exist So I'm not sure if I exist But forget about the words then meditate on the contents of your own experience and you'll discover something is going on Maybe you couldn't articulate it. Maybe you don't like the word something maybe you don't like going on irrelevant You can have a concept about The nature of things the nature of the contents of your experience And then you can say hey, I'm going to try to communicate these concepts Maybe it's not going to be a perfectly precise communication Okay. Okay. Yeah. All right. All right. So that's different from what you were asking before. Yeah I'm I feel pretty damn sure that there's some experience going on Okay It is it is certainly the case that there's some experience going on I think everybody who is experiencing can have the same type of realization Then the natural question is is it the case then that somebody were to come along and say it is not the case That experience is going on but they be wrong If I would say there is no mental phenomena taking place right now where they be wrong Uh, sure. Of course. I mean are you certain of You're again, you're you're not But if you're if you're certain that the mental phenomena are going on then you must be I didn't I didn't I said I was pretty damn sure And I and I get and I would say again that I would say that that person is pretty damn sure Okay. Well, it's not like I thought you said a minute ago that you again Again, because now you're asking me to talk about knowledge which is already a linguistic It's already a concept expressed through language, right? So you want me to put aside the linguistic problem, right? So and just meditate on my non-linguistic experience, which I can do But then you want you want me to translate that to a proposition by saying Uh, uh, uh, a non-linguistic experience exists the moment I say that we have now translated to language And I am now not sure about the coherence of what is being said. So Could I interject please curious is What you're saying with with regard to this for your particular strain of the diving that we've seen Is kind of what you're saying that because Because we are limited in our knowledge our rationalist systems must inherently contain some level of contradiction. So language is not is imperfect Because we are imperfect therefore it must contain some little contradiction because I would find that to be generally true in in in as much as It doesn't provide a total as some total universe Does that make any sense? Yeah, so sure. I do I do I do think that language is Imperfect And uh I do think that essentially again, I kind of hesitated to use that word But but basically I do think that that the reason that you can get contradictions like like the liars is because Language has developed in a way where there's sort of still some like errors built into how we Do that how we represent so be in essence you have this we have this vast description Or set of descriptions and we've all started together and somewhere buried in there is various implied X does not equal X type class statements Yeah, specifically with the liar what I think is going on is that our language has developed in such a way that true and false Proclude each other right they're mutually exclusive But it has also developed in such a way that we can make self-referential statements and so That is has that's what sort of leads to this problem where you get this contradictory sentence um All that's happened is that you know, essentially our language has has been has has developed in such a way That we can that we can do something That involves true and false doing something that they're not supposed to do the way that the way you know the way that our language Developed so yeah, because well because it seems it seems to me like That would be by necessity inherent in all language in any anything in a thumb because this goes back to my simulation concept Because we are not thumb total of all the distance then therefore Our descriptions are incomplete every description we use is incomplete I agree with that and so As a result There's always this sort of approximation that is going on when we're when we're speaking And you know the sort of imprecise that imprecisiveness that builds in It eventually compounds when you start making complex sentences the yeah, I agree with that the imprecision induces the appearance of contradictions, but when those appear those are evidence of The language limitation so a perfect in essence a perfect language Could not possibly have contradictions it would be possible because the description each description would be Total well, yeah. Yeah, I mean a language that was limited to statements about physical reality that are comprehensive and describe all the physical reality Would not I would imagine would not have any contradictions like the illustration I might give would be like When we when we say When we say that is a dog our definition is Vape because if you go deeper and deeper and deeper then you get into each individual, you know cell molecule in the dog. Yeah all the way down to the most basic level whatever that that is and so in essence a perfect language would be incapable of having contradictions because every single description would be Absolutely perfect. And so at that point it would essentially be the universe kind of Striving itself which would be weird and or rather it would be one with the universe And it would be an identity weird identity So, right. Yeah See It seems like we're all on the same page We're just arguing about how to get on to that same page or something. I really think you should read I don't know if I mentioned it before but You really should read Gertle Escher Bach If you haven't I'm reading that right now and it is incredible and Nathan you have to read it It's insane. You're gonna love it and it's so much where your head has been going on all these calls You got to read it Yeah, I I I don't see any Real disagreement here at a fundamental level. Well, I I'd like to jump in and say, hey, it's a huge Gigantic hazard of disagreement and I'm certain that William is wrong Yeah, go ahead William is agreeing with what I'm saying. I think I'm agreeing with you what you're saying. So something Well, I I'm claiming a lot of transitivity does not work There there are certain objective truths There are Logic has no Contradictions in it if you contradict yourself. You've made an error the liars paradox says nothing about the inherent Problems with language is just a linguistic error. There's no reason to be a dilatious I'll all of these propositions I think no see if I think that's the claim That's that's where I'm kind of bridging the gap between the two of you and it's interesting because you're on in my screen. You're on the opposite side for me I'm literally in between the two of you But I I'm saying that What with what language is If as language it's more like a perfect language a perfect description of things Would it would be impossible for it to have contradiction because it would only describe everything in its absolute perfection and So like all these abstractions that we make Are a result of our finiteness and our limitation Um as a tiny subset of the universe and so I think that's that's kind of where I am and that I can see where both of you are coming from that like I'm saying that The possibility that language can invert on itself the way the possibility that we can create a sort of a mathematical algorithm that just Collapses on itself or imposes these sorts of things are The very fact that we can do that is because of the limitations of the language and so you I would say you're Right in the sense that contradiction In reality, but because our language Is imprecise out of the imprecision comes the ability to say absurd things I mean ability to say to to write x does not equal x Yeah, I mean I agree with a lot of that but I don't have a problem as much with natural language We can clear things up pretty easy without saying well sometimes contradictions exist Um, I don't think it's the case that contradiction is indispensable And I don't think it's the case that you can have a coherent Thought about a square circle that doesn't make any sense. We can say those words, but you can't clearly think about that And I think that's where the disagreement is. I think you're absolutely right But I think I'm and I think well, war willing is coming from is basically agreeing with you He's just saying that yes, we can write down those absurdities because We're flawed well, so um I want to ask I want to say one more thing about that, but there are so many other paradoxes that I was hoping like It's the most fun. No, it is. It's the most fun. It's the most important I just want that all of them gonna be resolved too. So as I wanted to have the goal in mind of getting any shred of doubt Away here, but I want to ask one more one more thing though. Um, if Nathan is correct then Mike that I want to see what you think about this William. Um I'm saying that you cannot have a coherent concept Of a square circle that you can say those words, but you cannot have a clear and distinct perception of what that even means There's no such existent thing in your mind. Okay. It sounds like Nathan and and is saying that that's his position That's my position. Are you saying that that's what you disagree with? I do disagree with that Uh, I don't think I can have a picture of a square circle in my mind. I certainly can't I tried This certainly you said certainly I want to answer your question and not repeat the the the like the skeptical thing. Okay. Okay. Um So, yeah, I do say the word certainly just like apparently the way we say Yeah, so so I think part of the disagreement is about the requirements for meaning, right? So, um, I don't think that I need to be able to picture something in order to understand what it means in fact You know, I take meaning to be you know Essentially like a sense of understanding a sense of like, you know, I I kind of like I know What you're saying, right? Like I a sense of getting some information from from from from what's from a from a proposition, right? So What or uh, so when we talk about a square circle Uh, I understand that to mean again, you know an object. It's got these properties. I know what those properties are I know what it is for for for for for properties to be instantiated in an object And so for that reason, I understand the idea of the square circle It happens to be a contradictory idea because it has two properties that are actually mutually exclusive, right? But that doesn't stop me from just having the concept in my head of this thing that has that has mutually exclusive properties, right? Again, that can only happen in my head because you can't instantiate that because they're a lot. They're mutually exclusive, right? But that's the magical thing about the brain is that it can it can just put concepts together Might I attempt to translate? okay translation It's just it's You can have a statement x equals not x x mean x mean something to me not Or equals and not x. Look those all mean something to me. Yeah have that and then I Hold those together. I make a mental image of what it would look like if I wrote that on the paper basically and so I Understand the concept in the sense that I understand each of those parts But the part together are an absurdity and we all agree that they are But he's just saying I think William's just saying that We can understand each of the parts we can arrange them And in in essence, we can create an algorithm in the same way you can Create some mathematical thing that kind of impodes on itself Algorithmically we can create an algorithm that is absurd And so in that sense in a loose sense that we understand an absurd algorithm. Yeah, I mean so it's it's one thing to say I understand can Like constituent words than what they mean. It's another thing to say I understand putting them all together An excellent example of this that comes up all the time is in theism There's a traditional orthodox conception of God who says his omnipotent omnibenevolent Omnipresence and all these things now Some people make the argument that those properties are mutually exclusive Some people specifically say it can't be an omnipotent and omnibenevolent God I mean, he can't be all powerful and all loving because he would have the power to prevent evil from happening and yet evil still happens So the what they're saying is these two things are mutually exclusive therefore that They can't be integrated that type that that God doesn't exist now Whether or not that's a good argument is for another time But the point is to say You can understand omnibenevolence. You can understand omnipotence But if you're thinking this way, you can't understand them together because they imply a contradiction or can God create A mountain so big that he can't move it. I understand the idea of creating a mountain. Okay I understand the idea of something being so big. I can't move it. Okay, but with the omnipotent Uh criteria. Well, you you put those and you put this together in such a stew that I'm saying you can't make sense of it It doesn't make any sense. It implies a contradiction. It doesn't make any sense Yeah, so so I think I think what's going on is that you have a stricter Um, yeah requirement for meaning than I do, right? So for me just the fact that I understand what those two things are And I understand what it means for something to have two things, right? Like I understand what what it means for for For God to be able to make a mountain. I understand what it means for something to not be able to move something I understand what it means for something to be omnipotent, right? I understand what it means for something to have various properties at the same time So I know all I need to know now So so hold on now. Is there a sense in which there's something about this that I can't quite explain? Of course 100 percent. There's definitely something about this that I can't explain. In fact, it seems impossible Right, and I think it is impossible However I understand everything that was said, right? And so and so that's all it is like I just I think I have a weaker requirement for meaning And I think it's good to have this weaker requirement for meaning because there's a sense in which you know He's omnipotent and there's a stone. He can't move Is of course contradictory and there's something about it. You can't explain. It's impossible, etc But there's something there's a sense in which you understand that better than You know kangaroo five floor, right kangaroo five floor There's there's there's no understanding there at all other than just like a thing a thing a thing There's nothing about how they've been put together here. You have a whole a whole like World of things that you do understand about it is just some some aspect of it that you can't picture or understand Right, so I do think I think we found it, right? I think this is actually really getting to the heart of the matter It sounds like what you're saying is I understand all the ingredients that go into making a cake. Therefore, I understand cakes Nope That's not what I said Pause pause. Can I sort of translate? Okay, keep trying translating here in between you guys because um Think of it in an algorithmic manner like a mountain So big it could God if God's omnipotent. Could he make a mountain so big again move it? right We are not thinking we're thinking of that in an algorithmic sense. It's it's an absurdity but It's an absurdity to try and close the algorithm to stop it To take you know, we have this concept of a mountain and making a bigger and bigger mountain We extend that Kind of like how you'd say x, you know, y goes to infinity in a in an equation It's It's it it's essentially an algorithm. You sit you're repeating like an enlargement of a concept and I think see what kind of what your definition of understanding is is like A closed loop or I'm sorry, not a closed loop, but a closed a closed algorithm an algorithm there reaches its end point Smeedy So when you say a lot of rhythm that doesn't break maybe yeah read Same thing I'd say it reaches an endpoint because like So it'll something like the wire paradox implodes on itself. There is no endpoint. There is no conclusion And so as a result of that It is absurd But I think and here's something that throws it into question or Brings up an interesting question. I think maybe where will it is coming from is that he's saying Because like what I said with language of it being of the definitions being Other than perfectly precise He sees that as Open-ended as well. And so that that has the imprecision of our definitions has its own sort of Implosion Element to it or has a similar structural feature Yeah, I am rejecting the notion that just because we understand words Individually that when they're all put together in the sentence to that we can have a coherent concept of something that contains a contradiction That strikes me as a jump to say I understand all the individual parts that therefore I can coherently put them together and make sense of it So I believe that guys um Um, I will I really hate to do this, but I was supposed to leave half an hour ago I am I'm now A nine to five or thanks to praxis. So I gotta be up in the morning. Um Uh Steve totally side question. Where do you live? Right now. I'm in upstate new york, but in a few months. I'm gonna be moving down south Oh, man. All right. It's on time before you leave. I should meet with you in person. Are you up north? I'm not upstate, but I'm in york city, but it's not that it's not that hard to make the the trip one way or the other That'd be great. Um, Steve Uh, thank you so much I understand that you think I'm a fool Uh, um, but nonetheless, I get tremendous tremendous value out of this. Um, and uh Yeah, thanks for coming on if you guys want to continue talking, uh By all means feel free, but I I really gotta go. Thanks for inviting me. It was great. I loved the conversation as well All right. See you Bye everyone Good night, william