[lit-ideas] Re: "Promissory Materialism" Correction
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 19 Nov 2011 12:18:01 +0000 (GMT)
________________________________
From: Eric Yost <mr.eric.yost@xxxxxxxxx>
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Saturday, 19 November 2011, 8:35
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: "Promissory Materialism" Correction
>>That is not btw why there's an 'A' and a 'B' - they are there simply so they
>>can they be deployed as shorthand signs for the propositions they are stated
>>to denote, propositions that do not differ "from speaker to speaker" but
>>remain constant or invariant in their content.
>Donal, it’s structured as dialog, a phone call maybe. A calls his friend B to
>describe the local weather and B offers another local description.>
Yours may have been so structured (in your own evaluation or intent). Mine was
not.
>Yet even granting your meaning of “A” and “B” as constant and invariant, why
>on earth (That’s where we seem to be.) would you deploy the weather as an
>example?
Beats coloured swans.
>Objections:
1. Two statements cannot be made at the same point in space and time.
2. Assuming a single speaker operating in a longer period of space time --
in my example a Yankee farmer describing snow drifts to a Southern visitor --
Yankee farmer points to a patch of field and remarks, “Here there is snow.” (A)
Calmly, the Yankee farmer turns to indicate an area beneath an enclosed patio,
and says, “Here there is no snow.” (B) His Southern guest replies, “So that’s
snow. Glad I don’t have to live with it.”>
These objections are not valid to show that the A and B statements do not
contradict (which point btw was only a starting-point to explain that
contradiction is a logical relationship that cannot be understood in terms of
World 1, for it is not a physical relation, or World 2, for it is not a merely
psychological or 'mental' relation: - contradiction is a World 3 entity or
relation and must be understood in World 3 terms). It would be good if this
important point is not lost now in the snow, so to speak.
The first objection simply confuses what my post tried to unconfuse. That two
statements cannot be physically made at the [exact] same point in space and
time is a point about statements qua entities in World 1, and does not bear on
the World 3 logical relationship between any two statements. If "Here" is too
much of an 'egocentric particular', or too inexact, we can easily replace it in
both cases with 'At the space co-ordinate x at time y [specified to any degree
of exactness required]'. It is plain that two statements physically made at
different points in spacetime, such as my A and B, may nevertheless contradict
because their logical World 3 content pertains to the same point in spacetime
and makes inconsistent claims about what exists at that point, as indeed do A
and B. The fundamental distinction, between statements as World 1 entities and
statements as World 3 entities, shows that this first objection is spurious and
confused.
The point of the second objection may merely be humourous. In any case it lacks
weight as a serious objection, particularly because once we are "operating in a
longer period of space time" we are no longer speaking of the exact same point
in space and time - 'exact' so that no two statements can be physically made at
that point: for plainly two statements can be physically made in spacetime if
we are operating in a long enough period of spacetime. But this physical
possibility is still only a World 1 possibility and does not bear on the World
3 content of the two statements.
There is perhaps a lesson "here". While it may take some getting used to,
Popper's World 123 terminology is very useful as a 'heuristic' and to guard
against certain confusions that easily arise when we inadvertently switch
between talking of entities [e.g. statements] qua World 1, World 2 or World 3
object.
On a sidebar: the fundamental distinction between statementsqua entities in
World 1 and in World 3 may seem overly metaphysical but it is, in effect,
recognised at law - in the English law of evidence (and presumably its American
counterpart).
If we are put a statement in evidence merely because of its physical properties
(its World 1 properties in Popper's terminology) that statement is classed as
'real evidence': as such it may, for example, be used to prove how someone's
voice sounded (say for the purposes of identification). But if we put a
statement in evidence in order to prove the truth of its contents (i.e. because
of its World 3 content in Popper's terminology) that statement is classed as
either 'direct evidence' [if it is testimony based on the witness's personal
knowledge] or 'hearsay' [when it is an out-of-court statement adduced to prove
the truth of its contents]. This fundamental distinction is further reflected
in legislation and its interpretation - legislation such as the Criminal
Justice Act 1988, which concerns documentary hearsay. When that legislation
refers to the 'creator' or 'receiver' of a document it denotes not the creator
or receiver of the document qua mere
physical World 1 object [for this would then include the manufacturer of paper
as a 'creator' of a paper document, and a delivery service as a 'receiver' of a
document it delivers] but qua World 3 hearsay i.e. of the World 3 content of
the document. So, under this legislation, the creator of the document is the
person who created the World 3 content in the document [such as the person who
writes on the paper] and a receiver of the document is only someone who
receives the document with a view to its World 3 content [such as the intended
recipient of a letter] and not the postman.
Donal
London
>>Next on the "Eric & Adriano Show": a dazzling demonstration that there is no
>>contradiction between the view that A. the banks bear a large measure of the
>>blame for our current fiscal woes…
In 1999, Bill “Nobody Left To Lie To” Clinton repealed the Glass-Steagall Act,
an FDR-era protection against bank bloat. He was lobbied by a banker who became
Citigroup CEO after the repeal. Shortly after the repeal Clinton’s Treasury
Secretary Reich went to work for CitiGroup. This corrupt bipartisan legislation
allowed the “too big to fail” institutions, without which there would have been
no gigantic US bank-bailout. Therefore, legislation may be seen as the prime
mover of our woes. (Both McCain and Obama have tried to bring back some form of
the Glass-Steagall Act.) So much for our woes. European woes are a different
dirge, but I suspect legislation may be more causal than banks per se. There,
that is, rather than here.
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