Phil in words of one syll

Denis Robinson of the University of Auckland has embarked on the monumental project of translating the key ideas of philosophy into words of one syllable.  This project was pioneered in George Boolos's 1994 paper in Mind, "Godel's Theorem translated into words of one syllable", the upshot of which was "If math is not a lot of bunk, then no claim of the form 'X can't be proved' can be proved".  Denis has now extended the project to one-syllable formulations of many of the key questions of philosophy, including some key questions in ethics, the philosophy of mind and language, epistemology, and metaphysics.  There are a lot still to go, though!  So your contributions to this project are welcome.  Denis's contribution follows.

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If each word was a word of just one sound, what could we do, when we did our work, and how would that fact bind us?

Not that "a word of just one sound" quite gets the thing one tries to say here - but no way I can find to try to say it is as good as this one, but this one.

"It is a tale told by a dolt, full of sound and rage, which does not mean a thing". - Said by the man who shakes a spear.

Why not take a stab and go for broke? Let's ask: what would our work be like if when we thought things through or sought to know how to sort things out we had to use no word which does not have just one sound? It's hard to make a whole text when we sign up to this deal. But we could think of what we make up when we do this as to be thought of as shards of a text to be read at a time when now is long in the past, though of course a time which will then be "now".

Some of the things we in our line of work might ask would look like these:

Is it wrong to do what you want to when there are those who don't want you to or who will be hurt if you do?

Is the right thing to do what makes most folks glad? Or should we say not quite that, but that the right thing to do is the thing which most makes folks glad, where when you count folks you weight each one by how glad it makes them?

How do we think? Must we think by means of words? Could a cat or a dog think what we think? If all thought is by way of words, what words would cats or dogs use, and where would they come from?

Is there some one thing which all of us can mean and which all of us can know we mean when we all use the same word? How can we know that my word means what your word means? Does the fact that it is the same word make it less hard to know this?

Might it be that the man who came by space ship from Twin Earth could say in truth when he got here "it was good to drink, on my way here, not for the first time, the rich red wine which flows in the streams of Mars, but now I feel sad, for I will go there no more, and soon will die, by the shores of a sea not my own, though it be to each sense one just like it"? If I said that such a man said that, though I said too that what I said was not true, but just a tale, would it make sense for what I said he said to make us sad or glad? And would such a tale show that the stuff of his sea might be not of the same kind as the stuff of our seas, though it might be to each sense we have, just like it?

What if there is no right or wrong? Should we fear that harm or loss must come to us all if we start to think this? Could God make it so? Could God make what is right right, or what is wrong wrong? Could God make the wrong thing right or the right thing wrong?

If all that we know is through what we can see, hear, touch, taste, or smell, how can we know that things are as we see, hear, touch, taste or smell them to be?

If one thing could be two, must that mean that all things could be one?

Comments

[djc]

Here's a question close to my heart:

Could a chap have just the same sort of brain as me, and not feel a thing?

Or, to more strictly respond to a challenge from Denis to formulate a psychophysical supervenience thesis:

Could two folks have just the same sort of brains, and not think and feel the same things?

[David Wall]

First question on the first-year course here:

If I had a ring that let me do what I want and no one would know it was me that did it, what would I do when I wore it?

[Alejandro]

If God is dead, then is it all right to do what we want?

Where do I go when I die? Or will I just die and be no more?

I am Blas, French. Should I trust God to be, so that if He is He will give me full bliss when I die, or should I not, and risk full pain? It is clear that I should trust! The bet is well worth it!

All things we say may be, in fact are, though not in the same world that we live in. It is weird, true, but don't look at me like that!

The Scot Dave Hume thought that we can't know if the sun will rise next day; we can only trust so. (By the way, he said that we can't get from "is" to "ought", too).

[Alejandro]

Some more:

If Van Quine were with some guy who did not speak his tongue, and a hare passed by and the guy spoke, Van would not know if the guy had meant "lo, a hare!" or not.

The small bits that make us and all things seem quite weird. Are they there when we don't look at them? If so, just _how_ are they there? If one of them may or may not kill a cat in a box, is the cat dead or not while we don't look in the box? If we sent two of them, one East and one West, wait a while, and then look at the East one, shall the West one "know" it? (Bell said it can't know, but it seems it can). Some say that to ask these things has no sense. Some say it is the mind that makes this bits be as they are -they are so just when we look at them. And some, like Dave here, think that the world splits each time we look at one of them. How could we tell that, if it were true?

Dan says there is no more "feel" in thought than lots of drafts in charge of stuff on their own; there is no need for one main Thought or Feel. Dave asks him if there could not be a guy with all the drafts there, but no real feel nor thought. Dan says that to ask that makes no sense: no one could tell if the guy were like that, for the guy would say he had Feels too! Who is right?

[Tamar]

Unger on Skepticism (1974)

If I know that P, must I be sure that P? Yes, I must.

And if I am sure that P, and it seems to me that the world is not P, must I say that the world is not as it seems? Yes, I must. (Saul tells me I should say this...)

But it seems that for all P, a Voice that I trust might tell me that not P. And I would have to say to the Voice: "what you say is not true!"

But to do this would be mad! For the Voice *could* be right.

So, for all P, no one can be sure that P. And this means that for all P, no one knows that P.

[Robert]

Kant's Ground work, in words of one syl

To be good, make it your plan to do what you must.
What must you do? Do not act on a plan if your sane part could not make it a rule for all.
Or, what means the same thing, do not treat the sane part in you, or in all who have a sane part, as a mere tool. It is a rare good, so give it its due.
Or, what means the same thing, act only on a plan if all who have a sane part, and who lived in the same state, would want that plan to be a law of that state, a law that they all live by.
But why is this what you must do? Here is why:
Since you are sane, you must act on your sane part's plans.
If you act on your sane part's plans, then you think what you pick will be up to you (else why pick?). You think your plan will be up to you, too, up to your sane part.
But if you think what you pick and your plan will be up to you, then you think you, that is, your sane part, and no one else makes the plan and picks.
What plan would your sane part make?
Since all sane parts are the same, it would be a plan that could be a plan for all with a sane part.
And that is the same thing as what you must do to be good.

[Strange Doctrines]

Charming idea. Given Mr. Chalmers' background, perhaps we might also launch a similar monosyllabized programme with famous mathematical proofs. (No symbols, diagrams or encoding.) 'Kay. Who's up for Maxwell's Theorem?

[Denis Robinson]

Can’t help but do one more:

It came to me in a dream, in a small hot room, one night while at the wars.

If I think, and it is true, that if I think then I am, then I am.
I can not but judge that if I think then I am, and if I judge this then I know that I do. And to judge is to think.
So I can be in no doubt that I am.

[djc]

Say that you see a star at dusk and name it Dusk Star, and then you see a star at dawn and name it Dawn Star. And say it turns out that the star at dusk is the same star as the star at dawn. Then when you say that Dusk Star is Dawn Star, you seem to say the same thing that you say when you say that Dawn Star is Dawn Star. But when you say that Dusk Star is Dawn Star, you say a thing that you have come to know through hard work.

How can this be? Do your two names for the star mean the same? I say that your names do not mean the same. The names both name the same thing, but they do not name it through the same mode of view. So the two names do not have the same sense.

[painquale]

A New Quiz

Let us say you are in a room with a box on each side of you. Box one is clear, and in it you can see some cash. Box two is not clear. You are told that if you choose one box, you get to keep the cash in it as a prize; if you choose both, you get to keep the cash in both of them. But, when you came in, a bot that is good at this kind of thing has read your brain, and it thinks it knows if you will choose one box or if you will choose both. If it thought you would choose both, then it put cash in just the clear box (box one). If the bot thought you would choose just one box, it put some cash in box one, but it put much, much more in box two. Should you choose just box two, or should you choose both?

[Justin F]

Here's another stab at a Twin Earth story:

Twin Earth is just like our world, but for the fact that where we have gold, they have a stuff that looks and feels just like our gold, but is made up of wee parts that are not the same as the wee parts that make up all our gold.

You take me to Twin Earth, but don't tell me all this. I point to a lump that shines and say, "Ah, there's some gold!" Lots of guys think that what I said is false - the lump is not the sort of thing that I mean by "gold", for it is not made up of the same sorts of wee bits as all the things I've seen and called 'gold'.

On Twin Earth, I have a twin who is just like me in that all the parts that make him up are just like the ones that make me up. But my twin has lived his whole life on Twin Earth and used his term 'gold' to talk about the stuff there. My twin walks up to the lump and says "There is some gold!" This is true, for the lump is in fact made out of the same sort of stuff as my twin has learned to call 'gold'.

This shows us that, at least in one sense, what we mean is not fixed by all the parts that make us up - for I and my twin are just the same in all these ways, but we don't mean the same thing by 'gold'.

[Justin F]

Kripkenstein!:

When I ask "What is four plus six?" it seems clear that the right thing to say is 'ten'. But, what makes it be that this is what I must say to use the word "plus" in the way I've meant to use it in the past? How can we rule out the thought that, in fact, I've meant 'plus' to mean a way to join two things that yields their sum when that sum would be less than ten, and yields *one* when that sum would be more than ten.

I have not asked "What's four plus six?" in the past. (Or if you won't buy that, we could choose a case with things as high as you like, and the same points would still hold. To save breath, I'll stick with this case.) So we can't just say that I had fixed last time what the right thing to say now is. (And if I *had* asked this in the past, how would we know that the right thing to say now would be the same as what I said then? The right thing to say when one asks "Is the sun out?" is not the same at all times, so why think that the right thing to say to "What is four plus six?" should be the same at all times?)

Sure, I am such that when you ask me if four plus six is ten, I will tend to say yes; but what does that show? I have been wrong lots of times in the past - I have said yes to sums that weren't right. So why think that since I tend to say yes to this one, that should mean that this one is right?

So, the hard task is to say what it is in me or you or in our past that makes it be the case that the *right* thing to say to "What's four plus six?" is 'ten' rather than 'one' or some third thing.

[djc]

Say I'm locked in a room and I get a large batch of Greek prose. I know no Greek. Then I get a batch of rules (in my own tongue) on how to come up with more Greek prose based on the first batch of Greek prose. To Greek folk who are not in the room, the words in the first batch are things that they ask me, and the words that I come up with are things that I say to what they ask me. I get so good with these rules that the words that I come up with look like things that one who speaks real Greek would say. But I grok none of these words. I do not grok Greek at all. So one needs more than these rules to grok Greek. We could make the same point for all sets of rules. So it takes more than rules to grok Greek. This tells us that it takes more than rules to think in the way that folks think.

[painquale]

Do we have to think that there are things like round squares? This sounds weird, I know... but hear me out! At times our tongue makes it seem like we must! Take the phrase, "The King of France right now is bald." It looks, on the face of it, like the phrase says that there is this guy, the King of France right now, who has no hair. But there is no King of France right now! If there is a set of things that are bald, and a set of things that are not bald, we do not want to place the King of France right now in one of those sets.

Bert tried to deal with this stew in a neat way. The form of the phrase in our tongue, he said, is not the same as the real form of the thought that we want to say. We must not mix up the form of our tongue and the true form of the thought. He went on to show what he thought was the true form of the word 'the'. When we say "The King of France right now is bald," we say three things:

1) There is a King of France right now.
2) The King of France right now is bald.
3) There is but one King of France right now.

And that's it! Now, when some fool comes up and says, "The King of France right now is bald," we may say "No, fool!", and it does not mean there is a King of France right now who is not bald. It may mean that there is no King of France right now at all.

[djc]

Meg has lived all her life in a black and white room. She knows all there is to know of the brain. But she does not know what it is like to see red. One day, we show Meg a red thing. She does not say "Ho hum". She says "Ah, so that is what it is like to see red". And when she says this, she tells us of a fact that she has learned. This means that last week, though Meg knew all the brain facts, she did not know all the facts. So the fact that she learns, the fact of what it is like to see red, is not a brain fact.

[djc]

You might think that the name 'George Bush' means the same as 'the guy with the smirk'. But this is wrong. It might have been that George Bush led a sad life, so that he did not once smirk. So it need not have been the case that George Bush is the guy with the smirk. So 'George Bush' and 'the guy with the smirk' mean different things. The same goes for any name, and for any phrase like 'the guy with the smirk'. So what a name means is not what such a phrase means. A name is a stiff tag for the thing that it names: it names that thing in every world.

[Tamar]

There is a train on a track, and that train has no brakes, so it can not stop. There are five men tied to the track, in such a way that the train will soon hit them. And if the train hits the five men, all of the men will die.

But… the track has a branch, and if the train goes down the branch and not down the main track, then it will not hit the five men, and the five men will not die. On the branch, there is one man tied to the track, and if the train goes down the branch, it will hit that one man, and he will die.

You have a choice: you can pull a switch, and send the train down the branch. If you do this, the five men will be saved, but the one man will die. Is that the right thing to do? What do you think?

Now try this case:

The same train is on the track, and the same five men are tied there. But this time there is no branch. What there is this time is a bridge – a bridge that spans the track. And on that bridge there stands a fat man. That man is so fat that if you pushed him off the bridge, in front of the train, he would stop the train! If he stops the train in this way, then the five men who are tied to the tracks would be saved – but the fat man will die.

You have a choice: you can push the fat man off the bridge so that he lands down on the tracks and stops the train. The fat man will die, but the five men will live. Is this the right thing to do? If not, and if you thought it was right to kill the one man in the first case, then what makes this case not the same?

[Strange Doctrines]

Is the good all right with the gods on the ground that it is good, or is it good on the ground that it is all right with the gods?

[Nick]

What is the world?

[Robert]

Rawls' Thoughts on How to Be Just (in words of just one syl)

To be just is to be fair. A fair state is one in which one's fate is made from tip to toe by one's own picks and sweat, not by one's gifts and knacks. Or, in new words, a fair state is based on rules all would pick from a fair and free point of view. A fair and free point of view will be this: Let each know that there are not gobs of good stuff. Let each be sane in the sense that each will take the means to what she wants. Let each want no more than to get most of some prime goods that must be had for a good life. But let no one know what she thinks a good life is, nor what her gifts and knacks are. And let each not like and not hate to take a risk.
From that point of view, all would pick rules that would make the most of the worst that could come to pass. But that means that, from that point of view, none would pick J. S. Mill’s rule:

“Rights, and gaps in rank and wealth, should be set so that they make the most of the likes of all, when each like counts just for one.”

That could turn out bad for the worst off ranks of a state. It might make the most of the likes of all if some were slaves. As it turns out, all would in fact pick these two rules:
1. Each is to have the same right to the most broad set of rights as long as that same set can be had by all. (the rule of rights)
2. The rank and wealth of some can be more, as long as it is true both that (a) a sane one would think this deal is best for all, and (b) this is tied to jobs all can have a crack at. (the rule of gaps in rank and wealth).
Oh, and by the way, from a free and fair point of view, none would make trades in things in 1 for more of things in 2. They would want 1 to be met first.

[painquale]

If I see some one thing that is not black and not a crow, should that lead me to think that all crows are black?

[Peter Simons]

Monosyllabic philosophy is fun, but so are limericks. Here are some suggestions for combining the genres - PS

There was a young man from old France
Who led all the dons there a dance
When they asked him to doubt
He'd a soul, all he'd shout
Was "I think, I can't not be - no chance!"

A chap from the North land - a Scot
Thought it was as much chance as was not
That a ball when it's hit
Would move off for a bit
But he still aimed his cue for the pot

A lad from the Fens name of Newt
Was struck on the head by a fruit
Which made his pate sore
But learnt him the law
What's up will come down, and that's cute

[Strange Doctrines]

I doubt it. (Pyrrho)

[Pekka]

Say you like gin more than beer and beer more than rum, but like rum more than gin. And say if you have one of these you will trade it for what you like more for a quid. Now say you are in a pub and have a cup of rum. A keen chap who tends the bar says he will give you a cup of beer for a quid and your cup of rum. “Very well, mate” you say, “but make it fast”. Ere you can drink up he says he will give you a cup of gin for a quid and your cup of beer. “All right, then,” you say, but ere you take a swig he says he will give you a cup of rum for a quid and your cup of gin. There you are now, with your old cup of rum but three quid worse off, so all you can do is beat it ere last call. Son, let this teach you to think about what you like, or else to not go back to that pub.

[Robert]

Well, now Pekka's upped the ante
How about Rawls in Cockney? (via the Dialetizer)

To be just is ter be fair. Right. A fair state is one in wich one's fate is made from tip ter toe by one's own picks and sweat, right, not by one's gifts and knacks. Or, in new words, a fair state is based on rules all would pick from a fair and free point of view. A fair and free point of view will be this: Let each know that there ain't gobs of right good stuff. Let each be sane in the sense that each will take the chuffin' means ter wot she wants. Let each want no more than ter get most of some prime right goods that must be 'ad for a right good life. Cor blimey guv, would I lie to you? But let no geezer know wot she finks a right good life is, nor wot 'er gifts and knacks are. And let each not like and not 'ate ter take a risk. From that point of view, all would pick rules that would make the chuffin' most of the bloomin' worst that could come ter pass. But that means that, from that point of view, none would pick J. S. Mill’s rule:
“Rights, and gaps in rank and wealff, right, should be set so that they make the chuffin' most of the likes of all, wen each like counts just for one.”
That could turn out bad for the bleedin' worst off ranks of a state. It might make the most of the likes of all if some were slaves. Right. As it turns out, all would in fact pick these two rules:
1. Each is ter have the same right ter the most broad set of rights as long as that same set can be 'ad by all. (the rule of rights)
2. The bloody rank and wealff of some can be more, as long as it is true boff that (a) a sane one would fink this deal is Mae West for all, and (b) this is tied ter Uncle Bobs all can 'ave a crack at. (the rule of gaps in rank and wealff). Oh, and by the way, from a free and fair point of view, none would make trades in fings in 1 for more of fings in 2. Yer can't 'ave a knees-up wivout a joanna. They would want 1 ter be met first.