borges & infinite monkeys

there's an interesting possibility in the field of literature that can be approached through at least two different philosophical lenses. first, let me explain the possibility, then i'll talk about two immediate problems that arise from it.

the problem i'm going to talk about is the problem of the infinite monkeys. if a group of an infinite amount of monkeys sit on typewriters randomly smacking the keyboards, eventually, all known literary works (and all future ones too) will be produced.

the same intuition is elucidated in a story by borges about an infinite library that has every combination of characters and punctuation marks possible.

from these speculations i see two philosophically interesting questions arising. the first is mostly metaphysical: what ontological status, if any, should we give to stories when, if we take this possibility seriously, all coherent works in the literature already exist in some sense or another?

the second question that arises immediately is one from authorial intent and meaning, thus becoming a question in the philosophy of language. does the intent of the author really add anything to the work produced, given that an unintelligent mechanisms could produce the same works?

these two questions require a lot of thought, but my very preliminary answers depend heavily on the plausibility of the hypothetical. obviously infinite monkeys wouldn't do the trick, but even a computer that does this task forever wouldn't have the time to contain ALL possible works of literature, considering that the human mind's language abilities are infinitely generative. take, for example, simon roberts's book titled knickers, which was unique in that chapter fourteen only says the word "thanks". chapter fourteen, btw, is from page 52 to page 2069. would a computer do that? i don't know.

if my intuition is correct, the role of authorial intent becomes of hightened importance. however, i don't think it has any effect on the ontological question.

musical meaning

what is it in a song that has the ability to bring out meaning to its listener? is there anything in the song itself that has these properties, or is it all in the mind? i don't know if it's because i'm feeling particularly emo today, but i was listening to miles davis's classic ballad "blue in green". for the purposes of the post, listen to this one, at least in part:

all music is, at least if given a materialist ontology, is a series of noises of different frequencies arranged in a particular way in space-time. but then how is it that these noises carry what we each understand to have meaning of some sort? is this meaning external or internal? or some combination of both? i guess here i'm drawing a parralel to the philosophy of language. i suspect some answer to this can be arrived at if we take some ideas from frege. however, even this approach would be highly problematicc.

in frege's discussion of language, there are generally two aspects to names: their sense (the cognitive associations and dimensions of the name) and their reference (what those names actually refer to). but of course it isn't obvious that music refers to anything at all.

i'm honestly not in the mood for even trying to solve this puzzle right now, but i hope i have the effort to one day tackle this issue with the seriousness it deserves.

on the ethics of discourse

(for the purposes of this post, i will be using a very primitive notion of right and wrong)

how okay is it to use as much rhetoric, outside of logic, in order to argue for something in the course of some discourse?

my gut reaction is to say that it's not okay at all. but there seems to be a very big difference, though, if you consider certain types of rhetorical devices (mostly the aesthetically inclined ones) than if you consider certain rhetorical methods that directly contradict logic (affirming the consequent, or whatever.)

let's take some concrete examples. using anaphora is a well known method for capturing the attention of the audience, especially if spoken. This seems harmless, and it sure does sound good.

on the other hand, affirming the consequent is a straightforwardly false in deductive logic. and unless used in a provisional and very specifically delineated discussion (where it might be justifiable under the guise of an abductive inference), it would be either a formal fallacy (to some uninformed speaker) or an intentional manipulation (where it would be used as a rhetorical device). either way, some shady stuff is going on and there very clearly see that something bad is going on here.

but even upon reconsideration of the previous example, of the aesthetically-motivated rhetoric, is there more to these devices than meets the eye? could it be that these rhetorical methods are distracting from the point of the message? in some way, is discourse supposed to be just presenting the facts in a logical manner without the hooplah and smoke and mirrors that any rhetorical device other than the clear argumentation only cold hard logic can offer?

no way, that can't be right either. i need to unstiffen my requirements for an acceptable discourse, as those aesthetically motivated rhetorical devices add a lot to some speeches, they help deliver the message more than hinder it. such as in dr. king's "i have a dream" speech, which is in english language anthologies nationwide.

could it be that any of these methods are acceptable if the GOAL of the discourse if justified, or in any case "right" by some other standard? this is a question i'll leave for another time

abduction and occam's razor

gosh i don't know if this is gonna sound obvious but i think i finally understand abduction, it's role in science, and why parsimony is so important in scientific hypotheses! okay so very quickly: three methods of logical arguments: deduction, induction, and abduction.

in a deduction, you have an argument like this:

(1) all things that have hearts also have kidneys.
(2) david has a heart
/(3) david has a kidney

in an induction, you have something like this:

(4) all of these jellybeans in my hand are red
(5) i got these jellybeans from that bag
/(6) all the jellybeans in that bag are red.

in an abduction, your argument goes like this:

(7) the glove fits
(8) if he did the crime, then the glove must fit.
/(9) he did the crime.

so in (1-3) we're applying a conditional to get the consequent, in (4-6) we're inferring the conditional from what seems to be an antecedent and a consequent, and in (7-8) we're inferring the antecedent from a conditional and a consequent.

unless you're an extreme skeptic, deduction is valid if the premises and the negation of the conclusion are inconsistent. for induction, lots of people (hume, popper) have shown that it is isn't 100% accurate at all times or try to get rid of it, but it seems to me that we use it so often and it's true most of the time, so i'll just take it for granted that, even though it's not full proof, it's okay to use (a full explanation as to why i think this would take me into phil of language and metaphysics and i just don't wanna go there... maybe i'll do it at some other time).

now the one that seems to preoccupy some people (e.g. bas van fraassen) the most is abduction (or as some people call it nowadays, inference to the best explanation), especially in the context of science.

as i see it, in science there are problems. and in lots of these problems there is the following implied dillema: "X. Why X?" an example given in words: if i throw an apple into the air, it'll come right back down. why is this so?

in short, there is a phenomenon which already has been established to occur in the world and science's job is to figure out what causes it. if you will, there's a B and we're trying to figure out an A such that A -> B. now, to get a little technical, if the B has already been established as occurring in the world, then it has a truth value of 1 (where 1= true, and 0=false). but if B is already 1, then the relation A -> B will be 1 no matter if A is 1 or 0.

here's where the scientist comes in. the scientist proposes a hypothesis, A, to see if B follows, either necessarily or probably. if it does, then the hypothesis becomes a theory supported by observation. but again, the way he does this is by investigating in the real world. if B follows from A, as hypothesized by the scientist, then we have reason to believe A, making the abductive process complete. if not, try again, with a new antecedent (A*).

now comes the parsimony part. take the previous example given by (7-9). if we amend to (9)

(9)' he did the crime AND panda express is awesome

then the argument would still be valid. because if the rule remains that (8) and we have (9)', we could simplify (9)' to just (9) and

(10) panda express is awesome.

so (7) follows. but, as you can easily see, (10) is completely unnecessary and irrelevant (even if it might be true). that's why scientific theories attempt to posit the most barren metaphysics and the least amount of stuff necessary to solve the problem at hand, all the while trying to explain nature in terms of natural kinds and laws.

damn i just decided i'm gonna tag this aesthetics too because this is just beautiful.