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From: dmcanzi@watdcsu.UUCP (David Canzi)
Newsgroups: talk.philosophy.misc
Subject: Re: Emotion and Logic
Message-ID: <2555@watdcsu.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 16-Sep-86 03:32:21 EDT
Article-I.D.: watdcsu.2555
Posted: Tue Sep 16 03:32:21 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 19-Sep-86 07:25:39 EDT
References: <11700119@inmet> <11700370@inmet> <698@ihlpf.UUCP> <15628@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Reply-To: dmcanzi@watdcsu.UUCP (David Canzi)
Organization: Secular Humanist Conspiracy, Child Corruption Division
Lines: 49

In article <15628@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> m128abo@brahms.UUCP (Michael Ellis) writes:
>>... whether you really would like something to be true is irrelevant.
>>... [Mike Cherepov]
>
>    There are PLENTY of things that are true because I want them to be true. 
>
>    For instance, once I had a cat whose name was "Gunnar", because I
>    WANTED his name to be "Gunnar".

This is a misunderstanding based on an ambiguity in the English language.

(There is a belief that the English language is the most precise
language on Earth.  This belief, which I have heard expressed by
educated people with straight faces, is probably so widely believed
among English-speaking people because of the apparently infinite human
capacity for self-flattery, combined with the curious belief that one
in possession of a better *anything* is a better person than one less
fortunate.  I call this the "mine-is-bigger-than-yours" syndrome.  I
don't know any other languages, but I figure that if our language is
the most precise language on Earth, then all the non-English speaking
world is in *big* trouble...)

If, from knowing X we can conclude that Y is so, we sometimes say "Y
because X".  On the other hand, when one event, X, is the cause of
another event, Y, we might say "Y because X".  Even though the two
statements look the same, they don't mean the same thing.  Let's
distinguish these two different meanings by expressing the first one
as "Y because[1] X" and the second as "Y because[2] X".

Let X = "I wish Y to be so".  Mike Cherepov's statement I take as
meaning that "Y because[1] I wish Y to be so" is not so.  You have
attempted to show a counterexample, but all you have really shown is a
case where "Y because[2] I wish Y to be so".  This doesn't work as a
counterexample, because "because" doesn't have the same meaning in both
statements.

Thus, your attempt to prove that wishful thinking is a valid method
of inference turns out to be invalid.

>                                    For another, I consider 2+2=4
>    because I prefer laws of arithmetic that yield "2+2=4", although
>    in certain circumstances I have on occasion PREFERRED laws
>    yielding "2+2=0". Note that the truth of such facts is based on
>    little more than my DESIRE that they be true.

The question of whether 2+2=4 because you wish it to be so is, um,
beyond the scope of this article...
-- 
David Canzi		"If there is no God, who pops up the next Kleenex?"