Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!husc6!uwvax!rutgers!caip!clyde!cbatt!ihnp4!qantel!vixie!dwyer From: dwyer@vixie.UUCP (Bill Dwyer) Newsgroups: talk.philosophy.misc Subject: Dwyer's Response to Templeton on Objectivism (part 5 of 9) Message-ID: <153@vixie.UUCP> Date: Thu, 2-Oct-86 18:19:19 EDT Article-I.D.: vixie.153 Posted: Thu Oct 2 18:19:19 1986 Date-Received: Sat, 11-Oct-86 08:38:55 EDT Reply-To: dwyer@vixie.UUCP (Bill Dwyer) Distribution: world Organization: Vixie Enterprises, San Mateo, CA Lines: 95 A Response to Brad Templeton's Criticisms of Objectivism by William Dwyer (part 5 of 9) ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This article is a response to Brad Templeton's article 624@looking.UUCP, posted a few months ago. My response is very long, and so will be posted over a period of about a week. Copies of any portion of the response, or of the original article, are available upon request. Editorial assistance was provided by paul@vixie.UUCP (Paul A. Vixie) ------------------------------------------------------------------------- "PROBLEM 5: The efficacy of human reason and the incompleteness theorem." Templeton cites the so-called incompleteness theorem (See GODEL, ESCHER, BACH by Hofstadter) as proof that there are such things as the unprovable by reason. He presents the argument for this theorem as follows: Consider the statement G: G: The statement G has no rational proof - it is beyond reason. Now consider the converse: NOT G: The statement G has a rational proof - it can be derived with reason. If G is false, NOT G must be true, but if NOT G is true, then G has a rational proof and must be true. Thus we have G & NOT G (egads!!!!). Thus G must be true - there is at least one thing beyond reason. Templeton then states: Now most Objectivists, when shown our "G" up there say that G is a non- sense statement because it is self-referential. They forget that self- reference is the essence of consciousness, perhaps even the definition of it. A consciousness must be aware of itself (self-aware) and be able to reason about itself. You can't have epistemology without the ability to reason about reason. While it is true that a (fully developed) human consciousness is self- referential -- is aware of itself -- it is so only because it is first aware of something other than itself. Which is precisely the point that Objectivism makes with respect to the incompleteness theorem. Contrary to Templeton, Objectivism does not say that G is nonsensical because it is self-referential. What Objectivism does say is that before G can be meaningfully self-referential -- before it can meaningfully refer to its own act of referral -- it must refer to something other than its own act of refer- ral, which it does not do. Just as there must be an awareness OF SOMETHING be- fore there can be an awareness to be aware of, so there must be a referral TO SOMETHING before there can be a referral to refer to. Thus, the nature of consciousness does not refute, but supports, Objectivism's answer to the incompleteness theorem. Just as consciousness requires an in- dependent object to be conscious of before it can be conscious of its act of being conscious, so a statement requires an independent object to refer to be- fore it can refer to its process of referral. Since G does not fulfill that requirement, it cannot meaningfully refer to itself, i.e., to its own process of referral. G asserts that a certain statement has no rational proof. What statement? The statement that G is making that a certain statement has no rational proof. Thus, the statement that G refers to is referring to G referring to G referring Templeton states that if G is false, NOT-G must be true -- which then leads to a contradiction. But if G has no meaningful referent, G can be neither true nor false. And if it can be neither true nor false, it does not, properly speaking, qualify as a statement. "[S]tatements are COGNITIVE instruments. A statement, or proposition, is not just any seemingly grammatical collection of words; it is an integration of concepts used to make a meaningful assertion." [Binswanger, THE OBJECTIVIST FORUM, February 1984, p. 14] In short, an alleged statement that has no meaningful referent -- that is nei- ther true nor false -- that does not serve as a cognitive instrument -- cannot be used to prove anything, least of all that reason is inefficacious. This is the Objectivist position on the "incompleteness theorem". As one can see, it is scarcely the view that there can be no valid self-referential state- ments -- a view more appropriate to Bertrand Russell and is infamous theory of types. (Besides, the whole idea of using reason to prove reason inefficacious is ab- surd. If reason truly is inefficacious a la the incompleteness theorem, then what justifies the incompleteness theorem? Unreason? A point to bear in mind here is that if one's reason leads to a contradiction, it does not mean that a contradiction exists; it means that there is something wrong with the reasoning that led to it. After all, the whole concept of reason rests on the law of non-contradiction. If contradictions are possible, then no rational argument can prove anything.)