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From: colonel@sunybcs.UUCP (Col. G. L. Sicherman)
Newsgroups: talk.philosophy.misc
Subject: Re: because I want it
Message-ID: <960@sunybcs.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 19-Sep-86 10:59:40 EDT
Article-I.D.: sunybcs.960
Posted: Fri Sep 19 10:59:40 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 29-Sep-86 00:07:46 EDT
References: <11700370@inmet> <698@ihlpf.UUCP> <2555@watdcsu.UUCP>
Organization: Save the Dodoes Foundation
Lines: 56

> >    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".
> 
> If, from knowing X we can conclude that Y is so, we sometimes say "Y
> because X".

An example might help.  "You must have had spaghetti for breakfast,
because there's a spot of spaghetti sauce on your tie."

>              On the other hand, when one event, X, is the cause of
> another event, Y, we might say "Y because X".

"I've got spaghetti sauce on my tie because I had spaghetti for breakfast."

> 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.

I don't think the point of disagreement between you is a matter of language.
Causality is a very old philosophical problem.  Some philosophers maintain
that "to cause" is directly meaningful only when YOU cause something, as
Mike did with his cat's name.  Under this interpretation, causality of
external events (as in Baconian science) reduces to time-sequence between
mutually dependent events.  With Einsteinian relativity, different observers
might differ over which of two events "caused" the other!

Both of you will agree that something can be so because you _make_ it so.
The hidden point of Mike's argument is that names are special: the will
is the act.  I leave it to harder heads than mine to discuss the role
of names in mathematics!

One interesting point about language:

	(1) My dog's name is Willis.
	(2) I call my dog Willis.

Statement (1) can be held to reduce to statement (2), since (1) is true
so long, and only so long, as (2) is true.  In what sense, then, need a
name be said to _exist,_ if any utterance about it reduces to an utterance
about calling?


	"Six bells by the dog watch."
	"I didn't know watches had bells," said Water Polo.
	"I didn't know dogs had watches," said Isfahani. "It must
	   be an old sea dog."
				--American Pie
-- 
Col. G. L. Sicherman
UU: ...{rocksvax|decvax}!sunybcs!colonel
CS: colonel@buffalo-cs
BI: colonel@sunybcs, csdsiche@sunyabvc