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felipec  unbelief  2yr ago (felipec.substack.com)   3599 thread views

2+2 = not what you think

felipec.substack.com

Changing someone's mind is very difficult, that's why I like puzzles most people get wrong: to try to open their mind. Challenging the claim that 2+2 is unequivocally 4 is one of my favorites to get people to reconsider what they think is true with 100% certainty.

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Where did I "assume" that in my last comment?

You said, "The 'laws of arithmetic' that are relevant depend 100% on what arithmetic we are talking about," which is only meaningful under your usage of "laws of arithmetic" and does not apply to the term as I meant it in my original comment.

That's not an argument, you are just stating your personal position. You are free to do whatever you want, if you don't want to doubt a particular "unequivocal" claim, then don't. Your personal position doesn't contradict my claim in any way.

To quote myself:

there is no choice but to make assumptions of terms ordinarily having their plain meanings, to avoid an infinite regress of definitions used to clarify definitions.

To rephrase that, communication relies on at least some terms being commonly understood, since otherwise you'd reach an infinite regress. As a consequence, there must exist terms that have an unambiguous "default meaning" in the absence of clarification. But how do we decide which terms are unambiguous? Empirically, I can decide that a widespread term has an unambiguous default meaning if I have never heard anyone use the term contrary to that meaning in a general context, and if I have no particular evidence that other people are actively using an alternative meaning in a general context. I believe it reasonable to set the bar here, since any weaker criterion would result in the infinite-regress issue.

Because that's what skepticism demands. I assert that 100% certainty on anything is problematic, which is the reason why skepticism exists in the first place.

Sure, if someone writes "2 + 2 = 4", it isn't 100% certain that they're actually making a statement about the integers: perhaps they're completely innumerate and just copied the symbols out of a book because they look cool. I mean to say that it's so unlikely that they're referring to something other than integer arithmetic that it wouldn't be worth my time to entertain the thought, without any special evidence that they are (such as it being advertised as a "puzzle").

If you were to provide real evidence that people are using this notation to refer to something other than integer arithmetic in a general context, then I would be far more receptive to your point here.

Indeed, how do you know that your interlocutors are "100% certain" that they know what you mean by "2 + 2"? Perhaps they're "100% certain" that "2 + 2 = 4" by the rules of integer arithmetic, but they're independently 75% certain that you're messing with them, or setting up a joke.

You said, "The 'laws of arithmetic' that are relevant depend 100% on what arithmetic we are talking about," which is only meaningful under your usage of "laws of arithmetic" and does not apply to the term as I meant it in my original comment.

No it doesn't.

The "laws of arithmetic" after your explanation mean the "laws of all the different arithmetics" which you asked me to not consider as uncountable, which I didn't. You yourself said that the "laws of all the different arithmetics" is not a single set of rules that apply to all arithmetics, therefore a subset of the "laws of all the different arithmetics" may apply to a specific arithmetic, but not necessarily to another different arithmetic.

Therefore my phrase "The 'laws of arithmetic' ('laws of all the different arithmetics') that are relevant depend 100% on what arithmetic we are talking about" is 100% consistent with your usage of the term.

To rephrase that, communication relies on at least some terms being commonly understood, since otherwise you'd reach an infinite regress.

This is what you said:

This is because I have no evidence that any reasonable person would use the notation associated with integer arithmetic in such a way, and without such evidence, there is no choice but to make assumptions of terms ordinarily having their plain meanings, to avoid an infinite regress of definitions used to clarify definitions.

Having no evidence is no excuse. Having no evidence of black swans doesn't imply that black swans cannot exist, nor is it a valid reason to assume that all swans are white.

You do have a choice: don't make assumptions.

Symbols do not have a single meaning. If I say "run a marathon" you may think about participating in a marathon, but it could be managing one. Nobody sees the word "run" and assume a single meaning, the meaning always depends on the context. Intelligent beings must consider different meanings, and this is precisely the reason computers are not considered very intelligent: they can't consider multiple meanings the way a human does. If language was as simple as you paint it, computers would have had no problem solving it decades ago.

It's not that linear and simple, you do have the choice to consider multiple meanings of the word "run".

Indeed, how do you know that your interlocutors are "100% certain" that they know what you mean by "2 + 2"?

Because they use it as a clear example of something unequivocally true.

You do have a choice: don't make assumptions.

I suspect that this choice is impossible to consistently make. So that I can better understand what you're asking for, could you give me an example of a conversation in which one participant doesn't make any assumptions about the meaning of another?

This one. I'm the participant not making any assumptions about what you mean.

I suppose (not assume) that your question was rhetorical, and you actually believe I cannot answer it in truth, because you believe in every conversation all participants have to make assumptions all the time. But this is tentative, I do not actually know that, therefore I do not assume that's the case.

And this is a fallacy I have pointed out already. The fact that somebody appears to be making an assumption doesn't necessarily means that he is. All that glitters is not gold. You are likely going to comb through my statement and try to find a point where I made an assumption, but all you are going to find is the appearance of an assumption, without reading my mind you can't actually tell.

Once again: I do not know what you mean though, but I'm guessing, and that's all rational agents can do when communicating.

I suppose (not assume) that your question was rhetorical, and you actually believe I cannot answer it in truth, because you believe in every conversation all participants have to make assumptions all the time. But this is tentative, I do not actually know that, therefore I do not assume that's the case.

My main intent was to elucidate what you don't consider to be an assumption, to determine whether I've been misunderstanding your meaning of the term. Your separation of suppositions from assumptions appears to answer this question in the positive.

The fact that somebody appears to be making an assumption doesn't necessarily means that he is.

How does one distinguish between someone making an assumption, and someone only appearing to be making an assumption? You have claimed that some statements by others contain assumptions, and you have claimed that some statements only contain suppositions that appear like assumptions. But I don't understand exactly how you're evaluating statements to determine this.

How does one distinguish between someone making an assumption, and someone only appearing to be making an assumption?

By checking whether or not the person considers the possibility of the claim being not necessarily true. And if not, whether or not the claim is substantiated by evidence or reason.

Or the other way: if the person considers the claim to be 100% certain to be true without any evidence or reason to substantiate it (it just is).

By checking whether or not the person considers the possibility of the claim being not necessarily true. And if not, whether or not the claim is substantiated by evidence or reason.

By "the claim being not necessarily true", are you referring to the possibility that the claim's originator is expressing a belief contrary to truth, or the possibility that the claim's recipient is interpreting the claim differently in such a way as to make it the received belief incorrect? The examples in your original post are of the latter, but I'd usually understand substantiation as a property of a belief having already been shared and correctly interpreted.

It would also seem that the former is far easier than the latter. If you know that you're correctly understanding the belief being expressed by a claim, then you can simply compare the belief to your own worldview, and doubt it according to how likely the alternatives appear to be true. But evaluating how much you may be misinterpreting a claim is a far different challenge: you have to map out the space of possible beliefs in the originator's mind that could have plausibly led to that particular claim, accounting for how the originator's thoughts might look far different from your own.

By "the claim being not necessarily true", are you referring to the possibility that the claim's originator is expressing a belief contrary to truth, or the possibility that the claim's recipient is interpreting the claim differently in such a way as to make it the received belief incorrect?

Neither. I said the claim's originator considers the possibility that the claim might not be necessarily true. This is expressed in modal logic as ◇⊥ (possibly false), or ¬□⊤ (not necessarily true).

It's not about whether or not the claim is really true or not, or if it has been substantiated... It's about you believing it might be false.

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