From: Richard S. Holmes (rsholmes_at_MailBox.Syr.Edu)
Date: Tue Feb 25 2003 - 07:03:15 PST
"Alan Riddell" <peekee_at_blueyonder.co.uk> writes:
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Richard S. Holmes" <rsholmes_at_MailBox.Syr.Edu>
> > A picture of a pipe is not a pipe.
>
> Yes it is, it is a picture-pipe. Could you put tobacco in it and smoke it?
> No. But it is clearly a pipe.
No, that's not "clear" at all. Look up the word "pipe" in a
dictionary, and then explain how a few 2-dimensional daubs of pigment
applied to a piece of woven fabric stretched on a wooden frame (or
whatever) match the definition of a "pipe".
This is what a lot of Magritte's work is about, you know: the
surrealistic consequences of breaking the distinction between "thing"
and "representation of thing". Thus the sentence "This is not a pipe"
appears to be manifestly false -- until you realize the word "this"
refers (or does it?) to the picture of the pipe and not the pipe
itself. And the painting itself is of course a picture of a picture
of a pipe.
Magritte did several paintings on the "this is not a pipe" theme, and
I confess I haven't seen the posted picture to see which one it was.
Were the words in the depicted picture of the pipe? If so then we
have several levels of redirection here too: in a relentlessly literal
interpretation, the text is not a statement but a representation (in
letters arranged in words) of a statement, and so we have a picture of
a picture of a representation of a statement. How many levels of
redirection can we have before the statement loses its force?
Another thing: Let's suppose you as Judge decide the rule contains an
assertion that "this is not a pipe", and that you further decide that
"this" refers to something which is indeed a pipe. Then the assertion
is false. That does not constitute an inconsistency with itself or
the other rules or the ROs. After all, fantasy rules contain false
assertions all the time. If the rule also contained an assertion that
"this" (the pipe) *is* a pipe, then it would be self-inconsistent. As
it is, it's consistent -- false, but consistent.
A rule which breaks a restriction it places on itself is judged
self-inconsistent: "No rule may contain the word 'eggplant'".
Conventionally we regard a statement of the form "No rule contains the
word 'eggplant'" as a restriction, and therefore also
self-inconsistent, but one could legitimately argue that this is in
fact no restriction, but simply a (consistent) false assertion. In
the present case, we don't even have "no rule contains a pipe" but
"this is not a pipe", which doesn't look to me like a restriction at
all. For the rule to be self-inconsistent, one must claim that one
cannot interpret the statement "this is not a pipe" as being merely an
assertion, not a restriction. I find such a claim difficult to
swallow.
--
- Rich Holmes
Syracuse, NY
"We're waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool says to push on." -- Pete Seeger
--
Rule Date: 2003-02-25 15:04:11 GMT
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