Outer Limits of Reason (8 page)

Most people probably have an opinion representing some hybrid version of all three ideologies: a person is a composite of body, mind, and soul. Nevertheless, all schools of thought are somewhat problematic.

Rather than answering all the questions posed in this section, let us try to resolve the issues by meditating on why none of the questions have clearcut answers. Why is it that when we pose these questions to different people, we get so many different answers?

Examine the way people learn to recognize different objects, make definitions, and create distinctions. In the beginning, babies are bombarded with many different sensations and stimuli. As toddlers grow, they learn to recognize objects in the world. For example, when they see a shiny silver thing covered with brown gooey stuff coming toward them, they have to learn that it is applesauce on a spoon and that they should open their mouth. By learning to recognize that the physical stimulus of silver covered with brown gooey stuff is applesauce, they are able to handle life better. Human beings need to classify objects. We learn how to tell things apart and determine when they are the same. We learn that an object still exists even when it is out of sight (“object permanence”). Children learn after a while to recognize their mother. A few months later, they learn that even though she is wearing makeup—that is, even when she looks different—she is still the same person. Children have to learn that their mother is the same even when she is wearing perfume and smells totally different. Here toddlers are acting as philosophers and learning how to deal with different questions of personal identity. With all these skills, children are imposing order and structure on the complicated world they have entered. Before these skills are mastered, they are showered with an incomprehensible stream of stimuli and sensations. With these classification abilities the children can comprehend and start to control their environment. If they fail to learn the classification skills, they will be overburdened with external stimuli and unable to deal with their surroundings.

With enough sophistication, children also learn to classify abstract entities. For example, they might learn what it means to be a family. Their mother is a family member. Their father and siblings are also part of the family. What about first cousins? Second cousins? These are a little vague. Sometimes they are part of the family, and sometimes not. Children must learn what is a family and what is not. As they grow, they learn to classify even more abstract entities like numbers and political parties.

Not only do children learn to classify objects and people, they also learn to name them. They realize that they live in a society of other classifiers, and in order to communicate with these compulsive classifiers, they follow their example of giving names to objects. They first give the external stimuli their own names. As their communication skills progress, they learn to forgo their names and start to use other people's nomenclature for objects. They call brown gooey stuff “applesauce.” They learn to call the woman who takes care of them “mom,” regardless of her wearing makeup or not. By using the same names as others, children are showing society that they are conforming to the prevailing classification system and that their mental processes are similar to those of others. Society then rewards them by showering them with love and providing the protection they need.

The point is that classifying and naming are learned skills. Children do not learn exact definitions of things because they are never exposed to exact definitions. They learn to classify and name physical stimuli. Some notions are exact and unchanging. The concept of the number 4 is exact and has a clear definition. In contrast, many other notions lack sharp definitions. The first part of this section shows that even physical objects do not have sharp definitions.

With this in mind, we can discuss the many questions posed at the beginning of the section. Is the ship of Theseus the same after changing one plank? The proper response is that the definition we have for the ship is not clear enough to provide an answer to that question.
There is no exact definition of the ship of Theseus.
We only have what we learned—that is, the stimuli we were taught to associate with the ship.

The ship of Theseus does not really exist
as the ship of Theseus
. There is no exact definition of what is meant by the ship of Theseus. It exists as a collection of sensations but not as an object. Yes, if you kick it you will feel pain in your toes. When you look at it, you will see brown wood. If you lick it, you will taste stale wood and salt water. But these are all just sensations that one learns to associate with something we call the “ship of Theseus.” Human beings combine these sensations and form the ship of Theseus. Of course, the ship exists as atoms. But it is made of atoms
as atoms
.
³
The atoms are not tagged as the ship's atoms. Rather, it is we who make those atoms into a whole entity called a ship. It is we who further demarcate this ship as somehow belonging to the mythical general Theseus. The first part of this section cited many examples demonstrating how the ship can lose and change atoms and still be the same ship. It's all in our mind. We are fortunate to live among other people who learned to give the same names to commonly occurring external stimuli. Each of us calls these similar stimuli the “ship of Theseus.” Since we all agree with this naming convention, we do not commit each other to insane asylums. Nevertheless, the existence of the ship of Theseus is an illusion.

There are times where we are taught exact definitions and we can answer all questions based on the definition. For example, we are taught that driving more than 65 miles per hour is speeding. So if people drive 67 miles per hour, they are speeding; if they drive 64 miles an hour, they are not. We are very clear about this. However, for most physical objects, no objective definitions exist.

One can have a similar discussion on questions of aesthetics. Most people will agree that there are no correct answers when it comes to questions of taste. What is beautiful to one person is ugly to another. The present generation of art connoisseurs would spend millions of dollars for any sketch by Vincent van Gogh. In his own lifetime, Van Gogh was ignored and his paintings were not worth a pittance. Which generation has had the correct opinion about Van Gogh's work? There is no answer to this question because there is no such thing as objective aesthetics. It's a matter of taste. Similarly, whether changing a plank of a ship changes the ship cannot be given a definitive answer because there is no such thing as an objective ship of Theseus.

One can safely argue with what is posed here and claim that objects really do have an existence outside of the human mind and that what children are learning to do is classify and name those entities. They are learning to associate names of entities with physical stimuli. Weathered, rotting wood that looks like a ship in the port of Athens should be associated with the “ship of Theseus.” This ideology might be called
extreme Platonism
(see
figure 3.1
). Classical Platonism is the belief that abstract entities have real existence outside of the human mind. The number 3 really exists. There is an exact idea when one refers to the U.S. government. An idea of a chair exists. However, classical Platonism takes no stand about concrete physical entities. In contrast, extreme Platonism is the belief that even a concrete physical object has some type of unchanging platonic entity associated with it. To someone who maintains this position, some platonic notion of “ship-of-Theseus-ness” exists and when a question is posed about a change to the ship of Theseus, all one has to do is somehow connect to the platonic notion and see if the changed ship still satisfies the definition. Extreme Platonism demands a fairly advanced metaphysics, and we cannot really say that as metaphysics, it is true or false. It is impossible to show that no such abstract entity exists. Nevertheless, as with all metaphysical notions, there is no real reason to posit such an existence.
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If you claim that a name or a definition of an object is some type of “tag” on the object, then we can ask where the tag is. Why is it that people disagree so vociferously about the tag on the ship of Theseus?

In this chapter, I am promoting an idea that might be termed
extreme nominalism.
The philosophical position of classic nominalism is the belief that abstract entities really do not exist outside the human mind. To a nominalist, abstract ideas like the number 3, the idea of the U.S. government, and the idea of a chair or “chairness” do not really exist outside the minds of those who discuss them. Have you ever met a 3? Can you stub your toe against a 3? Can you point to the U.S. government? A classic nominalist would say that these entities only exist in the human mind. Since we share a similar education and social structures, we can banter about these different names and concepts with our neighbors. However, a classical nominalist does not have a position on the question of concrete physical entities.

Extreme nominalism takes nominalism a step further. It is the belief that even physical objects exist
as those physical objects
only in name. They do not have an external existence outside of a human mind. A particular chair is a chair because we call it a chair, not because it has properties of being a chair. The ship of Theseus is whatever people call the ship of Theseus. There are no exact, agreed-on definitions of the ship of Theseus. I believe that extreme nominalism is correct because of the fact that there is so much disagreement about what constitutes a particular object. If there were exact definitions, presumably people would know about them. Another reason for believing in (extreme) nominalism is that any form of Platonism demands unnecessarily complicated metaphysics. Why do we need the supposed existence of an abstract entity or “tag” for every physical object? Such abstract entities serve no purpose.

From the view afforded by extreme nominalism, it becomes apparent that the reason we cannot answer questions about the ship of Theseus or changes to human beings has nothing to do with linguistic limitations. It is not that we lack the right words or definitions of these concepts. There is also no epistemological problem—that is, it is not a lack of knowledge of the exact definition of the real ship of Theseus. Nor is it a problem of having some type of deeper knowledge of the ship of Theseus beyond its physical stimuli.
⁵
Rather, we are dealing with a question of existence. In philosophical parlance this is an ontological problem. A real ship of Theseus need not exist.

It is interesting to note that with extreme nominalism, certain abstract objects, such as the number 42, have a clearer existence than physical objects such as ships. After all, we all agree about the many different properties of the number 42. If you take 42 and you subtract 1, you get 41 rather than 42. This is in stark contrast to subtracting planks from a ship.

I have shown that the ship of Theseus is part of our culturally constructed universe. There are other objects in this constructed universe such as Mickey Mouse and unicorns. In fact, more people know about Mickey Mouse than about Theseus' silly boat. Our friendly mouse is introduced to nearly every child, whereas only classics majors, philosophy majors, and privileged readers of this book know about Theseus. Furthermore, one can go to Disney World and actually see a physical manifestation of Mickey. You can even stub your toe against him (such actions are not recommended). In contrast, at present, we cannot find any trace of Theseus' ship in the port of Athens. We are left with the obvious question: In what way is the ship more existent than Mickey Mouse?

The resolution of the problems presented in this section is a challenge to the usual view of the universe. Most people believe that there are certain objects in the universe and that human minds call those objects by names. What I am illustrating here is that those objects do not really exist. What do exist are physical stimuli. Human beings classify and name those different stimuli as different objects. However, the classification is not always strict and vagueness prevails.
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3.2  Hangin' with Zeno and Gödel

Zeno of Elea (about 490–430 BC) was a great philosopher who was a student of Parmenides (early fifth century BC). Being a devoted student, Zeno promoted and protected his teacher from all criticism. Parmenides had the philosophical and mystical belief that the world was “one” and that change and motion were merely illusions that a person could see through with enough training. To demonstrate that Parmenides' ideas are correct, Zeno proposed several thought experiments or paradoxes that showed that it is illogical to actually believe that the world is a “plurality” and not “one,” or that change and motion actually happen. In this section I will concentrate on four of those thought experiments that demonstrate that motion is an illusion. Since motion occurs within space and time, Zeno's paradoxes will challenge our intuition of these obvious concepts.