Q: OK, fine. Let's get back to the subject.

You admitted in that argument that any philosophy is rooted in a collection of arbitrarily chosen statements. So, what makes you think that your arbitrary choices are any better than anyone else's arbitrary choices?

A: Because they aren't arbitrary, and I haven't admitted anything of the sort. Those first terms, left undefined, are given meaning by the relations between them established by the acceptance of those first principles, left unproved. If the meanings thus given, are radically out of step with those understood, then the first principles taken, at the moment, while perhaps logically consistent, are unreasonable ones.

Those understood meanings, come from the full and rich experience of life, not the sterile realm of uninformed logic. They come from our feelings, which provide our reason with the motivation it needs, to determine which ends are worthy of pursuit, and what is of value.


Have you ever examined a proof of the logical independence of one mathematical "axiom" (ie. first principle left unproved, in a mathematical system) with respect to the rest of the axioms describing the system? That is, a proof that one can neither prove nor disprove the axiom in question, using those other axioms. This is often accomplished by redefining the terms used, in such a way that the other axioms still hold good, but the one in question does not, and then coming up with another set of meanings for the terms in question, under which all of the desired axioms, including the one in question, do.

Q: Sure. Fine. What's your point?

A: Similar considerations may show that, on a purely logical level, we can't "prove" some of the things we know about life to be true, merely given some set of statements that we begin with. Yet, while this assertion is true, it is not fully informative. Yes, everything we do in the course of making an argument consists of the manipulation of intrinsically meaningless symbols, much as does the process of constructing a mathematical proof. The sounds we make as we speak, the characters we write on a page - all have meaning, merely because we give it to them. Even the process of thought itself is such a manipulation, with the neural impulses and their locations collectively constituting such a family of "symbols". (What is the intrinsic meaning of an individual neural impulse?). If the limitations of the process of formal argumentation should seem to place a burdensome limitation on our point of view, remember that it is one that, even in principle, we can't transcend through deductive logical means alone.

Yet, do we experience the sequences of individually meaningless neural firings that support the existence of our conscious minds as being meaningless, when taken collectively? Are the sensations and thoughts they define a matter of arbitrary interpretation, with many valid interpretations possible? If this were so and one set of neural impulses could define many different states of mind, depending on the interpretation of those impulses - what sort of conscious existence would we be capable of?

What within us would be doing the interpreting that would cause one choice (among that array of possibilities) to crystallise into the reality of the state of mind being interpreted, given that any such interpretation of the state of mind present, would itself be a thought, dependent for its well definedness on a lack of vagueness in the state of mind it was a part of?

Q: Perhaps God decides which of the possible meanings, is the one that will define one's state of consciousness.

A: If one wishes to argue that God does the interpreting, then would the resulting interpretation be our consciousness, or God's perspective on our consciousness? It will then do no good to try to escape the difficulty, by making reference to God's infallibility because the act of selection would be a conscious choice, not a realisation. As for omnipotence, omnipotence is defined in terms of that the commission of those acts which are within the realm of logical possibility. To refer to those acts which are logically impossible, is to assemble a sequence of sounds, which convey no meaning, and then ask if someone could satisfy the meaningless request that that sequence would reflect.

To the contrary, do we not find the state of mind that is reflected in that set of neural impulses to be a well defined, if not always enlightening, thing? Even though the impulses themselves are nothing more than the intrinsically meaningless passage of sodium ions across cell membranes? In the structure of interaction - of interrelation - lies meaning, and this sort of assignment of meaning is far more than adequate to meet our needs.

Q: So, what does this have to do with what we were talking about?

A: As for the clearly more complex system of neural impulses that defines a mind, so for the necessarily simpler systems that the mind is capable of constructing. The axioms are what give meaning to those first terms, left formally undefined. They define a conceptual world, in which the primitive concepts - those first terms - take form, much as the interelations of the neural impulses define a subjective world (whose reasonable solidity we know of, from firsthand experience) in which the impressions generated by those impulses take form. If one finds it difficult to believe that undefined symbols may be given meaning by the selection of the unproved statements about them that we found a theory in, then one might remember that it is out of just such a set of relations, that is born the consciousness that this very skepticism came out of.

The context that those firings take place in, the relations between them, give them meaning. While we may switch the meanings of pain and pleasure in the examination of the formal independence of an axiomatic system, the concepts are far from interchangeable in the minds of those who experience them. But this lack of interchangeability is dependent on this experience, and can not be achieved by any means available in the absence of that experience - such as formal argumentation, regarding an single axiomatic system created by the very mind the nature of whose well being, and the well being of those similar to it, is the subject under consideration as the argument is constructed.

continue