Anyone is making sense (a.k.a. logical), at least boundedly, I guess.
Topics
About: logic
About: hypothesis
About: fairness
About: humanity
The table of contents of this article
- Starting Context
- Target Context
- Orientation
- Main Body
- 1: Making Sense Is Being Logical
- 2: Anyone Should Make Sense, but Anyone Is Really Making Sense, at Least Boundedly
- 3: The Issue Is Whether the Logic Is Unbounded
Starting Context
- Nothing particularly.
Target Context
- The reader will understand that what is required is to be unbounded in making sense.
Orientation
Intuition is not so accurate.
Being fair is the gist of humanity.
Main Body
Stage DirectionHere are Hypothesizer 7, Objector 38A, and Objector 38B in front of a computer.
1: Making Sense Is Being Logical
Hypothesizer 7
Making sense is being logical (which is being logically consistent), for me.
Stage Direction
Objector 38A surveys Hypothesizer 7's ears.
Objector 38A
. . . You don't have pointed ears.
Hypothesizer 7
I am not any Vulcan, by the way.
Objector 38A
That's odd.
Hypothesizer 7
Sir, all the Vulcans (except rare exceptions) are logical, but not all the logical persons are Vulcans.
Objector 38A
Oh, that's perfectly logical! You must be a Vulcan.
Hypothesizer 7
. . .
Objector 38B
Making sense is nothing but making sense.
Hypothesizer 7
Madam, how do you judge whether something is making sense?
Objector 38B
If it feels like making sense, it is making sense.
Hypothesizer 7
Relying on "feeling" is hazardous: feeling is not so accurate.
Objector 38B
Mine is.
Hypothesizer 7
No, yours is not, as anyone's is not. . . . You know of optical illusion, do you not? For example, you are tricked by this, are you not?
Objector 38B
. . . What about this?
Hypothesizer 7
Those strips are all horizontal.
Objector 38B
Huh? They can't be.
Hypothesizer 7
They are. You can check it with a ruler.
Objector 38B
I believe in my intuition!
Hypothesizer 7
Please do not. Your intuition misbehaves systematically.
Objector 38B
What do you mean by "systematically"?
Hypothesizer 7
Your intuition does not just error randomly, but errors in predetermined ways. For example, if you have watched a news of a single Muslim terrorist, your intuition will tell you to assume all the Muslims to be terrorists. That is because intuition is association: Muslim -> terrorist; it is very bad at statistics.
Objector 38B
But I feel like my intuition is correct!
Hypothesizer 7
. . .
2: Anyone Should Make Sense, but Anyone Is Really Making Sense, at Least Boundedly
Hypothesizer 7
I want to say that anyone should make sense.
Objector 38A
I make sense, always.
Hypothesizer 7
Ah, I do not refute that, sir. In fact, anyone is making sense in his or her head, I guess.
Objector 38A
Huh? A wailing toddler in a train is not making any sense.
Hypothesizer 7
That child is making sense all right in his or her head: "I'm unhappy here! You must do something, or you are deserved to share my unhappiness!".
Objector 38A
. . . Doesn't make sense to me. Why do I have to be made unhappy, just because he is unhappy?
Hypothesizer 7
As another example, a climate-change-denier is making sense in his or her head: "I won't live that long until the climate change hits me directly. Or I can just move to a safe location, because I'm rich. So, why the heck?".
Objector 38B
That doesn't make sense to me, who am going to live long enough. "can just move"? I can't just move from my ancestral land, by the way.
Hypothesizer 7
As another example, a nuclear fast breeder reactor scholar has insisted (and really has convinced, unfortunately) that his nation should not only continue but also go to the next level in developing the fast breeder reactor technology, even after the experimental reactor has failed miserably.
Objector 38A
Huh? Is that making sense at all?
Hypothesizer 7
His logic is that the people who had operated the experimental reactor were just bad.
Objector 38A
. . . So, does he know some people who aren't bad?
Hypothesizer 7
That is not his problem.
Objector 38A
Irresponsible . . .
Hypothesizer 7
The problem is that the team cannot allow any single non-impeccable member, who will cause a trouble, which could be disastrous.
Objector 38A
That's impractical! What does the scholar propose in order to accomplish such a requirement?
Hypothesizer 7
That is not his problem.
Objector 38B
He can't help but behave that way, because his life work would be flushed down the toilet.
Hypothesizer 7
Anyway, he seriously believes that he is completely logical inside his scope.
Objector 38A
And calls anyone who doesn't accept his perfect logic, a fool . . .
Hypothesizer 7
The moral of the stories is that anything can be claimed to be logical by bounding the scope of the logic conveniently.
3: The Issue Is Whether the Logic Is Unbounded
Hypothesizer 7
So, the issue is not whether being logical or not, but whether the logic is unbounded or not.
In fact, as this universe is one, the whole of it should be consistent (all the things in it fit together).
Objector 38B
There may be some parallel universes.
Hypothesizer 7
That is irrelevant here, madam: I am talking about THIS universe.
Objector 38B
"unbounded"? But nobody can be really unbounded; anyone's knowledge is limited.
Hypothesizer 7
A good point. Of course, being unbounded is an eternal quest; what is required is to incessantly try to extend the boundary in every direction, which will require continuing revising his or her hypothesis.
Objector 38B
That is impossible . . .
Hypothesizer 7
It is possible, while a prevalent practice is just adamantly defending the fixed boundary so that inconvenient truths are shut out.
Objector 38B
Of course! What's the point of being bothered with a truth if it is inconvenient? It's illogical!
Hypothesizer 7
. . . For an existence like me, being truthful is an enough point, but if it is not so for you, how about fairness?
Objector 38B
"fairness"? I don't understand such a concept.
Hypothesizer 7
That is a very disappointing declaration, madam. Unfairness is, for example, that the other passengers in the train car are annoyed; the lives of many people in lowlands are in danger; or the people are forced to pay for the doomed nuclear project, because of the ignored inconvenient truths.
In fact, what is humanity without fairness, really?
