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A Summary of the Statements Contained in A Solution to the Sorites

and Further Details on the Solution


I. M.R.Pinheiro
I.R., Mathematics
PO BOX 12396, A'Beckett st, Melbourne, VIC, AU, 3000
mrpprofessional@yahoo.com

Abstract:

In this paper, we produce a list of statements, yet not clearly unveiled, which formed our

inner mind reasoning when writing [1].

Key-words:

Sorites, paradox, solution, errata, logic, human, Logic, Language, discourse, dictionary,

linguists, problem.

1.Introduction:

In [1], we have presented our basic reasoning trend regarding the issues raised by the so

called Sorites Paradox. Once Philosophy has allowed it to hold a standing equivalent to a

philosophical problem, we have also dared stating that we solved one of the oldest

philosophical problems of human kind for good.

Here, we present a summary of statements either implied by our writing in [1] or forming

our mental foundations when writing [1].

This paper is also formed based on a declared need of at least one well known

philosopher, one of the most active researchers of the Sorites problem. It is probably

more useful to those who have been producing summaries of all solutions on the Sorites

presented so far, once it will help quickly identifying where our solution is placed

amongst those, what it has in common with previously proposed solutions and where its
main differences lie.

We go through a simple sequence of steps:

1. Statements implied or forming our inner mind reasoning when writing [1];

1. Conclusion;

1. References.

2. SUMMARY OF STATEMENTS AND RESPECTIVE DISCUSSION ON THEM:

1. Logic does apply to the reduced scope of human actions where the Sorites problem

lies.

1.1 Discussion:

Amateurs might think that everything in this World may be passive of logical reasoning.

However, for the philosopher, there is a clear difference between what is part of the

human imagination, perfect as entertainment, at most allurement, and what is of truly

scientific nature and, therefore, may become part of the contents of a philosophical

scientific paper.

An event of nature, for instance, such as a leaf falling from a tree, may be continuously

argued over, in what regards the scientific causes for the fall of the leaf, or what makes it

fall this or that way, or etc. However, such material will only become scientific upon tests

of physical nature, therefore being a matter only suitable to at most Physics journals, in

what comes to Science properly referred to.

Thus, the nature of the event is philosophical, once it allows for philosophical theses, and
is also logical, for there are clear scientific reasons for all that. Nonwithstanding, the

study of the event, per se, and the precise determination of any of its subtleties, may only

be of physical nature.

Human oral expression, when seen from a non-human perspective, that is, words by

themselves, for instance, in a paper, detached from the individual (without a special

subject reading or presenting them), is fully logical. Only for this reason, such a matter

may be the topic of a philosophical journal article.

If the Sorites solution had demanded an anarchic sort of acceptance, say all individuals in

society agreeing with it, the problem could never be suitable to logical analysis.

But the Sorites seems to equate all democratic sort of questioning and, therefore, a simple

accumulation of scientific processes and methods, implying actions which are well

established as scientific solutions to similar problems, will do.

Of course there will be always at least a number, a non-zero number, of individuals on

Earth who will disagree with the most basic methods of Science.

For instance, a schizoid or a retard will have unpredictable reasoning and judgment, and

may refuse to accept even that one coin of one dollar together with another amounts to

two dollars. In anarchy, there is obviously not a single chance for peace and growth,

groups of different thinkers always killing others or injuring somehow in the fight for the

same items, say a dictionary of a language, for instance.

It obviously is the case that only in democracy there is chance for order and progress of

true nature for the entire human kind. Therefore, Science has to be about democratic
solutions, instead, or logical ones (the vast majority of human beings agrees with it, or

accepts, but a few may disagree, an irrelevant figure when compared to the number of

those who agree with it, or accept it).

The Sorites is proposed to an audience of a number of human beings each time it is

proposed, this number being allowed to be only one human being (minimum number of

people present is two, always: proposer and audience). For each group, there will be an

agreement over the solution. Not very difficult to infer then that if one were able to find

similar enough already existing problems and accepted solutions, with same sort of

possible presentation, and amount of group results, one would have found a scientific

solution to it.

All previous paragraphs considered, we do believe to have found such a solution.

1. The apparent mathematical implication, or classical logic implication, which

appears in the Sorites problem, is actually far more than that, it is a language

conjunction.

2.1 Discussion:

We all know how long human kind took to reach the most objective lingo on Earth, that

in which everyone would be able to build, read, and understand statements without a

single possible doubt. Basically, Mathematics, allied to Classical Logic, is probably the

only truly universal language, that language in which every single nationality will always

understand, with no mistake, the message intended by the writer of a text, with zero noise

in the transmission, provided the writer is an expert in its application.


This way, when someone reads, for instance, x + y = 2, x=3 => y = -1, every single

person, from any part of the human universe, will be mentally saying to themselves, in

usually unnoticed talk to themselves, subconsciously: If two integers summed give us

two, and one of them is three, then the second integer has to be negative one.

There is, realistically, no other possible reading for someone who has been adequately

introduced to both Mathematics and Classical Logic connectors, not mattering their

native discourse language.

Communication between human beings would never be an object of scientific discussion

if it involved, like in Classical Logic allied to Mathematics, noise zero, that is, the

receptor who had been adequately introduced to the language, reading the text of

someone else, say in English, would always get precisely the message intended by the

writer, with absolutely no mistake, of any order, added to it (unwanted inferences,

distorted assertions, etc.).

However, what is not missing is noise in what can only be referred to, in a scientific

level, as trial of communication between different human beings. For those matters,

please read our paper How Many Littles?

Unfortunately, the usual noise contained in human communication trials of any nature is

so huge as to allow a single word to be infinitely worse, in terms of possible

misinterpretations, than an entire text. In our just mentioned paper, we write about the

word ‘fire’ and an oral emission by a person X to the closest human being to her, in all

regards, intimacy being maximum as possible, a fully faithful and married for long

couple, the female addressing her loving husband in our piece [Littles..].
How many words needed to be added to ‘fire’ so that the message intended by the

speaker would reach the listener, as intended, in due time in our proposed life situation?

3, and what could be seen as an entire acting scene of a play by the speaker!

‘Then’, which is the original word forming the Sorites, even though ‘therefore’ would

have been the closest Classical Logic term to the intended meaning, is not different from

any other English word from the lexicon…

Whilst ‘then’, from Classical Logic, bears noise zero, absolute zero, ‘then’, from the

English language lexicon, bears a noise which may go from zero to infinity ( all

depending on the spiritual closeness, as we could put it, between the speaker and the

listener, or writer and reader ).

As an application of the word with noise zero, the own mathematical example will do. As

an application of the word with noise infinity, consider, for instance: ‘I hold no money, I

hold no love, then I will kill myself‘, when uttered by the most balanced person alive, in

all regards, as from external logical observation.

Noise is infinity, first of all, because a balanced person would not commit suicide on any

stupid circumstances, so that one would tend not to believe the assertion. However,

human beings are so fantastically passive of ‘magical’ modification in their mental

patterns, or any sort of pre-observed patterns, that it is quite possible that the speaker

actually meant it. The difference between a joke and an actual advertised suicide trial is

as bad as the difference between laughing, enjoying, with nothing evil implied, and being

arrested as co-author in non-guilty homicide, as for the listener. Therefore, it is the

difference between having a better day because of the assertion and ending up in jail for,
perhaps, maximum time, or, in some countries, getting killed.

To be part of the group of assertions accepted as mathematical (we use mathematical to

shorten up, in language, but we actually mean the association between Mathematics and

Classical Logic), all elements in the sentence must belong to it. However, `color’ and

`heap`, for instance, when not associated to accurate and complete machine classification,

but to human sight classification, has to be part of the complementary set of words to

that of the mathematical words. If a single word escapes Mathematics, then the entire

sentence cannot, possibly, there belong. Therefore, such a ‘then’ can only be located in

the complementary set of the English language, to that of the Classical Logic lingo.

1. Human normal reasoning is never fully logical.

3.1 Discussion:

Of course there is a primordial difference between ‘fully logical’, in the computers sense,

and ‘fully logical’ in the philosophical sense. Just like what we previously wrote about

‘then’, ‘fully logical’ compares to ‘then’ from the English language lexicon when it

regards Philosophy and to ‘then’ from the highly specialized Classical Logic lingo when

it regards Computer Science, in terms of difference between dimension of the set of

possible meanings, or World references, to the terms, when put together.

However, our statement, the third, actually encompasses both choices just mentioned, in

terms of possible senses: Human normal reasoning, or reasoning in a human who is seen

as normal, in all senses, is neither fully computational nor fully philosophical. The

appreciation, or contemplation, of human reasoning, however, might be fully


philosophical, or computational, depending on the observer of such.

4) The ‘Sorites’ is not about fully logical contemplation of the human reasoning.

Just for starters, even if all emotions, of all individuals on Earth, could be made machine-

detectable, what is always possible, for even if we insert one by one, in being a finite

number of individuals on Earth, it has to be feasible, and so could all mental images of

each person on Earth, by time they think, there is still an at least occasional intentional

discrepancy between what an individual thinks and what they actually write, speak, or

communicate in any other way, to any number of other individuals in society. Such a

distortion is ALSO an intended human quality, what makes us being the richest beings on

Earth, therefore the most interesting ones. Nonwithstanding, suppose the computer is able

to match thought with declarations of that individual. Is it possible that anyone on Earth

understands, themselves, all utterances they make, be them in writing, speech, or others?

Then, assuming the obvious, that not even the speaker, writer, or conveyer of the

message, knows the meaning of what they speak, write, or convey, is it possible that their

subconsciousness does? And if it ever does, it is assumed that only a machine placed

inside of the head of each individual would make it possible for the computer to actually

‘tell’, with no mistake, what the message intended by the writer/speaker/conveyer is. And

because each individual will definitely have their own ‘thing’, for no two individuals are

alike, not even two retards, unless the entire human kind is found slaved with a biotech in

their heads, there is no chance for any logical system, of the computer sort, to perfectly

describe the message contained in a randomly chosen individual’s utterance, of any type.

This is obviously the roughest, or grossest, reasoning of all, regarding such a set of

issues. Therefore, we may assert, with no possible mistake, that Human Normal
Reasoning (HNR) will never be fully logical in the computers sense, minimum condition

for a single human being’s reasoning to be fully logical, in the computers sense, being an

implanted biotech in their brains.

In not being fully logical in the computers sense, HNR could still be fully logical in the

philosophical sense. However, if the inner thinking holds actually a good chance of not

matching the discourse, of any type, of an individual, HNR cannot, ever, possibly, be told

to be fully logical in the philosophical sense either, for the most basic pre-requisite for

anything to be placed under the umbrella of Philosophy is coherence and consistency.

The point is that the individual’s translation of their perceptions (using body senses) into

words is obviously part of the HNR, not of the machines world or the philosophical

world.

And if we pushed it quite a lot and decided to state that HNR is solely what is thought of

by the brains, then there is no chance for it to be philosophical at all, for Philosophy does

imply expression of reasoning, for nobody can talk with the brains of the person, ignoring

the complexity of the individual, and still assert that communication between human

beings has taken place. If such an atrocity ever happens in human kind, that is, people are

actually reduced to their brains, then we do not have a human being anymore, we have a

piece of one. Therefore, we have escaped the proposed issue and left the scope of

Science, trivially.

As a conclusion, for this item:

The Sorites is not about fully logical contemplation of the human reasoning because

nobody is aware, in full, of the human reasoning involved in human expression taking
place in each soritical sequence proposal/reception by audience. In those regards, one

must read our paper on what a philosophical problem should be [4] to understand why the

Sorites is a philosophical problem, is contained in the logical scope of language, therefore

is passive of addressing via Philosophy, but cannot be placed under Computer Science or

any other reduction of Philosophy: It has to be placed in a root sector, being the top level

of reasoning in Philosophy involving broadest mental work of all, and of highest level,

therefore it has to lie where the democratic solutions live: Purest Philosophy of

Language. Analysis is the key-word to locate the Bloom’s taxonomy level where the

Sorites rests. The Sorites is then not about fully logical contemplation, but about fully

logical analysis of philosophical problems.

1. Bloom‘s taxonomy may be used to easily prove that the Sorites cannot, ever, be

confounded with either Mathematics or Classical Logic.

4.1 Discussion:

Mathematics, per se, would definitely refer solely to the solution and proposal of

problems, as well as the stating of their rules, in general, never to the reasoning which has

lead to any of those. The reasoning leading to any of those is actually located in the

highest levels of the Bloom’s taxonomy: in Philosophy, not in Mathematics.

Classical Logic also refers only to a tool which will make all mathematical reasoning,

which is expressed, being passive of expression via symbols of universal understanding,

rather than language, which is a severely messy/incompetent tool for human expression

in terms of communication. Just like in the previous paragraph, the reasoning leading to

all its contents is definitely placed in the highest levels of the Bloom’s taxonomy, but the
actual ‘entity’, Classical Logic, or Mathematics, is definitely placed in the lowest levels

instead (application).

To understand how things go, in what regards the entire process of human interaction, we

need to rank, by complexity order, all elements involved in such a process. We believe

there are no doubts as to the most complex piece of it being what goes on inside of a

person’s mind.

Second most complex piece of such a process would obviously be what is actually

intended to be passed onwards from an individual to a number of other individuals, this

number being allowed to be anything between one and the total number of human beings

on the Planet, therefore what actually goes on at the translation interface between the

brains and what comes out of the individual in terms of trial of communication, or

expression.

On the other hand, the matters will only be suitable for philosophical discussions, of any

order, once there is something written by human beings, or expressed via language, or

expressed somehow, that is, it is necessary an expression, seen as such by at least another

person in society, for us to even start thinking of debating about the issues inside of the

realm of Philosophy.

Written language is definitely suitable for philosophical debate.

However, with it, one may ALSO express reasoning of highest order, that is: Analysis and

Synthesis. Once it is possible that a human being is able to accurately describe the own

analysis and the own synthesis processes of theirs, language cannot, ever, be entirely
reduced to the lowest levels of Bloom’s taxonomy, where Classical Logic and

Mathematics lie.

If we then prove that the Sorites can only be placed, as it is originally stated, under the

umbrella of language which escapes both Classical Logic and Mathematics, it is obvious

that no expressed reasoning belonging to any of them will be suitable to addressing its

issues.

In this very paper, we have, once more, proved such.

1. The Sorites is formed from a few elements of discourse: The adjective, possibly a

color, is one of the possible elements, and so is the substantive ‘heap`, for instance.

It occurs, however, that such element, the ‘name’ to be applied to real world

objects, is not of mathematical or computational nature, what places the problem

automatically outside of those areas, therefore, also its solution.

5.1 Discussion:

There has been a lot of study involved in the foundations of Mathematics in order to have

it all expressed in most objective lingo which could possibly exist on Earth. As stated

previously, the intentions were obviously having noise zero in any trial of mathematical

communication, result which seem to have been achieved with perfection.

Colors, however, cannot possibly be communicated with noise zero from one person to

another unless there is at least a graphical display or some figures to it.

In this case, noise zero is only achieved when the colors are passive of computational
treatment, that is, insertion in a computer as data.

The same way, ‘heap’ cannot be communicated with noise zero from one person to

another unless there is at least a graphical display, or some figures to it.

That seems to be precisely the point of the Sorites: The search for a computational sort of

treatment of the word ‘heap’, of any of the colors of the color spectrum, or all other terms

which may be used in a soritical sequence.

However, so far, such a complete computational treatment of those terms does not exist

and one can see that there is no limit for the creation of new lexicon words which may be

suitable to a soritical sequence.

Thus, even if it were ever possible to ‘force’ ‘beautiful’ language words, applied at the

discretion of the communicator, into a confined scope of pointed World objects, one

could never have all of them locked in in that place at the same time, due to the dynamics

of vocabulary creation in human societies.

Once everything, both in Mathematics and Computer Science, has to bear no mistake,

one may easily assert, with one hundred percent certainty, that those terms are definitely

not mathematical or computational terms, for asserting the opposite would trivially imply

that all terms of that nature are found in the universe in mathematical or computational

terms as a whole, that is, with no possible word as exception to that rule.

With all the stated above, we reach the conclusion that the adjectives, as well as the other

soritical terms, belong to human discourse and human mind, only: They may be the

object of logical reasoning but cannot, ever, be the end of the problem ( to tell what red is
for everyone in the World, for instance ). What may belong to Science is a decision

theory, at most, in those regards, then, once the words must remain acceptable for human

communication with any intention, therefore lose in their scope of application.

Computer Science works with logical systems. The main characteristic of any system is

the predictability of the response. If a response cannot be predicted, there is no possible

logical system which can deal with it.

A human being considered normal will always be an unpredictable system, so that it is

impossible to state that everyone on Earth will call a certain color ‘red’ if we all decide,

today, that ‘red’ will mean x degrees of brightness, y degrees of definition, etc.

Nobody can, thanks God so far, shut up a human being whenever they wish, if that

human being is not making a violence against the rights of another person in society, or

against the law. Therefore, if anyone on Earth believes the impossible to be believed, that

a ‘normal’ person would never apply red to a color which has got x-1 degrees of

brightness instead of x, and would claim their rights of having applied the term correctly,

then imagine a retard did it, or someone who cannot read!

Basically, who can stop any human being from applying any lexicon word in any

situation they wish? As simplest real life scenario, anyone can simply open the dictionary

and read at random ‘red’. The word is being applied, there cannot be mistake in its

application, for it was simply red, yet it is not referring to the expected objects containing

those degrees of brightness and etc.

Obviously the case that the problem is an allurement only, never an actual problem.
‘If I add one grain to the previous thing we have all agreed to name ‘non-heap’, will it

become a ‘heap’, finally`?

In other terms, how many grains of sand form a ‘heap’?

One can tell that even if we wrote in the dictionary that it is, for instance, 100 grains, the

person then would create another problem with ‘what sort of sand, how much refined the

particle has to be?’, etc.

First of all, it might not be a heap for that auditorium of people, but it might be a heap for

another, so that it is ridiculous even thinking of doing such with any term of language.

The beauty and peculiarity of the non-mathematical and non-computational terms

(considering them mathematical or computational only when the entire class of them is,

once a few shades of color may always be inserted in a computer, we just cannot insert all

of them, at the moment) of language is obviously how ‘vague’ they might be in their

application and the person applying them still be told to be ‘normal’. With the

mathematical or computational terms, however, the person would be told insane if the

intentions were debating over something with a group of mathematicians, or computer

scientists, if applying those specific terms, of their pre-determined lingo, to something

else. Say, for instance, a person attending a talk in Mathematics interrupts the presenter of

a theory to state that he has lied because 5 on the board should be called seven instead!?

And they then want to start a discussion on where five ends and seven starts in

Mathematics…Oh, easy to see people would be kicking out the element from the room

quite quickly…
‘Idiot! A 5 is a five, this is not Philosophy or some other sort of trip! Out.’

The thing about computational elements, niche where Mathematics is found, is that all its

terms would have to be absolute, in terms of everyone on Earth, when seeing them, they

all knowing, univocally, what their match of object is in the real World. Whoever works

with computers knows, the thing is never wasting time and whatever may be done for

yesterday is already done.

So, also the simple raising of such a discussion would irritate people from the area

profoundly.

Why? Because they do not have a problem with that. If they ever find the need of using a

color in a computer program, they will certainly also find a way of expressing that color

in computational terms in a univocally matching process with a World object.

Obviously the case that such a discussion only fits Philosophy of Language, for it refers

to the scope of possible applications of a lexicon word which is usually lose in its

application, that is, at the discretion of the sight and judgment powers of the person

applying it.

The trial of refining meaning of a word can only be seen as the same work performed by

the linguist, if we are ever looking for a universal sort of definition, accepted by the entire

World, for that is how, and why, the lexicons are formed. Obviously the case that before

the first lexicon has been written on Earth, at least one person had the same doubts as

those of the Sorites presenter: Where does ‘heap’ start existing in this dynamic sand

accumulation scenery? Where does ‘red’ start existing in this dynamic shade changing
scenery? When can I use it so that you will understand that is what I mean? Do you agree

I can use it in this situation as much as in the other one?

The situation we face here is the same splitting mathematicians and their work from

engineers and theirs: Basically, when a builder has a doubt as to whether they will take

0.9 of the ruler or 0.99 or they cannot read the ruler at all, they do not go to the

mathematician or the computer scientist to ask what figure they will write on their notes.

They go for the engineer. The engineer gives them a recipe for approximation of results,

which should be the same used all over the World in construction. Such a recipe, for both

the mathematician and the computer scientist, will be almost of no use, already for

starters. Not for the statistician, however, who will consider their rules for approximation

and declare there will be a mistake of x% at most in each result computed. The same sort

of situation, in terms of possible dramas, could be easily transferred, also in terms of

paradigms, to our Sorites case. Whilst the linguist would be occupying the place of the

engineer, philosophers should be occupying the place of the statistician, and both

computer scientists and mathematicians should be watching until they all finish, for they

obviously have as much to do with construction decisions as they would have to do with

lexicon ones…

Of course several mathematicians, and computer scientists, of these days, will calculate

the mistake of the ruler, as for the builder, but it is obvious that they will not be able to

decide in place of the builder if the ruler shows 0.9 or 0.99, or even 0.989 instead. The

same way the builder will be the ultimate decision maker, and poor, or lucky, of the

people depending on the construction to live in it, the ultimate decision maker, in lexicon

words, will be the linguist and poor, or lucky, of us, who will have to live with the
result…

As a less scientific line of argumentation, imagine a poet being told that they have

applied the word ‘love’, in a situation x, with 3% of mistake in what regards the ‘revised

version of the lexicon containing computational research’…Then, we would have the

scientific evaluation of precision of the poem amounting to 10% of distance,

approximately, from the meaning determined by computer scientists based on the lexicon

from 1999 by now, for instance.

If there is anyone on Earth who does not think this is ridiculous, please raise your hands

(sorry, cannot see at the moment, so we may as well just keep on going!).

As a more objective line of argumentation, of course what is solved for everyone on

Earth and is working should not be questioned or changed. Even the dumbest soccer

player has learned: Team who is winning, we do not change.

Linguists do a great job, we all trust them, and nobody is really interested in changing the

way words go in the dictionary. If we ever were, we would probably be joining the own

linguists, that is, becoming one of them, so why bothering being from another area?

Yes, the scientific subject of Philosophy would include lexicon theories, but our point is

that the Sorites needs one to address its issues, not that Philosophy cannot bother about

lexicon theories.

1. Machines are not human beings and, with luck, will never be.

6.1 Discussion:
Were there any chance a human being equated a machine, everyone would be happy with

the proposal of the Sorites: Hey, you are one grain mistaken, it is not a ‘heap’!

However, unless they get to impair and slave, or modify genetically, or kill human beings,

then such a phenomenon will not happen in human language. There is no doubt people

love Arts and nobody wants someone telling ‘Caetano Veloso’ he cannot sing ‘nao me

amarra dinheiro nao’ because nobody is getting the meaning he intended when writing

that song when he sings, that it is probably better he sings ‘nao diz que eu tenho preco’

instead. Sincerely…

And if the entire World agrees that Arts should be preserved with the freedom it currently

has got, which still produces impairment of creativity sometimes, as these days, with lots

of things repeating, instead of being created, then we really do not want that push towards

human communication.

What should tell the extraordinary difference between human beings who are normal and

machines is obviously the amount of possible original reasoning deriving from them. In

principle, a machine would always be programmed with possible World situations,

therefore working mostly on the reaction side of things, while the human being would be

mostly on the action side of them.

Just for starters, the human being will always be necessary to program a machine, unless

evolution in them is stopped. Of course the creator would always be above the creation in

what regards machines, for it is necessary a human being, at least, to insert data in the

machine. Who determines the data to be inserted is obviously the logical reasoning of that

same human being. On the other hand, it is necessary to reason at least one level above
the creation in order to be able to create it, in the case of a non-self learner creation.

Therefore, one could think that the day the self-learning machine is created, human will

equate machines.

However, for that end, the human being has to fully understand their own mental

processes lying above the machine level, that is, in the highest levels of Bloom’s

taxonomy.

Such an understanding has not been reached by human beings yet and will obviously

never be, once new human beings are always being born and there is no way we can tell

who has got the best mental analysis processes, for instance, in the World, or we can

predict that evolution will be stopped by time x and no more blessed human beings than

those already computed will be born. This way, the chance for the machines reasoning to

overcome human beings’ reasoning, or even equate, even if one ever finds out how to

make machines hold all levels of reasoning in the Bloom’s taxonomy, is close to zero, in

what regards most objective share of human beings: their knowledge processes, decision

processes, etc.

Emotions, however, are definitely connected to what we could easily name ‘soul’, being

us people of faith or not. A machine cannot, possibly, hold soul. Therefore, even if willing

to defend the thesis that machines may, one day, replace human beings in terms of

processes which are passive of abstract representation, we cannot defend the thesis that

machines may replace human beings in their full complexity, therefore they cannot

replace human beings, full stop.

The other point is that the machine to generate all other machines would have to be
created by a human being, therefore would be limited to that human being’s logical

system, and there is no way a human being could even know, at the same level, the

variety of humans attributed to God, in terms of their brains processes, even, and the

brains processes are infinitely more mechanizeable than the rest of the human functions

(such as emotions). That is obviously enough argumentation to knock down the

hypothesis that machines will, some day, be the same as human beings. They may get

close to that, but will never be the same, and that is very simple to prove logically, as just

done. Of course we talk about the hypothesis that at least a number of human beings,

superior or equal to one, is not slaved, or made abnormal, or more limited, artificially,

that is, in the hypothesis that there are normal human beings left in human kind and

allowance for the genetic ‘surprise’, or spiritual.

Not surprisingly, if every single human being is inserted a biotech and criminally

impaired, or modified, in their scope of possibilities on Earth, then machines may, finally,

equate them. However, as stated many times in the case of the trials of solutions to the

Sorites, that would modify the original problem, therefore just making a solution to it

actually impossible, therefore provoking an actual regression, in terms of a search for a

solution, instead of progress.

All the above statements confirm, once more, that there is more to HNR than what is

involved in Computer ‘Science’ or Mathematics. Thus, it has to be the case that a Pure

Philosophy of Language exists, without any computer/mathematical logic involved in it.

1. The Sorites is above the machine and the mathematical logic levels (not reasoning,

but expression of reasoning). If a single part of the problem cannot be perfectly


translated into the lingo of Mathematics, then it simply cannot have its solution

entirely inside of it, so that there is really no point in insisting that the Sorites were

ever a Classical Logic problem. It might hold a reduced part of it - the final

decision, at most - in the Classical (or passive of expression via such) Logic, once

all human reasoning demanded by it is for deciding between NO and YES, classical

options. It is then obvious that ‘all we need is an adequate interface of translation

between human reasoning/judgment and the final resolution, in terms of response

to the query of the presenter of the Sorites, if we ever want to solve the problem the

way the presenter demands`.

7.1 Discussion:

We assume that we have already proved that the Sorites is located above the level of both

Mathematics and Classical Logic. Therefore, our discussion here should focus on the

necessity of a translation interface between human reasoning/judgment and the Classical

Logic possible outputs.

The presenter of the Sorites has been nicknamed ‘Cartesian Inquisitor’ by us precisely

because his questions are always of the sort ‘yes’ or ‘no’ (do we still have a heap? Is it

still red?). Of course we write about their expectation of answer, what does not

necessarily imply the audience will make him happy with their behavior, that is, someone

in the audience may simply say ‘I don’t care, go to hell!’, for instance. Can they say so?

Obviously they can. Is that acceptable as part of the game? Yes, it is, as argued before,

people may say whatever they like in this World, thanks God, as long as the society is a

democratic one. However, the Inquisitor ALSO has got rights to expect a ‘yes’ or ‘no’,
and will get frustrated if not getting them from the audience. In such a case, once their

mental setup is only for ‘yes’ or ‘no’, the presenter will need a strategy to collect only

‘yes’ or ‘no’ from every person producing utterances in the audience, or stating even

nothing. The surprise of the language game is obviously this: How can we state it is

possible to translate even silence into ‘yes’ or ‘no’ in a democratic society? Would that

not be dictatorship instead? This is the basic problem with any translation interface so far:

People have accused them all from suffering of absence of universal acceptance of their

decision theory. They find it hard to accept the proposed translation interfaces as natural

events, rather than seeing them all as pure imposition. Some are accused of gaps in the

translation time, others are accused of gluts, and others are yet accused of vagueness of

criteria of translation. The point here, however, is defending that the problem actually

resumes to finding a translation interface between human expression and the expected

sort of answers by the presenter (‘yes’ or ‘no`). This point seems to be settled. Notice that

such a decision theory is above the machine level, in the highest levels of Bloom’s

taxonomy, and that is what is necessary to solve the Sorites problem, therefore proving its

solution cannot lie inside of any computer sort of logic, what will include Mathematics.

1. The Sorites solution can only be written by someone working on the same mental

level as the linguists. Ultimately, the own Inquisitor has to play the role of the

linguists.

8.1 Discussion:

The solution to the Sorites is located in the area which belongs exclusively to the

Philosophy of Language, at least, once there is no other piece of Science in between in


this case, but not to any computer friendly system of logic. The answer demanded by the

person proposing the problem is one of the sort ‘yes’ or ‘no’, which are answers from the

Classical Logic system. Therefore, there must be a ‘forced’ sort of translation from one

system, which is purely human, into another, which is purely mechanized.

The issues of the Sorites seem to be the same faced by every lexicon expert: The trial of

making speech and thought something with a common, generically accepted, symbolic

expression, of generalized use (lexicon sigmatoids).

Therefore, in the Sorites, one must proceed like the linguist would, and simply apply their

techniques to solve the problem. The same way the dictionary writers do, we should do in

order to make something very large, different for each person, converge to something

everyone will accept as true. Notice that the elements forming the Sorites are precisely

the same ones involved in the lexicon creation (human beings’ expression, human beings’

mental reference, and forced judgment, imposed by the linguist, over the symbolic pieces

of the language).

The issues raised by the Cartesian Inquisitor are actually about the own definition of the

predicate terms involved (where they start/where they end, bounds of definition, or scope

of the definitions, or even limits of the object (Russel)). Besides, from an audience

member’s perspective, there is no problem: they say or do whatever they wish, the

Inquisitor being the one with an actual problem, obviously belonging also, on top, to their

own mental processes.

Obviously the case that the Inquisitor is in the same position as any linguist, and would

have the same options to choose from when determining that particular audience has
‘allowed` them to apply ‘red’ for instance, not considering him an illogical person, or

non-scientific, to object X, or not to apply it, for instance. Notice that the problem

extrapolates Science: It is actually about whether the audience agrees with own

Inquisitor’s possible classification of X as ‘red’ or ‘not’, once the Inquisitor is imposing

classical options which confine the human world to the absolute, that is, to right or

wrong. Of course, as written before, any person may use ‘red’ at their own discretion, and

it has to be ‘right’, not mattering what they do with it, even pointing to black and stating

‘red’…

The fact that the Inquisitor has got such a proposal places them on the level of ‘freaks’, or

abnormal scientific beings already, by default, for they themselves can do whatever they

like with ‘red’ or even ‘heap’. However, in supposing they are interested in a democratic

voting to, for instance, check their sanity, or scientific level, they would have to know

how the linguists work, for Science must advance, not regress, to then do as they do,

otherwise becoming a linguist themselves and producing changes to the decision theories

already in place. As most basic item, and scientific requirement, for the proposal of words

for lexicon definitions, in doubt the linguist shall not accept ‘red’ to include that nuance,

or ‘heap’ to mean that amount of grains. Therefore, if the linguist interprets the outcome

produced by the audience to mean they are in doubt, it is a ‘no’, doubts meaning

everything which is not any of the expected answers, as for the Inquisitor.

3. Conclusion

This paper brings a summary of statements either implied or read clearly from our

Solution to the Sorites ([1]).


We here progress towards the issue of addressing some queries made to us along the

years regarding it.

We also further prove we hold both a definite solution to the Sorites and a situation of

absence of possible vagueness-sort-of-discussions in terms of that solution.

4. Note

Note 1 Notice the difference, for us, between the set of all possible logical events,

Logic, and a machine-friendly event bearing logical structure, logic. For example:

Fuzzy logic is part of the fully scientific part of Philosophy, Logic.

5. References

[1] Pinheiro, M.R. A Solution to the Sorites Paradox. Semiotica, 160 (1/4), 2006.

[2] Read, S. Thinking about Logic: an introduction to the philosophy of logic. Oxford
University Press. 1995. Oxford.

[3] Pinheiro, M. R. Errata to A Solution to the Sorites Paradox. Submitted, 2009


(written in 2004).

[4] Pinheiro, M. R. Well-posedness in Philosophy and the Sorites Problem.


Submitted, 2009 (written in 2006).
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