A “proof” is designed to demonstrate something non-obvious. The trouble with philosophy, too often, is that philosophers, like Ouroboros, turn to nibble on their own tail, trying to prove the obvious.
The great tool of “proof” is mathematics, and the cautionary tale in the use of mathematical proof was the example of Zeno, who tried to prove something quite non-obvious about the obvious. Take his arrow paradox. The arrow hits the target. He tried to prove that it doesn’t. This was in aid of his agenda to deny the reality of particulars, or motion, or somesuch nonsense.
What he really accomplished was to show the dangers of the misuse of measurement, and of biting off more than you can chew (this is especially true for Ourorboros, the Great Worm).
I see the unraveling of Zeno’s Arrow Paradox as a very pregnant metaphor for how to unravel a few puzzles that beset us to this day: determinism, skepticism about existence, and even the use of scientific method in social theory, particularly economics.
My aim is not to prove that we have free will, but to show that the “proofs” of determinism are illusory. My aim is not to prove that there is a reality outside our minds, but that the “slightest philosophy” of Hume is too clever by half, and quite mad. My aim is not to deny to sociologists and economists the status of scientists, but to use what is scientific in what they are doing to demote them from their coveted status as court wizards.
Alas, these projects, like most of my projects, have not moved very far in the past few years, in part because of family matters. But my situation is changing. I helped bury my father a week ago. As I reshuffle the burdens of life, perhaps I’ll find more time to turn Zeno on himself, and unburden the worm of Ouroborosian enterprise.
And how do you aim to prove all this? It’s one thing to say that Zeno took something too far, but he didn’t “prove” anything so to speak, he merely demonstrated the paradoxical nature of what logic seems to tell us and what reality looks like, and even then, the paradox has been mathematically solved.
With the increasing amount of knowledge that we gain through science, all of which is backed by the fact that it tracks the real world, I think you’re going to have a hard time showing the illusory nature of determinism arguments. I suggest reading Free Will by Sam Harris.
It’s hard to say what exactly was the agenda of the Eleatics. But in taking their paradoxes as cautionary tales, this is not unlike the approach of Henri Bergson, who suggests that the core of the problem lies with how our minds organize experience. And indeed, all of mathematics and modern physics are a direct offshoot of our mental habits of cleaving experience into discrete chunks of space-time. The Eleatic paradoxes should still fascinate us today. Although calculus was invented to deal with infinitesimals, it does not solve the underlying impossibility of deriving the quality of motion from motionless states.
I would say, along with Bergson, that the most devastating problem with determinism is that it is incompatible with novelty and evolution. In a purely deterministic universe, where “nothing new happens under the sun,” all the complexity that exists in the world today must have preexisted since the beginning of time. My metaphor for this is that Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony must be encrypted somewhere in the Cosmic Microwave Background. Ergo, a belief in determinism is a disavowal of evolution (cosmic, biological, or sociological) and an avowal of miraculous creationism. Try that one on Mr. Scientist sometime. 😉
To paraphrase ‘g ‘above…
With the increasing amount of logical incoherency that plagues science, all of which is founded upon the naiveté of realism, I think you’re going to have a field day showing the illusory nature of determinism arguments. Sam Harris is a bore. Ditto for Dennet. I suggest reading Time & Free Will by Bergson.