If you are a fan of TV shows on Big Foot, ancient aliens, and ghosts, you might ask yourself an important question: Does interest in such topics depend on the aphorism “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence”? After all, no zoo, museum, or video archive irrefutably supports the existence of Big Foot, ancient aliens, and ghosts, but the same argument might have been used against the existence of a bipedal human ancestor before the discovery of Lucy and other Australopithecines.* Had TV reality shows been the genre du jour before Lucy’s discovery in 1974 by Donald Johanson, a camera crew might have followed the paleoanthropologist in a manner similar to the way crews follow ghost hunters. Maybe all the searching will turn up the evidence searchers need to demonstrate the truth of their pursuits just as Johanson proved the existence of Aunt Lucy.
In thinking about such searches and their grip on the imaginations of millions, I remembered a famous statement concerning pure mathematics by Bertrand Russell: “Pure mathematics consists entirely of assertions to the effect that, if such and such a proposition is true of anything, then such and such another proposition is true of that thing. It is essential not to discuss whether the first proposition is really true, and not to mention what the anything is, of which it is supposed to be true…Thus mathematics may be defined as the subject in which we never know what we are talking about, nor whether what we are saying is true.”
Ghosts first: The proposition is that ghosts exist. The following proposition is that we can find them to demonstrate the first proposition. Big Foot? Same argument. And those ancient aliens?
Well, with regard to the ancient aliens, don't we have good reasons to think life exists elsewhere? Outer space has abundant carbon and organic molecules. Water lies in comets and on various moons, probably including ours. So, the proposition that there is life elsewhere isn't that far-fetched, is it?
But intelligent life? Life that spread itself intentionally? And life that had the wherewithal to overturn the desert varnish on the Plain of Nazca to make large stick figures, supposedly to mark landing zones? Why stick figures on the floor of a desert? Because, of course, having achieved interstellar space travel, the ancient aliens forgot to bring along their landing lights and the high desert had no wood for fires. Maybe that first proposition is a bit far-fetched.
Seems that in our current culture of "truths," "half-truths," and "fictions," we often really don't know, in Russell's words, "what we are talking about, nor whether what we are saying is true." Nevertheless, we seem willing to commit to watching on TV the "second propositions" in almost all aspects of our lives, including our pursuit of happiness in products and technologies and our search for a perfect politician or justice system.
In some ways, searches for Big Foot, ancient aliens, ghosts, technologically-derived happiness, perfect politicians, or a perfect justice system are Neoplatonic. So, I think is Russell's comment on pure mathematics, and maybe there's a touch of Neoplatonism in all of us even if we never studied philosophy.
Ideals are those "perfect forms" from which all specific forms derive in Plato's philosophy. So, as the common example goes, "Think of tree." Of course, you can't. You always think of a specific tree or a collage of specific trees--Go ahead, try it: Draw "tree." Now, do the same with Big Foot, ancient alien, ghost. Do it for a partial skull of an ancient hominid. Now ask a simple question, "How do I know that Big Foot isn't like some inexplicable egg-laying platypus, a poisonous mammal with a mix of features?" See, your first proposition is that Big Foot exists; the second is that it has a form identifiable on the basis of forms you know, and third is that it is discoverable. But the last two propositions depend on the "truth" of the first. and with regard to one of the other televised pursuits, do "formless ghosts" have "forms" that can be videoed?
And so with politicians and justice systems. So with technologically-derived happiness. So with perfect societies.
Yet, we still pursue pure mathematics. We still follow up on all our "second" propositions. It's in our nature that once we propose, we propose more on the basis of the first proposition. That gets us into real trouble at times, as it did for the people of Jonesville and the people of Heaven's Gate, all of who died by suicide as a followup to their first propositions.
Somewhere there's that "perfect form," the form on which all subsequent forms are built, like oaks, willows, and pines on the basis of an ideal tree. Drugs and drug-induced "higher" levels of consciousness, also. Russell might argue that I'm way off the mark, that what he was saying about pure math doesn't apply to the other pursuits I mention. he was a much smarter guy than I, but that doesn't prevent me from "proposing" a Neoplatonic connection and then generating a follow-up proposition, even an imaginary one.
And you? What "first propositions" lie behind your subsequent propositions and pursuits?
*Johanson named his Australopithecus afarensis "Lucy."
In thinking about such searches and their grip on the imaginations of millions, I remembered a famous statement concerning pure mathematics by Bertrand Russell: “Pure mathematics consists entirely of assertions to the effect that, if such and such a proposition is true of anything, then such and such another proposition is true of that thing. It is essential not to discuss whether the first proposition is really true, and not to mention what the anything is, of which it is supposed to be true…Thus mathematics may be defined as the subject in which we never know what we are talking about, nor whether what we are saying is true.”
Ghosts first: The proposition is that ghosts exist. The following proposition is that we can find them to demonstrate the first proposition. Big Foot? Same argument. And those ancient aliens?
Well, with regard to the ancient aliens, don't we have good reasons to think life exists elsewhere? Outer space has abundant carbon and organic molecules. Water lies in comets and on various moons, probably including ours. So, the proposition that there is life elsewhere isn't that far-fetched, is it?
But intelligent life? Life that spread itself intentionally? And life that had the wherewithal to overturn the desert varnish on the Plain of Nazca to make large stick figures, supposedly to mark landing zones? Why stick figures on the floor of a desert? Because, of course, having achieved interstellar space travel, the ancient aliens forgot to bring along their landing lights and the high desert had no wood for fires. Maybe that first proposition is a bit far-fetched.
Seems that in our current culture of "truths," "half-truths," and "fictions," we often really don't know, in Russell's words, "what we are talking about, nor whether what we are saying is true." Nevertheless, we seem willing to commit to watching on TV the "second propositions" in almost all aspects of our lives, including our pursuit of happiness in products and technologies and our search for a perfect politician or justice system.
In some ways, searches for Big Foot, ancient aliens, ghosts, technologically-derived happiness, perfect politicians, or a perfect justice system are Neoplatonic. So, I think is Russell's comment on pure mathematics, and maybe there's a touch of Neoplatonism in all of us even if we never studied philosophy.
Ideals are those "perfect forms" from which all specific forms derive in Plato's philosophy. So, as the common example goes, "Think of tree." Of course, you can't. You always think of a specific tree or a collage of specific trees--Go ahead, try it: Draw "tree." Now, do the same with Big Foot, ancient alien, ghost. Do it for a partial skull of an ancient hominid. Now ask a simple question, "How do I know that Big Foot isn't like some inexplicable egg-laying platypus, a poisonous mammal with a mix of features?" See, your first proposition is that Big Foot exists; the second is that it has a form identifiable on the basis of forms you know, and third is that it is discoverable. But the last two propositions depend on the "truth" of the first. and with regard to one of the other televised pursuits, do "formless ghosts" have "forms" that can be videoed?
And so with politicians and justice systems. So with technologically-derived happiness. So with perfect societies.
Yet, we still pursue pure mathematics. We still follow up on all our "second" propositions. It's in our nature that once we propose, we propose more on the basis of the first proposition. That gets us into real trouble at times, as it did for the people of Jonesville and the people of Heaven's Gate, all of who died by suicide as a followup to their first propositions.
Somewhere there's that "perfect form," the form on which all subsequent forms are built, like oaks, willows, and pines on the basis of an ideal tree. Drugs and drug-induced "higher" levels of consciousness, also. Russell might argue that I'm way off the mark, that what he was saying about pure math doesn't apply to the other pursuits I mention. he was a much smarter guy than I, but that doesn't prevent me from "proposing" a Neoplatonic connection and then generating a follow-up proposition, even an imaginary one.
And you? What "first propositions" lie behind your subsequent propositions and pursuits?
*Johanson named his Australopithecus afarensis "Lucy."
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