Corrections to Is Logic Contingent?

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It has come to my attention that I need to make a couple corrections to some things I said in the post Is Logic Contingent? One is that I rested my argument of the necessity of logic on physical law when MM-Theory clearly has it the other way around. I said:

Now I want to bring this discussion to a close by following it through to its logical conclusion - namely, that the scope of necessity spans far beyond formal logic. Patterns of thought which would be ordinarily deemed illogical and plagued with fallacies of every sort would be deemed necessary by the one who believes them. The necessity he feels is not to be found in logic, but in the narrow range of possible streams down which his thought can flow. This range is narrow because the neural wiring in his brain is configured in such a way to allow only for that particular flow of thought during that particular instance. In other words, the necessity is to be found in the rigidity of the physics of his brain. Whether he is extremely practiced in the science of logical thinking or hasn't got a clue, his brain and the neural circuitry within it are configured in a particular way. Given that configuration, the particular style of thought it makes possible - logical or fallacious - is necessarily the style of thought he employs. He can't help it. The laws of physics hold even in his logic depleted brain.

But as MM-Theory would have it, the laws of nature and the necessity which we attribute to them only serve to represent the necessity of the experiences that correspond to them. Far from being dependent on the necessity of natural laws, MM-Theory puts the necessity of experiences the other way around - that the necessity of natural laws dependent on it.

The other point in need of correction is not so much something I said, but something I may have inadvertently insinuated: that if the necessity of our thoughts, when conforming to formal logic, are determined by the "third term" defined in the post Is Logic Contingent?, then it would seem I am going against the main crux of my argument for the necessity of entailment laid down in the Advanced Theory, thereby quite probably compromising MM-Theory as a whole. To explain further, I argued, in the Advanced Theory, that the necessity of entailment is evident in (if anything) the logic of our thoughts. It was argued that this necessity is evident in the way our thoughts - or more particularly, their meaning - seem to lead irrevocably to their conclusions - and further that this irrevocability can be understood - that is, we can understand why the logic holds. In other words, some third term outside our thought is not needed in order to understand the necessity of entailment. We need only to grasp the meaning of the thoughts themselves. But if what Is Logic Contingent? argues for is that no such necessity would exist, or be possible, were it not for this third term, then it essentially argues that the meaning in thought, even logical thought, is not sufficient, thereby undermining the argument put forward in the Advanced Theory. It might still be argued that the necessity of entailment is still there - in the combination of our thoughts and the third term - but this can only function to weaken the overall argument in support of necessary entailment, for in that case, the one thing I could point to (namely, logical thought) as a sure example of necessary entailment (for all rational thinkers should agree that logical thought has the character of necessity to it) has been stripped away, and we are left to rely on some hypothetical "third term" of which we are not even epistemically aware (as will be argued below), let alone doubtful over the necessity with which it flows. If I had trouble arguing for the necessity of the flow of experiences in general (for example, as applied to something as far removed from logic as emotions) - which the aforementioned post was supposed to facilitate - then what hope have I to convince my readers of such necessity if not even the logic of rational thought can be held up as an example?

If I can clear up the latter misunderstanding, it will be that much simpler to clear up the former.

The key to clearing up the latter misunderstanding (about the necessity of entailment) is to identify this misunderstanding in the supposed separability of the logical thoughts from the third term that makes them necessary. The latter should not be understood as supplementing our thoughts, but as inhering in them. In other words, it makes little sense, as we shall see shortly, to suppose that such thoughts are even possible without the involvement of the third term (though the third term itself is quite variable), for the latter is an indispensible part of what makes up our logical thinking.

To see this, we must compare the neurology of the third term with that of logical thought generally. The third term, the reader will recall, is just the local form of the UOS corresponding to the atomic structures constituting the neural circuitry associated with logical thought. Thus, logical thought must be a special application of the third term, or a particular form it sometimes takes on, just as the firing of a neuron is a special application, or particular form, that the atomic structure of the neuron takes on. The firing of a neuron consists partially in the exchange of sodium and potassium ions across the cell membrane via ion channels. This is clearly an instance of atomic structures undergoing atomic activity, and therefore corresponds to particular experiences that serve as local building blocks for the UOS. The "third term" is just the expression we use to signify these experiences. Obviously, then, one can no more separate the third term from the thoughts themselves as one can separate the atomic structure of the neurons in question from the firing of those same neurons.

The third term is therefore a very intrinsic part of the constitution of our thoughts as they conform to logic, and the latter would be quite impossible without the former. On the other hand, this inseparability doesn't hold the other way around. One can obviously have the atomic structure of a neuron without that neuron firing, and so the third term can be experienced (below the level of epistemic awareness) without experiencing thought.

Now there still remains a question of the variability of the third term - how its quality differs from one person, whose thinking patterns adhere consistently to logical form, to another, whose thinking patterns may not. As it concerns the latter person, she may sometimes experience the third term differently, thus permitting logical mistakes from time to time. But if the third term is an intrinsic part of our thoughts, then it follows that the thoughts themselves - as a whole - must feel different.

A few implications can be drawn from this: 1) if they feel different, then the words we use to express such thoughts - for example "Socrates is mortal" - are the same merely at the level of language, and underneath - at the level of inner experience - we can expect to find some degree of diversity between one person's understanding and that of another's of what such words denote. Yet such diversity would not be enough - or at least, would not be of the right kind - to warrant a different usage of words (for example "Socrates is alive"), for any change in the wording can still be expected to have the usual consequences - namely, denoting a whole other idea. The diversity in question is not in respect to the idea one or another individual understands, but in why that idea should, in combination with other ideas (i.e. other premises), lead to some logically prescribed conclusion by necessity. What needs to be understood is that this "why" (the answer to which comes as the third term) constitutes an intrinsic part of the idea in question, and that the quality defining this idea is affected (in part) by it. Since the latter can vary from one person to another, so can the thought affected by it, but not in such a way that a different manner of verbally expressing the idea is warranted. In short, it's the same idea, only somehow experienced differently.

2) Such differences in how we experience the same idea can only manifest through the manner in which they entail subsequent thoughts (for example, the conclusions drawn from a line of reasoning), for this, as should be clear at this point, is the key consequence to be expected from differences in the third term. It could not manifest through any direct epistemic awareness. This is true not merely in the trivial case of our lack of access to anyone's thoughts but our own (thereby making comparison impossible), but in that we have no epistemic access to the third term residing in our own thoughts apart from our epistemic access to the thought as a whole. It may be the case that as the third term "colors" our thoughts (i.e. it contributes its share to the overall quality of our thoughts), this color can be known to us (epistemically) as a part of being epistemically aware of the thought itself (for these notions are more or less equivalent), but apart from this overall quality (or "color"), we cannot discern (epistemically) any detail below this level of scale. This, of course, means that we cannot discern any third term apart from the overall quality (or meaning) of our thoughts. Thus, as far as our epistemic awareness is concerned, to experience the thought is indistinguishable from experiencing the third term in it.

These foregoing considerations restore our original understanding of the necessity of entailment. The third term is the ground on which our thoughts lead to their conclusions with necessity, but only because it makes up a vital part of those thoughts - contributing to their very meaning - and hence such necessity and the entailment that follows still finds its roots in that meaning.

This improved understanding of the role played by the third term in our thoughts should facilitate the correction needed vis-a-vis the other point of contention mentioned at the beginning of this post - namely, that the necessity of logic rests on the necessity of physical laws and how this point conflicts with MM-Theory's reversal of it. The correction of this conflict is carried out quite simply by resting the argument made in the post Is Logic Contingent? on the third term itself rather than on the laws of physics manifest in the brain. This can only be done, of course, after having clarified the role played by the third term in logical thinking, which is why the latter had to be established first. Having established this clarification so, we can rephrase the point made in Is Logic Contingent? in full conformity with MM-Theory - namely, that the physical laws manifest in the brain fill their usual role as material representations (rather than necessary conditions) of the necessity of entailment as experienced in our logical thinking. This necessary entailment continues to be understood in terms of the meaning of our thoughts, only now enriched by the conjecture that this meaning can be reduced further, at least partially, to the third term which has been our focus up to this point (albeit without any epistemic awareness of it apart from the thought as a whole). Nonetheless, the notion that a particular logical thinker can't alter the logical necessity of his thoughts because of the rigidity of physical laws playing out in his brain still serves a purpose; it serves to represent the inherent necessity of his thoughts and the manner by which they entail. Particularly, to consider the fact that these same physical laws reduce to the level of atomic activity guides us in understanding the manner in which his thoughts reduce to, among other things, the third term and the manner by which it contributes to the necessary entailment of his thoughts. To put this another way, the type of relation that bears between the atomic activity within our neural circuitry and that neural circuitry itself is the same type of relation that bears between the third term and the thoughts that reduce to it. Thus, an appeal to such atomic activity and the physical laws that make it, along with any neural events that reduce to it, necessary is still an adequate account, at least as a representation, of the necessity by which our thoughts entail, and the point made in Is Logic Contingent?, which is just such an appeal, ought to be construed in this sense.

Lastly, this should not take away from the intended force of that post - namely, to bolster the claim that necessity spans beyond the scope of logic alone - for one can verily see that even in the case of illogical thinking, the third term is still alive and well, accounting for the sense of necessity in such thinking, and in fact determining the necessity of such thinking. It was never a question of whether the laws of nature are conditioned by or the condition for the necessary flow of experience, but one of their generalizability. To see that the third term must be active in both cases of logical and illogical thinking serves to reinforce this generalizability. By reducing the necessity of logical thought down to the third term, which in turn is represented by atomic structures, one has every right to generalize not only the third term in like fashion to atomic structures throughout all material systems in the physical universe, but to the manner by which it determines the necessary flow of all experience. To see this generalization at work in the case of illogical thinking is confirmation of this move, and this counts as the special edge I hoped to structure my argument around in Is Logic Contingent?.

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