Last week, evolution was the "universal solvent." But now, can it solve a problem about another universal solvent?
Here's another thought experiment that seems trivial upon first read, but look at it carefully. I'll explain just a bit more afterwards so we can give it its proper consideration during the week ahead.
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NASA had dubbed it "Twin Earth." The newly discovered planet was not just roughly the same size as ours, it had a similar climate and life had evolved there almost identically. In fact, there were even countries where people spoke dialects of English.
Twin Earth contained cats, frying pans, burritos, televisions, baseball, beer, and—at least it seemed—water. It certainly had a clear liquid which fell from the sky, filled rivers and oceans, and quenched the thirsts of the indigenous humanoids and the astronauts from Earth.
When the liquid was analysed, though, it turned out not to be H2O but a very complex substance dubbed H2No. NASA therefore announced that its previous claim that water had been found on Twin Earth was wrong. Some people say that if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it is a duck. In this case, the billed bird waddled and quacked, but it wasn't a duck after all.
The tabloid newspaper headlines, however, offered a different interpretation: "It's water, Jim, but not as we know it."
Source: "The meaning of 'meaning'" by Hilary Putnam, republished in Philosophical Papers, Vol. 2: Mind, Language and Reality, 1975.
Baggini, J., The Pig That Wants to Be Eaten, 2005, p. 220.
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Okay. I like the ending joke from Star Trekkin', but I think we need some further explanation. Here's how Baggini described the problem that's actually being raised:
Is H2No water or not? More to the point, why should we care? Problems like these strike many as examples of philosophers' unhealthy preoccupation with matters of mere semantics. ... Imagine Earth and Twin Earth 1,000 years ago. No one then knew what the chemical composition of water was. Thus, if you consider what would have gone on in the mind of someone thinking "that is a glass of water," it would have been the same in the case of both the earthling and the twin earthling. But...if it is H2No, the twin earthling would be having a true thought, but the earthling would be having a false one, since it isn't what we call water at all. But that means they can't be having the same thought, since the same thought cannot be both true and false. If this line of reasoning is correct...we are left with a surprising upshot. Since what is going on in the head of the earthling and twin earthling is exactly the same, but their thoughts are different, that means thoughts are not entirely in the head! At least part of a thought—that which supplies the meaning of the words—is actually out there in the world. So the question of whether H2No is water is not simply one of mere semantics. How you answer it determines whether meaning and thoughts are, as we usually assume, carried around in our heads, or outside of our heads, in the world. It can literally drive your thinking out of your mind.
Got it? Then what's your solution to this now? I'll be back on Friday with mine.
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NASA had dubbed it "Twin Earth." The newly discovered planet was not just roughly the same size as ours, it had a similar climate and life had evolved there almost identically. In fact, there were even countries where people spoke dialects of English.
Twin Earth contained cats, frying pans, burritos, televisions, baseball, beer, and—at least it seemed—water. It certainly had a clear liquid which fell from the sky, filled rivers and oceans, and quenched the thirsts of the indigenous humanoids and the astronauts from Earth.
When the liquid was analysed, though, it turned out not to be H2O but a very complex substance dubbed H2No. NASA therefore announced that its previous claim that water had been found on Twin Earth was wrong. Some people say that if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it is a duck. In this case, the billed bird waddled and quacked, but it wasn't a duck after all.
The tabloid newspaper headlines, however, offered a different interpretation: "It's water, Jim, but not as we know it."
Source: "The meaning of 'meaning'" by Hilary Putnam, republished in Philosophical Papers, Vol. 2: Mind, Language and Reality, 1975.
Baggini, J., The Pig That Wants to Be Eaten, 2005, p. 220.
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Okay. I like the ending joke from Star Trekkin', but I think we need some further explanation. Here's how Baggini described the problem that's actually being raised:
Is H2No water or not? More to the point, why should we care? Problems like these strike many as examples of philosophers' unhealthy preoccupation with matters of mere semantics. ... Imagine Earth and Twin Earth 1,000 years ago. No one then knew what the chemical composition of water was. Thus, if you consider what would have gone on in the mind of someone thinking "that is a glass of water," it would have been the same in the case of both the earthling and the twin earthling. But...if it is H2No, the twin earthling would be having a true thought, but the earthling would be having a false one, since it isn't what we call water at all. But that means they can't be having the same thought, since the same thought cannot be both true and false. If this line of reasoning is correct...we are left with a surprising upshot. Since what is going on in the head of the earthling and twin earthling is exactly the same, but their thoughts are different, that means thoughts are not entirely in the head! At least part of a thought—that which supplies the meaning of the words—is actually out there in the world. So the question of whether H2No is water is not simply one of mere semantics. How you answer it determines whether meaning and thoughts are, as we usually assume, carried around in our heads, or outside of our heads, in the world. It can literally drive your thinking out of your mind.
Got it? Then what's your solution to this now? I'll be back on Friday with mine.
