The Cosmic Chessboard, or, ONCE MORE FOR OLD TIMES SAKE!

A reader or two unwisely commented that my endless debate by Dr. Andreassen on radical materialism was worthwhile, perhaps as a case study on the pathology of a man like me who keeps arguing long after it is clear his opponent has left the room, but he continues to prance and mince about the stage, making grand orator’s gestures and barking rhetorical questions at an empty chair.

For the sake of those one or two unwisely flattering readers, I would like to offer one more argument along the same lines as the infinite number already spoken. Since this is not addressed to Dr. Andreassen, I will not try to simplify the argument to slow and childlike steps, but merely speak as if I were addressing someone learned in this discipline.

Let us start with two assumptions: first, all existing things whatsoever are made of matter.

Second, this or any other meaningful statement made about an existing thing is either true or false.

If a statement represents what it intends to represent, (namely, that if what a statement says is so indeed is so) that is what we call true; and if not, the statement is false. For the purposes of this argument, we need not bother with graduated variations of degrees of accuracy.

To this was must add a third assumption: that when a statement is true, a certain correspondence obtains between the statement in the brain, and the object the statement represents.

Hence, there is no possible condition or arrangement of the cosmos (including the parts of the cosmos where we human brains store statements both true and false about the cosmos) can be represented by a given number.

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Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.