Parable of the Chessmen

Part of a neverending conversation:

“In the column labeled ‘meaning’, I would then make an entry saying, perhaps, “King’s Pawn to King Four”. Now, I agree that this requires some sort of translation, which is not itself a physical object. In other words, I must know chess to make even this simple translation. But I need not know a whole lot of chess. Just knowing how the pieces move would be sufficient. And it does not seem to me a matter of faith to say that there is such a translation. If I move the atoms in a particular way, there is a corresponding chess move which the wooden pieces represent; I cannot see this as controversial.”

Far from being non-controversial, this is exactly the point of controversy. You are, without noticing it, brushing past not just a point, but the main point in contention, for you assume that an abstract statement which refers to no physical properties whatsoever is the same as or is translatable into a statements of physics, that is, a statement designed to refer to nothing but physical properties. You are saying A is not A.

To make this more clear, let me bring three statements to your attention, a physical, a concrete, and an abstract.

Physical: “Cylindrical object made of boxwood lacquered in gold hue standing three inches high, weighing 3 ounces, with a one inch diameter on a leather base is moved in one second from a location four inches north by northwest.”

Concrete: “Pawn made of boxwood lacquered in gold (in this game, the gold chessmen are considered the ‘black’ instead of the white, because the opposing chessmen are silver) standing three inches high is moved from its starting position four inches on a chessboard north by northwest, moving from King’s Pawn Two to King’ Pawn Four.”

Abstract: “Pawn to King’s Four.”

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