Climate Change: A Very Short Story

Let us start with a very short story. In fact, I intend to confine myself to just this story in this post. We shall return to this story and its characters whenever the need shall be felt. Now, the story.

There were two neighbours P and S. P decided to run a machine for its private use. One effect of running this machine was to make P richer. The machine, however, also poisoned the air whenever it ran. Nobody knew of this polluting effect. But both P and S faced the adverse effects.

How did they mitigate these adverse effects? As we have already said, they did not know the causes of the pollution. So P, being rich, invested heavily in research on air masks, air filters, etc. and ultimately invented, owned and used them. S, on the other hand, being poorer could not afford the new gadgets and facilities. S, perhaps, was poorer because of not using the polluting machine. Since the machine created wealth, P continued to depend upon it. There was more pollution. P continued to invest a fraction of the wealth to overcome the adverse effects. Hollywood does not particularly attract me. Or else, I would not consider it very implausible that P ultimately began to inhabit Mars when the pollution became intolerable. (This, of course, would have to happen before the attack of the aliens, chimeras and monsters)

What about S? With little resources to spare after meeting the bare needs S could not benefit from the use of the mitigating inventions. The suffering of S increased.

Thus, the more P polluted, the more S suffered. P suffered too but depending upon the magnitude of the good and bad effects that running the machine had it was, perhaps, completely possible to mitigate the negatives. Even if otherwise, the bad effects of pollution on P were significantly retarded as compared to that on S.

Then P and S got serious about their conditions. So they studied the problem and discovered that the pollution came from the machines which were put to use by P in a far greater proportion than S.

This was a politically inconvenient conclusion. P would have to stop running the riches-cum-pollution generating machines. P would have to compensate S for all the suffering caused by it to S. And since their study had pointed to a persistence of the ill-effects for many years into the future even if the machines would be immediately banned, P would have to compensate S for many years into the future. That is all common-sense, fairness, justice or any name you like. P knew this. So P decided to disagree (as much as possible without appearing completely irrational) with the findings of the study.

Years passed. New data emerged. Better analyses was possible. And the conclusion was the same. Only, it was more certain.

Does it all appear familiar? Well, the story ends here.

Logic: The 'is-ought' problem

A seemingly simple question:
Can we infer an ought statement from an is statement?

And one example of such derivation was given by amiya :

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EXAMPLE
Premises: 1. John eats chocolates.
2. John does what he ought to do.

Conclusion: Therefore John ought to eat chocolates.

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Neat indeed!
I appreciate the way the above example has been constructed.

However, if inference is being used in this question as in logic, then one should first state what logic is being used, what an is-statement is and what an ought-statement is.

First order logic, for example, does not have anything to do with the structure of statements except those introduced by its own connectives, quantifiers, inference rules etc.

Therefore, the discussion will not be meaningful until the terms involved in the question are defined. Or, at least, explained with some clarity.

Now, I will myself jump the gun. That is, I will add to this discussion without myself attempting what I have asked for (the definitions).

An ought-statement cannot be inferred unless there is an ought within the premises or in the rules of inference. This is, of course, obvious. Because, if the ought-clause is already there in a complex proposition, it may be possible to infer it in a valid way. But, if the premises do not contain either an implicit or an explicit ought-clause, there has to be a rule of inference that allows ought to be inferred from is.

Also, ought is about an imperative and is applicable where, seemingly, the opposite of what has been asserted as an ought is a likely course of action. On the face of it, a choice among various course of actions can be justified by inference only if the consequences or the circumstances related to choices can be arranged in some order of preference. This ordering is then a premise in our argument, and the inference would require, in addition to the aforesaid premise, another premise of the form: "The choice of action ought to be in accord with the most preferred item in the ordering (mentioned above)."

Or this last statement will be a rule of inferring the choice of action. But with this rule, we have a new species of logic. On this, I will say nothing further.

But, in ordinary english, let us be clear that the justification of a choice of action from is-statements has more to do with rationality than logic.

Inferences as to what a rational person would under the given is-premises itself involves a lot many unstated assumptions which implicitly depend upon some mutually agreed upon ordering of the kind mentioned above.

Mechanics: Are 'Newton's laws of motion' laws indeed?

As schoolkids, and even afterwards, all of us have started our mechanics with the three 'Newton's laws of motion'. And, for them who ever scrutinized these laws, doubts arose. Doubts whether these are actually laws or mere definitions. In the following I will present the reasons for these doubts.

An equivalent statement of 'the first law' is - Every body, in absence of action of forces, moves with a constant velocity (rest being a special case). What difficulties, if any, arise from this statement? For this statement to be a law, one should be able to assert the following two facts independently. Firstly, it should be possible to distinguish the case that a body has a constant velocity from when it has not. Secondly, it should be possible to tell whether the body is being acted upon by some external force(s). Assuming that both these can be independently determined,the statement can be said to be a statement of law. This law would be true if we empirically discover that constant velocity indeed appears only in the absence of external forces. Otherwise, the law is falsified.

To determine the absence of force, it is essential to know certain characteristics of force with which to determine its absence/presence. But the very concept of force is not known prior to these laws. Moreover, without a clear prior definition, 'force' occurs in all the three laws. If, then, we depend upon these laws to know what force is, we are led to the conclusion that force is that which causes acceleration of the bodies it acts on. This conclusion can be derived from both the first and second laws. Then, if the absence of the force is determined by the absence of acceleration, the first law is a tautology. It is perhaps better to say that the 'first law' is itself the definition of force. However, the 'second law' says even more. It is therefore a better definition in which case the 'first law' is simply a special case of the second. But we should not forget that both these 'laws' are mere definition.

The second law however does assert that acceleration is of fundamental importance in writing the equations of motion of any system. The second law also prompts us to find a cause of the acceleration in a force which must necessarily depend upon the properties of the environment of the system and also upon the properties of the interaction of the system with the environment. Surely, one need not employ the fiction of force. The laws of motion can, of course, be written without such a notion. Although superfluous, it is harmless to call some terms of these equations by the name force.

The first two laws are perhaps a definition of an 'independent system'. A system in which the total dp/dt = 0 is said to be an independent system. As a result of this definition, whenever dp/dt != 0 the system is said to be independent, otherwise it is being acted on by external 'forces'.
Let us now assume that we are given an independent system which can be considered as sum of two distinctly identifiable systems. If p1 and p2 are the momenta associated with two parts of the system, and if p is the momentum of the whole given system then p = p1 + p2, or dp/dt = dp1/dt + dp2/dt = 0 (since we are given an independent system by assumption). Therefore, dp1/dt = - dp2/dt. This, as one can readily recognize, is 'the third law'. If we regard a system as made of three parts or more rather than two, we would have other laws like the third. For example, for n parts the law would look like dp1/dt + dp2/dt + ... + dpn/dt = 0. Given that p = p1 + p2 + ... + pn, we can state that dp/dt = 0 which, in turn, is true by assumption and therefore the source of the equation with n terms.

As to how we assert that the momentum of a system is equal to the sum of momenta of the parts of that system, the answer is in kinematics. The vector sum of momenta follows from the possibility of the vector sum of displacements and its derivatives. This, we shall not pursue here.
From the above, it will become evident that 'Newton's three laws' are not laws at all. Apart from asserting the importance of the time derivative of momentum, they merely define an independent system. It remains to examine whether there are any independent systems at all.

Metaphysics: Existence of Unobserved Events

Someone wrote:
"Just because we hear an alarm clock when we are in hearing distance of it doesnt mean that it still makes a noise when we can't hear it."
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That is a neat and sound argument. The question is whether it is correct to infer/hypothesize the existence/occurence of events that are not observed. Let us call such inferences by the name "inference X".

Let us begin with asking why we infer that events have happened/will happen even in the absence of observation. Irrespective of the nature of the real world, or whether there is any reality beyond our perceptions, etc. the inference of events without observation yields a simple and fairly consistent picture/theory of the world (of reality/of perceptions?) making it easy for us to comprehend and understand it. To this most of us will agree. Thus, we know the usefulness of the inference X. And, therefore, inference X can be used until it is falsified even though it may not be verifiable.

Now, having admitted the utility of inference X, are these inferences correct? Clearly, the answer will depend upon the verification of the inferred event. Since the observer has not directly perceived the event and only inferred it, he/she must depend upon other means of verifying. Then we are led to the question: what are the other sources (i.e., other than one's own perceiving something) on which one can rely on as an evidence to the occurence of some event ?

I will not attempt a reply to this question. Because an answer to it will vary according to what sources we trust? But let it be clear that holding perception of the event by oneself as a reliable evidence of the occurence of that event is questionable too. That is, I could just as well express the doubt: just because I hear an alarm clock does not mean that the alarm clock is making the noise. The doubt, as can be seen, will turn out to be important in case of observers with hearing aberrations.

However, in raising this doubt I am not merely thinking of some stray pathological cases. Philosophically, the doubt is even more important. The manner in which you resolve it determines the kind of picture/theory that you prefer to have about this universe. And the incorrectness of that theory will be determined if it leads to some incorrect fact (which in turn should be verified/falsified using the methods consistent with the theory being tested). Meanwhile, there is no denying the possibility of the existence of many competing theories. In some of these, the alarm clock will sound when you can't hear it. In others, it won't.

General: Pragmatic Ignorance

They say that "ignorance is bliss. The more we learn, the more we know there's more to learn. The more we seek and obtain knowledge, the more unsure we are about the knowledge we've hitherto gathered. Is there any point to our hopeless search for wisdom? Aren't careless people happier? Shouldn't happiness be the benchmark from which we value actions?"

I guess these thoughts must have crossed the minds of most of us. I am not very sure what exactly is meant by "the search for wisdom". Philosophy, or for that matter any search for truth is frustrating the moment we realize that the search is an unending quest. That is, we are always on uncertain footing, and unsure. And the more we know, the more there seems to be to know. If our search is for certainties, some kind of final truths then we must restrict ourselves to tautologies. Anything else will be uncertain. This realization is the first meaningful realization that any philosopher or scientist or a human being should have before he/she sets on the path of any enquiry.

Thus, if we are looking for certainties, we are on a wild goose chase. But if we realize that ours is going to be an unending quest, the frustration of pursuing a "lost cause" will not set in.

The pleasure of philosophy is not in discovering, but in the process of discovery. Other uses may exist, and they are perhaps very important too. But I think that the pleasure of philosophizing or doing science comes from pursuing a path even though one knows that it has no destination. We have our own wits to tell us where, on this path, we may pause to pursue again or even stop. But every stop is merely a convenient resting place. Despite there being directions in which to pursue, there is simply no destination to aim for. So if one loves travelling along this road, then one loves it despite knowing that the journey will not end at a destination. The best one can hope for is to build a comfortable resting place (a theory, a model, etc.) at the end of one's journey.

For those who find such pursuit hopeless, they are perhaps looking for more than just travelling. Before starting they should be clear as to what they expect. For those who find it useless, it is possible to enumerate some uses and advantages of the journey. Regarding "ignorance is bliss" mantra, I think there are some people who cannot manage to remain ignorant even if they think that it leads to bliss. The curiosity embedded into their minds perhaps leads them to attempt discovering and unravelling mysteries. These are the people who will philosophize even if they suffer. For the others, they can judge whether they are prepared to walking down unending roads, many of which are without any signposts.

Let us, however, remember that a mind once exposed to philosophy cannot get back to starting point provided it feels the philosophy. To make this statement clear, I will give an example. If you philosophize on time and space, you can do from the point of view of a person sitting with a paper and pencil and trying to arrive at a consistent model in order to solve a puzzle in a manner similar to that of solving puzzles from the leisure section of a Sunday newspaper. This is philosophy but without having felt it. But when one attempts the same solution because of the bewilderment that this world, this universe poses then one feels the philosophy. I have given this example to make the following statement:

Those who are amazed by this world, and then "feel" philosophy have no hope of returning to bliss that comes from ignorance even if philosophizing is painful to them.