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Post by ermete22 on Apr 22, 2008 10:16:14 GMT -5
I frankly doubts that the explicit discussion of Carroll’s logic could attract a lot of people except logicians who, in any case, have nowadays such a different vision of the matter !
Maybe, following John advice, we can consider some (actually there are many) pages of the fiction books which raises logical problems.
A typical example is the king, who is sleeping and cannot be waken up by people living in a world as, he is dreaming that very world. In that case the world would of course disappear. Waking up the king is a forma of suicide. Apart the evident reference to Berkeley’s philosophy, one can imagine someone, say A, who tells B: “this world where we live, and of which we are just a part, is a dream of C, who is himself in this world; he is sleeping under that tree.”
Evidently one can dream of himself; I can reasonably dream that I am sleeping under a tree in an alien world. Then there is no contradiction. And it is still possible that I dream that A and B have a conversation similar to that reported by Carroll.
Of course there are many objections to this description. But it is interesting to ask oneself, assuming of being B, how he can demonstrate that A is wrong. I promise I have ask myself this question for the first time, so I am not cheating.
Carlo
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Post by johntufail on Apr 22, 2008 16:28:27 GMT -5
And of course, the major problem with this, is what is the existential status of the King? If the King is dreaming the world, is he in the world:
1.even though we can see him sleeping, does it follow that the King himself in this dream, perceives himself as dreaming).
2. If the King we can perceive is dreaming, is this just a dream-state King and is their another King in another Universe who is actually having the dream in which the sleeping King exists.
3. (and this is also a 'God' question. If the latter is true, then, in a sense, the time-space fabric of this dream world is created by the 'real' King, who is actually outside this dream universe. The time-space in which this real King exists will be quite seperate from that which we, the products of his dream exist in. In the same way., if God created time and space, then necessarily God must exist outside of time and space - thus, God perceives the whole of the time-space fabric that we exist in instantaneously. One good, argument, I would think, why God is necessarily unknowable and unimaginable).
Whether Carroll had these ideas in his mind when he constructed this thought experiment is also probably unknowable of course!
JT
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Post by ermete22 on Apr 23, 2008 13:14:07 GMT -5
As you point out, the problem is whether a real king can be a part of his dreamed world. If it is not then, he dreams that someone is talking too loudly. So he can dream to be waken up, but this does not imply that he wakes up in his universe; he could, for example, dream that he has an interesting talking with the characters who woke him up. So waking him up does not necessarily imply the end of the dream and, therefore the end of the dreamed world.
If he is in his dream, the dream ends when he stops sleeping as, at that stage he cannot dream anymore and ceases to exist with all the dreamed universe This seems the most obvious conclusion. But the problem in this case is the following:
Do kings who live inside their dreams stop dreaming when they are awaken? One can argue that this is not the case for such kind of kings. For such kind of strange kings, sleeping is maybe not a necessary condition for dreaming, and (not sleeping) is not a sufficient condition for not dreaming.
But, following the text, it seems that the risk is real; assume it is.
Then stopping dreaming will imply the end of the world and of the king himself, as he is in that very world. Then if the king wakes up, he will disappear together with the world. So, after Carroll, for this special kind of kings, being awaken implies their end together with their world. While sleeping is necessary to dream and then to exist in their dreamed world. They exist only if they are both sleeping and dreaming. This expresses, as you noticed, the need of an external god, who dreams one o more world or think them, like in Berkeley philosophy, to avoid catastrophic world disappearances. For our strange kind of kings, ending their dream means to disappear with the rest of the world. But assumes the alternatives we considered hold: the situation is not much better, as they are closed in their dream. They continue dreaming also when they are awaken, they are closed in their dream as sleeping is not necessary for dreaming and (not sleeping) is not sufficient for not dreaming.
Conclusions: or we are in a Berkeley world, or we are closed inside our dreams.
It is interesting to notice that, in this second case, we can speak of a many-world universe, one for each of us, and underline the difference between what we “dream” to be and what others “dream” we are.
Carlo
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Post by johntufail on Apr 23, 2008 16:42:16 GMT -5
HiCarlo,
I know what you are talking about, I sometimes even know what I am talking about. However, I'm not sure that too many others wil know what we are talking about! (If I'm wrong I'm perfectly willing to be chastised by all and every reader!).
What I suggest is that you contact me off-site and between us put togethe a synthesis of this dialogue that is accessible to all members of the list. I actually believe that when you raised this issue, you raised something that goes to the heart of understandin Carroll.
Regards
JT
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