what if pinocchio said that his nose will grow? Because he lied about it growing, it will grow, but that makes what he said true, so it won't grow. But if it won't grow then he did lie about its growth, etc.
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Pinocchio Paradox
- Thread starter Little Cup Masteh
- Start date
It turns out that saying those words was the key to becoming a real boy all along
By that logic Pinnochio's nose would also grow if he lied by omission (intention to deceive), but in the fable he does oftentimes do that and people take it for granted because his nose doesn't grow, so ironically the Nose helps him validate certain kinds of lie. So my proposition is that the nose isn't a subjective entity but is governed by an objective set of rules as to what constitutes lying.
This is all simply a matter of rewording the condition for pinocchio's nose to grow- would be more accurate to say that his nose grows if his statement is literally untrue imo (e.g. the sky is green). I don't know if that's the exact best way to phrase, but I think it works so w/e
Also dismissing the paradox on the grounds that statements regarding the future need not have truth value is skirting around the issue. No such position can be taken if you say something like "This statement is false"
Also dismissing the paradox on the grounds that statements regarding the future need not have truth value is skirting around the issue. No such position can be taken if you say something like "This statement is false"
A fellow philosophy student too?
Anyway, at the time of their utterance, predictive statements on their own have no truth values, so they aren't bound by the rules of logic. This would only apply if there was a predictate statement before the utterance. In this case, the statement is "if and only I tell a lie, than my nose will grow". He's telling the truth in thus statement, so therefore there is no paradox.
The question is not whether the Epimenides paradox exists, it's how Pinocchio's nose-growing rules might fail to account for such a paradox. Merely false statements is a nice, easy way to define lies to get the naive Epimenides paradox to apply, but then you have Pinocchio's nose growing when he's merely mistaken. I should think that lies require Pinocchio to maintain something resembling epistemic certainty about what he is making a statement about, although a too-strict certainty criterion leaves him unable to truly lie about much of anything. The fable might require malicious intent, as Myzoza brought up, on top of all that. I don't know for sure, maybe somebody more familiar with Pinocchio lore can help out here. But malicious intent is easy enough to inject into a hypothetical, as wacky as it may make the scenario, so it probably doesn't matter.
There's almost certainly a paradox in here somewhere, I just don't know what it is. Probably something in the spirit of "I believe my nose will grow as a result of this statement". A statement that covers what Pinocchio can actually know to be true or false (namely, his beliefs about the behavior of his nose), but which the nose cannot possibly decide because it references the nose-rules in a wacky Godel-like way.
There's almost certainly a paradox in here somewhere, I just don't know what it is. Probably something in the spirit of "I believe my nose will grow as a result of this statement". A statement that covers what Pinocchio can actually know to be true or false (namely, his beliefs about the behavior of his nose), but which the nose cannot possibly decide because it references the nose-rules in a wacky Godel-like way.
A way of looking at this is to assume the Nose operates akin to a perfect polygraph. That is, it is a non-omnipotent evaluating entity that is external to you, while at the same time has a set of heuristics to determine a truth/lie which is only indicative of intent, but it doesn't have direct access to intent. If we look at it from this sort of a perspective many problems iron themselves out. This also accommodates for the earlier supposition I put forward a few posts ago.
The Epimenides Paradox - This will seemingly resolve itself because the idea here is that the "truth-value" of a statement is contingent on two things. A. The factual literal accuracy of the statement within the solipsistic space of information available to the speaker, and B. The speaker's awareness of the positive truth-value of the given statement.
The best example to illustrate this would be, assume that Pinocchio dropped out of Grad School, but say he hacks into his school database to place himself in the records and calls up the school office to report he's an ex-student who lost his certificate and get a 'replacement' certificate. Now Pinocchio is looking a job based on falsified qualifications. Now say in his job interview he's asked: "Where'd you do your grad school?", he can answer something akin to the lines of "I have a degree to practice medicine from John Hopkins" which adheres to rule A and B, but at the same time is "malicious/deceptive" in intent. Therefore the nose won't grow but he would have successfully misled someone with his full knowledge of the fact.
In fact the paradox only exists in the old platonic mode of truth evaluation. This assumes that there's an innate "truth" and there's something that exists in opposition to that - "lie" (Hegelian Dialectics 101), which can objectively determined. This is a rather rigidly classical way of looking at this issue; very black and white. That is not to discredit it, entire modern systems like law are based on the application of this principle and from a practical point of view that's all you'd need to understand.
Rather what I'm interested in here, with the Pinocchio situation, is the semiotic understanding of what constitutes "truth" and conversely a "lie". And this is where I think the above analyses stop questioning.
The idea here is that there is nothing "innate" called the truth. Many of you above are running with the assumption about there being an innate quality to truth. But rather truth is actually determined by whether or not a particular statement is assigned truth-value in a (rather Foucauldian) paradigm of discourse. To put it simply truth for us is something that be believe to be the truth, which is again contained in the Perfect Polygraph theory. Therefore say if Epimenides knew that all Cretan's weren't liars when he made his statement then it would be a lie, since he's personally aware of the negative truth value of the statement - and if he had a pinocchio-esque nose, it'd grow. conversely if he was sincerely led to believe that indeed all Cretan's lied, his nose wouldn't grow. It's immaterial if he himself is a Cretan as the person making a statement lies outside the purview of the statement that he is making, and also in the case of the former he'd be the only Cretan lying, thus also defeating the universality of his statement. Therefore we can indeed see that Pinocchio's nose (in this scenario) can resolve the Paradox.
tl;dr: "Truth" or the "truth-value" of any statement/assertion is assigned subjectively rather than it being an innate objective quality.
To give another brief example to illustrate the above, let's assume Pinocchio's parents and teachers and everyone he ever met were all real dicks and he was taught that the colour blue was infact colour green. Then if he's ever asked what colour the sky is, he'd sincerely answer "green". His nose wouldn't grow because as far as Pinocchio is aware that statement is true for him.
To apply that logic to Jorgen's test statement, the nose will therefore evaluate the literal accuracy of the statement to the user's knowledge, and secondly the speaker's awareness of the same (remember A and B?) but in case of that statement neither A nor B are being fulfilled because he really cannot know. Therefore it then falls outside the realm of truth and falsity, and becomes a matter of opinion, which the nose doesn't evaluate, because belief is purely a subjective speculative and there isn't any objective metric to apply the perfect polygraph to. Because as I said - there is nothing innate about "truth".
The Epimenides Paradox - This will seemingly resolve itself because the idea here is that the "truth-value" of a statement is contingent on two things. A. The factual literal accuracy of the statement within the solipsistic space of information available to the speaker, and B. The speaker's awareness of the positive truth-value of the given statement.
The best example to illustrate this would be, assume that Pinocchio dropped out of Grad School, but say he hacks into his school database to place himself in the records and calls up the school office to report he's an ex-student who lost his certificate and get a 'replacement' certificate. Now Pinocchio is looking a job based on falsified qualifications. Now say in his job interview he's asked: "Where'd you do your grad school?", he can answer something akin to the lines of "I have a degree to practice medicine from John Hopkins" which adheres to rule A and B, but at the same time is "malicious/deceptive" in intent. Therefore the nose won't grow but he would have successfully misled someone with his full knowledge of the fact.
In fact the paradox only exists in the old platonic mode of truth evaluation. This assumes that there's an innate "truth" and there's something that exists in opposition to that - "lie" (Hegelian Dialectics 101), which can objectively determined. This is a rather rigidly classical way of looking at this issue; very black and white. That is not to discredit it, entire modern systems like law are based on the application of this principle and from a practical point of view that's all you'd need to understand.
Rather what I'm interested in here, with the Pinocchio situation, is the semiotic understanding of what constitutes "truth" and conversely a "lie". And this is where I think the above analyses stop questioning.
The idea here is that there is nothing "innate" called the truth. Many of you above are running with the assumption about there being an innate quality to truth. But rather truth is actually determined by whether or not a particular statement is assigned truth-value in a (rather Foucauldian) paradigm of discourse. To put it simply truth for us is something that be believe to be the truth, which is again contained in the Perfect Polygraph theory. Therefore say if Epimenides knew that all Cretan's weren't liars when he made his statement then it would be a lie, since he's personally aware of the negative truth value of the statement - and if he had a pinocchio-esque nose, it'd grow. conversely if he was sincerely led to believe that indeed all Cretan's lied, his nose wouldn't grow. It's immaterial if he himself is a Cretan as the person making a statement lies outside the purview of the statement that he is making, and also in the case of the former he'd be the only Cretan lying, thus also defeating the universality of his statement. Therefore we can indeed see that Pinocchio's nose (in this scenario) can resolve the Paradox.
tl;dr: "Truth" or the "truth-value" of any statement/assertion is assigned subjectively rather than it being an innate objective quality.
To give another brief example to illustrate the above, let's assume Pinocchio's parents and teachers and everyone he ever met were all real dicks and he was taught that the colour blue was infact colour green. Then if he's ever asked what colour the sky is, he'd sincerely answer "green". His nose wouldn't grow because as far as Pinocchio is aware that statement is true for him.
To apply that logic to Jorgen's test statement, the nose will therefore evaluate the literal accuracy of the statement to the user's knowledge, and secondly the speaker's awareness of the same (remember A and B?) but in case of that statement neither A nor B are being fulfilled because he really cannot know. Therefore it then falls outside the realm of truth and falsity, and becomes a matter of opinion, which the nose doesn't evaluate, because belief is purely a subjective speculative and there isn't any objective metric to apply the perfect polygraph to. Because as I said - there is nothing innate about "truth".
I feel a better question that has essentially the same meaning and avoids these technicalities is, what if Pinocchio told you "my nose grows when I say the phrase 'the sky is blue' (including this time)"
The phrase above is inherently untrue, therefore his nose would grow, thereby proving it true.
I would like to know what you think of this statement instead, as I feel it asks the same question, just less manipulatable.
The phrase above is inherently untrue, therefore his nose would grow, thereby proving it true.
I would like to know what you think of this statement instead, as I feel it asks the same question, just less manipulatable.
What is more interesting is why such statements are inherently untrue. I can think of a few lines of reasoning, many of which are actually pressingly related to the foundational assumptions of this supposed paradox. For example, we could say that the OP's presentation of Pinocchio's statement
does not have truth values:
1. Because it is a claim about the future.
2. Because it is a self-description. Self-descriptions are avowals, and are equivocal to non-verbal behaviors (which obviously do not have truth values in the normal rationalist sense). This pertains to your example where color predicates are invoked because colors are perceptual language, thus claims about the colors of objects are unverifiable in the absence of an explicit set of objective rules governing the usage of color predicates (which is also a problematic thing to propose).
I think there are a few more, but I can't think of them rn.
But I think a more pressing matter is the conflation of saying a statement that is untrue with lying. Is Pinocchio's nose actually God? Does it know the truth value of every statement? What about just every statement Pinocchio says? If so, then I would argue that the paradox is just a God trick, of no concern to contemporary epistemologies. Pinnochio's nose's growth either does or does not 'depend on'/'account for' the relationship between his mental states and his speech acts. If it does not, then there is no problem for rational skeptics, the paradox exists only if God does. If it does, then there is no paradox, the nose will grow, in all cases, according to a function that relates his avowals to his mental states (beliefs and intentions).
Thus, if the nose is more like a thermometer that measures Pinochio's degree of belief in the propositions he says, then there is no paradox here.
and Soul Fly truth values, for Foucault are produced by discourse not assigned by subjects (i.e 'assigned subjectively'). Thus, for Foucault, truth values are not produced subjectively, but rather intersubjectively, just as they were for Kant. Foucault, unlike Kant, draws attention to the production of knowledge and the functional purposes (i.e power/politics) that discourses serve (i.e "according to what logics are subjects positioned as subjects?"). Once subjects are theorized as subject-effects (i.e subjects are taken to be effects not causes/agents) there can be no more talk of subjectively/individually assigned truth values. What I am referring to as the 'functional purposes of discourse' has to do with how discourses (re)produce the conditions of their existence or are interrupted/resisted. Why do some identities and historical narratives come back over and over again (how do they become stabilized?), how did our present narratives of being/becoming emerge? The Foucauldian project is actually a 'refutation' of naive conceptions of Nietzsche's concept of the 'eternal return'. As for Gilles Deleuze, for Foucault, the 'eternal return' of existence returns as difference. The world is dynamic (always changing) and presents itself to subjects in complex ways (heterogenous 'life worlds' a la Leibniz).
Let me know your questions and concerns, but tbh I'm not that interested in 'how it worked in the fairy tale'.
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I suppose the problem with trying to create a "paradox" mainly arises because we're trying to program an abstract paradoxical statement P = not-P (a.k.a. "this proposition is false") into a mechanism. In a vacuum, one could say, "I propose an axiom 'P = not-P'." It would be a bad axiom to propose because a system containing it would assign True and False to everything, but one could propose it. However, even just trying to apply this to a computer program wouldn't work, because writing it out requires you not to instantiate P until afterward. This means we inevitably get into the fact that Pinocchio's statement is a claim about the future (as discussed by others) or, more specifically, a claim about the nose's mechanism (as a prediction is, in a way, a claim about whatever is used to justify it). The logic behind the nose's properties has already been instantiated to allow Pinocchio to refer to it at all. This defeats the purpose of talking about assigning truth values (or lie / dissemination-of-knowledge values, if one prefers) to P, because the nose already "knows" what to do about P... or it doesn't know, and it throws an exception, and God says, "Oh shit!" and then the universe collapses. That's the answer OP wanted, right?
I guess I brought this up because I feel like people place way too much importance on the "truth value" of a statement that somebody makes, when outside of controlled scientific inquiries, there are so many other aspects that contribute to the consequences of a statement.
I guess I brought this up because I feel like people place way too much importance on the "truth value" of a statement that somebody makes, when outside of controlled scientific inquiries, there are so many other aspects that contribute to the consequences of a statement.
But what if you're Chinese/Korean/Japanese? 青