Friday, April 12, 2019

The superstition of bi-valent logic

Most logics are bi-valent. However:

"Hegel developed his own dialectic logic that extended Kant's transcendental logic but also brought it back to ground by assuring us that 'neither in heaven nor in earth, neither in the world of mind nor of nature, is there anywhere such an abstract 'either–or' as the understanding maintains. Whatever exists is concrete, with difference and opposition in itself."

Lakoff: "Classical categories are understood metaphorically in terms of bounded regions, or ‘containers.’ Thus, something can be in or out of a category, it can be put into a category or removed from a category, etc. The logic of classical categories is the logic of containers. […] One of the principal logical properties of classical categories is that the classical syllogism holds for them."

However the logic of containers is only one of many logics. Other logics follow from other image schema. The problem arises from choosing one logic as the one and only correct logic that corresponds to the world, in this case bi-valency. Our art, film etc. reflect this move away from such fallacious claims of the one, true logic.

Still, we humans are taught to believe in one universal truth. Claiming it in science or logic is akin to claiming it in religion. The former is no better than the latter in this superstitious, fallacious premise.

I prefer Abramson's version of metamodernism, as it directly pertains to the arts.

One of his principles of MM is simultaneity and ambiguity, reminiscent of Gebser. For Gebser though it is simultaneity of a host of different structures. And for cogsci it is simultaneity of a host of equally valid image schema and metaphors. It is multi-valent.

"The idea that the metamodern self does not move between differing positions but in fact inhabits all of them at once. The paradoxical element of metamodern juxtapositions is produced by this very simultaneity; after all, if one were to very self-consciously 'oscillate' between opposing positions, one would in fact just be acknowledging the dominance of postmodern dialectics (i.e., binary systems with 'poles' at either end that one can swing between)."

He also notes another aspect of MM is a 'cautious' return to metanarrative. While he doesn't go in this direction, cogsci asserts its premises as a universal, scientific metanarrative of embodiment. In so doing it does though challenge other metanarratives like that of the superstitious varieties noted above.

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