Adverbs and Events

Davidson had a clever idea with his theory of adverbs. It seemed both intuitive and ingenious, a genuine advance. It linked language and ontology, showed the power of standard logic, and provided a model for future work. We might compare it to Russell’s theory of descriptions: a clever and convincing account of logical form. It cemented Davidson’s reputation. I remember thinking in my callow youth: That’s impressive. Russell’s theory avoids ontological extravagance in the form of Meinongian objects; Davidson’s theory avoids ontological extravagance in the form of manners of having properties. We don’t have to say that “John ran quickly” requires the existence of manners of running in addition to John and the property of running. We just have quantification over events and predicates of events. For an adverbial sentence to be true is for an event (an action) to satisfy a predicate (instantiate a property). For John to run quickly is  for an event of John’s running to have the property of being quick. Adverbs are predicates of events. That is the logical form of an action sentence. It is hard to find counterexamples and objections to this theory; it is simple and straightforward, and has the ring of truth. For someone to run quickly is for that person’s run to be quick. We can apply this to both types and tokens: the type of a cheetah running is quick, and so are the tokens of that type. How could this theory not be correct?

From an ontological point of view, the theory looks to be on solid ground. There are events, actions are events, and adverbs qualify events. They don’t qualify objects: you can’t say “This cat quickly”. Nor do they qualify properties or attributes: you can’t say “Tabby is a quickly cat”. You can say “Tabby runs quickly”. If there were no events, there would be no need for adverbs; and if there are events, we need a way to describe them—as slow or quick, careful or careless, at midnight or midday. Actions are events that are performed by agents, and adverbs describe how these events are performed—what kind of events they are (quick or slow). For any adverbial sentence, there is a corresponding adjectival sentence with the same truth conditions and meaning. What more could you ask of a theory? It is built on a sound metaphysics and it gets the semantics right. It doesn’t postulate queer ad hoc entities and it faces no convincing counterexamples in the form of sentences not analyzable this way. It would appear that our work is done.

But a puzzle remains: if the theory is that good, why do adverbs exist at all? Russell can respond to a similar question by appealing to considerations of syntactic simplicity—natural language abbreviates the longer analysis supplied by his theory for ease of use. But adverbs don’t do much abbreviating; they add syntactic complexity. Why not just say what you want to say in explicitly predicative terms? Why not say “John’s run was quick”? Do any natural languages do this, and if they do why don’t all? Why don’t we refer to events and predicate properties of them—as we do for particular objects and kinds of objects? It would simplify matters and give the child one less bit of grammar to learn. Natural language begins to look strangely structured, at odds with reality. Does it result from some kind of brain quirk out of sync with ontology? It seems logically (and ontologically) misleading. It seems pointlessly in error—suggesting such things as manners of property instantiation (“John instantiates running in a quick manner” or “John quickly-instantiates running”). Why not just say “John’s run was quick” or some such? I don’t know why—it is genuinely puzzling. We could call this the “puzzle of adverbs”—why don’t they wear their semantics on their sleeve? Why did it take ingenuity to come up with Davidson’s theory? It didn’t take much ingenuity to come up with the predicate theory of adjectives, so why do adverbs present a hurdle to overcome? Why did Davidson have to be clever in order to come up with his theory? Why does it seem, if only momentarily, that it might not be correct? It’s enough to make you think you might have missed something. It seems inarguably true and yet not obviously (superficially) true. The possibility of a counterexample seems ever-present. As I say, puzzling.[1]

[1] I don’t believe Davidson ever addressed this problem (or anyone else).  How can a semantic theory be both clearly true and yet not apparently true? Russell’s theory is not clearly true and has been seriously contested, but Davidson’s has the look of a truism—an apparently false one.

Atrocious Atoms

Elsewhere I have described atoms as annoying.[1] Dull, dreary, drab. I now want to extend that critique to a further level—they are also atrocious. The OED gives us “horrifyingly wicked” and “extremely bad and unpleasant”. So be it: atoms are that. Strong words indeed, but let’s explore some of the more disagreeable aspects of the atom. They are not unfamiliar. The most obvious is their bomb-making potential: what is called the atomic bomb. You don’t need that many atoms to get a terrifying bomb; and the bombs work admirably. They aren’t even all that expensive. It is calculated that we already have enough atomic firepower to destroy the planet as a habitable place. The atom is poised to do that destructive work. This came as something of a surprise—mostly atoms are not that scary. It took Einstein to notice their capacity for destruction. One wonders how an intelligent benevolent God could create a universe with bombs at the foundation—he couldn’t have used something a bit less dangerous? In any case, these are nasty pieces of work, coiled for Armageddon. We are lucky that not all atoms can have their energy unleashed in the way the uranium atom can. Atomic weapons are truly atrocious. They can be used to commit atrocities. Atrociousness is what they are all about. What will you think of the atom when its power comes raining down? That’s number one. Number two, they are radioactive: they leak sickness. Have you ever watched footage of the victims of Chernobyl? It doesn’t bear looking at. Have you seen the genetic damage wrought by the fallout of nuclear weapons? It’s enough to give the word “nucleus” a bad name (it just means the central important part of an entity). Not only can atoms explode; they can also sicken and kill. Radiation sickness is a horrible thing. Anything that causes it is aptly designated “atrocious”. Again, why use such a vicious entity to create a universe occupied by living things? It’s asking for trouble, and trouble has been given. You can imagine a Satanic being sniggering at the sheer nastiness of it—“I know, let’s create a world in which the basic components kill slowly and horribly!”. Now that our energy needs are pushing us in the direction of nuclear power, with its attendant dangers, one has to question the wisdom of the decision to use atoms as the building blocks of reality. It’s risky at best, and catastrophic at worst. I would like a serious word with the Grand Designer. I will give her a piece of my mind.

That’s all common knowledge, widely recognized. But there is something else about atoms to which I wish to draw attention, that I will call their promiscuity. I don’t mean their sexual license; I mean their “indiscriminate or unselective” (OED) character. They will go anywhere, combine with anything, no matter how vile. They just don’t care what they compose—what they enable. No matter how nasty, evil, and disgusting a thing is they will sit happily inside it and provide its substance. Atoms are what made Adolf Hitler possible! They composed his brain; they enabled his mind. All the evil of the world is made possible by atoms. You would think a benevolent creator would see to it that the basic components of the world would not be capable of forming such terrible objects—but those components as willingly compose Adolf Hitler as they compose Mahatma Gandhi. Atoms make evil possible and real. Obviously, no one foresaw this possibility, or they might have installed safeguards, issued regulations (“Not to be used for the creation of evil”). Serial killers are made of the same atoms as you or I. It isn’t that if you examine them under a microscope, you find some other sort of material: we are all made of the same stuff no matter how much we vary morally. Absolutely nothing prevents atoms from giving rise to the worst of things—no matter how disgusting or immoral. They are atrociously promiscuous. They will do it with anybody anytime. It’s really a disgrace. Atoms have no problem making up even the most evil of intentions, the vilest of crimes. They simply have no decency. They are not gentlemen. You can’t take them anywhere.

And there is a horrible twist to all this unconscionable promiscuity: the very atoms which once composed the worst of things can migrate into another body that is innocent of depravity. Think of it: atoms that once sat inside the head of Hitler could now be sitting inside your head! Those atoms might once have been party to the most heinous of crimes and now reside in a skull that is all sweetness and light. It is logically possible that a newborn baby be composed of the very same atoms that composed Hitler’s body (his buttocks and feet, say). I need not pursue this thought further: atoms move around and make up different objects over time, so you might be made of atoms that once made that. It is not contrary to the laws of nature (or the laws of God apparently) that atoms that composed dinosaur excrement now compose your brain. That’s how promiscuous atoms are. They know no limits, recognize no boundaries. Shouldn’t this be prohibited? Shouldn’t atoms be put behind bars? Where have the atoms that compose your body been? What kind of company have they kept? What is their criminal history? But atoms are oblivious to any of this—they just go where they please, do whatever they feel like doing. They are completely undiscriminating. They will do whatever they are called upon to do, no questions asked. It’s really appalling behavior. Atoms are promiscuous, ethically blind, lethally explosive, and dangerous to human (and animal) health. It’s not a good resume. All in all, pretty atrocious.[2]

[1] See my “Annoying Atoms”.

[2] You might think I am writing with tongue in cheek. Perhaps a bit, but really I am just taking a step back from our customary habits of thought. I am evaluating what we take to be just fact (cf. animal exploitation).

Laws and Reality

I am going to be brief but broad. It is a plausible thesis that reality requires laws: nothing can exist and not be subject to natural law. This applies to the mind as well as the physical world. Laws make things what they are; you cannot detach the laws and expect the particulars to remain the same. You can’t have the same particulars existing in a possible world and yet the laws of nature are completely different. The same goes for natural kinds: the kinds of the actual world necessarily obey the laws (or similar laws) they actually obey. Particulars, kinds, and laws are inextricable. Lions can’t obey the laws of spiders (they wouldn’t be lions) and iron can’t obey the laws of rubber (it wouldn’t be iron). So, the physical world must obey some physical laws, even if not the ones we now accept; and similarly for the mental world. But it is a further question how strict these laws are, or must be: must they be strict and exceptionless or can they be non-strict and allow exceptions? It is difficult to accept that all the laws could be non-strict—some must be strict, though not all must be strict. The most reasonable position is that all sectors of reality must have both strict laws and non-strict laws. In addition, we may assume that they also have non-lawlike true generalizations (e.g., “All the coins in my pocket are dimes”). So, physical things must fall under strict laws, non-strict laws, and non-lawlike generalizations. Basic physics, folk physics, and coincidences.

Is the same thing true of the mind? Yes, it must be, because the mind also is a part of nature—a natural object. It would be widely agreed that the mind obeys non-strict psychological laws—such as the law that people tend to act on their desires. But does the mind also obey strict laws? Is there a basic psychology as there is a basic physics? That is not so clear. If it doesn’t, it must obey strict laws of some sort, by our earlier considerations. A reason to think the laws cannot be purely psychological is that the mind is always being affected by things outside of it—psychophysical causal connections. Let’s suppose this to be true: all purely psychological laws are non-strict. That doesn’t imply that the mind obeys no strict laws—those laws might be physical or psychophysical. The first alternative can be ruled out, because these would not be laws of the mind—just physical laws of associated physical things, such as the brain. So, the laws would have to be psychophysical, linking the brain to the mind presumably. Therefore, there are strict psychophysical laws. This doesn’t mean that all psychophysical laws must be strict; some no doubt are not strict. But some must be strict: there must be exceptionless laws connecting the mind to the physical world outside the mind, presumably the brain. This is a rather strong result: there are strict laws of nature connecting what happens in the brain with what happens in the mind. These laws coexist with non-strict psychophysical laws, perhaps underlying them in some way.

This opens up an intriguing possibility. Given that we don’t know of any strict psychophysical laws, or very few, there must be other laws, hitherto unknown, that connect mind and brain (or mind and body, or mind and world). There must be (strict) psychophysical laws that we don’t know. And if our present nomological knowledge of mind and brain is far from providing any strict laws, as seems likely, then the necessary strict psychophysical laws must be quite far removed from current knowledge. Let’s accept that proposition: then we can say that mind and brain must satisfy descriptions (have properties) not currently anticipated in our conceptual scheme. We have no idea of the strict laws that connect mind and brain, but such laws must exist. We thus obtain a kind of mysterianism from the assumption of the universality of strict laws (combined with their current absence in the psychophysical case). Even if we have an inkling of the required law in some cases, it is still true that every non-strict law presupposes the existence of a strict law, so there will be many cases of strict psychophysical laws that we don’t know. This would mean, for example, that intentional action must fall under strict psychophysical laws that we don’t know—or even know how to find. Ordinary belief-desire psychology only gives us non-strict laws, but these must point to other laws that are strict. But what might those be? Not laws of belief-desire psychology presumably, because they yield only non-strict laws. The strictness requirement leads to a rather startling admission of ignorance, if not mystery. Intuitively, desires never necessitate, so there must something else of a psychological nature that underlies desires—this thing being what the strict laws concern. The mind must be made of something other than beliefs and desires where action is concerned. Other types of psychophysical link would yield the same kind of conclusion given that we only have non-strict laws as things are (e.g., laws linking stimuli and percepts, or emotions and emotional reactions). It may equally be true that the brain must have states other than those currently postulated, in order to provide the needed psychophysical laws. The brain must be made of more than our present picture of it indicates. Strict laws need appropriate descriptions, but we don’t now possess such descriptions, so there must be descriptions we don’t know. The world is inherently law-governed, both strictly and non-strictly, so there has to be more to it than we suppose. And not just a little more but a lot more, because the gap is wide, the ignorance profound. In a word: laws imply mystery.[1]

[1] I am obviously using some of the terminology and apparatus that Davidson introduced in “Mental Events”.

Annoying Atoms

I have come to a rather grim conclusion: I don’t like atoms. Never have, never will. There is something so annoying about them. I wonder if I can get you to see it that way. This is not a phobia on my part, or a prejudice, but a considered judgment. It just isn’t cool that the universe is made of atoms—not nice, not delightful, not fun. I will make a list of all the things I don’t like about atoms. There are way too many of them to start with; no rarity value. There is far too much empty space inside them with nothing of interest going on. They are monotonous, samey, devoid of originality. They are dull, dull, dull. They are distressingly simple, lacking in interesting complexity. Their parts are even simpler: an electron is simple to the point of being virtually nothing (or if electrons have parts, these parts are irritatingly simple). They are invisible, which doesn’t endear them to our senses, and suggests reticence. They are arbitrary in their make-up: why should they be composed of a nucleus surrounded by revolving electrons? Who said that was the way things should be? They are annoyingly opaque, puzzling, secretive. They are depressingly reductive, breaking everything down into the same monotonous units. They are not beautiful. They are lifeless, machine-like. They can be used to make terrifying bombs and may one day annihilate all life on Earth (this I can’t forgive them for). Above all, to my mind, they never change, never evolve, never improve, never branch out, never surprise. They are tedious. They just stay stolidly the same, complacently, as if perfectly content with themselves. They have no history worthy of the name, no drama, no narrative arc. They just are, dully, unchangeably. They make the truth about the universe boring. They are just tiny mindless, lifeless, bits of nothing (“matter”). They have mass and charge (or their constituents do), but that is about all they can manage in the way of an inner nature. I suspect that if we could see them, we would never give them a second glance, like drab gray bricks in a building. They are like bores at a party, faceless functionaries, the least interesting things in the universe.

In case my anti-atom rhetoric has failed to move you (defenders of the dull), let me remind you of some more interesting things. Animals are a lot more interesting, and so are plants. So, even, are bacteria. We contemplate these things with interest and delight in our eyes (maybe not bacteria)—all of us, not just zoological and botanical specialists. But it takes an atomic physicist to light up when atoms are mentioned; no ordinary person loves the atom. No one wants atoms as pets or decorations (“I have some fine atoms over here”). Nature documentaries about atoms don’t have the viewership of wildlife documentaries. The atom is not audience-friendly, except to people of a particular type. It is more enjoyable to be a zoologist than an atomic physicist (of course, they will deny this). Atoms just don’t have the aesthetic properties of animals and plants. Who could love an electron? Who wants pictures of the hydrogen atom on their wall (please don’t say physics students)? Even pebbles are more aesthetically appealing—round, shiny, rubbable. Insects are more interesting and attractive (except perhaps termites, which resemble atoms in their quantity and uniformity). Black holes are more attention-grabbing. In the astronomical world asteroids approach atoms most closely in their intrinsic dullness: shapeless bits of rock and dirt wandering aimlessly through the void, of only scientific interest (is there any asteroid art?). Molecules are slightly more appealing than atoms, the more complex the better (DNA is pretty interesting). At least molecules introduce some variety into the world, instead of the monotonous homogeneity of the atomic world (a point-like nucleus surrounded by a varying number of electrons).[1] To get us interested in atoms physicists have used the analogy of the solar system, or anthropomorphized the constituents—or else restless minds would wander. I am not saying that atoms have no scientific interest; I am saying they have no human interest. They have no human meaning. Or precious little—they are after all what the Mona Lisa is made of, which is something. Imagine if the atoms of the universe had never clumped together but floated around in a formless gas—wouldn’t that be the dreariest thing imaginable? No animals, no plants, no stars, no planets—just a soup of miserable atoms. What a world to live in! Atoms are redeemed by what they can compose, but in themselves they are nothing to write home about (“Saw some helium atoms today—nothing interesting to report”). The more I think about it, the more I resentthe fact that atoms constitute the basic truth about the world—couldn’t things have been a bit more fun, a bit livelier? Is that the best the big bang could come up with, or God? Thanks a lot, one wants to say. Thanks for nothing.

If I have still failed to persuade you of the utter bankruptcy of atoms, their affront to the sensitive discerning mind, then let me drive the final nail into their coffin as objects of refinement and quality. For they seem almost gratuitously uninteresting and intrinsically disappointing (they need to apologize for themselves). Things were not as lowering before they came along (or our knowledge of them did). Physical science was not always so dire, so dismal, so dispiriting (am I overdoing it now?). What I have in mind is the physical universe as conceived before the atomic theory became the accepted truth: the four elements of earth, water, air, and fire. These have human significance, they form part of our lived experience, they have interesting natures (bees compared to termites). We live on the earth, derive our nourishment from it, gaze upon it; we drink water, bathe in it, play with it; we breathe air, feel it on our face, can’t do without it for long; we use fire to cook and warm ourselves, it is spectacular, it must be carefully managed. This is our life-world. It is not a humanly indifferent alien world of tiny faceless particles glued tenuously together. Animals know nothing of this abstract lifeless world, as our ancestors knew nothing of it. The world was a lot more agreeable when it was conceived in the richer terms of the four elements. Nature had variety and contrast, but now it is just a vast heap of invisible particles differing only quantitatively. We woke up one day to find that nature was no longer our friend and collaborator but a kind of desert—bland, blank. The atom is the ultimate expression of nature’s indifference to us and all life. It knows nothing of life and could care less. It could kill us all and not bat an eyelid. If it does kill us, it will just continue on its mindless, pointless way. The atom is fundamentally psychopathic. It isn’t even our enemy. I might almost say that the atom proves the non-existence of God—for why would God put such a colorless, dead, dreary, drab, prosaic, humdrum thing at the very foundation of human (and animal) life? I know that atoms exist, but I don’t have to like it. I know I am made of atoms, but I don’t have to celebrate the fact. I wouldn’t mind if they all disappeared and were replaced by something more to my taste. Away drab and dire atoms![2]

[1] Aren’t strings the most boring thing imaginable? The universe is made of bits of string! Say it isn’t so.

[2] I can imagine Hamlet giving an impassioned speech about atoms, condemning their lumpy fatuity (“Oh, callous atom!”, etc.) To be an atom, or not to be an atom… Why must everything revolve around such dreadful things? Atoms are a downer, no doubt about it. Even rats are more congenial. It’s about time humanity declared its distaste for the atomic. And let’s not forget that atoms are radioactive. They are (potentially) poisonous.