Is the Universe Large?

If you study astronomy, it will be impressed upon you that the universe is large—very very very large, unimaginably so. The galaxies, their number, the distance between them, the travel times (even for light)—the universe is an extremely big object, much bigger than you thought, much bigger than anyone thought until quite recently. A feeling of awe routinely follows. I am going to argue that this is not true: the universe is not extremely large—it isn’t even large simpliciter. This is not because I have discovered that cosmologists have got their measurements wrong and the universe is actually much smaller than they thought; it follows rather from the semantics of the word “large”, from its ordinary meaning. The sentence “The universe is large” is not true (nor is the sentence “The universe is small”). The argument is in fact quite simple and obvious. Consider “Jumbo is large” said of an elephant. This sentence is true if and only if Jumbo is large for an elephant.[1] To be large for an elephant is to be larger than most elephants (or the typical elephant, or a normal adult elephant, or some such). That is, there is a (non-empty) comparison class presupposed in the original sentence, viz. the class of elephants. That is why a large flea is smaller than a small elephant—different comparison classes. We can thus define the positive use of the adjective in terms of the comparative use (and the superlative use too—the largest elephant is larger than all elephants). Crucially, there is no sense in the positive use unless there exists a suitable comparison class. So, what is the comparison class for “The universe is large”? A large what, we must ask. A large universe, of course: This (pointing at our universe) is a large universe—the adjective now standing in attributive position. It is large for a universe—i.e., larger than most universes. But there aren’t any other universes! There is just this universe; there are no other universes hanging out in the wings. There are no other universes for ours to be larger than, some smaller, some larger. Of course, the universe (note the definite article) is larger than the solar system or the whole Milky Way or a cluster of galaxies; but it is not larger than some other universe. That is the sortal term we need to make sense of the original claim, not “galaxy” and the like. The universe is certainly much larger than the things contained in it, but it is not larger than the other universes, because there are none. Maybe it is larger than some other possible universes, but that is irrelevant, since a small elephant is not rendered large by the merely possible existence of yet smaller elephants (nor is a large elephant rendered small by the possible existence of still larger elephants). No, the universe can only be meaningfully described as large if there are actual universes smaller than it—but there are none such. It’s like saying the Eiffel tower is a large Eiffel tower when there is only one Eiffel tower. The universe is not larger than some other existing universe, so it makes no sense to speak of it as large—larger than what exactly? Other objects exist within a class of similar objects between which comparisons of size can be made, but that is precisely what cannot be said of the universe (everything that actually exists). If there were such co-existing universes, then it would make sense to say that this one is large by comparison with them (say, twice as far across), but that is what is signally lacking. Nothing is inherently large or small—a comparison class is needed for such judgments—so it is meaningless to suggest that the universe itself might be large (or small).

Why then do we insist on talking this way? The answer is that we are tacitly describing the universe subjectively, by reference to ourselves and our local environment. Yes, the universe is vastly larger than us or our particular neck of the cosmic woods, but it doesn’t follow that it is large in any objective sense. We tend to think anything larger than us is large in an absolute sense: to be larger than us is to be large, period. But that is an anthropocentric perspective: there is nothing intrinsically large about the spatial-material macro universe, as there is nothing intrinsically small about the micro world of atoms, quarks, etc. A possible world containing only free-floating atoms has nothing small in it, as a world containing many objects the size of our universe has nothing large in it. When we speak of such things as large or small tout court, we are thinking of them in comparison with our size, but really there is nothing to these descriptions, objectively speaking. The world does not come into existence containing small things and big things, only bigger or smaller things. The terms are completely relative, either to us or to suitable comparison classes. Things have shape and other qualities intrinsically, but their size is a relational matter. If I describe a mountain as huge, I am tacitly comparing it to my own body; compared to a whole planet it is a mere speck.

The same point applies to other attributive adjectives used in astronomy and cosmology and physics—“hot”, “heavy”, “fast”, “strong”, and their antonyms. The Sun is said to be extremely hot in its interior; some elements are described as heavy; the speed of light is said to be very fast; some forces are said to be strong. But none of these uses is truly objective: things are said to be “hot” or “cold” relative to normal human (or animal) temperatures, and the same for “heavy”, “fast”, and “strong”. These uses are subjective intrusions into our descriptions of nature, or else technical terms defined by objective relations between things. To say that light travels very fast can only mean much faster than we can or faster than other physical things. Nothing is inherently hot or heavy or fast or strong: there is nothing of our subjective nature in them, and they all come down to physical relations described in comparative terms. Gravity, say, is only described as a weak force in comparison with the electromagnetic force; it is not weak in any absolute sense. In a possible world in which things regularly travel faster than the speed of light, it could be correct to say that light travels slowly, even very slowly. That is just the logic of attributive adjectives (of this class). Semantically, light could be a slow mover and the Sun’s interior pretty cool and black holes quite light (weight-wise)—it all depends on what is true of other things that form the comparison classes for these attributions. We must not commit the fallacy of misplaced absoluteness. The language of astronomy, cosmology, and physics is logically misleading and could do with an overhaul. It needs de-subjectivizing.[2]

[1] Attributive adjectives like “large” are said to be syncategorematic, needing the appended noun in order to have meaning. The sentence “Jumbo is a large elephant” does not mean “Jumbo is large and an elephant”.

[2] There are even emotional connotations to these words that have no place in rigorous austere objective science: “hot” and “cold” evoke more or less hospitable environments; “heavy” suggests something hard to carry or potentially crushing; “fast” is something we like in ourselves but not in a predator; “strong” connotes an admirable quality. Such words humanize what should not be humanized, i.e., the physical universe. Even words like “attraction” and “repulsion” are suspiciously anthropomorphic. The constellations are clearly human projections not hard objective astronomical facts. The Sun and Moon have been personified since the dawn of man.

Proof of an External World

Kant famously (and ruefully) remarked that it was a scandal of philosophy that it has been unable to come up with a proof of the external world. He was right: it is a matter of some embarrassment that philosophy should be unable to prove something so obvious, so commonsensical. What good is philosophy if it can’t even prove something that elementary? The proof need not be simple or obvious (that also would be to the detriment of philosophy as an interesting enterprise); it could be intricate and convoluted, with spots of uncertainty. I am going to offer such a proof: it has a Kantian ring, but is not to my knowledge to be found in Kant (or anywhere else). This should remove the scandal and prove the worth of the discipline of philosophy. It should also be personally satisfying (I myself feel a great sense of relief).

Let’s start with a simple thought, which will point us in the right direction. Suppose the skeptic says that our perceived world might be pure projection—a figment of the human imagination, corresponding to no further reality. After all, we already agree that much of it is projection—as with the perception of color and other secondary qualities. Why not all—why shouldn’t primary qualities also be subjective projections? We might think there is an obvious reply to this: projections need a screen onto which to project, which is not itself a projection. Thus, material objects in space provide the screen onto which colors (etc.) are projected; they are the equivalent of the movie screen that pre-exists the pattern of light thrown onto it. So, the perceived world can’t all be projected image; it must include a non-mental background. If so, we have a proof of the external world: it follows from the fact of subjective projection that something other than projection must exist, viz. material objects in space. But, of course, the skeptic will not be deterred by this simple-minded maneuver: he will suggest that the alleged non-mental screen is really just a virtual world, an imaginary world, a fictional world. So-called objects in space are non-existent objects, or may be for all we know. It only seems to us as if such objects exist; they might all be non-existent intentional objects, like objects in dreams or works of fiction or hallucinations. It is that hypothesis that needs to be disproved in order to prove that there is an external world. For example, there is an appearance of a square object in my visual field, but this could be a non-existent square object not one that really inhabits objective space. How can we rule this possibility out? I could be dreaming of a square object in front of me, this object being a mere figment of my imagination.

Here is the problem with this alternative skeptical hypothesis: we normally think there is a definite number of things that fall under a perceived (or conceived) attribute, but this will not be so if its extension consists only of non-existent objects. If lions and square things exist, then there is a definite number of them, known or unknown; but if they don’t exist, then there is no definite number of them. The point is familiar: there is no definite number of moles on Hamlet’s back or unicorns or angels or fairies. Such things are numerically indeterminate. But we normally think that ordinary objects of perception come in definite quantities, so they can’t just be non-existent entities. It follows from the fact of numerical determinacy that the objects of perception are not non-existent. Indeed, it is their existence in space that accounts for their numerical determinacy, since material objects are individuated by their location in space. Since non-existent objects do not exist in space, they can have no spatial principle of individuation that underpins their numerical determinacy. So, the skeptical hypothesis can be ruled out and our normal conception accepted. However, the skeptic is not beaten yet: why not say that there is no definite number of square things or lions since they are non-existent intentional objects? Why not bite the bullet and accept that consequence?

First, we should note that even if we do bite the bullet, we are still accepting that there are non-mental objects, because non-existent square things are not mental entities, any more than existent square things are (same for lions). We can quantify over them and they are not mental, so we have still proved that there are non-mental things (that don’t exist). But second, it is not so easy to give up on the numerical determinacy of attribute extensions: for attributes like these (sortal attributes) provide principles of counting, criteria of individuation, and these will generate assignments of cardinality. It is easy to miss this when an attribute applies to both existent and non-existent objects, but what sense does it make to suppose that an attribute that applies to pluralities of objects applies to no definite plurality of objects? If we claim that the attribute lioncorresponds to no definite number of lions, how can it be said to distinguish one lion from another? Not in virtue of position in space, to be sure, because non-existent lions don’t exist in (real) space. We lose the idea of a totality of individual lions standing in spatial relations to each other and adding up to a specific number of lions. That idea requires existence; it can’t survive in the realm of non-existence. The notion of non-existent lions is parasitic on that of existent lions, but then we are back with the external world as naively conceived. A fictionalist about minds (a mental eliminativist) has a problem about the individuation of minds—how many non-existent fictional minds are there?—and a fictionalist about bodies has the same problem about theirquantity. There really must be a definite number of minds and bodies for those concepts to have any intelligible content, but that idea goes out the window once we give up on existence altogether. Even the concepts of identity and difference begin to wobble when we enter the land of the non-existent (when are non-existent gods identical and when different?).

The attitude of sophisticated common sense is that we perceive a world of objects laid out in space, numerically distinct from each other, and forming totalities of specific cardinality. The skeptic tries to convince us that what we perceive are just non-existent intentional objects, but this involves abandoning the idea that we have concepts with definite cardinalities attached to them; and that is not a possible position, given the nature of our concepts (and associated attributes). Thus, an external world exists. The essential move in this proof is the observation that non-existence can provide no grounds for determining the number of things falling into the extension of a concept; only existence in space (in the case of material objects) can provide a basis for this determination. Things that don’t exist are not really countable in the way we normally (and rightly) take objects to be. Countability implies objectivity.[1]

[1] The proof here offered comes at the problem from a surprising direction. I think this is what we should expect, since no obviousmethod of proof has succeeded in removing the scandal. It would be surprising if the proof were not surprising.

My Left Foot

An update on my left hand, and then a corollary on my left foot. I can now stick a knife from about 18 feet throwing with my left hand, no spin. This is substantial progress from a month ago. I also find that my two-handed backhand, which is governed by the left hand, is far more reliable and natural than it was a month ago. It feels as if my brain has accepted that it is expected to control the shot with the left hand, leaving the right hand along for the ride. So, my backhand has improved correspondingly. Meanwhile drumming and guitar playing have also improved, the left hand being a lot more dexterous than before (even though I have been playing the drums for 60 years).  This is all pretty surprising, but what also surprised me was this: my left foothas made a leap forward. I know this because the left foot is the hi-hat foot and my hi-hat playing has improved markedly. I’m having a left side renaissance! All this evidently stems from my ventures into knife throwing. Perhaps everybody should engage in left-side training from an early age (assuming they are right-handed); I am 74 and I am seeing these benefits. Bend Sinister, as Nabokov would say.

Is Speaking Acting?

We have grown accustomed to the phrase “speech act”, so much so that we regard it as a truism: of coursespeech is a type of action! It is an action we perform with our mouth and larynx as opposed to our hands or feet. Assertion is something we do—it is an intentional action. Nor is it an action merely in the very broad sense the word “action” allows: as when a physicist speaks of action at a distance or action and reaction, or a physiologist speaks of the action of the digestive system, or a psychologist speaks of reflexes as actions. No, the word is meant to imply intentional goal-directed intelligent conscious action, like preparing for a party or an exam. It doesn’t just mean uttering words, making sounds come out of your mouth, flapping your lips about. Speech is not action merely in that trivial sense. The idea of the speech act, as it is commonly understood, is supposed to be opposed to the idea simply of picturing a fact or expressing a proposition or stating a truth or pronouncing a word; a speech act is held to be an action that does something with words—gets something done, like making the hearer bring you a glass of water. Speaking is a practical activity, according to this conception, like farming or building a house. And since speaking is the primary form of language, language itself is to be conceived as action-oriented: knowing a language is a species of knowing-how, an ability to act in the world—intentionally, consciously, purposively. So we have been schooled to believe. I will argue that this is all wrong, from top to bottom; it is simply not true that speaking is acting in this full-blooded sense. It is not an action at all, save in a very attenuated and trivial sense (not the sense intended by its proponents). The “pragmatic turn” is an error.

I begin with an easy point. If assertion is an intentional action, it must be accompanied by an intention, namely the intention to assert. But people who assert do not in general have such an intention, because they don’t have the concept of assertion. They are not linguists or philosophers of language (certainly not speech act theorists). People don’t classify their utterances as assertions, even when they are (or interrogatives, imperatives, optatives, performatives, or exhortatives). They just say things a theorist may classify in this way; such classification is generally alien to them. So, it is not true that whenever someone makes an assertion, he or she does so under the aegis of an intention to assert. The speaker may have other intentions, like intending to inform or embarrass or contradict the hearer, but she doesn’t typically have an intention to make an assertion (a speech act theorist might have such an intention). Moreover, it is hard to see how she could have such an intention, since there is no agreement on what an assertion is: is it an attempt to communicate knowledge to the hearer, or just belief, or mere consideration, or a mental act of imagining? Are we to suppose that the ordinary speaker has a view about which of these theories of assertion is correct? No, she just comes out with a sentence that we characterize as an assertion; no such notion need enter her head. So, the category of assertions cannot be defined as those speech acts that are performed with the backing of an intention to assert—for there is no such intention in the normal case. All we have, at most, is a variety of intentions that might accompany assertions, e.g., the intention to inform the hearer of something (which might be accomplished in many ways, not all them via assertoric speech). And there might be no intention at all, just a kind of reflex or habit of speech, like rolling the tongue around the mouth or smacking the lips or swallowing one’s saliva (what are called “sub-intentional actions”). Isn’t a lot of idle chatter like that, or mumbling to oneself, or speech produced by rote? Sometimes words just pop out without any guiding intention, automatically, reflexively.

What if all speech were thus reflexive? Would that stop it being speech? Would no language be spoken in such circumstances? What if we came across a speech community (possibly not human) that produced words and sentences without any conscious deliberation, without guiding intentions, even without much in the way of intelligence? It is all pretty pointless, just a way to pass the time, with no ulterior aim in mind. Would we describe this strange activity as not speech at all? No: we would say it is a kind of degraded or purposeless speech, but still speech. The sounds uttered would have the structure and semantics of a language but lack its normal human pragmatic dimension. It might strike us as silly, gratuitous, surplus to requirements, but it would still be speech—the utterance of linguistic expressions. The same is true of a speech community that eschews all outer speech and sticks to inner speech, which completely lacks the pragmatic properties that our speech often exemplifies. This would still be speech but not be an action at all, in the sense intended by speech act theorists. The property of serving inter-personal purposes of familiar kinds is contingent to speech as such, i.e., the production of words and sentences in a language. Speaking itself is not essentially tied to achieving extra-linguistic aims. It consists only of acts in the trivial sense, i.e., things people or objects do, as opposed to what happens to them (e.g., blink as opposed to having a speck enter the eye). In principle, linguistic use could be stripped down to the basics and still be a case of speech; it might serve no purpose at all, or a purely individual purpose (say, as an aid to thought), or be just a hobby people share. It is not even clear that it requires consciousness or means-end reasoning or practical rationality.

Speech certainly requires an ability to utter words (externally or internally), but that is a far cry from what the speech act theorists had in mind. Maybe it also requires the capacity to utter words freely, voluntarily, spontaneously; but again, that is not what the idea of speech acts is intended to suggest. The idea is to contrast actual language and speech with conceptions that operate with such thin notions as expressing a proposition or stating a fact or saying something; speech, it is thought, does much more than that (though also that). The contention is that speech involves doing things with words in a sense that goes beyond merely uttering them in such “acts” as saying, expressing, stating, and the like. The underlying thought is that language is not merely symbolic representation but goal-directed action performed in a social context. But this conflates competence and performance, and interprets performance in a much too inflated way. Linguistic competence is a cognitive capacity not a sensorimotor skill; and linguistic performance is not essentially a matter of social coercion or education or whatever other goals it may on occasion possess. Speaking is not in its essential nature an act of interpersonal manipulation (good or bad): it isn’t a social instrument, a tool for getting ahead, a means of achieving one’s goals. Speaking is uttering words you understand to form sentences; what you go on to use these words or sentences for is another matter. Understanding a language is not act at all; it is a cognitive state. Thus, language is not speech and speech is not action (in the intended non-trivial sense of “action”). Competence is not performance and performance is not goal-directed intentional behavior (except in certain cases). Knowledge of language is not practical knowledge in the sense intended by the “pragmatic turn”; it is not a disposition or capacity to perform acts that achieve chosen ends (it isn’t knowing how to do these things). Semantics (and syntax) is not pragmatics. Knowing a language is not like knowing how to build a nest or catch a fly with your tongue. It is more like knowing-that than knowing-how, as in “I know that ‘snow is white’ is true if and only if snow is white”. Speech act theory, as it has come down to us, is really an over-intellectualized form of behaviorism. Speech isn’t a deed. In speech sounds are produced, trivially so, which is an active faculty, but it is not constitutive of speech that it be a full-blooded intentional act in the style of speech act theorists.[1]

[1] The philosophers I have in mind as spearheading this movement are Wittgenstein and
Austin, though they had many followers. Obviously, I have Chomsky in mind as resisting this kind of neo-behaviorism.