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The Mirror Puzzle


4. The Mirror Puzzle

 (This is a chapter I wrote for a children's philosophy book called The Outer Limits (now part of The Complete Philosophy Files). This chapter was thought too abstract by the editors, and was not included).

Sometimes it is the things that are most familiar to us that turn out to be the most deeply puzzling. Take mirrors, for example. How many times do you see yourself reflected in a mirror each day?

1.ILLUSTRATE: BOY LOOKING INTO A MIRROR

At least ten or twenty times, I should think. Most of us never stop to think about what we see. But, as you are about to discover, mirrors are very strange and puzzling things.

An adventure in the mirror

Aisha and Kobir are visiting Kobir’s auntie. Auntie Anaximander lives in an enormous, fusty old house deep in the moors.


2. THE BIG SPOOKY HOUSE IN THE MOORS. LIGHTENING.


It’s a wild and stormy night and the phone and power lines are down. Auntie Anaximander has gone off in her car to report the powercut leaving Kobir and Aisha all alone in the dark house.


3: ILLUSTRATE: NERVOUS KOBIR AND AISHA AT DOOR OF CREEPY COUNTRY HOUSE. STORY WEATHER. THEY ARE WAVING OFF AUNTIE A WHO IS DRIVING A MORRIS MINOR. NB KOBIR IS OLD PHILOSOPHY FILES CHARACTER WITH GOATIE BEARD HAS A RING ON HIS RIGHT HAND AND WATCH ON HIS LEFT AND A HIS-LEFT-SIDE HAIR PARTING.

They light a candle and decide to explore. After a while, Aisha and Kobir come across a huge echoing hall.

4. ILLUSTRATE: KOBIR AND AISHA ENTERING SPOOKY ROOM AS DESCRIBED, HUNG WITH OIL PAINGINGS .HOLDING CANDLE.

There’s no furniture, just lots of dusty oil paintings of Auntie Anaximander’s dead relatives, and, at the very end of the room, a huge mirror stretching from floor to ceiling.
Aisha and Kobir walk up to the mirror and look at their reflections.

5 ILLUSTRATE: KOBIR AND AISHA, HOLDING CANDLE, BEFORE THE HUGE BAROQUE MIRROR, WITH CANDLE. STARING AT THEMSELVES.

As they have nothing better to do, they decide to sit down on the carpet in front of the mirror and play cards. Outside, the wind howls and rumbles over the chimney tops. But inside it is deathly quiet. The candle casts flickering shadows up the walls. Aisha opens her notebook to keep score and starts to shuffle the cards. While she is shuffling, Kobir stares distractedly into the vast mirror. And the more he stares, the more perplexed he starts to look.

KOBIR: That’s really, really weird.
AISHA: What is?
KOBIR: Take a look at our reflection.

Kobir and Aisha both stare into the mirror.

KOBIR: Notice anything odd?
AISHA: Odd?
KOBIR: You can see a mirror version of yourself can’t you? And a mirror version of me.
AISHA: Of course.
KOBIR: But there’s something very, very peculiar about our mirror selves. They are reversed.
AISHA: Reversed?

Kobir stands up in front of the mirror.

KOBIR: Yes. Suppose this wasn’t a mirror but a big sheet of glass. And suppose I was actually over there, where the mirror-version of myself appears to be standing. Then my right hand, the one with the ring on, would be where my left hand actually appears in the mirror. And my left hand, the one with the watch on, would be where my right hand appears.

6. ILLUSTRATE: KOBIR STANDING NEXT TO SEATED AISHA BEFORE MIRROR. WATCH ON LEFT HAND AND RING ON RIGHT. HAIR PARTED TO HIS LEFT. HE IS LOOKING IN THE BIG, FULL LENGTH MIRROR.

Kobir walks closer to the mirror, so that he’s staring right into the face of his mirror-self.

Kobir: And look, my left eyebrow – the one I’m raising – appears where my right eyebrow would be.

7. ILLUSTRATE: KOBIR’S FACE AND ITS REFLECTION, WITH EYEBROW RAISED AS DESCRIBED. HAIR PARTED TO HIS LEFT.

Isn’t that odd?

Kobir is right about the reversal. When we look at Kobir in the mirror we see this:

8. ILLUSTRATE: KOBIR STANDING LOOKING AT US, RING ON LEFT HAND AND WATCH ON RIGHT. HAIR PARTED TO HIS RIGHT.

But if Kobir was actually standing where his image appears to be standing, we would see this:

9. IDENTICAL IMAGE BUT WATCH ON LEFT HAND AND RING ON RIGHT. HAIR PARTED TO HIS LEFT.

See? Kobir’s left and right sides have been reversed.

Why do mirrors reverse left to right, but not top to bottom?

Aisha just wants to play cards. She’s irritated by Kobir’s question.

AISHA: Why is it odd?
KOBIR: Well, mirrors reverse us left to right. So why don’t they also reverse us top to bottom.
AISHA: Top to bottom?
KOBIR: Yes, in the mirror, what’s top and bottom is the same. Take a look: my head is still at the top and my feet are still at the bottom. But my left and right sides are swapped round.
AISHA: True.
KOBIR: So my question is: Why do mirrors reverse one way, but not the other? It’s very, very strange.

Kobir is correct. In a mirror image, what’s at the top and what’s at the bottom remains unchanged. But left and right are switched. That is why the word “ambulance” is painted in reverse on the front of an ambulance.

10. ILLUSTRATE: AMBULANCE WITH WORD “AMBULANCE” REVERSED ACROSS THE FRONT.

The word is seen by other motorists in their rear view mirrors. Because mirrors reverse left to right, and because the word “ambulance” is itself reversed left to right, a rear view mirror has the effect of turning the word the correct way round so it can easily be read.

11. ILLUSTRATE: SAME AMBULANCE SEEN IN REAR VIEW MIRROR: NOW THE WORD IS RIGHT WAY ROUND (DRIVER ON OTHER SIDE, OF COURSE)

An ancient and infernal puzzle


Why do mirrors reverse left and right, but not top and bottom? Some of the world’s greatest minds – including that of the Ancient Greek philosopher Plato – have struggled with and been defeated by this infernal mystery.

12.ANCIENT GREEK IN BEARD AND ROBE LOOKING IN MIRROR AND THINKING BUBBLE: “WHY DO MIRRORS REVERSE LEFT/RIGHT BUT NOT TOP/BOTTOM?”

Can Kobir and Aisha do any better? Can you?
            Perhaps. But before we try to come up with an explanation that might work, let’s take a look at a few explanations that definitely don’t work.

 

“Doesn’t it depend on which we up we are?”


Aisha can now see the puzzle.

AISHA: Hmm. I’m not sure why mirrors do what they do. Now you mention it, I suppose that is rather peculiar.
KOBIR: It’s weird!

Suddenly, Aisha thinks she has the solution.

AISHA: Doesn’t it all depend on which way up we are? If we lay down, then it would be top and bottom that are reversed, not left and right.
KOBIR: I don’t think so. Let’s try.

Kobir moves the candle safely to one side. Then they both lie on their sides and stare at themselves.

13.ILLUSTRATE; T AND A LOOKING INTO MIRROR AS THEY LAY ON THEIR SIDES. KOBIR IS WIGGLING FINGERS OF RIGHT HAND (THE ONE WITH RING).

KOBIR: You see? If I was over there, my right hand – the one with the ring – would be where my left hand appears. My left and right sides are still reversed.
AISHA: True. And our tops and bottoms are still the right way round.
KOBIR: So the mirror flips things around left to right but not top to bottom no matter what way up we may happen to be in front of it.
AISHA: Hmm. I guess you’re right.
KOBIR: I am right. The reversal has nothing to do with which way up we are. Actually it doesn’t have anything to do with which way up the thing we are looking at is, or which way up the mirror is, either. Mirrors always reverse left to right but not top to bottom.

You can confirm this for yourself. Here’s the word “ambulance” reversed from left to right:

            14.ILLUSTRATE: “AMBULANCE” REVERSED L/R

Try putting this page up in front of a mirror. Because the mirror also reverses left and right, the word gets switched round the right way again, doesn’t it?

15.ILLUSTRATE: MIRROR IN FRONT OF REVERSED WORD “AMBULANCE”, IN MIRROR THE WORD IS ROUND THE RIGHT WAY.

Now let’s try turning you, the observer to see if that has any effect on how the word is reversed. Hold the book upright, but turn your head sideways like this.

16.ILLUSTRATE. KID BEFORE MIRROR: HE IS HOLDING BOOK UPRIGHT WITH HEAD TILTED OVER SIDEWAYS.

See? It doesn’t matter which way up you are. The mirror still flips the letters back the right way. It still reverses them left to right to make them readable again.
Now let’s try rotating the book 90 degrees, like this.


17.ILLUSTRATE: SAME KID BEFORE MIRROR, NOW WITH HEAD UPRIGHT BUT HOLDING THE BOOK SIDEWAYS ON.


Does that have any effect on how the word appears? No. The word “ambulance” is still legible. So it doesn’t matter which way up the word is either.
Maybe you’re thinking that the solution has something to do with which way up the mirror is. But it doesn’t. Turn the mirror upside down, and the image will remain exactly the same.
So it doesn’t matter which way up we are, which we up the thing we are looking at is, or even which way up the mirror is, a mirror always reverses left to right but not top to bottom.

18.ILLUSTRATE: KOBIR AND AISHA LOOKING AT THEMSELVES IN MIRROR 9STILL IN THE SPOOKY ROOM): BIG THOUGH BUBBLE WITH QUESTION MARK IN IT COMING OUT OF THEIR HEADS. THEY LOOK PERPLEXED.

The more you grapple with this mystery, the deeper and more profound it seems to become. In fact, the more you think about mirrors, the more they seem to take on a rather spooky, almost magical quality. Just why do mirrors do what they do?

I think I know the solution, or at least a part of it.
            Aisha and Kobir heard a distant bang followed by echoing footsteps. After a minute or so, Auntie Anaximander’s damp features appear round the doorway.

25.ILLUSTRATE:. ANAXIMANDER IN RAINCOAT, LOOKING ROUND DOOR OF ROOM.

ANAXIMANDER: Ah. There you are! Power should be back on soon. What have you been up to?

Auntie Anaximander takes off her raincaot and shakes out the raindrops, spraying them across the room. A few droplets land on the pages of Aisha’s open notebook.

26. ILLUSTRATE: RAINDROPS ACROSS THIS PAGE.

Aisha and Kobir explain that they had been discussing why mirrors reverse left and right, but not top and bottom. Auntie Anaximander, who loves puzzles such as this, sits down on the carpet beside them. She thinks hard for a moment or two.

ANAXIMANDER: You know, in a sense, a mirror doesn’t reverse anything at all.
AISHA: In what sense?
ANAXIMANDER: Well suppose we hold a clock up in front of a mirror, like this.

Anaximander draws this picture on a page of Aisha’s notebook.

27.ILLUSTRATE: CLOCK AND ITS REFLECTION IN MIRROR
           
ANAXIMANDER: Now let’s draw arrows linking each number on the clock face with the same number reflected in the mirror.

Anaximander adds arrows like this:

28.ILLUSTRATE: AS ABOVE BUT WITH ARROW DRAWN FROM EACH NUMBER ON CLOCK FACE TO IT’S IMAGE IN THE MIRROR (I WILL PROVIDE ROUGH)

ANAXIMANDER: These arrows show that the way the mirror reflects is entirely symmetrical in every direction. The arrows don’t cross over top to bottom. But neither do they cross over left to right.
KOBIR: You know, I think you’re right. In a sense, nothing gets reversed!

Auntie Anaximander is right. The way in which the mirror reflects what’s in front of it is perfectly symmetrical. It is not as if a mirror reflects rays of light differently depending on whether they are coming from your left and right sides rather than your top and bottom. The light is reflected in the same way no matter where it happens to land on the mirror.
So the puzzle has absolutely nothing to do with how light behaves.

KOBIR: But hang on. We said, didn’t we, that the left and right are swapped round? And that top and bottom are unchanged?
ANAXIMANDER: Yes. That is how we would normally describe what we see.
AISHA: Normally?
ANAXIMANDER: If we were to replace this mirror with a sheet of glass, and you were to walk round the glass and stand on the other side, looking towards me, in the exact spot you currently see your mirror-self standing, then what would I, standing over here, see?
KOBIR: You would see my right hand to your left, and my left hand to your right.

29.ILLUSTRATE: WE ARE LOOKING AT KOBIR BEHIND BIG SHEET OF GLASS. AUNTIE ANAXIMANDER AND AISHA ARE THIS SIDE, WATCHING.

ANAXIMANDER: True. And of course, when we look at your mirror-image, your left hand appears where your right hand would be if you were standing there, and your right hand appears where your left would be. That’s why we said that the mirror-version of you is reversed left to right. Correct?
KOBIR: Yes.
ANAXIMANDER: But notice that we have just taken something for granted: the axis about which we rotate you when we imagine you over there.
AISHA: The what?
ANAXIMANDER: When we turn something round, we rotate it about an axis, don’t we? A spinning top, for example, rotates around a vertical axis, doesn’t it?

30. ILLUSTRATE: SPINNING TOP WITH VERTICAL DOTTED LINE LABELLED “VERTICAL AXIS”

And a car wheel rotates around a horizontal axis.

31.ILLUSTRATE CAR WHEEL WITH DOTTED LINE THROUGH MIDDLE LABELLED HORIZONTAL AXIS.

Now, when we imagine you over there in the position your mirror-self seems to be in, we mentally put you there by rotating you about a vertical axis, like this.

Anaximander draws this diagram in the notebook:


32.ILLUSTRATE: SEMI CIRCLE DOTTED ARROW SHOWING HOW KOBIR IS ROTATED BY AN INDICATED VERTICAL AXIS. SEE ROUGH.


KOBIR: That’s right. That’s how I would get over there, by walking round the mirror like that.
ANAXIMANDER: Of course. But what if we were to get you over there not by rotating you around a vertical axis, but a round a horizontal axis? What would happen then?
KOBIR: I’m not sure. Let’s draw it to see.

Kobir now draws this picture:

33.ILLUSTRATE: AS ABOVE, BUT KOBIR IS NOW ROTATED AROUND HOROIZONTAL AXIS, LEAVING HIM STANDING ON HIS HEAD BEHIND THE MIRROR (I WILL PROVIDE ROUGHS)

ANAXIMANDER: Now see what happens! You are standing on your head. And, compared to your mirror image, your left and right sides aren’t switched round.

34.SPLIT ILLUSTRATION: CAPTION 1 “MIRROR IMAGE” RING ON KOBIR’S LEFT, WATCH ON HIS RIGHT, PARTING TO HIS RIGHT. CAPTION 2: “KOBIR STANDING ON HIS HEAD” KOBIR UPSIDE, BUT NOT REVERSED LEFT TO RIGHT.

Your right hand stays over to the right, just as it appears in the mirror. But top and bottom have been switched round!
AISHA: Wow! You’re right.
ANAXIMANDER: So you see, the reason we say mirrors reverse left and right but not top and bottom is due to the fact that we take for granted a particular axis of rotation. But we could just as easily choose a horizontal axis. Then it would be true to say that a mirror reverses top to bottom but not left to right.

I think Auntie Anaximander is correct. She really has hit on the explanation of why mirrors reverse left to right but not top-to bottom. Yes, it’s true to say mirrors reverse left to right, but only if we choose a vertical axis of rotation. Choose a horizontal axis and they then reverse top to bottom.
Kobir furrows his brow.

KOBIR: But why do we take the vertical axis for granted?
ANAXIMANDER: Because people aren’t in the habit of flying through the air like pigeons and settling on their heads. When people normally rotate, it’s almost always about a vertical axis. So we just took for granted a vertical axis of rotation in this case too.

Suddenly the electricity comes on. The chandeliers above their heads flood the hall with light. Auntie Anaximander jumps up and blows out the candle. She suggests they all go downstairs for some hot chocolate. So they do.

35: ILLUSTRATE: AUNTIE, KOBIR AND AISHA LEAVING THE NOW VERY BRIGHTLY-LIT HALL.

The door puzzle


I believe Auntie Anaximander is right: this puzzle about why mirrors do what they do is created by our not noticing what we have taken for granted. To solve the puzzle, we need to take a step back and start questioning what we taken for granted.
Actually, I have noticed a similar puzzle about doors. Walk though a door that opens on your left and turn round to come back through it, and the door now opens on your right. But pass through a door that opens at the top (like a cat-flap) and turn to come back through it and the door still opens at the top.


36.ILLUSTRATE: DOOR OPENS AT TOP LIKE A CAT FLAP.


Why does passing through a door reverse the way it opens from left to right, but not from top to bottom? What explains the difference?
The solution is much the same as Auntie Anaximander’s solution to the mirror puzzle. When you pass through a left-opening door and turn around to come back through it, you would normally rotate about a vertical axis, like this:


37.ILLUSTRATE: AS FOR PREVIOUS ILLUSTRATION BUT ONE: EXCEPT WITH AXIS OF ROTATION ADDED: SEE ROUGH.


But what if you were to rotate about a horizontal axis, like this?


38.ILLUSTRATE: AS ABOVE, BUT PERSON FLIPPED HORIZONTALLY, LEAVING THEM UPSIDE DOWN.


Then the door that opened on the left would still open the left on the way back though it, but a door that opened at the bottom would now open at the top. We say that left and right are reversed but not top and bottom only because we take for granted a particular axis of rotation.
In space, where we are weightless, the axis of rotation about which we choose to rotate when turning to come back through a door is less likely to be the vertical axis. You could just as easily spin about a horizontal axis instead.

39.ILLUSTRATE: SPACE MAN LEAVING SHIP THROUGH DOOR, THEN ENTERING THROUGH DOOR UPSIDE DOWN.

So, after years in space, it might start to seem as natural to you to say that a door that opens at the top opens at the bottom when you come back through it as it does to say that a door that opens on the left opens on the right when you return though it.
For creatures that live in a weightless environment, where it’s as easy to rotate about one axis as it is to rotate about the other, perhaps neither the mirror puzzle nor the door puzzle would even be puzzles!

The “ambulance” test


Perhaps you are still not convinced by Auntie Anaximander’s solution. If so, here’s another little experiment you can perform. We said that in a mirror the word “ambulance” is reversed left to right and not top to bottom. So now write out, on a separate piece of paper next to the word “ambulance”, the left-right reversed version of the word. It should look like this:

40. ILLUSTRATE: SEE ROUGH.

You have kept what’s at the top at the top and what’s at the bottom at the bottom, but the right hand end of the word has become its left hand end.
But now suppose that mirrors reversed, not left to right, but top to bottom. What would that look like? What would we see then?
Try to draw it. This time, write on a separate piece of paper underneath the word “ambulance” how the word would look if what’s at the top becomes what’s at the bottom, but the left and right ends remain unchanged. It should look like this:

41.ILLUSTRATE: SEE ROUGH

The word is flipped top to bottom but not left right.
But now look very closely at the two reversed words.

42.ILLUSTRATE: THE TWO REVERSED WORDS (SEE ROUGH), LABELLED “REVERSED TOP TO BOTTOM” AND “REVERSED LEFT TO RIGHT”.

Notice anything peculiar?
The two reversed versions of the word that you have written are actually exactly the same! Turn the second one round to check, like this:

43.ILLUSTRATE: SEE ROUGH (LABEL LEFT RIGHT REVERSED AND TOP BOTTOM REVERSED)

The left-right reversed version of the word just is the top-bottom reversed version.
So why did we call one left-right reversed and the other the top-bottom reversed? Because we just assumed a different axis of rotation in each case. Whether we describe an image as left/right reversed or top/bottom reversed all depends on what axis of rotation we choose.

When science can’t help us


So I think we have solved the puzzle (or at least we solved this version of it).
Here’s an interesting fact about the mirror puzzle: it can’t be solved by doing science. It can only be solved by thinking philosophically. We didn’t have to any scientific research into how light and mirrors behave. We didn’t have to investigate how our brains work.

44.ILLUSTRATE SCIENTISTS IN LAB EXPERIMENTING WITH MIRRORS, LAZERS, BRAINS ETC.

Even if we had done that sort of scientific research, it wouldn’t have solved the puzzle. In order to solve the puzzle, we need to stop doing science and start doing philosophy. It’s a puzzle that can be solved just by thinking.

45. ILLUSTRATE: ME SLUMPED IN CHAIR, LABELLED “PHILOSOPHER AT WORK”

            People sometimes assume that all our questions can be answered by science. They would just assume that the mirror puzzle must have a scientific solution. But it turns out that the mirror puzzle is a puzzle that science can’t solve.
Sometimes, only philosophy will do.

Comments

Unknown said…
"[The mirror puzzle] can’t be solved by doing science"

I disagree. Math/science can solve it. A mirror only reverses (transforms) everything on the perpendicular axis of the mirror surface. If the mirror is positoned to the north of the subject, the subject front will be pointing south (reversed) but the subject's left hand will be pointing west in both cases (not reversed).

However, 'left' and 'right' itself is defined relative to front and back (AND top/bottom), which is reversed by the mirror. This means your mirror image will switch left and right as well, just because of the transformation of front and back.

If your mirror is placed above you, the top/bottom axis is reversed and your mirror image is standing upside down (front and back remaining the same this time). Because left-right is also relative to top/bottom, they are reversed for your mirror image.

To me, that's pure math, not philosophy.

regards,
Geert Arys
Anonymous said…
why do people in the anglosphere foreignise the letter 'i' as if it's 'e'?
and why do arabs and persians think that the 'o' is the sound in 'put' and the 'e' the sound in 'pit'.

and why do northern english regional speakers seem insensible to 'one' rhyming with 'fun' and not 'gone'.
Ron Murphy said…
I'd go further than Geert.

It's terrible philosophy that passes off a simple science/math-problem as some philosophical mistery. All the mistery is only apparent, from ignorance and illusory perceptions.

"You know, in a sense, a mirror doesn’t reverse anything at all."

Not merely in some sense, but in actuality. It's in a 'sense' that it is reversed, in the human brain's perceptual sense. See Feynman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tuxLY94LXw: "It's a psychological problem." And it's gross equivication on the terms left and right, equating what is the refelection of a left arm for the actual right arm.

"Some of the world’s greatest minds – including that of the Ancient Greek philosopher Plato – have struggled with and been defeated by this infernal mystery."

Which ones were defeated by it?

Some ancient minds might be excused. Anyone following Pythagoras and other mathematicians shouldn't have been confused by this. A simple clarity of thought dismisses the problem immediately. Anyone with a spot of a scratch or any distinguishing mark on one hand and not the other realises that nothing is actually reversed. Anyone following Newton has no excude whatsoever.

Incidentally, a concave mirror will reverse images. If you stand at the right point your head will be down, and you left hand and its wrist watch will move to the right. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvYduTBpbuA. Science class! Yeah!

This is science, and the scientific use of maths. It takes empirical science to explain this, not philosophy. Philosophy has no solution to this apparent problem. Philosophers can call on the science of course, but they shouldn't be passing off the science they are explaining as if it's philosophy; and much less should they be passing it off as philosophy and claiming it isn't science. That amounts to interdisciplinary plagiarism.

But that's philosophers for you. Trust philosophers to make not merely a mountain out of mole hill but a whole career, a whole discipline, out of an endless series of trivial mole hills.
Philolinguist said…
Part 1:

Ron Murphy has a point about much of philosophy. However, there are genuine problems studied by philosophers (such as the problem of 'the external world', which is a question that concerns scientists as well as philosophers. The question can be stated briefly as "If our knowledge of the world is mediated through our senses and cognitive apparatus, then how do we know what the world is 'really' like, independently of how observers experience it?"). This is actually a tricky dilemma.

Approaches to it partly involve science, such as the study of human cognitive limitations that shape sense data in specific ways (for example, humans can only see limited wavelengths of light). There's also an element of psychology, such as the finding that humans are extremely good at selective attention (for a funny demonstration, watch this 5-minute clip http://youtu.be/UtKt8YF7dgQ).

This psychological finding then raises a speculative question: What if our experience of the world is a collective exercise in selective attention? What if we're all preoccupied with pretending there isn't a 500-pound gorilla in the room? What kind of strategies could we most easily and successfully employ to pull that off, and how would those strategies help to explain why we experience the world the way we do (of course, much depends on what we're trying to avoid noticing)? BTW, Herbert Fingarette discusses the relationship between self-deception and selective attention in his article "Self-Deception Needs No Explaining", as well as his book 'Self-Deception'. His writing is non-technical, so is an easy way to get into the topic.

Of course, there are many proposed solutions to the problem of 'the external world'. It is always helpful to pay careful attention to shifts in meaning between different contexts, for words like 'external' and related terms. It has been argued that failure to do so with regard to the concept of 'causation' plays a central role in the problem of the 'external world' and related issues, more about that here: http://commons.pacificu.edu/eip/vol15/iss2/5/
Philolinguist said…
Part 2:

A major problem with philosophy is, if you're attempting to formulate a substantial thesis that is purely discursive or theoretical, you're almost certainly going to drift into semantic indeterminacy. More on this here:
http://whyphilosophyfails.com/

Ways to avoid this include anchoring your arguments to empirical data (e.g. from psychology or physics), and/or relying on negative arguments that show other theses to be internally logically inconsistent or unsupported by the 'facts' they claim to be supported by.

In that last approach, a viable strategy is to propose alternative interpretations of those 'facts', that do not support the thesis but which are hitherto unfalsifiable (this was a strategy favoured by the later Wittgenstein, in the famously bizarre thought-experiments he used to undercut the theories of meaning that underpinned certain philosophical 'problems' like the Sorites Paradox). So, yes, much of philosophy is almost certainly semantically indeterminate (a less charitable critic would say 'non-sensical'). Once you're immersed in a purely discursive enquiry, you tend to quickly lose sight of the boundary between sense and nonsense.

It's a psychological problem, so more philosophy isn't the solution. The only solution I know is to stick closely to the methods and standards of empirical science and logic, and be mindful of alternative interpretations of 'data', while being open to theoretical possibilities. Arguably, that's not really a 'philosophical' approach. So the problems are 'philosophical', in the sense that they feature in the literature called 'philosophy', but viable solutions would probably involve a fair bit of science and logic.

I think the critics have a point, it is inadvisable to try and do 'pure philosophy' (or any purely discursive or theoretical enquiry) if you're looking to make sense. A more promising approach is what is now called 'experimental philosophy', which combines theoretical speculation with scientific data, mainly from psychology.
Stu said…
According to Geert Arys (above) and others, our idea of reflections in mirrors comes from the fact that they represent a reversal from back to front in some objectively true sense. But how is this supposedly privileged reversal realized?

Surely the answer is obtained by inverting and thereby contradicting Geert's own point: it happens because "back-front" is defined relative to left-right (AND top/bottom). This is the whole point of the term "relative" after all.

Broadly I agree with Stephen's discussion, although I also think that the contingencies associated with psychological aspects of the question tend to obscure a more interesting philosophical point. In particular, there is evidently no means of distinguishing mathematically between the world and its reflection except by imagining a direct comparison - a point which significantly concerned Immanuel Kant. eg. see http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/713/1/parity.pdf.

As far as I can see, science plays little or no part in posing, let alone in solving this abstract question, and excepting the comparison of real-world examples, such as molecular enantiomers, the (abstract) concept that there is indeed a distinction between chiral counterparts seems to be foundational.

In this context, it is worth remarking that no two scientists will ever be able to establish whether or not they both perceive the same "handedness" in the world, (will they?). However, if there is no scientific fact of the matter, this indicates in turn that the apparent breaking of mirror-symmetry in certain sub-atomic processes must be illusory. (Who will still pretend that philosophical arguments have no part to play in scientific decision-making?)

Thank you, Philolinguist, also, especially for your suggestions and links regarding causality. I have found these extremely interesting (especially since the arguments there tend to corroborate my own views!)

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EVIDENCE, MIRACLES AND THE EXISTENCE OF JESUS

(Published in Faith and Philosophy 2011. Volume 28, Issue 2, April 2011. Stephen Law. Pages 129-151) EVIDENCE, MIRACLES AND THE EXISTENCE OF JESUS Stephen Law Abstract The vast majority of Biblical historians believe there is evidence sufficient to place Jesus’ existence beyond reasonable doubt. Many believe the New Testament documents alone suffice firmly to establish Jesus as an actual, historical figure. I question these views. In particular, I argue (i) that the three most popular criteria by which various non-miraculous New Testament claims made about Jesus are supposedly corroborated are not sufficient, either singly or jointly, to place his existence beyond reasonable doubt, and (ii) that a prima facie plausible principle concerning how evidence should be assessed – a principle I call the contamination principle – entails that, given the large proportion of uncorroborated miracle claims made about Jesus in the New Testament documents, we should, in the absence of indepen

Why I won't be voting Labour at the next General Election, not even to 'keep the Tories out'.

I have always voted Labour, and have often been a member of the Party, campaigning and canvassing for them. For what it’s worth, here’s my feeling about voting Labour next General Election:   1. When the left vote Labour after they move rightwards, they are encouraged to just move further right, to the point where they are now probably right of where e.g. John Major’s Tory party was. And each time the Tories go further right still. At some point we have got to stop fuelling this toxic drift to the right by making the Labour Party realise that it’s going to start costing them votes. I can’t think of anything politically more important than halting this increasingly frightening rightward slide. So I am no longer voting Labour. 2. If a new socialist party starts up, it could easily hoover up many of the 200k former LP members who have left in disgust (I’d join), and perhaps also pick up union affiliations. They could become the second biggest party by membership quite quickly. Our voting

Aquinas on homosexuality

Thought I would try a bit of a draft out on the blog, for feedback. All comments gratefully received. No doubt I've got at least some details wrong re the Catholic Church's position... AQUINAS AND SEXUAL ETHICS Aquinas’s thinking remains hugely influential within the Catholic Church. In particular, his ideas concerning sexual ethics still heavily shape Church teaching. It is on these ideas that we focus here. In particular, I will look at Aquinas’s justification for morally condemning homosexual acts. When homosexuality is judged to be morally wrong, the justification offered is often that homosexuality is, in some sense, “unnatural”. Aquinas develops a sophisticated version of this sort of argument. The roots of the argument lie in thinking of Aristotle, whom Aquinas believes to be scientifically authoritative. Indeed, one of Aquinas’s over-arching aims was to show how Aristotle’s philosophical system is broadly compatible with Christian thought. I begin with a sketch of Arist