Problem of future contingents
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
(Difference between revisions)
| Revision as of 22:46, 26 August 2011 Jahsonic (Talk | contribs) ← Previous diff |
Revision as of 22:46, 26 August 2011 Jahsonic (Talk | contribs) Next diff → |
||
| Line 1: | Line 1: | ||
| {{Template}} | {{Template}} | ||
| - | '''"The Garden of Forking Paths"''' ([[Spanish language|Spanish]]: ''"El Jardín de senderos que se bifurcan''") is a [[short story]] by [[Argentina|Argentine]] writer and poet [[Jorge Luis Borges]]. | + | '''Future contingent''' propositions (or simply, '''future contingents''') are statements about states of affairs in the future that are neither necessarily true nor necessarily false. |
| - | It was first published as the title story in the collection ''El Jardín de senderos que se bifurcan'' (''The Garden of Forking Paths'') in [[1941]]; that collection was republished in its entirety in the 1944 collection ''[[Ficciones]]'' ("Fictions"). For a list of the contents of ''El Jardín de senderos que se bifurcan'', see ''[[Ficciones]]''. | + | The '''problem of future contingents''' is a [[logical]] [[paradox]] first{{Dubious|date=April 2011}} posed by [[Diodorus Cronus]] from the [[Megarian school of philosophy]] and then reactualized by [[Aristotle]] in chapter 9 of ''[[On Interpretation]]'' (''[[De Interpretatione]]''). It was later discussed by [[Leibniz]]. [[Deleuze]] used it to oppose a "logic of the event" to a "logic of [[signification]]". |
| - | + | ||
| - | == Synopsis == | + | |
| - | + | ||
| - | The story takes the form of a signed statement by an English professor named Dr. Yu Tsun who is living in the [[United Kingdom]] during [[World War I]]. Tsun is a double agent, however, a spy for the Germans, as he discloses in the first paragraph of his statement. As the story begins, Tsun realizes that the British officer pursuing him, Captain Richard Madden, is in the apartment of his fellow spy Viktor Runeberg and has presumably either captured or killed him. Tsun surmises that his own arrest is next. He has discovered the location of a new British artillery park and wishes to convey that knowledge to his German masters before he is captured, and hits upon a desperate plan in order to achieve this. | + | |
| - | + | ||
| - | In passing, Tsun states that his spying was not for the sake of Germany, which he considers "a barbaric nation." Rather, he says, he did it because he wanted to prove to his German commander that an Asian man was intelligent enough to obtain for them the information they needed. | + | |
| - | + | ||
| - | Taking his few possessions, Tsun boards a train to the village of Ashgrove, narrowly avoiding the pursuing Capt. Madden at the train station, and goes to the house of Dr. Stephen Albert. As he walks up the road to Albert's house, Tsun reflects on his great ancestor, Ts'ui Pen. As he explains, Ts'ui Pen, a learned and famous man, renounced his job as governor of a province in order to undertake two tasks: to write a vast and intricate novel, and to construct an equally vast and intricate [[labyrinth]], one "in which all men would lose their way." Ts'ui Pen was murdered before completing his novel, however, and what he did write was a "contradictory jumble of irresolute drafts" that made no sense to subsequent reviewers; nor was the labyrinth ever found. Tsun describes his own experience of reading the unfinished novel: in the third chapter the hero arrives at the house of Dr. Albert, who himself has evidently been pondering the same topic. Albert explains excitedly that at one stroke he has solved both mysteries – the chaotic and jumbled nature of Ts'ui Pen's unfinished book, and the mystery of his lost labyrinth. Albert's solution is that they are one and the same: the book ''is'' the labyrinth. | + | |
| - | + | ||
| - | Basing his work on the strange legend that Ts'ui Pen had intended to construct an infinite labyrinth, as well as a cryptic letter from Ts'ui Pen himself stating "I leave to several futures (not to all) my garden of forking paths", Albert realized that the "garden of forking paths" was the novel, and the forking took place in time, not in space. As compared to most fictions, where the character chooses one alternative at each decision point and thereby eliminates all the others, Ts'ui Pen's novel attempted to describe a world where all possible outcomes of an event occur simultaneously, each one itself leading to further proliferations of possibilities. (This idea is remarkably similar to the [[many-worlds interpretation]] of [[quantum mechanics]], which was not proposed until over a decade after the writing of this story.) Albert further explains that these constantly diverging paths do sometimes converge again, though as the result of a different chain of causes; for example, he says, in one possible past Dr. Tsun has come to his house as an enemy, in another as a friend. | + | |
| - | + | ||
| - | Though trembling with gratitude at Albert's revelation and in awe of his ancestor's literary genius, Tsun glances up the path to see Capt. Madden approaching the house. He asks Albert to see Ts'ui Pen's letter again; Albert turns to retrieve it, and Tsun shoots him in the back, killing him instantly. | + | |
| - | + | ||
| - | Although Tsun is arrested and sentenced to death, he claims to have "most abhorrently triumphed," as he has successfully communicated to the Germans the name of the city they were to attack, and indeed that city is bombed as Tsun goes on trial. The name of that city was Albert, and Tsun realized that the only way to convey that information was to kill a person of that name, so that the news of the murder would appear in British newspapers associated with his name. | + | |
| + | Suppose that a sea-battle will not be fought tomorrow. Then it was also true yesterday (and the week before, and last year) that it will not be fought, since any true statement about what will be the case was also true in the past. But all past truths are necessary truths, therefore it was necessarily true in the past that the battle will not be fought, and thus that the statement that it will be fought is necessarily false. Therefore it is not possible that the battle will be fought. In general, if something will not be the case, it is not possible for it to be the case. This conflicts with the idea of our own [[free will]]: that we have the power to determine the course of events in the future, which seems impossible if what happens, or does not happen, was ''necessarily'' going to happen, or not happen. | ||
| == See also == | == See also == | ||
| + | *In [[Jorge Luis Borges|Borges]]' ''[[The Garden of Forking Paths]]'', both alternatives happen, thus leading to what Deleuze calls "incompossible worlds" | ||
| + | *[[Principle of distributivity]] | ||
| + | *[[Principle of plenitude]] | ||
| + | *[[Truth-value link]] | ||
| - | *[[Gilles Deleuze]]'s use of this story to illustrate the [[Leibniz]]ian concept of several [[possible worlds|in-compossible worlds]] simultaneously existing | ||
| - | * [[Paradox of the futures contingents]] | ||
| {{GFDL}} | {{GFDL}} | ||
| - | a | ||
Revision as of 22:46, 26 August 2011
|
Related e |
|
Featured: |
Future contingent propositions (or simply, future contingents) are statements about states of affairs in the future that are neither necessarily true nor necessarily false.
The problem of future contingents is a logical paradox firstTemplate:Dubious posed by Diodorus Cronus from the Megarian school of philosophy and then reactualized by Aristotle in chapter 9 of On Interpretation (De Interpretatione). It was later discussed by Leibniz. Deleuze used it to oppose a "logic of the event" to a "logic of signification".
Suppose that a sea-battle will not be fought tomorrow. Then it was also true yesterday (and the week before, and last year) that it will not be fought, since any true statement about what will be the case was also true in the past. But all past truths are necessary truths, therefore it was necessarily true in the past that the battle will not be fought, and thus that the statement that it will be fought is necessarily false. Therefore it is not possible that the battle will be fought. In general, if something will not be the case, it is not possible for it to be the case. This conflicts with the idea of our own free will: that we have the power to determine the course of events in the future, which seems impossible if what happens, or does not happen, was necessarily going to happen, or not happen.
See also
- In Borges' The Garden of Forking Paths, both alternatives happen, thus leading to what Deleuze calls "incompossible worlds"
- Principle of distributivity
- Principle of plenitude
- Truth-value link
Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Problem of future contingents" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.
