The SRH is purely linguistic. There are no contradictions in reality—things just are—problems only occur when we try to assert things one way and then change our mind. The reader is left unsure what we mean and complains.
To summarise: the SRH (which needs a new name) notes that when referring to something by some description (essence) or asserting its existence one cannot then meaningfully attribute that essence or existence to the subject e.g. “(Ex) x exists”, or “(x) P(x) & Q(x) –> P(x)” respectively “there exists something which exists” or “for all x where x has quality P and quality Q it has quality P”. These tautologies sound ridiculous in logic but “all black swans are black” sounds almost meaningful and “I think therefore I exist” is famous.
To recap further the problem with these tautologies lies in their negations: they are contradictions or at least always false. Respectively above: “(x) x ¬exist”, “(Ex) P(x) & Q(x) & ¬Q(x)” that is “for all x, x doesn’t exist” and “there exists an x such that x has P, Q and doesn’t have Q”. The latter is a typical contradiction the former is a type I don’t know that i’m calling existential contradiction. The famous Descartes’ statement has this SRH problem at root: its very appeal and certainty lies in the tautology that to be thinking at all he must exist (we know what he means even if it doesn’t technically imply an existing self like entity). But the statement is misleading because its negation is an existential contradiction and so there being no situation under which it can be false (it is always true) and so fails to convey any particular meaning! We know nothing after reading it that we didn’t know before. Another way to put that is there is nothing to learn about such a sentence’s use; we can say it anytime and anywhere in any imaginable universe.
The relevant to a proof of God is firstly not to prove “(Ex) x is God” i.e. there is a thing called God. This is clearly nonsense at first sight since God made “all” things so one presumes he either made himself or he isn’t a thing. It staggers me that Dawkins et al. waste time pursuing this dead end. It makes more sense for God to be a principle (principal perhaps) namely that nothing can assert its own existence, instead depending upon other things. The name of God in the Arahamic religions is Yahweh in Hebrew which means “I AM”. It is important to realise that because of the SRH we cannot meaningfully assert this for our self. Any sense of “I am” comes from outside us.
Returning to the thread if this blog entry. The SRH and existential contradiction is linguistic. There is one famous field of existential contradiction namely time travel typified by the paradox of going back in time and killing oneself. The problem then arises was there a murder? If there was then the person who was murdered is also the murder. But if there was a murder it also means that the murderer was killed before he did the murder. However if there wasn’t a murder then what exactly did the time traveller do?
It is only an embryonic thought at this stage but similarity to the SRH signals an alarm bell that this “time travel” and indeed “time” itself may be only linguistic at root and not real. This wouldn’t be a new idea but I don’t grasp it yet. I read earlier in the year (but can’t remember where) a poem in which it is said that “self” is only a feature of our Indo-European languages and with a different language structure we would be able to avoid this cultural artefact all together.
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