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===The [[complexity]]-appropriateness of doubt=== | ===The [[complexity]]-appropriateness of doubt=== | ||
We can state this one found cleanly. [[Certainty]] is an appropriate stance to adopt towards a [[simple]] system. Certainty is the stuff of algorithm; or formal logic, of ''if this then | We can state this one found cleanly. [[Certainty]] is an appropriate stance to adopt towards a [[simple]] system. Certainty is the stuff of algorithm; or formal logic, of ''if this then that'' scenarios. Where you are ''certain'' you can deploy [[playbook]]s and [[runbook]]s; machines run on autopilot. here a legal contract is little more than a [[service level agreement]]: a schedule of works. This is that twilight world of diminishing margins, where, as dusk falls our machine collects ever scarcer pennies in front of the onward progress of the same, monstrous, entropic steam-roller. As technology develops the pennies vanish sooner and sooner. | ||
But a world where conundrums are solved is one where ''no-one wants to play the game anymore''. This is easy to understand for noughts and crosses; but the same will eventually apply to [[chess]] and [[go]]. But if at any point on the board there is an optimal move — and in a zero-sum game, there must be — then that includes the first move. In which case, there is no longer a point in playing. There is an answer. It becomes not a competition of wits, but of memory and data processing. That’s certainty, and it isn’t interesting. | But a world where conundrums are solved is one where ''no-one wants to play the game anymore''. This is easy to understand for noughts and crosses; but the same will eventually apply to [[chess]] and [[go]]. But if at any point on the board there is an optimal move — and in a zero-sum game, there must be — then that includes the first move. In which case, there is no longer a point in playing. There is an answer. It becomes not a competition of wits, but of memory and data processing. That’s certainty, and it isn’t interesting. | ||
If we take it that [[truth]] is a property of a sentence, not of the world<ref>Richard Rorty: {{br|Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity}}.</ref> and a sentence is an artefact of a language, then language would have to be a closed logical system, to which both (or all) parties to that truth were fully conversant. Not only, typically, are they not — languages are quite loose things and hard to draw boundaries — but languages are ''not closed logical systems''. This we owe to [[Goedel]]. We can, with our word games, minimise indeterminacy ([[legal language]] is a good example of where we do this, by convention eliminating [[metaphor]], avoiding slang and informal construction and where, even after that, there is potential ambiguity, minimising it with [[definitions]], but even there, the best we can hope for is that our static document can describe the order, state and function of a simple, or complex system. It cannot describe a complex system (essentially one where individual agents with conflicting interests and language structures interact. But commerce occurs in exactly that type of environment. | |||
If we take it that [[truth]] is a property of a sentence, not of the world<ref>Richard Rorty: {{br|Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity}}.</ref> and a sentence is an artefact of a language, then language would have to be a closed logical system, to which both (or all) parties to that truth were fully conversant. Not only, typically, are they not — languages are quite loose things and hard to draw boundaries — but languages are ''not closed logical systems''. This we owe to [[Goedel]]. We can, with our | |||
==={{t|Epistemology}} of [[certainty]]=== | ==={{t|Epistemology}} of [[certainty]]=== | ||
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*'''[[certainty]] in the sense of utter truth''': If there is a single truth and it is deductible, then any inconsistent view is at best sub-optimal: wasteful and possibly dangerous. There are ''objective'' grounds for suppressing any views other than the true one. | *'''[[certainty]] in the sense of utter truth''': If there is a single truth and it is deductible, then any inconsistent view is at best sub-optimal: wasteful and possibly dangerous. There are ''objective'' grounds for suppressing any views other than the true one. | ||
{{sa}} | {{sa}} | ||