Five Thousand B.C. and Other Philosophical Fantasies

by Raymond Smullyan

  Notes

  1

  S. Gorn, Compendium of Rarely Used Clichés (unpublished and used with permission of the author).

  2

  To the mathematical reader, the situation as described has a resemblance to conclusions some mathematical logicians have drawn from the Skolem-Löwenheim theorem. This theorem is to the effect that no axiom system (of first order logic) can compel the domain of interpretation to be non denumerable. This led Skolem and others to believe that the very notion of nondenumerability has no absolute meaning.

  3

  This reminds me of the beautiful Haiku poem:

  There is nothing in the voice of the cicada

  To indicate how long it will live.

  12

  Enlightened Solipsism

  ANDRICUS: I can well imagine why some Eastern mystics and philosophers find so strange our Western idea that one should love and treat one’s neighbor as oneself. I am thinking of the type who believes that one’s neighbor is oneself! Naturally, someone who believes this needs nothing like ethics or morality to treat others well but would do so for the very same reasons that one treats oneself well. Under this belief, the very notion of sacrifice would be meaningless. This is an interesting example of how a purely metaphysical hypothesis can have fundamental ethical ramifications without appealing at all to anything like principles of morality.

  MORALIST: It would be a fine kettle of fish if people had to have such an idea to behave ethically!

  FIRST PHILOSOPHER: This idea only substantiates what I have always said, namely, that if you start out with nonsense, you usually end up with nonsense! The hypothesis that my neighbor is myself is so patently absurd that it seems an utter waste of time to even consider its further ramifications.

  ANDRICUS: But I ask, is it all that absurd? Does it have no meaning whatsoever? Even if strictly speaking it is false (or even meaningless), may it not at least suggest something of value that perhaps a more conventionally meaningful sentence would not suggest?1

  SECOND PHILOSOPHER: If you claim that there is any meaning in the sentence, “My neighbor is myself,” then it is incumbent on you to demonstrate this fact!

  FIRST PHILOSOPHER: Three cheers!

  ANDRICUS: Softly, my friends! I make no claim whatsoever. I feel, however, that there is something extremely important in this sentence. All I wish to do is to discuss with you certain ideas that have occurred to me in the process of trying to understand it. Before this, however, I wish to mention a closely related point. Many people feel that this is an unjust world since some lives are fraught with so much suffering and others with so much joy.

  FIRST PHILOSOPHER: Obviously! Everybody in his right mind knows that.

  ANDRICUS: Well now, consider a hundred booths in a building, each one containing an occupant watching a private movie. Suppose some of the movies are very good and others very bad. At first sight, this situation seems very unjust; why should some be more privileged than others to see good movies? But suppose upon learning more about the setup we found out that the overall plan was that the occupants were to rotate, and hence everyone would see all one hundred movies, but each in a different order. Then we would revise our opinion about the situation’s being unjust.

  FIRST PHILOSOPHER: This is obviously an analogy; what arc you driving at?

  ANDRICUS: It seems to me that it is logically possible that the physical universe simply repeats its history over and over again and that we sentient beings (minds, souls, egos, spirits, psyches, call us what you will) simply interchange roles, that is, each of us inhabits the body of some living organism during one universal cycle; in the next cycle, we switch organisms. Thus, we all “see the same show” but in different orders. If this were true, then clearly the world would not be unjust.

  FIRST PHILOSOPHER: If this were true; that’s a pretty big if.

  ANDRICUS: I am not claiming the hypothesis to be true; I am only claiming it to be possible. If I am not wrong in this claim, then an important conclusion can be drawn: Some pessimists claim that the existing world is necessarily unjust; there is no possible way of justifying it. Now, if my hypothesis is true, then the world is not unjust. Hence, if my hypothesis is possible (which no one has yet disproved), then it is possible that the world is not unjust, and hence the pessimists’ claim that the world is necessarily unjust is false.

  SECOND PHILOSOPHER: The world obviously is unjust, and it is clearly up to us to make the world more just! Your theory constitutes the perfect apology for the quietist who wishes to sit back and let things remain as bad as they are. Just think! If your theory were true, then the world would already be perfectly just and would remain perfectly just in the future regardless of what we did. In other words, there is nothing we could do to make the world any more just, so we might as well sit back and continue in our rotten ways!

  ANDRICUS: Ah, but that is precisely my second point! Just think, if my hypothesis were true—or more important, if it were generally believed—how much better would we treat each other! My neighbor’s fortunes and misfortunes are nothing more than my own past or future fortunes and misfortunes.

  MORALIST: At this point, I vigorously protest! Apart from the utter metaphysical absurdity of the hypothesis, I vehemently deny that its belief would lead to more moral behavior! I wish to categorically state once and for all that if I refrained from hurting my neighbor simply because I believed that I would one day be hurting myself, then my act would have no moral worth whatsoever.

  ANDRICUS: Well now, that depends upon one’s basic orientation toward morality. Tell me, are you a Christian?

  MORALIST: Yes.

  ANDRICUS: Well, does not Christianity motivate people toward good deeds by talk of rewards and punishments in a future life? Would you regard it of no moral worth for a man to try to live a good life to obtain salvation or escape damnation?

  MORALIST: Of course God metes out punishments and rewards in the afterlife. But the truly moral man does not pursue the good for the purpose of obtaining rewards or avoiding punishments; he pursues the good only for the sake of the good.

  ANDRICUS: You grant that Bishop Berkeley was a good Christian apologist?

  MORALIST: Of course!

  ANDRICUS: Well, perhaps you are aware that in his essay, “Future Rewards and Punishments,” he actually stated that a man who did not believe in future rewards and punishments would act a foolish part in being honest. He continued,

  For what reason is there why such a one should postpone his own private interest or pleasure in doing his duty? … But he that, having no such view, should yet conscientiously deny himself a present good in any incident where he may save appearances is altogether as stupid as he that would trust him at such a juncture.2

  MORALIST: I am aware that Berkeley unfortunately wrote these words. Look, I certainly regard Berkeley as a model Christian in almost all respects. But this particular sentiment I regard as most un-Christian! Christianity in the true sense of the word teaches that though moral acts do carry future rewards, one should perform them not for the sake of the rewards but simply because they are right. This was clearly recognized by Immanuel Kant. Indeed, Kant had the insight to realize that even when one performed a helpful act for a neighbor merely out of sympathy or compassion, the act had no moral worth since it was then performed only out of identification with one’s neighbor’s feelings, and hence, in the last analysis, only done out of consideration for one’s own feelings. In other words, such an act is only a disguised form of selfishness.

  ANDRICUS: Oh come now, if you carry that type of analysis far enough, then any action can be regarded as another form of selfishness. It could be equally argued that your very attachment to what you call morality is only a form of selfishness; in other words, you perform moral actions only because of the satisfaction you get from doing what you know to be right.

  MORALIST: I protest! This is an old and vicious hedonist trick. The hedonists try to rationalize their selfishness at any costs; obvio
usly, they cannot successfully do so. Hence, to assuage their guilt feelings for their selfishness (which shines through their philosophy however they may try to hide it), they point an accusing finger at the decent moralist and claim that he is just as selfish as they!

  ANDRICUS: I think that you misunderstood the point I was trying to make. I was not claiming that your pursuit of the good is not moral but only that if your argument were correct, then it could also be turned against you. In other words, I was merely attempting a sort of reductio ad absurdum argument against your position. I know that some hedonists also do this, and though I am definitely not a hedonist, I think that they are right in this respect. In other words, if you are going to bring moral charges against hedonists—even those who act altruistically not out of moral principle but simply out of human kindness—if you charge them with selfishness for doing this, I do not see how the same charge cannot be leveled against you for the pursuit of morality itself.

  MORALIST: But there is all the world of difference between the two.

  ANDRICUS: Is there really? I guess your point is that virtue is its own reward and that one should pursue virtue only for the very reward implicit in virtue itself.

  MORALIST: No, that is still not right. One should not pursue virtue for any reward whatsoever—not even the reward implicit in virtue itself. Of course, I believe that virtue is its own reward but that does not mean that one should pursue it for the sake of that reward. One should pursue virtue only for its own sake.

  ANDRICUS: I think you are demanding something that in principle is impossible. You are essentially demanding that a person do something without having any motivation whatsoever. It is as if you were saying, “I want you to do this; but I don’t want you to want to do it!” You are really giving contradictory commands—you are placing your listener in a double bind. The effect on a sensitive person can be psychologically shattering in the extreme. I think it is this aspect of so-called morality that more than any other has given rise to such strong antimoral feelings in the world.

  FIRST PHILOSOPHER: How did we ever get sidetracked on the subject of morality? On moral grounds I am afraid I agree with Andricus rather than the moralist. I am basically a utilitarian and a pragmatist. I fully agree that if either the mystical hypothesis, “Your neighbor is yourself,” or Andricus’s hypothesis, “Your neighbor is your past or future self,” were generally believed, then certainly people would treat each other far better than they do now, and this would indeed make for a better world. Whether moral worth should then be imputed to their motives, I leave for the moral metaphysician. The fact is that the world would be a hell of a lot better. But my pragmatism does not go so far as to make me believe something is true just because the belief in it makes the world better. The mystic belief is simply nonsensical, and Andricus’s hypothesis, though not logically contradictory, is empirically ridiculously implausible. Surely there must be some saner way of getting people to treat each other better!

  ANDRICUS: I also did not want to get sidetracked on moral issues, but I’m afraid that it was mainly my fault for remarking on the ethical ramifications of the concept of my neighbor is myself. But now that we are on the subject of morality, there is something else I wish to say before I come back to the metaphysical and epistemological aspects of the question.

  What strikes me as the fundamental difference between the Eastern and Western concepts of morality is this: The Western mind tends to regard one’s duty and one’s natural inclination as opposing forces. These then are forces in eternal conflict. This conflict is clearly reflected in the Christian theology of God versus the devil. Virtue then consists of fighting, resisting, or overcoming temptations. One speaks of the triumph of good over evil. My response is, “What a way to live!” The very idea of good triumphing over evil structures the situation in such a warlike manner! This is an excellent example of the type of duality that is regarded as so unfortunate by the Easterner. By contrast, the Eastern mind sees no real conflict between egotism and altruism; the apparent conflict arises only from what they call ignorance. The entire approach is not to have altruism triumph over egotism but to integrate or fuse the two, or rather to realize that they are really one.

  I think that the whole situation is beautifully expressed in the Eastern story of the student who asked the master about the true nature of sacrifice. The master replied, “Do not speak to me, my boy, of sacrifice; it is all in the mind! There is much opportunity to do good in the world, and he who does not avail himself of it is robbing himself. Does the sun make a sacrifice by shining forth rays of warmth and light?”

  SECOND PHILOSOPHER: Please, Andricus, can’t we leave the subject of morality and return to the original topic? Your hypothesis was that our minds rotate bodies over various lifetimes, and hence that my neighbor’s experiences are either my past or future experiences. Do you seriously regard this as an explanation of what the Eastern mystic means when he says, “Thy neighbor is thyself”?

  ANDRICUS: Of course not! No Eastern mystic would accept such a crass, literal-minded interpretation. Only a Westerner like myself would even think of such a thing.

  FIRST PHILOSOPHER: Why do you speak so disparagingly of we Westerners? Do you think we are congenitally inferior to the Easterners or something?

  ANDRICUS: Of course not. The difference is neither congenital nor a matter of inferiority or superiority. But there is a very important difference, as I can assure you from having spent many years in the East. It is that our whole training since early childhood, our whole basic orientation toward life, is so different that we appear almost to have different basic categories of thought. Indeed, some feel that much of the profound wisdom of the East is not even translatable into Western terms. I myself do not go along with this view; I think it is translatable though there are enormous difficulties involved.

  At any rate, the hypothesis I suggested was intended only as a first approximation of the notion, “My neighbor is myself.” What I now wish to consider is the following variant of this hypothesis: Instead of there being many individual minds in the universe that rotate bodies during successive lifetimes, there is only one mind, which inhabits one body at a time—a different one during each physical cycle.

  FIRST PHILOSOPHER: This hypothesis strikes me as even crazier than your first!

  ANDRICUS: Me, too! It is a rather weird variant of solipsism. Suppose my body should now say, “My mind is the only one in existence.” These two physical events would occur over and over again in the various universal cycles. Once and only once when my body says it, it will be true; once and only once when your body says it, it will be true; and so forth for each body that says it.

  SECOND PHILOSOPHER: Since you admit your second hypothesis is even crazier than your first, why did you even bother to formulate it?

  ANDRICUS: Mainly in preparation for my third hypothesis, which is as follows: There is only one mind in the universe. This mind very rapidly oscillates through all the living organisms of the universe. it spends, say, a trillionth of a trillionth of a second in your body, then in mine, then in the next fellow’s, then in the body of a dog, and so forth. It oscillates so fast that the effect seems continuous, like a single beam of light oscillating all over a television screen.3

  FIRST PHILOSOPHER: And this, you take it, is an explication of what the Eastern mystic means by the statement, “Your neighbor is yourself”?

  ANDRICUS: No, certainly not. Again, this is far too literal, Western, and “science fictitious” to satisfy the Eastern mystic. Indeed, he has —or claims to have—direct understanding of the notion, “My neighbor is myself”; no explanation is needed.

  FIRST PHILOSOPHER: And do you claim to understand this directly?

  ANDRICUS: Yes and no. I might first of all go one step further in the hypothesis: Imagine the one mind oscillating faster and faster. Is it so impossible to pass to the mathematical limit of the situation, which is that the same mind is simultaneously in all the different bodies? Indeed, even with
out passing to this limit, if the oscillation is rapid enough, then for all practical purposes the mind is simultaneously in many bodies.

  FIRST PHILOSOPHER: Can you honestly say that this idea of your mind being in several bodies at the same time does not go counter to your intuition about time?

  ANDRICUS: To be perfectly honest, yes! But then I suspect that there is something wrong with our very intuition about time. But we have heard nothing this entire conversation from our friend the epistemologist. Why so silent?

  EPISTEMOLOGIST: I have remained silent because my objection to the original statement, “My neighbor is myself,” is on such trivially obvious grounds that it seemed almost pointless to voice it.

  ANDRICUS: Why not voice it anyhow?

  EPISTEMOLOGIST: All right, if you really wish me to I will. How can the statement, “My neighbor is myself,” possibly be true? The simple fact is that if a pin is stuck into your body, you feel it and I don’t. It would seem to me that if you and I were identical, then we would either both feel the pain or neither of us feel the pain. How can you say that two things are identical when you affirm something about the one and deny it about the other?

  ANDRICUS: Obviously, this is indeed the main objection to the idea and is precisely why the idea is difficult for me to accept.