There’s a video on YouTube proposing a solution to the global climate change (GCC) debate. It’s rapidly racking up the hits (over seven million so far). The video is entitled ‘The Most Terrifying Video You’ll Ever See‘ and is posted by Greg Craven. Craven, who thankfully is not a loon although his humorous hats may give that impression, argues that we should act on GCC whether it is occurring or not. Faced with the indisputable fact that GCC is or is not happening (there are only two options: true or false), Greg makes a compelling case for action regardless of whether you believe in GCC or not.

'~' indicates negation or not. So '~GCC' means 'not GCC' or 'GCC is false'.

Our task, Craven urges, is to think in columns and not rows. Don’t get bogged down in the debate over whether global climate change is occurring or not (rows); rather, accept that GCC is true or false (an undeniable fact) and then consider whether we should take action or not (columns).

When you look at the argument this way you can see that although the best possible outcome is that we don’t incur the cost of GCC-mitigation policies and global climate change does not exist (the green box), the other possibility is that we don’t incur the cost of GCC-mitigation policies and global climate change does exist (the red box). So although the best outcome would be the green box, by choosing inaction we risk the possibility of ending up in the red box. Accordingly, although choosing the right column presents us with the best possible outcome, it also presents us with the worst possible outcome. The prudent thing to do, therefore, is choose action – the left column. The left column robs us of the best possible outcome, but it also saves us from the worst possible outcome. Global climate change may still turn out not to be true (the orange box), but by choosing the left column – action on GCC – we minimise the GCC risk.

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How do you get from understanding the uninformative proposition ‘No unmarried man is married’ to understanding the informative proposition ‘No bachelor is married’? The move can be expressed in a syllogism.

1. No unmarried man is married.
2. A bachelor is an unmarried man.
3. Therefore, no bachelor is married.

This syllogism makes explicit what is implicit in the informative ‘No bachelor is married’ – foremost, premiss (2): that a bachelor is an unmarried man. Premiss (2) contains the information. Premiss (2) nominates the synonymy of ‘bachelor’ and ‘unmarried man’. Premiss (2) therefore legitimates the synonym substitution of ‘bachelor’ for ‘unmarried man’. But this does not explain the identity of ‘bachelor’ and ‘unmarried man’, so let’s assume a pure nominalism whereby we establish that to be a bachelor is to be an unmarried man. Establishing synonymy, this form of syllogism can thus be called a syllogism establishing synonymy.

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Incomplete as of Last update on September 05, 2009

Thomas Hobbes is often considered to be a man less concerned with the question of the good state and more concerned to devise a state theory with the sole aim of avoiding civil war. Similarly, it is often thought that he engages a combination of nominalism and ruthless logic to attain this end, concluding that civil peace – i.e. ~civil war – can best be achieved under an absolute monarchy. This representation of Hobbes’ ideas is correct, but only if one understands that ‘best be achieved’ denotes a probable, and not a certain, conclusion.

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