User:TheHumanAmbassador/Analyzing Undertale Port Part 4

..You know the drill..

Section 1= Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Last time, we dealt with many of the fallacies dealt with in logic. But we haven't gone over all of them. You may have noticed that I skipped some.

That's because the ones I skipped all rely on something called the burden of proof.

The burden of proof is a concept so easily misunderstood. It's hard to tell who has the burden of proof, especially as both sides tend to claim the other has it.

Usually, the burden of proof falls upon the one making the initial claim. This is why argument from ignorance is a fallacy.

But there's a simple way to make it easy and intuitive to find out who has it. However, this "simple" way requires us to expand our horizons. Of course, expanding our horizons will also give us other benefits as well, which I'll go over in this part as well.

So, where do we need to expand? Well, we should probably drop an assumption that we've all been following for all too long.

It's easy to believe that every proposition always is, and always was, either true or false. But that just simply isn't the case.

Some things are yet to be determined, and it's possible to create a proposition of such an event. Like stating that the quantum spin of an observed particle will be observed to be spin +1.

This is what we know as quantum superposition, though it's really a special case of a more general undefined truth. The events of a game's sequel are not determined until the story of said sequel has been finalized. Sometimes, a proposition is neither true nor false, because it has not yet been given a definite value. And we need to add that idea into our logical system.

Meet the third value in logic:One that is neither true, nor false.

A value that we should have been taught long, long ago..

The indeterminate value, stating that such value hasn't been determined yet.

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So, what exactly is the indeterminate value? Believe it or not, it's the default value of a proposition, before it becomes definitely true or false.

For example, the proposition that Final Fantasy XIX will have exactly 6 character in the player's party. That hasn't been determined yet, as the game hasn't even started development. So, the truth value is indeterminate.

So, it's both true and false?

No, it's still impossible for a statement to be both true and false.

Wait, so it's neither?

Not exactly.

It's what we call a superposition. And this superposition "collapses" into one of the two when said one is now the only possibility. We don't really know much about what a superposition actually is, ontologically speaking, but we do know they exist, and how they function.

So, what are the effects of adding this new value to our system of logic?

Well, you see, it allows us to derive the idea of the burden of proof completely from scratch.

As we all know, making an affirmative claim is the same thing as stating that the proposition is true.

Alice:Sans is a human, because you didn't prove it wrong!

Bob:I don't need to prove it wrong, you have to prove it right!

..Who has the burden of proof?

Well, if neither side presents any evidence, then the proposition "Sans is a human" can be said to be indeterminate:In superposition, at least in terms of the argument in question. (It's possible that it really was either true and false, and we're just trying to find out which one it is, ala the Bohmian interpretation, but in terms of our knowledge, it's in superposition.)

But Alice said that the proposition is TRUE, not indeterminate. Therefore, she has the burden of proof, since indeterminate is not the same thing as true.

This is pretty much way there's actually THREE ways a rational debate over a theory can end-The theory being proven, the theory being proven WRONG, and it being possible, but not necessarily true. (In the latter case, we're better off trying to find other theories, and then comparing them to each other:More on that in Part 6.)

In essence, when you make an absolute claim, you're the one with the burden of proof. So if you present your theory as if you solved the game, you're the one that must prove it so, because indeterminate is not the same thing as true.

Likewise, one could make an agnostic claim, claiming that it is indeed indeterminate after all, in which case, we are the ones that must collapse it into a definite value (assuming it hasn't already been done so, in which case they messed up by making a false claim.)

..And one more thing. Because the indeterminate value is like a superposition, it's possible for it to lean more towards a definite value. An electron could conceivably exist anywhere around the atom, and in fact, is in superposition under the entire wave function, but it's more likely to be in places where the peaks and troughs of the probability wave lie. (The likelihood being proportional to the square of the wave.) This bit will become important later...

We'll explore more about what we can do with this value later on, but right now, we're going to be taking another look at the burden of proof, and explain some of the fallacies we missed, with our newfound knowledge, while also finally talking about arguments containing arguments:That is, meta-arguments, as I'm coining it.

So, let us continue, shall we? I'm sure you've figured out what to do next...


 * -|Section 2=Let's review what we've gone over, putting it all into a simple model.

Propositions begin as indeterminate:A third value in logic, besides the classical true and false. It is then possible for it to "collapse" into one of the two classical values:True, or false.

But what exactly causes collapse in the first place?

It happens upon observation.

In Part 1, we've gone over what canon is. In Part 2, we've gone over how to use true premises to show more are true as well.

An argument, thus put, is an attempt at making such a collapse in our knowledge.


 * Premise 1:Toriel is a monster (TRUE)
 * Premise 2:All monsters have magic (TRUE)
 * Conclusion:Toriel has magic (TRUE)

In order for such an argument to be sound, all the premises must definitely be true (As in, they can't be false or indeterminate), and it must also be a valid argument (ie:No fallacies are used-Conclusion follows from premises.)

Otherwise, the argument has failed to prove the conclusion:It didn't get collapsed. So it's still indeterminate.


 * Premise 1:Humans don't kill (FALSE)
 * Premise 2:Frisk doesn't kill in Pacifist (TRUE)
 * Conlusion:Frisk is a human in Pacifist (Failed to prove:Therefore, indeterminate)

Note here that I said indeterminate. Not false. That's an important distinction.

In fact, we can already tell through canon that Frisk is a human in Pacifist.. And in the other routes as well. So in fact, the conclusion does collapse into true, but the fallacious argument failed to collapse the value of the conclusion.

Given this, I'd say it's about time for me to finally explain what argument from ignorance actually is, and why it's a fallacy!

Argument from ignorance is what happens when one falsely gives the skeptic the burden of proof. In order words, it's claiming that since no proof exists that the premise is true, it must be false (or that it's false because there's no proof that it's true).

So, why is it a fallacy? I wouldn't be able to explain it using only the two values of logic.. But the indeterminate value makes it trivial.

It's rather simple! The lack of proof means that the value is still indeterminate:We don't KNOW if it's true or false (or if it's literally indeterminate!) So then claiming that the premise is FALSE (and thus the negation being true) due to a lack of proof is quite the fallacy indeed! Indeterminate->False is truly a bad leap in logic. (And so is Indeterminate->True)

See? This new value lets us look at some fallacies that really don't look like fallacies.. And expose them for the fallacies they really are.

It's going to help us with some other fallacies as well! But before we get into them, it's about time we talk about arguments about arguments:In that sense, meta-arguments, as most of these fallacies involve meta-arguments. I'll also be revealing yet another special property of the indeterminate value...

So, you know what to do...


 * -|Section 3=Alright, now it's time for the next section of Part 4.

What is a meta-argument? And why has nobody heard of the term?

Well, the answer to the second question is that I just coined the term myself.

As for the first...

A meta-argument is an argument that contains other arguments.

That is, one of the premises is, or involves, a different argument altogether.

Meta-arguments can be a good thing, as it allows us to use an argument's conclusion, or any of the steps within the argument, as a premise, given the argument is valid. (Of course, in that case, we tend to just state the conclusion of the first argument as a premise in the next one..)

..Unfortunately, it is very easy to commit fallacies while doing so. In fact, most of the fallacies we actually see happening occur in meta-arguments. (Probably because it's easier to spot fallacies that are NOT in meta-arguments.)

For instance..


 * Premise 1:Determinators argued that Chara is corrupted
 * Premise 2:Said argument contains a logical fallacy (Assumes that "You remembered something funny" implies the speaker finds it funny when it could be that the listener finds it funny)
 * Conclusion:Therefore Chara is not corrupted.

You might see this as a reasonable argument... But it's actually not. This is the case of the argument from fallacy, also known as the fallacy fallacy.

Why is this? Well, it's similar to the reason why argument from ignorance is a fallacy.

In fact, the argument from fallacy is technically a special case of argument from ignorance.

Once again, the fallacious argument simply failed to collapse the value to true. It failed to prove it true.. But that doesn't mean it was proven false. It's still indeterminate.. In superposition.

You see? Ternary logic makes a lot of fallacies easier to spot!

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So, what other special property does this value have?

Well, let's take this argument.


 * Premise 1:Only ghosts and flowers can go from Snowdin to the Ruins.
 * Premise 2:Napstablook is in the Ruins
 * Conclusion:Napstablook either is from the Ruins, is a ghost, or a flower.

Now, from this, what would be the truth value of "Napstablook is a ghost"?

Without any further evidence, it would be indeterminate, in superposition. The same is the case for the other two.

However... At least one of the two must be true.

Now, let's add another piece of evidence.


 * Premise 3:Napstablook is not from the Ruins.

We know this to be the case, as we later find out they're from Waterfall. Now they're either a ghost or a flower.

Now, suppose that you can't be both a ghost and a flower. (Flowers, by definition, are physical, and ghosts are not physical.)

The statement that Nasptablook is a ghost is still in superposition. And so is the statement that Napstablook is a flower.

But.. if we collapse one of the two values.. the other collapses instantly.

If we show that Napstablook is not a flower, then we therefore know they're a ghost. Therefore, the statement that Napstablook is a ghost is now definitely true. The superposition is gone.

Likewise, if we showed that they weren't a ghost (they are).. then the other possibility, that they're a flower, would instantly collapse into "true".

But why is this the case? Well, you see... Those two propositions have became entangled.

(Yes, we just recreated two of the fundamentals of quantum mechanics just by adding in a third truth value that almost certainly exists in nature anyway. However, the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle has no equivalent here, so we can't say the universe actually functions like pure information. Not unless some knowledge can literally overwrite previous knowledge if there's too much of it. And that's simply not true.. If it looks like it, that's because the old knowledge wasn't real knowledge, as it was flawed.. Because fallacies were there. Or unproven premises.)


 * -|Section 4=So, what precisely is entanglement? You likely have an idea if you've studied quantum mechanics, but we're better off assuming you haven't.

It's when two values in superposition are in fact dependent on each other, to the point where you cannot fully describe one without the other.

It also just so happens to be correlated precisely with "IF AND ONLY IF".

In the example I gave, the truth of "Napstablook is a flower" had become dependent on the truth of "Napstablook is a ghost", and vice versa:If one is true, the other must be false. Because of this, an observation of one instantly collapses BOTH of the superpositions, not just one. Since we've ruled things down to two possibilities, and they're mutually exclusive, one is true IF AND ONLY IF the other is false.

Of course, we can make the observation that Napstablook is a ghost pretty quickly. (In fact, if we were theorizing for real, we'd know that even before mention of the Ruins door existed, as early as the first miniboss fight... But I hope the point was at least seen..)

Now that that's taken care of, we'll be taking a look at some more fallacies that can happen when using metaarguments.