What is Sense

: on the conditions of temporal unity of consciousness

Reutersvärd's triangle by László Németh

The concept of truth is superfluous in logic, which is a science of the conditions of sense. Truth-values may nevertheless be posited in logical calculus to mediate the inclusion or exclusion of certain elements in the unity of sense that the calculus aims to produce, but truth-values are not universal, let alone ‘known to be true’ in any objective sense. At the level of existential contingency of meaning, the notion of truth is ungrounded, essentially unknowable, and arguably inconsistent due to the logical circularity of the sense/meaning of a thing being indiscernible from what that thing is. This circularity may be resolved only under perfect systemic consistency, therefore only as an ideal that is practically unachievable. On the other hand, everything that does not make perfect sense at the systemic level is objectively false, leaving us with a concept of truth that is either practically irrelevant (because it is prohibitively demanding) or inconsistent (permissive of non-sense). For this reason, the science of sense may disregard the concept of truth for the sake of consistency and practical relevance.

We can conceive of instances of sense as temporal unities of consciousness: configurational wholes that consciousness becomes without any meaningful remainder. A conscious state or a conscious moment must be unified because only a unity/whole can be have a singular, definitive meaning, therefore identity. Identity implies unity, integrity and wholeness of being that is unambiguously and instantaneously distinct from everything else. Anything we can possibly perceive, think or intend for action is either a one thing or it is different things considered together, as a meaningful synthesis of parts. The science of sense is concerned with how different instances of sense can be put together into a one instance of sense of a higher order: a synthetic, temporal unity of consciousness.

Every moment is a sense-unity insofar as it has the identity of an instant and the configurational consistency of its presence. Inconsistencies (deficiencies of sense) may therefore arise only in time, as a relation between meaningful moments. An instant of sense-unity, which may be a premise of an argument, can thus be inconsistent only with respect to other instants, which in turn implies narrative or configurational non-sense. Momentary sense-unities maintain temporal and narrative continuity from one instant of sense to another via the identity-relation mediated by their common terms in the episodic and configurational dimensions, in the same sense as logical relevance unifies the premises and the conclusion of a logical argument. Episodic consistency relates to the order in which moments or premises are consciously apprehended; configurational consistency relates to how the moments or premises are narratively integrated (respectively, as the present moment or as a conclusion). The grounding sense-unity of episodic and configurational dimensions is the Self; the spatial and temporal locus implicated in every instance of sense, including those of self-ideation, which may not be consistent with the temporal and narrative stream of sense-unities of another Self or with prior instances of self-ideation.

Sense-unity entails compliance with the laws of sense - identity ∀x(x=x), non-contradiction ∀x¬(x∧¬x), and excluded middle ∀x(¬x∨x) - but logical formalism is neither sufficient nor necessary to discern sense. Instances of sense can be coherently and relevantly explained in a natural language, can be unambiguously visualised or visually represented, or executed in action. The capacity to discern sense is innate to all reflexively conscious beings, presupposed already in thinking and in the use of language, but violations of the laws are also common due to the unbounded complexity-potential of meaning. Insofar as compliance with the laws is impeded by configurational complexity, the sense-unity of systemic abstractions such as Self, being, meaning, time, morality and truth is notoriously deficient and subject to regressive substitution or counterfeiting with lower-order instances of sense. The ontological integrity of individual consciousness is commensurate with the sense-unity of these highest-order abstractions.

Examples

1. Reutersvärd’s triangle (pictured at the top of this article) is a 2D pattern composed of apparent cubes whose faces are arranged in a way that does not make sense in 3D. If the premise of ‘cubes’ is accepted, which is the phenomenologically simplest interpretation, the image can be conceptually apprehended only consecutively, segment by segment, where each segment is a momentary sense-unity but cannot be meaningfully integrated with all the other segments at the same time. The image is nevertheless geometrically ambiguous and a consistent interpretation in 3D is possible: a shell-pattern viewed at a particular angle. Follow the link or click the image below to manipulate the 3D model and discover how the quasi-paradox is generated. No optical illusion is involved but only geometric ambiguity of a 2D representation of a 3D object, where only one interpretation makes sense in 3D.

Reutersvärd’s triangle emphasises a critical flaw in human reasoning: committing to the most obvious (natural, habitual, intuitive, simple) characteristics of the problem as its proper premises can close the path to conceiving of a higher order sense-unity. Similarly, the definitional commitment that logic is either a function of ‘truth’ or about the conditions of ‘truth’ subverts its capacity to make sense. Every cultural or ideological conflict can be reduced to premises that appear unambiguously ‘true’ to their adherents who are not aware of the ambiguity inherent in their standard of ‘truth’, which prevents all ideologies and cultures from identifying a higher order sense-unity that resolves their conflict. Crucially, a higher order sense-unity is not dialectical; it is not a synthesis of opposites but their transcendence, which requires recognition of the underlying ambiguity and rejection of the premises that entail systemic contradictions. Reutersvärd’s triangle symbolises cultural and ideological transcendence by grounding all meaning (including values, truth, and reality) in the laws of sense.

The premise of ‘misinformation’ is inherently ideological, arbitrarily denying the unity of sense.

2. When we make a logical statement, for example conjunction (A∧B), we intend to say that A and B form a synthetic unity of sense, one identity, akin to parts making up a whole. ‘Cat is on the mat’ and ‘Dog is on the mat’ make sense as one situation: ‘Cat and Dog are on the mat’. ‘Cat is on the mat’ and ‘not-Cat is on the mat’ also make sense as one situation: ‘Cat and something other than Cat are on the mat’. On the other hand, we cannot make a meaningful whole consisting of A and not-A: ‘Cat is on the mat’ and ‘Cat is not on the mat’. The terms cancel/negate one another, include A and exclude A from the unity of sense, leaving us with nothing, or what one may call non-sense, or ab-sense, which consists in no synthetic meaning apart from the mutual negation of the terms.

The sense of the term ‘non-sense’ is the lack of sense-unity of individually meaningful propositions (multiple instances of sense) taken together as a synthetic whole. It is possible to erroneously conclude that multiple instances of sense make a synthetic sense-unity where there is no sense-unity, in which case the conclusion and the instances of sense do not make a synthetic sense-unity. A consistent conclusion must make a sense-unity with all the relevant premises, or else it is not a conclusion that follows from those premises but a sense-unity of a different kind, temporally misidentified with the premises, hence a narrative inconsistency in time that undermines the integrity of being in time, including the integrity of the Self.

3. Another common example of sense-unity is disjunction (A∨B). When we make a logical statement ‘A or B’ we mean a whole that consists either wholly of A, wholly of B, or wholly of the unity of A and B. In this case we can make sense of ‘A or not-A’ insofar as we deny only the possibility of ‘A and not-A’, which leaves us exclusively with either A alone or not-A alone as a whole instance of sense.

4. A more complex but also essential example of sense-unity is implication (A→B) the sense of which consists in the denial/negation of the sense-unity of ‘A and not-B’: a declaration that A and not-B cannot be integrated as a meaningful whole if A→B. This in turn ‘implies’ that A and not-B cannot be integrated as a meaningful whole with A→B, since the conclusion (insofar as it makes sense, therefore has synthetic meaning) must make a sense-unity with the relevant premises.

5. Self-implication (P→P) is a more fundamental form presupposed in all reasoning. It is an extension of the law of identity over multiplicity of occurrences ‘of the same thing’. Any attempt to prove self-implication must assume it in order to maintain the identity of P along the evaluative chain, or else any instance or mention of P could signify a different thing to other instances or mentions, or be anything at all, including the negation of P. As such, the theorem of self-implication is proven a priori by the contradiction that results from its denial: to deny it is to allow P and not-P.

Special case of sense-unity of opposite premises

Non-existence or negation of a term that mediates the identity of opposite premises, and thus puts them in the relationship of relevance, implies the inclusion of opposite premises without contradiction.

‘Every X is green’ implies that ‘No X is not-green’.

The two forms are logically equivalent and can be asserted together without inconsistency. Substituting ‘none/zero’ for ‘Every’ and ‘No’, which is the case of ‘X does not exist’ (there is no X, therefore Every X is no X) results in:

‘zero X are green’ and ‘zero X are not green’

These can be expressed synthetically, as a sense-unity:

‘zero X are green and not-green’

Despite the inclusion of opposites propositions, the total expression makes sense (is not contradictory) because the term under which the opposites are nominally unified is negated (‘there is no such X’), which is consistent with the sense of the law of non-contradiction. Another way of expressing the relevant sense-unity: ‘there is no such thing that is green and not-green’. The contradiction is negated, not affirmed, and this makes sense.