No, a proposition is just an object. An object doesn't assign properties to itself, an object is just something with properties. — MindForged

When you say "The dog is black" you assign the property of blackness to the dog.

I said the contradiction can be arbitrary, so it doesn't matter what you substitute for "P". The Golbach Conjecture is true and it isn't true. — MindForged

Well, you have just said that an object (Goldbach Conjecture) both has the property of being true and doesn't have the property of being true. Again, you have violated the identity of an object.

The referent is what the sentence is about, the predicate tells us that the object in question is related to black. — MindForged

The sentence "The dog is black" is about the situation of a dog having the property of blackness. Its referent is not just the dog, and not just blackness, but the whole situation.

Your initial objection here was the claim the Liars lack a referent in reality. The Liar sentences have a referent (themselves) and that's just the way it is. — MindForged

The Liar sentence "This sentence is false" says that the sentence is both false and not false, so its referent is a situation where the sentence is both false and not false. But such a situation doesn't exist, because the Liar sentence is just false (like any contradiction). So the Liar sentence has no referent.

Um, that's incorrect. A proposition is just an object, whose ontological status will depend on what view you adopt about abstract objects. A statement is not the same thing as a proposition, though they are related. — MindForged

A proposition, whatever its exact nature, assigns a property to an object. So propositions are inseparable from identities of objects.

As for a contradiction that doesn't violate identity, well, just post any arbitrary contradiction. I'll stipulate, for my example, that it's in a language which lacks equality, and therefore the semantics required for identity. "P & ~P". A contradiction and therefore false to be sure, but identity isn't required. — MindForged

You still haven't given an example of a contradictory proposition that doesn't violate the identity of some object. "P & ~P" is not an example; it's a general symbol for a contradictory proposition.

No, that's not what a referent is. A referent is what the sentence is about. The referent of "My dog is black" is the dog in question, not "reality". — MindForged

The sentence "My dog is black" is not just about the dog but also about the dog's relation to black color.

Identity regards the properties of an object, LNC regards whether some proposition is the case or is not the case. — MindForged

But what is a proposition? It is a statement that assigns a property to an object. So when you deal with propositions you can't avoid dealing with objects and their properties and thus with identity of objects. So tell me an example of a contradictory proposition that doesn't violate the identity of some object.

Well I mentioned Paraconsistency in the OP so it didn't come out of nowhere (there'd be no reason to advocate for a true contradiction unless you dropped explosion). And it's not arbitrary to do this; if you accept the Liar as a sound argument you need to eliminate or restrict an inference rule that generates explosion. — MindForged

Liar is a contradiction so I regard it as false.

I don't know what you're trying to say here. Only the phrase "this sentence" has a referent, the entirety of a sentence can't have a referent. — MindForged

Take the sentence "My dog is black". This sentence as a whole has a referent in reality. The referent is the fact that my dog is black.

I think this has to do with uncertainty of knowledge, not with ontological contradictions.

It's raining and it's not the case that it's raining. I'm sserting a proposition and its negation both hold, not that there is some object which has and lacks a property (that *is* a contradiction). — MindForged

By asserting this contradiction you are also asserting an object ("it"/weather) has the property of raining and does not have the property of raining. Since the identity of every object is determined by its properties, you are asserting that the object is not identical to itself. By asserting a contradiction, you violate the identity of an object.

I don't think you understood me. Accepting that not all contradictions are true is *not* the LNC, that's simply a rejection of Trvialism. That's not using the LNC, because rejecting the LNC does not entail accepting all contradictions. — MindForged

Ok, I automatically also assumed the principle of explosion. So, you can reject LNC and accept only some contradictions as long as you block the principle of explosion in some way and thus prevent contradictions from spreading to all other statements. Blocking the principle of explosion seems an arbitrary act but I guess it can be useful in some situations like where you don't want contradictions to contaminate a whole information system - it's a pragmatic solution designed to prevent spreading of false information but with no implications for ontology (reality). In ontology I reject all contradictions because contradictions refer to absurd objects without identity.

The contradictory sentence exists. If on your view it is simply false, the sentence exists so saying the sentence lacks a referent is gobbldygook (non-existent things cannot have a proeprty like falsehood.) — MindForged

The sentence "This sentence is false." exists but it doesn't refer to itself. Only a part of it ("This sentence") refers to the sentence. Compare with the sentence "My dog is not a dog.": a part of the sentence ("My dog") refers to my dog but the sentence as a whole doesn't refer to anything because there is no dog that is not a dog.

To see this, have a look at the Hong–Ou–Mandel effect. Figure 1 shows the four quantum states in superposition when two photons enter a beam splitter at the same time, one photon entering from above and one photon entering from below. — Andrew M

So at the beginning of the experiment the two photons are not identical because they have at least one different property - position in space: one is above the beam splitter, the other is below.

What is actually observed is that the two photons always emerge together on either the upper or lower side of the beam splitter (i.e., either state 1 or 4). — Andrew M

So at the end of the experiment both photons have the same position in space? If so, can we say they are just one photon? I guess not, because there is energy of two photons there, not of one. So the two photons must be numerically different. But what is their distinguishing property then? I think their distinguishing property is their different position in an abstract space where even photons with all the same physical properties are distinguished. I don't know how to call it, perhaps primitive particularity or "thisness".

Whether the two photons at the end of the experiment can be distinguished by physicists seems to be an empirical problem, not ontological. Also, whether each photon at the end of the experiment is the same photon as it was at the beginning of the experiment is a question of the preservation of identity through time. Identity doesn't have to be preserved in time; an object can be annihilated, or merged with another object, or separated from another object at some point in time. But at each point in time an object is identical to itself and different from other objects.

So again, what is 'a triangle'? It is not an object per se - an object is this or that triangle, a particular - but what a triangle really is is a plane surface bounded by three straight lines. — Wayfarer

Both particulars and universals are objects because they are identical to themselves and different from what they are not.

A contradiction is not the assertion that an object has a property "X" and lacks that property, it's the assertion that a proposition holds and it's negation holds. — MindForged

So please give me an example of a contradiction, and we'll see if it violates the identity of some object.

Well yea bro, I'm not gonna quote the entire paper. I named the paper at the end of the quote and offered to send to the PDF of the paper in question if you couldn't access Sci-Hub (it's having issues right now). — MindForged

It might help if you explained the reason why you think quantum particles don't have identity to someone who is a layman in physics. For me, two objects (particles or whatever) are identical (metaphysically indistinguishable, that is, one and the same object) iff all of their properties are the same (including e.g. their position in space). This is just the principle of identity of indiscernibles or indiscernibility of identicals. So how is this violated in QM?

Well this is the easiest thing in the world. I did not mention "completely rejecting the LNC" because Dialetheists don't completely reject it. They don't believe ALL contradictions are true, only some. — MindForged

That's why I said that they still need LNC even though they relax it in certain situations. In ontology I wouldn't relax LNC at all because it would mean to accept the existence of objects without identity (with violated identity.)

If "It is raining" has meaning, and it's negation "It's not case that it's raining" are meaningful, then "It's raining and it's not the case that it's raining" is meaningful. — MindForged

I clarified that by "meaningless" I meant that the sentence doesn't correspond to any object with identity. What object does the sentence "It's raining and it's not the case that it's raining" (as a whole) correspond to? There exists no such state of weather; it would be an absurd state of weather.

There is a proposition "P such that "P" relates to truth and "P" relates to falsity. — MindForged

What do you mean by "relates to truth"? Simply that it "is true"? Your above proposition seems to mean that something is true and not true, which is a contradiction.

"This sentence" refers to the ENTIRE sentence, not to the phrase "this sentence". — MindForged

I agree. The phrase "this sentence" refers to the entire sentence. But the entire sentence as a whole doesn't refer to anything, because there is no sentence that is both false and true. The entire sentence says it is both false and true, but in fact it is just false (like any contradiction).

I mean, "This sentence has five words" is equally self-referential and yet the predicate "has five words" is clearly the case about the sentence. — MindForged

This sentence as a whole refers to itself because it indeed has five words.

Actually, the Platonic analysis of this apparently obvious point, was that no object truly is, on account of it being an appearance only, without inherent reality (following Parmenides.) But this is not so with 'ideal objects' such as numbers, which really are what they are; so A=A is always certain, but when it comes to the sensory or phenomenal domain, there are actually no 'A's as such, but only representations. — Wayfarer

But an appearance or representation is still identical to itself, no? An appearance of a triangle is an appearance of a triangle, not an appearance of a circle.

The phenomenon is known as 'ambiguous loss': it seems that the most balanced human reaction is to embrace the contradiction, i.e. to accept that the missing person is both alive and dead, like Schrodinger's cat. — mcdoodle

I can imagine that a person is unsure whether someone is dead or alive but I haven't met a person who believed that someone is both dead and alive.

I know what identity is, I was spelling out the properties of the identity relation, which is what the principle is. To "violate" the law of identity does not entail violating the Law of Non-contradiction. The LNC asserts that a proposition cannot be true and its negation be true as well. The Law of Identity tells you how to know when a seemingly distinct objects are in fact identical (when they share all their properties). That is why one can remove the law of identity from their formal logic and yet retain the LNC. — MindForged

When you claim that object X has property P and object X does not have property P, you violate LNC by holding both the proposition "object X has property P" and its negation as true. And you simultaneously violate Law of Identity because you claim that object X is something it is not - that it has a property that it doesn't have. Such an object is absurd and cannot exist in reality. In this sense, reality is logical (logically consistent). Or do you think that reality contains objects that have and simultaneously don't have the same property?

That's an assumption (one which I would share), but it's not obviously the case given certain possibilities in quantum mechanics. I already quoted the relevant paper explaining this up above, but thus far you seem to have avoided acknowledging anything I've linked. — MindForged

I am sorry but your quote didn't explain why the authors believe that particles don't have identity. It just says that they don't have identity and that in many situations one cannot distinguish particles of the same kind. And I am not sure what they mean by "cannot distinguish particles of the same kind". Do they mean that the particles are exactly the same? But if the particles have different positions at the same time then they can be distinguished by their position, so position is a property that gives them distinct identities, even though all of their other properties are the same.

Well that's a silly view. Lots of things don't correspond to reality, yet they are true. There are an infinite number of mathematical truths that don't correspond to anything in reality yet I doubt you'd deny them or claim they were meaningless. — MindForged

Actually, reality or existence in the most general sense includes all consistently defined objects - that is objects that have an identity. Objects that don't have an identity - objects that are not what they are, that don't have properties they have - are nonsense, so these are not included in reality.

You asserted that if Dialetheists argue there is a true contradiction (that the LNC is not true) then they are thereby employing the LNC. This could only be the case if the notion of a "contradiction" assumed the LNC, which doesn't make any sense. Rejecting the LNC simply means you believe there is at least one true proposition which also has a true negation. — MindForged

Completely rejecting LNC means that you believe not only that there is at least one true proposition which also has a true negation, but that you also believe the opposite: that there is no true proposition which also has a true negation. As you see, such a belief is absurd and self-defeating. Even as you try to get rid of LNC, you still have to hold on to it. You can utter a contradictory statement, such as "there is a triangle that is not a triangle" (and at the same time hold on to LNC by regarding the statement as true rather than true and false), but I don't think you can find such a triangle in reality. I see no reason to admit such absurd objects in ontology.

Being contradictory isn't sufficient for meaninglessness. A meaningful sentence is meaningful if it's components are meaningful. — MindForged

A contradictory sentence is meaningless in that it doesn't correspond to any object with an identity. And an object without an identity is an absurdity. I don't even think it's an object; it's nothing.

And besides, the sentence "This sentence is false" seems perfectly meaningful and it has a referent in reality (the very sentence itself, as that's what it specifies). — MindForged

This sentence says that it has the property of falsehood and simultaneously says (implicitely) that it doesn't have the property of falsehood. Even though a part of it ("This sentence") refers to itself, the sentence as a whole (with the predicate "is false") doesn't refer to anything; it doesn't correspond to itself because it characterizes itself as both false and true when in fact it is just false (like any contradiction).

That is not the principle of identity. The POI says that for every "x", x stands in a symmetrical, transitive and reflexive relation with itself. — MindForged

By the principle of identity I mean that an object is identical to itself: that it is what it is. That's what this principle has meant since ancient Greece:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_identity

When you violate this principle of identity you also automatically commit a contradiction and when you commit a contradiction you automatically violate this principle of identity: you say that object X is not object X, or: "Object X has property P" AND "Object X does not have property P".

To restrict the domain of application of the POI means that the objects is question are metaphysically (not epistemically) indistinguishable. — MindForged

If two objects are metaphysically indistinguishable then they are one and the same object. Can two electrons in quantum mechanics be distinguished? Well it seems they can; they can be distinguished by at least one of their properties - by their position in space. It also depends on how you define "electron".

"This sentence is false." — MindForged

I don't claim you can't utter contradictions like this one. But contradictory sentences don't correspond to any object in reality. They are just a string of words that doesn't correspond to anything in reality. They have no meaning.

There are known systems of logic which lack the Principle of Identity or even change the law itself. — MindForged

Do they say that an object is not what it is? That an object is not identical to itself?

Well this is just false.The way that (dialetheic) paraconsistent logics deny the Law of Non-contradiction is simple. They merely give a case wherein there is a proposition which is true and its negation is true. — MindForged

And do they say that it is true that there is such a case? If so, then they are employing the law of non-contradiction.

Logic is fundamental to reality in the sense that every object in reality is what it is and is not what it is not. In other words, every object in reality is identical to itself and different from other objects. And when the identity and difference of objects is established, all true propositions about them are logically consistent. This is basically the law of identity or non-contradiction. Without this law, reality would be absurd and even the difference between existence and non-existence would be erazed. I have no idea what that would mean.

Even the logic systems that relax the law of non-contradiction in certain situations, like the paraconsistent logic, would not work without the law of non-contradiction - because they need to specify - non-contradictorily! - how the law of non-contradiction is relaxed. They just seem to block the spreading of contradictions to other parts of an information system to save the whole system from becoming worthless. If they completely abandoned the law of non-contradiction they would be worthless because they would automatically negate whatever claim they would make.

We might also define "entity", in the most general sense, as something that has an identity, that is, something that is identical to itself and different from other entities. Or simply something that is what it is and is not what it is not.

This would rule out impossible "entities", that is those that lack identity (are what they are not). I think such "entities" are simply nothing, the content of an empty set.

Would a good analogy for the relationship be "logic is 'pure logic' and science is 'applied logic', in comparison to pure and applied mathematics"? — MonfortS26

Yes, this is how I see the relationship between logic and (empirical) science too. Logic defines all possibilities while empirical observation, that is, interaction with our environment, helps us find out in which logical possibilities we happen to live.

If God defies logic, he doesn't defy logic.

Or we might say that if God defies logic, he is not God. Because logic ensures that God is God.

If you don't understand the distinction between abstract mathematics and the actual, physical world that we live in, that's something you should try to understand. You've fatally weakened your own argument by admitting you don't know the difference between the two. — fishfry

And do you know the difference? You didn't explain it.

If you regard as "physical" only the world we live in, then I already said that Euclidean space is not the space we live in.

Well, according to physicist Max Tegmark, there's no difference between physical and mathematical structures.

How do you justify the idea of dimensionless points as physical entities? Even in an alternate universe? — fishfry

It seems to be no problem in mathematics. What do you mean by "physical"?

Do you suppose that the axiom of choice is true in such a space? — fishfry

I don't know. If the axiom of choice is consistent with Euclid's axioms then there can be a Euclidean space with axiom of choice. If the negation of the axiom of choice is consistent with Euclid's axioms then there can be a Euclidean space without axiom of choice.

Then the Banach-Tarski paradox is true as well. Then matter could be created, contrary to the laws of physics. — fishfry

I don't claim that our laws of physics apply in such a space. I don't even claim that such a space is bound up with a time dimension into a spacetime.

Is it possible that you (like me, like Kant, like everybody) have a strong intuition of Euclidean space, yet that intuition is simply misleading? And that in fact mathematical Euclidean space is inconsistent with physical reality? — fishfry

Our space is generally not Euclidean but in everyday life the curvature is usually negligible.

Is this the line of argument you are putting forward? If not, then what are you saying exactly? — fishfry

I think that our space is probably quantized, as suggested by contemporary physics. In that case there seem to be no measurable perfect circles in our space because no measurement instrument can penetrate into the minimum length interval (Planck length). Still, we might take the Planck length as further divisible but not "physically", that is, beyond possibility of measurement / physical interaction.

And of course, as I said, there may actually exist continuous Euclidean spaces, even though we don't live in one.

If our space or at least some part of it is continuous and flat then it contains perfect circles. A perfect circle is simply the set of all points in a plane that are the same distance from some point. But even if our space is not continuous and flat, it doesn't mean that a perfect circle is just a mental object. There seems to be no reason why a continuous and flat space couldn't exist; it just would not be the space we live in.

Assuming Pythagoras discovered irrational numbers, what are we to say about irrational numbers before Pythagoras discovered them? — tim wood

I guess the circumference of a circle was just as many times longer than the diameter before the discovery of irrational numbers as it was after the discovery.

Of all the possible combinations of matter why did you get chosen? — Purple Pond

How do you know that the other possible combinations don't exist too? Because you can't see them? Surely the existence of something doesn't depend on you seeing it.

If there are concrete circles then I see no reason to deny that there is also the abstract circle. If there was no abstract circle then it seems there would be no concrete circles either. It would seem absurd/meaningless to talk of any "circles" at all. It seems that concrete and abstract objects are inseparable; you cannot have one without the other and they are therefore equally "real" or "existent". The fact that the abstract object is not a part of a particular manifold such as our spacetime has no bearing on its necessity for the existence of concrete objects that are parts of such a manifold, and therefore does not make it any less existent than those concrete objects. It's just a different kind of existence.

It is some tens of milliseconds. At least that's the time scale on which consciousness exists, according to neuroscience. The "present" is simply what we are conscious of.

I laid out my whole argument against libertarian free will in the opening post here. I think it's pretty simple.

False, I never said that. — Agustino

Here you go:

:s Maybe that "impulse" is just who I am. I am part of the causal chain afterall. Determinism and free will are not incompatible. — Agustino

So are you the impulse or not?

Nope. You have no understanding of feedback loops or how systems regulate themselves no? No understanding of top-down causality perhaps? :s

This causal chain you're referring is not like a series of dominos, one hitting the next, etc. etc. No - it is rather self-regulating. It self-regulates and maintains itself (its own nature) by modifying and re-directing external impulses. — Agustino

So what? It doesn't matter how complicated the causal system is or whether it contains causal loops. It must begin with some causes which cause the system's subsequent behavior and the system cannot choose these causes. There are self-regulating machines, for example thermostats. Does that mean they have free will?

You keep talking about something I cannot choose, as if I was outside of the causal chain, but somehow still affected by it. — Agustino

No, I am saying that you are inside the causal chain and you cannot choose your self, your impulses, your intentions. In other words, you cannot choose the causes that determine your actions.

You don't choose to come into existence. But once in existence, you do choose things, since you are a system capable of autonomy. — Agustino

But your intentions and all your choices are determined by those causes that brought you into existence (as well as by other causes that affect you throughout your life).

Okay, so you choose your actions. End of story. Therefore you're free in-so-far as you choose your actions, which is pretty much everytime you act. — Agustino

Even robots can choose - that is, cause - their actions. Doesn't mean they have free will.

You are the one muddying the waters. It is really a pathetically low level of philosophy. You do not even coherently distinguish between impulses, intentions, actions and all the other relevant terms. You take intentions to be impulses for example...

Impulse -> You (the process of forming an intention, of choice) -> action — Agustino

So now you are making an irrelevant distinction between impulse and you, while previously you said that impulse is you. An impulse in general is a cause. An intention is an impulse, a cause, too, because it causes an intentional action. What you called "the process of forming an intention, of choice" above is a causal chain of impulses which results in an intention, and the intention is an impulse that causes the action. The point is that it is a causal chain at the beginning of which is an impulse or impulses that you cannot choose and this impulse or impulses determines the action. It is irrelevant how long the chain is, or whether there is just one impulse that causes the action directly. The action is always determined by something that you cannot choose, and in this sense the action is not free - it is determined by something you cannot choose.

So I need an intention?! Who is this I?! Isn't this I the intention? — Agustino

You are a collection of intentions and other impulses, so we can say that this collection - You - has a particular intention. Or we can say that you are the intentions. It is irrelevant for my argument. My argument simply is that your action is determined by something you cannot choose and therefore your action is not free, at least not in the libertarian sense.

What do you choose, ever? — Agustino

I choose my actions = I cause them. But I am just a link in a causal chain that is started by something I cannot choose.

My choices are not impulses. They are processing of impulses, which is done by complex feedback loops with respect to my nature. — Agustino

You're just muddying the waters. A freely willed action should be intentional, and in order to do an intentional action you need an intention, which is an impulse (a mental state) that causes the action. But since you can't choose the intention, your intentional action is caused by something you have not chosen.

There is no question of resisting your own self if that's what you mean. There is no self outside your self to resist your self, so the very question is absurd. It literarily makes no sense. — Agustino

That's what I'm saying.

And impulses are external. So yes, the self can absolutely resist those external impulses, whatever they are. — Agustino

Even your own intentions are external impulses? :s

Of course I can't choose my self, because that would imply to be other than my self when choosing. That would be contrary to the whole notion of being a self in the first place, and therefore contrary to even the notion of choosing. You have an incoherent model based on mechanistic assumptions. — Agustino

What is incoherent about my model? It is you who assumes some kind of homunculus self who can resist his own impulses, his own intentions - intentionally!

This analysis is naive because it leaves out of the question your own self. There's nothing in the picture that you can identify with your self at this point, except a homunculus who just sits there and watches as experience flows by. — Agustino

You said it yourself - the impulse is you. I don't claim there is any "homunculus". You are the impulses, including the intentions, that cause your actions. And you can't choose your impulses - you can't choose your self.

Nope, my choice isn't caused by my impulses at all. That's exactly why impulses can be resisted once they are perceived in the first place. — Agustino

You need an impulse in order to resist an impulse. Don't forget that intentions are impulses too. If you want to do an intentional action, you need an intention, which is an impulse that drives an intentional action.

I am created by someone else. Once created I have the FREE CHOICE between A and B. I choose one of them, and therefore end where I end up. — Agustino

Your choice is caused by your impulses and since you can't choose your impulses, your choice is caused by something you have not chosen. In this sense it is not free, see?

An individual's choice is part of the causal chain. The universe is not FATALISTIC. There is a big big difference between determinism and fatalism. The individual isn't destined by absolute necessity to X or Y particular things. — Agustino

The individual is destined by his impulses, which he has not chosen.

So what if I don't create myself? It doesn't follow that once created I don't have free will. — Agustino

What follows is that all your actions are ultimately determined by that which you have not freely willed. So they are a matter of luck.

Well, actually, the individual does have a very large degree of control over his actions. — Agustino

The individual can have control in the sense that his impulses (intentions, desires...) can cause actions that bring him satisfaction. But in the ultimate sense, the individual has no control at all.

:s Maybe that "impulse" is just who I am. I am part of the causal chain afterall. Determinism and free will are not incompatible. — Agustino

Ok but since you don't create yourself, even the actions that are caused by this impulse are ultimately caused by something you have not created. I don't argue against compatibilist free will but against libertarian free will. The concept of libertarian free will, whether articulated or just felt, is the principal driving force of individualism because it ascribes to the individual ultimate control (and responsibility) for his actions.

Riiight, well apart from the nonsense you're speaking with regards to free will, I pretty much agree with everything else about helping the unlucky ones who cannot help themselves as you say. — Agustino

In order to do a supposedly freely willed action, whether physical or mental, you need an impulse or intention to do the action. But you can't freely create that impulse - or even if you can, you need another impulse to create it, etc.

It's not really luck, you just need to be concerned about these things and spend a long time thinking about them and working on them. — Agustino

You need the impulse to be concerned about these things, think about them, work on them, and the ability to successfully carry out and sustain these activities - luck.

Well, if you put it that way, you need to be lucky to even be born :s . — Agustino

Of course. No one creates themselves. Not even God. :)

But now you're exaggerating the notion as if the decisions you take don't play a role at all. — Agustino

You see, it all boils down to the illusion and golden calf of (especially) the Western civilization - libertarian free will. By significantly separating the individual from the rest of reality, we get the illusion that the individual is in some sense ultimately independent and in control of his physical or mental actions. On the other hand, this separation "unleashes" the individual - it enables the individual to be active and creative and thus create wealth. So we need the market system that unleashes individuals but we also need a system of redistribution of wealth in order to help the unlucky ones.

Helping the unlucky ones is a moral imperative that some believe comes from God, but I think it can also be explained by a naturally evolved feeling of empathy. This feeling evolved - that is, was selected for - because it was useful for the survival and reproduction of beings, in that it facilitates social bonds and cooperation and, more generally, the ability of mental integration/synthesis. Without helping the unlucky ones the social system becomes strained and fragmented and eventually even the lucky ones lose.