Kiri-kin-tha

Kiri-kin-tha was a Vulcan scholar and follower of Surak's teachings. Kiri-kin-tha's First Law of Metaphysics is, "Nothing unreal exists." (Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home; ENT: "The Forge")

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Background

The First Law of Metaphysics may sound like a tautology, devoid of any informative content. It seems to state that what is real is real. The assumption made is, of course, that to be real is the same as to exist. But the Law actually makes a statement in real-life formal logic and philosophical metaphysics. Consider this: Obviously, there are some things which do not exist, like Mr. Spock or unicorns. But on the other hand, usually we take "there are some things" to mean the same as "there exist things" in logical analysis. But then our statement that there are some things which do not exist is equivalent to the statement that there exist things which do not exist. But that's a contradiction! There are two ways to react to this problem:

1. We may not take the "there are some things" in our original statement to mean the same as "there exist things".

One option to do this is to read "there are some things" as "there are some things which might have existed", but to take existence as actual existence only, not just as possible existence. Then the statement that there are some things which do not exist is to be construed as: Some things might have existed but actually do not. This last statement is true of Mr. Spock and of unicorns. On this account you have to divide total reality into actually and possibly existing objects. The formal logic of this account of existence is explored in Free Logic.

1. "There are" does always mean the same as "there exist". Therefore, the statement that there are some things which do not exist is indeed contradictory. What is intended to be expressed by this contradictory statement is to be rephrased somehow.

For example, we could say that there are some linguistic expressions, like "Mr. Spock" and "unicorn" which do not refer to anything. This strategy was endorsed by U.S. philosopher and logician Willard Van Orman Quine. As a consequence, according to Quine, the correct answer to the question "What exists?" (or equivalently: "What things are there?") is simply: Everything! This is so simply because there is nothing which does not exist. (See the essay "On What There is" in Quine's book "From a Logical Point of View", Harvard Univeristy Press 1980.)

In view of these logical considerations, Kiri-kin-tha's First Law is not just devoid of information. It seems to agree with solution 2. That nothing unreal exists seems to say, equivalently, that everything real exists. Therefore there is no realm of real things which do not exist, like in solution 1. To discard solution 1 in favor of solution 2 is an important decision on how to conduct logic as well metaphysics. (That nothing unreal exists was assumed here to say the same as that everything real exists. This presupposes the Law of Double Negation of classical logic: "not not A" implies "A". But Law is not valid in Intuitionistic Logic. Why did Kiri-kin-tha state the more complicated "Nothing unreal exists" instead of the more straightforward "Everything real exists"? Did Kiri-kin-tha endorse intuitionistic logic?