LGP Philosophy Discussion Thread

[columbia]

23 pairs is one of the aspects....along with far too many observable physical traits to name here.
In terms of your question...yes, that is a homo sapien.

[Kraftster]

23 pairs is one of the aspects....along with far too many observable physical traits to name here.
In terms of your question...yes, that is a homo sapien.

But the problem is the person who doesn't fit with whatever you think you can identify as humanness. I doubt you'd call a child born with cri-du-chat non-human, for example.

See, the problem is that with each of the words/things you are going use to define human, I'm going to do the same thing.

columbia: "They have human brains."
Kraftster: "What is a human brain?"
etc.

None of it is the same, so, beyond being similar, in order for them to actually be the same thing (those are all human brains) they've got to have some kind of brainness in them. But I would suggest that that (brainness) does not exist in the physical world - its just easier for us to group similar things.

[Guinness]

Expand that.
No two humans are the same, but through genetic analysis one can determine that we are not, in fact, guerrillas.

Yeah, I still think distinction exists whether we observe it or not, but - and I agree with this - I think it's clear that there is no observable "standard" of some thing. That's one of the premises of the Allegory of the Cave.

[columbia]

Run a genetic analysis on an aborted fetus..say age 5 weeks.
One guerrilla; one human being.

Do you believe that they could be both positively distinguished from one another and for what they were "destined" to form in to?

[Guinness]

Run a genetic analysis on an aborted fetus..say age 5 weeks.
One guerrilla; one human being.

Do you believe that they could be both positively distinguished from one another and for what they were "destined" to form in to?

They could be distinguished from each other, but I think the concept is that there is no perfect example of what a human is - we vary from one to another. In the Allegory of the Cave, Plato suggests that all we see in the world are mere reflections of the "ideal".

[PensFanInDC]

Run a genetic analysis on an aborted fetus..say age 5 weeks.
One guerrilla; one human being.

Do you believe that they could be both positively distinguished from one another and for what they were "destined" to form in to?

With the way you worded it, no. Only because a Guerilla is a human being fighting a war, usually in hiding .

See this youtube to help:

[Kraftster]

Run a genetic analysis on an aborted fetus..say age 5 weeks.
One guerrilla; one human being.

Do you believe that they could be both positively distinguished from one another and for what they were "destined" to form in to?

They could be distinguished from each other, but I think the concept is that there is no perfect example of what a human is - we vary from one to another. In the Allegory of the Cave, Plato suggests that all we see in the world are mere reflections of the "ideal".

Right. You can look at it as the perfect example thing definitely -- that's one way of looking at a -ness.

Another way of sort of bringing home the concept of nesses would be the religious angle. Something to the effect of all snowflakes are individual instantiations of some thing that's sort of with God.

I'm saying that I think every snowflake is an individual collection of H2O. While similar, they are never identical and there is no meaningful definition of snowflake that includes all snowflakes. There is no snowflakeness in every snowflake that make them all the same.

[columbia]

With the way you worded it, no. Only because a Guerilla is a human being fighting a war, usually in hiding .

<---

[columbia]

I'm saying that I think every snowflake is an individual collection of H2O. While similar, they are never identical and there is no meaningful definition of snowflake that includes all snowflakes. There is no snowflakeness in every snowflake that make them all the same.

They are all the same, in that they are all examples of H20 in a crystalline state.

[bh]

I'm saying that I think every snowflake is an individual collection of H2O. While similar, they are never identical and there is no meaningful definition of snowflake that includes all snowflakes. There is no snowflakeness in every snowflake that make them all the same.

They are all the same, in that they are all examples of H20 in a crystalline state.

And that they fall as percipitation from the sky, and that they are not hail, and that they are not sleet, etc, etc, etc.

I never know how to think of this arguement. We can't define universals, obviously, but we can still say something like "snowflake" and everyone knows what we mean (even if our ideas of snowflakes are all slightly different). I think that we make the labels based on observation and convention, but nature makes the similarities that we can observe.

Krafster, would you consider things like protons, electrons, atoms, compounds, etc universals?

[Kraftster]

I'm saying that I think every snowflake is an individual collection of H2O. While similar, they are never identical and there is no meaningful definition of snowflake that includes all snowflakes. There is no snowflakeness in every snowflake that make them all the same.

They are all the same, in that they are all examples of H20 in a crystalline state.

And that they fall as percipitation from the sky, and that they are not hail, and that they are not sleet, etc, etc, etc.

I never know how to think of this arguement. We can't define universals, obviously, but we can still say something like "snowflake" and everyone knows what we mean (even if our ideas of snowflakes are all slightly different). I think that we make the labels based on observation and convention, but nature makes the similarities that we can observe.

Krafster, would you consider things like protons, electrons, atoms, compounds, etc universals?

Truth be told, I am semi-devil's advocating here. My main paper in undergrad actually related to the human capacity for language and actual language and the metaphysical implications, including a conclusion that for several reasons, language does seem to point to some sort of underlying order in the world.

I've since changed my outlook on a lot of things without really truly coming back to the issue of realism/nominalism other than a few conversations here and there. I certainly know and understand a lot more about quantum physics than I did back when I was really into this stuff. I'm not entirely sure, but, I would argue that there are not universals that exist for those particles types of particles that you mentioned.

One of the arguments which I have not made yet with respect to differences that exist between purported instantiations of the same "thing" are temporal differences. That one sort of gets scoffed at usually, so, I hadn't brought it up yet. But even two "identical" boats (to the human eye) are not in the same place at the same time and are therefore different. I would say that this applies most forcefully with respect to the smallest particles and is really the principle argument as to how there are no atomic universals either.

Just something I find kind of funny about my thought process in responding to your question. To defend nominalism (belief that universals do not exist), I had this urge to sort of go backwards and talk about the "bigger" thing that the particles make up. That obviously can't work, though, if I'm to stay consistent with anything I've said in the thread to this point.

[Kraftster]

I'm saying that I think every snowflake is an individual collection of H2O. While similar, they are never identical and there is no meaningful definition of snowflake that includes all snowflakes. There is no snowflakeness in every snowflake that make them all the same.

They are all the same, in that they are all examples of H20 in a crystalline state.

But the particular organization of the crystalized H2O differs from snowflake to snowflake. And there's also no universal for what a crystalline state is - so what is crystalline state-ness?

(I know it probably sounds like a child saying "I know you are but what am I?" after everything you say, I am not trying to be a richard).

[columbia]

But the particular organization of the crystalized H2O differs from snowflake to snowflake. And there's also no universal for what a crystalline state is - so what is crystalline state-ness?

That depends on what is being crystallized.
In the case of water, there's obviously a certain temperature range that is required (among other things I assume).

[Benny Fitz]

Lets continue this discussion at MadMex tonight over some san-fran insane wings. A few big az margarita's should help to loosen our universal collars.

[Kraftster]

Lets continue this discussion at MadMex tonight over some san-fran insane wings. A few big az margarita's should help to loosen our universal collars.

[Guinness]

Lets continue this discussion at MadMex tonight over some san-fran insane wings. A few big az margarita's should help to loosen our universal collars.

I wish it was a short walk for me to MadMex, as it was a few years ago...

[bh]

Truth be told, I am semi-devil's advocating here. My main paper in undergrad actually related to the human capacity for language and actual language and the metaphysical implications, including a conclusion that for several reasons, language does seem to point to some sort of underlying order in the world.

I've since changed my outlook on a lot of things without really truly coming back to the issue of realism/nominalism other than a few conversations here and there. I certainly know and understand a lot more about quantum physics than I did back when I was really into this stuff. I'm not entirely sure, but, I would argue that there are not universals that exist for those particles types of particles that you mentioned.

One of the arguments which I have not made yet with respect to differences that exist between purported instantiations of the same "thing" are temporal differences. That one sort of gets scoffed at usually, so, I hadn't brought it up yet. But even two "identical" boats (to the human eye) are not in the same place at the same time and are therefore different. I would say that this applies most forcefully with respect to the smallest particles and is really the principle argument as to how there are no atomic universals either.

Just something I find kind of funny about my thought process in responding to your question. To defend nominalism (belief that universals do not exist), I had this urge to sort of go backwards and talk about the "bigger" thing that the particles make up. That obviously can't work, though, if I'm to stay consistent with anything I've said in the thread to this point.

So you were a philosophy undergrad? Looking back at my collage years I wish i would have taken more classes on the subject.

I really don't know what to say about the building blocks of matter and photons and bosons. I think our ability to know much about such things is fairly limited due to our inability to see things on that scale. We have instrumentation that can see for us at that level, but it's hard to know or even guess if every election is exactly that same. It seems that these small elemental particles behave in identical ways all the time. So other than location they very well might be the same other than each particle takes up it's own unique space which changes in relation to everything else over time.

It seems though that if you start going down the path of rejecting the universality of identical items that are the same in every way save position and time, then I would like to ask for a definition of what a universal is or would be.

[Kraftster]

Truth be told, I am semi-devil's advocating here. My main paper in undergrad actually related to the human capacity for language and actual language and the metaphysical implications, including a conclusion that for several reasons, language does seem to point to some sort of underlying order in the world.

I've since changed my outlook on a lot of things without really truly coming back to the issue of realism/nominalism other than a few conversations here and there. I certainly know and understand a lot more about quantum physics than I did back when I was really into this stuff. I'm not entirely sure, but, I would argue that there are not universals that exist for those particles types of particles that you mentioned.

One of the arguments which I have not made yet with respect to differences that exist between purported instantiations of the same "thing" are temporal differences. That one sort of gets scoffed at usually, so, I hadn't brought it up yet. But even two "identical" boats (to the human eye) are not in the same place at the same time and are therefore different. I would say that this applies most forcefully with respect to the smallest particles and is really the principle argument as to how there are no atomic universals either.

Just something I find kind of funny about my thought process in responding to your question. To defend nominalism (belief that universals do not exist), I had this urge to sort of go backwards and talk about the "bigger" thing that the particles make up. That obviously can't work, though, if I'm to stay consistent with anything I've said in the thread to this point.

So you were a philosophy undergrad? Looking back at my collage years I wish i would have taken more classes on the subject.

I really don't know what to say about the building blocks of matter and photons and bosons. I think our ability to know much about such things is fairly limited due to our inability to see things on that scale. We have instrumentation that can see for us at that level, but it's hard to know or even guess if every election is exactly that same. It seems that these small elemental particles behave in identical ways all the time. So other than location they very well might be the same other than each particle takes up it's own unique space which changes in relation to everything else over time.

It seems though that if you start going down the path of rejecting the universality of identical items that are the same in every way save position and time, then I would like to ask for a definition of what a universal is or would be.

Yeah, philosophy undergrad - I loved it. I changed my major to philosophy because I decided I'd regret it later if I didn't, and I already knew at that point I was going to law school, so, the bachelor's degree wasn't going to be about making money anyway. Ideally I wanted to find a joint masters/law program, but there are only a few and they are at top schools, and I didn't get in.

Good observation on the temporal position thing. I think you are right there. While it does make particulars non-identical, it doesn't actually bear on universals. Going back to the definition like you said made me realize that. If we are looking for instantiations of the same thing (instantiations of universals), they couldn't have to be in the same position.

So, with that, I'm not sure. Again, when I think about this one, I have this urge to say that the position and relationship between the particles matters. This seems kind of strange, though, working in the opposite direction that we worked through things in the thread when dealing with non-quantum stuff. At the quantum level, say we have an infinite number of identical particulars. Well, we know that at a more macro level we have a world of different things (perhaps with no identical particulars). So, how could things be identical at the quantum/sub-atomic level if we have so little (nothing?) identical at our level. But, I'm not really sure -- this is a good one.

[Guinness]

Plato's argument in The Republic would be that the perfect - the ideal, the -ness - canNOT exist on this plane of existence; even if two or more of exactly one thing exist. Why? I would say because we can observe variations on this plane of existence. While that does not necessarily presuppose some plane of existence where perfection can be achieved, it does suggest that it cannot be achieved on this plane.

/brandy

[Kraftster]

So, back to the ship -- I allowed things to go to the universal discussion and got off topic. I wanted to follow up with a few things. Lets refer to the original SS Kraftster as A.

So, the majority of people said the boat in Warehouse 1 is the same when (1) two planks are replaced, (2) 75% + 2 planks are replaced, (3) 100% have been replaced. Lets call the completely replaced plank boat as B.

Most people said that the boat that is put back together with the original parts in Warehouse 2 is different than A (and B). Lets call this reassembled in Warehouse 2 Boat C.

Lets try this out. Assume that the boat just needs taken apart and put back together. My guy takes all the planks apart, and puts all of the screws and nails and planks on the ground in Warehouse 1. A fire starts in the warehouse and damage occurs to another area of the warehouse. My guy has to move the parts to Warehouse 2. He reassembles the boat in Warehouse 2 (remember, this is Boat C).

In this situation I bet that most people would say that C is the same as boat A. C = A. In the other scenario, people are saying that the very same Boat C is not = A because B is built in Warehouse 1. So C only = A if B isn't built? That doesn't make very much sense, does it?

[columbia]

I don't agree with the premise that C = A.
If you take the same set of materials and construct them twice, while using the same design, you've still created distinct objects that are incapable of being the same.

[Kraftster]

I don't agree with the premise that C = A.
If you take the same set of materials and construct them twice, while using the same design, you've still created distinct objects that are incapable of being the same.

Okay, interesting. So if you take your watch to a watch repairman and in order to fix the problem, the watchmaker disassembles the watch into each of its component parts, then reassembles it, do you believe that to be the same watch?

[columbia]

Since he has created the watch out of the available materials, no.

[Kraftster]

Since he has created the watch out of the available materials, no.

Hmm, interesting.

So disassembly/reassembly results in a different object. What about the replacement of a part without complete disassembly?

[columbia]

Since he has created the watch out of the available materials, no.

Hmm, interesting.

So disassembly/reassembly results in a different object. What about the replacement of a part without complete disassembly?

That would be boat B and I have no answer for that.
At least not one that is logically cohesive with what I've written in the above posts.