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Science Forum Index » Philosophy Forum » Solitary Object
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| John Jones |
 Posted: Thu Dec 18, 2003 4:17 am |
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If an object has no relationships to other objects, is alone, and solitary,
how can it be described?
How can I present the idea of a solitary object?
1) It might be suggested that I cannot even start to consider a solitary
object-, because to consider a solitary object is to give a description from
the vantage point of another object. Could I present the description of a
solitary object without considering the object that made the description? Is
a description a property of the maker, a property of the receiver, or both?
A stand-alone description does not identify or mark out a solitary object
because a description of an object is pointed out to other objects, and if
there was no other object to point it out to, for I have removed myself as
object, then there is no description.
2) Can I then say that the solitary object can describe or reference
itself? Aristotle did this when he said 'A thing is identical with itself',
or A = A. An object referencing itself is a common manoeuvre in Science
where statements such as 'I suffer from stress', 'survival of the fittest',
describe a solitary, yet referenced object. What it is that is identical
with itself cannot be described without the invocation of another object,
yet that other object is the same object- and we cannot say what that is
without invoking another object to provide a description. Therefore, we
cannot distinguish between solitary objects, and if it comes to that, then
neither can we count solitary objects or present 'a' solitary object!
JJ |
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| Immortalist |
| Posted: Thu Dec 18, 2003 12:14 pm |
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"John Jones" <john.jones53@tesco.net> wrote in message
news:brscu5$moa$3@titan.btinternet.com...
Quote: If an object has no relationships to other objects, is alone, and
solitary,
how can it be described?
Probably by some of those social animals that cannot exist and reproduce in
nature unless they are together. Probably not by creatures that can survive
alone in the wild. Therefore a description would likely come from social
mammals like canines, felines, apes, elephants or dolphins.
Quote: How can I present the idea of a solitary object?
"...The compound expression, "Being-in-the-world" indicates in the very way
we have coined it, that it stands for a unitary phenomenon. This primary
datum must be seen as a whole. But while Being-in-the-world cannot be broken
into contents which may be peiced together, this does not prevent it from
having several constitutive items in its structure."
--Heidegger
And as an addition; there is further no prevention of learning all about
these tied-together-in-the-world particulars while they are
tied-together-in-the-world. Much as we can;
In Angst is revealed that Da-sein is concerned about its “thrown
being-in-the-world” and is concerned for its
“potentiality-for-being-in-the-world.” (178) This being-concerned-about is
formulated “as the being-ahead-of-itself of Da-sein…
being-ahead-of-itself-in-already-being-in-a-world.” (179)
http://tinyurl.com/2ukrh
Quote: 1) It might be suggested that I cannot even start to consider a solitary
object-, because to consider a solitary object is to give a description
from
the vantage point of another object. Could I present the description of a
solitary object without considering the object that made the description?
Is
a description a property of the maker, a property of the receiver, or
both?
A stand-alone description does not identify or mark out a solitary object
because a description of an object is pointed out to other objects, and if
there was no other object to point it out to, for I have removed myself as
object, then there is no description.
Object reanimated: any spacio-temporal pattern which persists for the
necessary time to provide a unified from of edges.
If your being consists of some spacio-temporal patterning and you are
disqualified because you are, you cannot say. Who disqualified all
spacio-temporal patterns from simulating other spacio-temporal patterns?
Quote: 2) Can I then say that the solitary object can describe or reference
itself? Aristotle did this when he said 'A thing is identical with
itself',
or A = A. An object referencing itself is a common manoeuvre in Science
where statements such as 'I suffer from stress', 'survival of the
fittest',
describe a solitary, yet referenced object. What it is that is identical
with itself cannot be described without the invocation of another object,
yet that other object is the same object- and we cannot say what that is
without invoking another object to provide a description. Therefore, we
cannot distinguish between solitary objects, and if it comes to that, then
neither can we count solitary objects or present 'a' solitary object!
If A is identical to A when I claim something about A in numerous sentence
strings, then A cannot simualtainiously be A and not A.
you choose
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| mitch |
| Posted: Thu Dec 18, 2003 10:20 pm |
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John Jones wrote:
Quote: If an object has no relationships to other objects, is alone, and solitary,
how can it be described?
It cannot.
You have no such "intellectual" intuition.
You can imagine empty space and empty time, but you cannot imagine that which
has no correspondence with productive imagination.
Eastern mysticism says it best, perhaps. Both the vedas and daoist commentary
refer to that which cannot be named.
The only intuition that could correspond is a Cartesian solipsism--but even that
has variety and diversity.
Kant described the mirrors.
Hegel described the reflections.
Frege saw how to begin at infinity.
:-)
mitch |
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| Edgar Svendsen |
| Posted: Thu Dec 18, 2003 11:20 pm |
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"John Jones" <john.jones53@tesco.net> wrote in message news:brscu5$moa$3@titan.btinternet.com...
Quote: If an object has no relationships to other objects, is alone, and solitary,
how can it be described?
How can I present the idea of a solitary object?
How can this occur? I can not imagine an object that has no relationship
to other objects. This would be an object that is not affected by the gravity
of nearby astronomical objects, is not touched by atmospheric molecules,
has no velocity relative to any other object, has no effect on virtual particles
in its neighborhood and does not reflect light. If there were such an object,
I agree it would be indescribable (as well as undetectable).
Ed
Quote:
1) It might be suggested that I cannot even start to consider a solitary
object-, because to consider a solitary object is to give a description from
the vantage point of another object. Could I present the description of a
solitary object without considering the object that made the description? Is
a description a property of the maker, a property of the receiver, or both?
A stand-alone description does not identify or mark out a solitary object
because a description of an object is pointed out to other objects, and if
there was no other object to point it out to, for I have removed myself as
object, then there is no description.
2) Can I then say that the solitary object can describe or reference
itself? Aristotle did this when he said 'A thing is identical with itself',
or A = A. An object referencing itself is a common manoeuvre in Science
where statements such as 'I suffer from stress', 'survival of the fittest',
describe a solitary, yet referenced object. What it is that is identical
with itself cannot be described without the invocation of another object,
yet that other object is the same object- and we cannot say what that is
without invoking another object to provide a description. Therefore, we
cannot distinguish between solitary objects, and if it comes to that, then
neither can we count solitary objects or present 'a' solitary object!
JJ
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| John Jones |
| Posted: Fri Dec 19, 2003 2:47 pm |
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Quote: If an object has no relationships to other objects, is alone, and
solitary,
how can it be described?
JJ
It cannot.
Mitch
So how could Aristotle say that an object was identical with itself? Was he
not TRYING to refer to the solitary object?
JJ
"mitch" <mitchs@rcnNOSPAM.com> wrote in message
news:3FE26E6A.963EBBE8@rcnNOSPAM.com...
Quote:
John Jones wrote:
If an object has no relationships to other objects, is alone, and
solitary,
how can it be described?
It cannot.
You have no such "intellectual" intuition.
You can imagine empty space and empty time, but you cannot imagine that
which
has no correspondence with productive imagination.
Eastern mysticism says it best, perhaps. Both the vedas and daoist
commentary
refer to that which cannot be named.
The only intuition that could correspond is a Cartesian solipsism--but
even that
has variety and diversity.
Kant described the mirrors.
Hegel described the reflections.
Frege saw how to begin at infinity.
:-)
mitch
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| John Jones |
| Posted: Fri Dec 19, 2003 2:47 pm |
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Quote: How can I present the idea of a solitary object?
JJ
How can this occur? I can not imagine an object that has no relationship
to other objects.
Edgar
But does not science itself posit the solitary object when it describes the
emergence of a universe as a singularity?
jJ
"Edgar Svendsen" <solon013@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:r0vEb.4523$wL6.2241@newsread1.news.atl.earthlink.net...
Quote:
"John Jones" <john.jones53@tesco.net> wrote in message
news:brscu5$moa$3@titan.btinternet.com...
If an object has no relationships to other objects, is alone, and
solitary,
how can it be described?
How can I present the idea of a solitary object?
How can this occur? I can not imagine an object that has no relationship
to other objects. This would be an object that is not affected by the
gravity
of nearby astronomical objects, is not touched by atmospheric molecules,
has no velocity relative to any other object, has no effect on virtual
particles
in its neighborhood and does not reflect light. If there were such an
object,
I agree it would be indescribable (as well as undetectable).
Ed
1) It might be suggested that I cannot even start to consider a
solitary
object-, because to consider a solitary object is to give a description
from
the vantage point of another object. Could I present the description of
a
solitary object without considering the object that made the
description? Is
a description a property of the maker, a property of the receiver, or
both?
A stand-alone description does not identify or mark out a solitary
object
because a description of an object is pointed out to other objects, and
if
there was no other object to point it out to, for I have removed myself
as
object, then there is no description.
2) Can I then say that the solitary object can describe or reference
itself? Aristotle did this when he said 'A thing is identical with
itself',
or A = A. An object referencing itself is a common manoeuvre in Science
where statements such as 'I suffer from stress', 'survival of the
fittest',
describe a solitary, yet referenced object. What it is that is identical
with itself cannot be described without the invocation of another
object,
yet that other object is the same object- and we cannot say what that is
without invoking another object to provide a description. Therefore, we
cannot distinguish between solitary objects, and if it comes to that,
then
neither can we count solitary objects or present 'a' solitary object!
JJ
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| John Jones |
| Posted: Fri Dec 19, 2003 2:53 pm |
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Quote: Yes, even a dimensionless point-particle is only conjured as an
"object" when its wave nature interacts with that of others. Reality
seems to consist of two things: wave interference (information) and
the rendering of that "wave-code" into the experience of an evolving
material universe. A remarkable feat, since the brain itself --if the
emergent, and biased(?) Translator-- is also information embedded in
the "grand" interference pattern.
_~*~_Emma_~*~_
I'm not sure where to go with that. Information is between two objects, but
is expression of information, two objects? It might seem that it is -the one
object being my experience, and the other object that which it is an
experience of. But is my experience an object? I don't think so.
JJ
"Emma" <emma357@postmaster.co.uk> wrote in message
news:dbb65673.0312191258.50aebb52@posting.google.com...
Quote: "John Jones" <john.jones53@tesco.net> wrote in message
news:<brscu5$moa$3@titan.btinternet.com>...
If an object has no relationships to other objects, is alone, and
solitary,
how can it be described?
How can I present the idea of a solitary object?
1) It might be suggested that I cannot even start to consider a
solitary
object-, because to consider a solitary object is to give a description
from
the vantage point of another object. Could I present the description of
a
solitary object without considering the object that made the
description? Is
a description a property of the maker, a property of the receiver, or
both?
A stand-alone description does not identify or mark out a solitary
object
because a description of an object is pointed out to other objects, and
if
there was no other object to point it out to, for I have removed myself
as
object, then there is no description.
2) Can I then say that the solitary object can describe or reference
itself? Aristotle did this when he said 'A thing is identical with
itself',
or A = A. An object referencing itself is a common manoeuvre in Science
where statements such as 'I suffer from stress', 'survival of the
fittest',
describe a solitary, yet referenced object. What it is that is identical
with itself cannot be described without the invocation of another
object,
yet that other object is the same object- and we cannot say what that is
without invoking another object to provide a description. Therefore, we
cannot distinguish between solitary objects, and if it comes to that,
then
neither can we count solitary objects or present 'a' solitary object!
JJ
Yes, even a dimensionless point-particle is only conjured as an
"object" when its wave nature interacts with that of others. Reality
seems to consist of two things: wave interference (information) and
the rendering of that "wave-code" into the experience of an evolving
material universe. A remarkable feat, since the brain itself --if the
emergent, and biased(?) Translator-- is also information embedded in
the "grand" interference pattern.
_~*~_Emma_~*~_ |
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| Emma |
| Posted: Fri Dec 19, 2003 3:58 pm |
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Guest
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"John Jones" <john.jones53@tesco.net> wrote in message news:<brscu5$moa$3@titan.btinternet.com>...
Quote: If an object has no relationships to other objects, is alone, and solitary,
how can it be described?
How can I present the idea of a solitary object?
1) It might be suggested that I cannot even start to consider a solitary
object-, because to consider a solitary object is to give a description from
the vantage point of another object. Could I present the description of a
solitary object without considering the object that made the description? Is
a description a property of the maker, a property of the receiver, or both?
A stand-alone description does not identify or mark out a solitary object
because a description of an object is pointed out to other objects, and if
there was no other object to point it out to, for I have removed myself as
object, then there is no description.
2) Can I then say that the solitary object can describe or reference
itself? Aristotle did this when he said 'A thing is identical with itself',
or A = A. An object referencing itself is a common manoeuvre in Science
where statements such as 'I suffer from stress', 'survival of the fittest',
describe a solitary, yet referenced object. What it is that is identical
with itself cannot be described without the invocation of another object,
yet that other object is the same object- and we cannot say what that is
without invoking another object to provide a description. Therefore, we
cannot distinguish between solitary objects, and if it comes to that, then
neither can we count solitary objects or present 'a' solitary object!
JJ
Yes, even a dimensionless point-particle is only conjured as an
"object" when its wave nature interacts with that of others. Reality
seems to consist of two things: wave interference (information) and
the rendering of that "wave-code" into the experience of an evolving
material universe. A remarkable feat, since the brain itself --if the
emergent, and biased(?) Translator-- is also information embedded in
the "grand" interference pattern.
_~*~_Emma_~*~_ |
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| Edgar Svendsen |
| Posted: Fri Dec 19, 2003 10:07 pm |
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"John Jones" <john.jones53@tesco.net> wrote in message news:bs066h$mt0$2@hercules.btinternet.com...
Quote: How can I present the idea of a solitary object?
JJ
How can this occur? I can not imagine an object that has no relationship
to other objects.
Edgar
But does not science itself posit the solitary object when it describes the
emergence of a universe as a singularity?
jJ
The universe is sometimes posited to have emerged from a singularity, the universe is, itself, not a singularity as it has
dimension. The singularity that may have preceded the universe does seem to qualify as a solitary object, but, of course, it
actually does relate to other objects, namely all the objects that emerged from it. So, it's a solitary object until the universe
emerges and then we see the relationships.
Ed |
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| mitch |
| Posted: Sat Dec 20, 2003 12:36 am |
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John Jones wrote:
Quote: If an object has no relationships to other objects, is alone, and
solitary,
how can it be described?
JJ
It cannot.
Mitch
So how could Aristotle say that an object was identical with itself? Was he
not TRYING to refer to the solitary object?
Aristotle is presented (it is unknown as to how it was deduced) with an
explanation of categories as preliminary explanation. The very first remarks
are about the relations between words and things.
Homonymous, synonymous, paronymous are genera intrinsic to Aristotelian
description.
Maybe tomorrow I will read the next page of Aristotle.
:-)
mitch |
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| Immortalist |
| Posted: Sun Dec 21, 2003 12:37 pm |
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Guest
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"mitch" <mitchs@rcnNOSPAM.com> wrote in message
news:3FE3DFE1.92237E3F@rcnNOSPAM.com...
Quote:
John Jones wrote:
If an object has no relationships to other objects, is alone, and
solitary,
how can it be described?
JJ
It cannot.
Mitch
So how could Aristotle say that an object was identical with itself? Was
he
not TRYING to refer to the solitary object?
Aristotle is presented (it is unknown as to how it was deduced) with an
explanation of categories as preliminary explanation. The very first
remarks
are about the relations between words and things.
Homonymous, synonymous, paronymous are genera intrinsic to Aristotelian
description.
Maybe tomorrow I will read the next page of Aristotle.
"O youth, who come to our mansion in the company of immortal charioteers,
welcome! It was no evil fate but right and justice that set you to travel on
this way, far indeed from the path trodden by men. Meet it is that you
should inquire into all things, the un-shaking heart of well-rounded truth
as well as the opinions of mortals in which is no true confidence at all.
Yet none the less you shall learn all things, even how seeming things-all
passing through each-must really be."
The goddess warns Parmenides against relying on the senses for knowledge of
reality: "Keep your thought away from this way of inquiry, and by no means
let much-tried custom force you this way, to ply the unseeing eye and the
ringing ear and the tongue" (considered as the organ of taste not of
speech). "Rather, judge by reason the much-disputed proof which I expound."
The much-disputed proof is strictly a priori, depending altogether on the
law of identity: "Well then, I shall tell you-and do you attend and listen
to my word-what are the only ways of inquiry there are to think of. The
first, that IT IS, and that it is impossible for it not to be, in the way of
conviction, for it follows truth. The other, that IT IS NOT, and that it
must needs not be,-that, I tell you, is a path that none can learn of at
all. For you could not perceive what is not-that is impossible-nor even
think of it; for it is the same thing that can be thought and that can be."
The goddess' expressions are puzzling, for it is not English (or Greek
either) to say simply, "It is." We want to know what the "it" stands for;
and if "it" is (say) a radish, still the expression "A radish is" makes no
sense. A radish is what? Nevertheless, the sense of the passage is
unmistakable: if there is something real (and there is), then whatever
characters it has, it has just those characters, and none other. A is A. It
is impossible to think of As not being A, for to say that A is not A would
be in effect to say that the thing having the character C does not have the
character C; and this would amount to saying something and immediately
retracting it, so that altogether nothing was said. It is in this sense that
"it is the same thing that can be thought and that can be." The goddess did
not mean, of course, that there must be mermaids in the ocean because we can
think of them. She meant that reality and thought must alike be
non-contradictory.
THE WAY OF TRUTH and THE WAY OF OPINION
Author: Parmenides of Elea (c.515-c.456 B.C.)
----------------------------
Anaximenes, the third of the Milesian "physicists," held that the
fundamental stuff is Mist Everything is really Mist; the things that do not
appear to be Mist are Mist that has been thickened or thinned. Very thin
Mist is fire; Mist somewhat thickened is water; thickened still more it is
stone.
There is an inconsistency here which Parmenides (in effect) pointed out. No
doubt the theory of Anaximenes squares with observation, for fire, when
cooled and "thickened," becomes smoke and smoke is easy to regard, at this
stage of thought, as a kind of fog or Mist. Condensed Mist is water, and
water thickened still more becomes ice, a solid, a kind of stone. But is the
theory compatible with logic? Fire is (identical with) "the hot and dry";
water is (identical with) "the cold and wet". How, then, can the one be
transformed into the other without violating the fundamental principle that
nothing can come from nothing? Where did the cold come from? Where has the
hot gone? If cold and hot are thought of (so to speak) as substances, it
seems that there can be no satisfactory answer to this question. Something
has come out of "nothing"; something has disappeared into "nothing." Worse
still, as Parmenides saw, if there is ultimately just one stuff, that stuff
must be just the kind of stuff it is, so that it cannot logically be both
hot and cold, both wet and dry. Therefore change is impossible. If things
seem to change (as they do), this must be mere illusion, for logic
pronounces it contradictory.
It is important to see that Parmenides was right, given his assumptions of
monism, nothing-from-nothing, and identity of things and qualities.
Parmenides had another argument (a fallacious one) to show that the kind of
change called motion cannot really occur. It is this: If a thing moves,
there must be room for it to move into-that is, there must be empty space.
But there cannot be any empty space, for empty space would be just
"nothing," "that which is not," and the assertion that there is empty space
amounts to saying "That which is not, is," a statement of contradiction.
DEMOCRITUS: FRAGMENTS
Author: Democritus of Abdera (c.460-c.370 B.C.)
Masterpieces of World Philosophy in Summary Form
by Frank N. Magill (Editor), Fran Magill
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0060037806/
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| Tony Thomas |
| Posted: Sun Dec 21, 2003 9:48 pm |
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"John Jones" <john.jones53@tesco.net> wrote in message
news:brscu5$moa$3@titan.btinternet.com...
Quote: If an object has no relationships to other objects, is alone, and
solitary,
how can it be described?
How can I present the idea of a solitary object?
1) It might be suggested that I cannot even start to consider a solitary
object-, because to consider a solitary object is to give a description
from
the vantage point of another object.
The usual objects to be found in experience present few difficulties in this
regard.
The visual appearance of objects certainly varies due to changes in the
light and the internal state of objects is affected by variations in
temperature. Like the Heracliteian river, objects do not retain their
identity through time, only sapproximately so.
The ancient Greeks were dominated by 'thingness' and the integrity of
objects, according to Spengler anyway. Democritus believed that everything
was made of atoms, so this attitude seems strange. Our modern consciousness
is more attuned to the quantum flux and the consequential downgrading of
objects to temporary formations undergoing relatively slow change.
Could I present the description of a
Quote: solitary object without considering the object that made the description?
Is
a description a property of the maker, a property of the receiver, or
both?
Most descriptions are in terms of common attributes, form, size, colour etc
none of which sare unique attributes of any particular object. It is the
combination of attributes which allows uniqueness, together with the
relation of the object to other objects.
Quote: A stand-alone description does not identify or mark out a solitary object
because a description of an object is pointed out to other objects, and if
there was no other object to point it out to, for I have removed myself as
object, then there is no description.
A mind that had known other objects and their attributes prior to
encountering the lone object (in a virtual reality, say) would be able to
describe it.
Quote: 2) Can I then say that the solitary object can describe or reference
itself? Aristotle did this when he said 'A thing is identical with
itself',
or A = A.
This judgement freezes the object in time and is otherwise false under the
assumtion that everything changes. I suppose each successive state is
identical with that state but such a tautology is a useless assertion. A
possible objection is that a star seen from vasatly different positions in
space may appear to have different spectra because different stages of its
development are being observed. The true identity of the star would have to
be its Parmenidean manifestation out of time altogether. In this case,
Aristotle woul be right. The case of the evening star being identical to the
morning star is another example involving different contexts.
An object does nothing to itself, umless it is aniamate (ie licks its
balls).
What it is that is identical
Quote: with itself cannot be described without the invocation of another object,
yet that other object is the same object- and we cannot say what that is
without invoking another object to provide a description. Therefore, we
cannot distinguish between solitary objects, and if it comes to that, then
neither can we count solitary objects or present 'a' solitary object!
JJ
The observer can understand changes in a solitary (isolated) object. Looking
at a living animalcule under a microscope is a common enough example.
Tony Thomas |
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| mitch |
| Posted: Wed Dec 31, 2003 3:11 am |
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Guest
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Immortalist wrote:
Quote: "mitch" <mitchs@rcnNOSPAM.com> wrote in message
news:3FE3DFE1.92237E3F@rcnNOSPAM.com...
John Jones wrote:
If an object has no relationships to other objects, is alone, and
solitary,
how can it be described?
JJ
It cannot.
Mitch
So how could Aristotle say that an object was identical with itself? Was
he
not TRYING to refer to the solitary object?
Aristotle is presented (it is unknown as to how it was deduced) with an
explanation of categories as preliminary explanation. The very first
remarks
are about the relations between words and things.
Homonymous, synonymous, paronymous are genera intrinsic to Aristotelian
description.
Maybe tomorrow I will read the next page of Aristotle.
"O youth, who come to our mansion in the company of immortal charioteers,
welcome! It was no evil fate but right and justice that set you to travel on
this way, far indeed from the path trodden by men. Meet it is that you
should inquire into all things, the un-shaking heart of well-rounded truth
as well as the opinions of mortals in which is no true confidence at all.
Yet none the less you shall learn all things, even how seeming things-all
passing through each-must really be."
The goddess warns Parmenides against relying on the senses for knowledge of
reality: "Keep your thought away from this way of inquiry, and by no means
let much-tried custom force you this way, to ply the unseeing eye and the
ringing ear and the tongue" (considered as the organ of taste not of
speech). "Rather, judge by reason the much-disputed proof which I expound."
The much-disputed proof is strictly a priori, depending altogether on the
law of identity: "Well then, I shall tell you-and do you attend and listen
to my word-what are the only ways of inquiry there are to think of. The
first, that IT IS, and that it is impossible for it not to be, in the way of
conviction, for it follows truth. The other, that IT IS NOT, and that it
must needs not be,-that, I tell you, is a path that none can learn of at
all. For you could not perceive what is not-that is impossible-nor even
think of it; for it is the same thing that can be thought and that can be."
The goddess' expressions are puzzling, for it is not English (or Greek
either) to say simply, "It is." We want to know what the "it" stands for;
and if "it" is (say) a radish, still the expression "A radish is" makes no
sense. A radish is what? Nevertheless, the sense of the passage is
unmistakable: if there is something real (and there is), then whatever
characters it has, it has just those characters, and none other. A is A. It
is impossible to think of As not being A, for to say that A is not A would
be in effect to say that the thing having the character C does not have the
character C; and this would amount to saying something and immediately
retracting it, so that altogether nothing was said. It is in this sense that
"it is the same thing that can be thought and that can be." The goddess did
not mean, of course, that there must be mermaids in the ocean because we can
think of them. She meant that reality and thought must alike be
non-contradictory.
THE WAY OF TRUTH and THE WAY OF OPINION
Author: Parmenides of Elea (c.515-c.456 B.C.)
----------------------------
Anaximenes, the third of the Milesian "physicists," held that the
fundamental stuff is Mist Everything is really Mist; the things that do not
appear to be Mist are Mist that has been thickened or thinned. Very thin
Mist is fire; Mist somewhat thickened is water; thickened still more it is
stone.
There is an inconsistency here which Parmenides (in effect) pointed out. No
doubt the theory of Anaximenes squares with observation, for fire, when
cooled and "thickened," becomes smoke and smoke is easy to regard, at this
stage of thought, as a kind of fog or Mist. Condensed Mist is water, and
water thickened still more becomes ice, a solid, a kind of stone. But is the
theory compatible with logic? Fire is (identical with) "the hot and dry";
water is (identical with) "the cold and wet". How, then, can the one be
transformed into the other without violating the fundamental principle that
nothing can come from nothing? Where did the cold come from? Where has the
hot gone? If cold and hot are thought of (so to speak) as substances, it
seems that there can be no satisfactory answer to this question. Something
has come out of "nothing"; something has disappeared into "nothing." Worse
still, as Parmenides saw, if there is ultimately just one stuff, that stuff
must be just the kind of stuff it is, so that it cannot logically be both
hot and cold, both wet and dry. Therefore change is impossible. If things
seem to change (as they do), this must be mere illusion, for logic
pronounces it contradictory.
It is important to see that Parmenides was right, given his assumptions of
monism, nothing-from-nothing, and identity of things and qualities.
Parmenides had another argument (a fallacious one) to show that the kind of
change called motion cannot really occur. It is this: If a thing moves,
there must be room for it to move into-that is, there must be empty space.
But there cannot be any empty space, for empty space would be just
"nothing," "that which is not," and the assertion that there is empty space
amounts to saying "That which is not, is," a statement of contradiction.
DEMOCRITUS: FRAGMENTS
Author: Democritus of Abdera (c.460-c.370 B.C.)
Masterpieces of World Philosophy in Summary Form
by Frank N. Magill (Editor), Fran Magill
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0060037806/
But John asked about descriptions.... |
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| The Immortalist |
| Posted: Wed Dec 31, 2003 1:25 pm |
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Guest
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mitch <mitchs@rcnNOSPAM.com> wrote in message news:<3FF28494.3DA2EFBC@rcnNOSPAM.com>...
Quote: Immortalist wrote:
"mitch" <mitchs@rcnNOSPAM.com> wrote in message
news:3FE3DFE1.92237E3F@rcnNOSPAM.com...
John Jones wrote:
If an object has no relationships to other objects, is alone, and
solitary,
how can it be described?
JJ
It cannot.
Mitch
So how could Aristotle say that an object was identical with itself? Was
he
not TRYING to refer to the solitary object?
Aristotle is presented (it is unknown as to how it was deduced) with an
explanation of categories as preliminary explanation. The very first
remarks
are about the relations between words and things.
Homonymous, synonymous, paronymous are genera intrinsic to Aristotelian
description.
Maybe tomorrow I will read the next page of Aristotle.
"O youth, who come to our mansion in the company of immortal charioteers,
welcome! It was no evil fate but right and justice that set you to travel on
this way, far indeed from the path trodden by men. Meet it is that you
should inquire into all things, the un-shaking heart of well-rounded truth
as well as the opinions of mortals in which is no true confidence at all.
Yet none the less you shall learn all things, even how seeming things-all
passing through each-must really be."
The goddess warns Parmenides against relying on the senses for knowledge of
reality: "Keep your thought away from this way of inquiry, and by no means
let much-tried custom force you this way, to ply the unseeing eye and the
ringing ear and the tongue" (considered as the organ of taste not of
speech). "Rather, judge by reason the much-disputed proof which I expound."
The much-disputed proof is strictly a priori, depending altogether on the
law of identity: "Well then, I shall tell you-and do you attend and listen
to my word-what are the only ways of inquiry there are to think of. The
first, that IT IS, and that it is impossible for it not to be, in the way of
conviction, for it follows truth. The other, that IT IS NOT, and that it
must needs not be,-that, I tell you, is a path that none can learn of at
all. For you could not perceive what is not-that is impossible-nor even
think of it; for it is the same thing that can be thought and that can be."
The goddess' expressions are puzzling, for it is not English (or Greek
either) to say simply, "It is." We want to know what the "it" stands for;
and if "it" is (say) a radish, still the expression "A radish is" makes no
sense. A radish is what? Nevertheless, the sense of the passage is
unmistakable: if there is something real (and there is), then whatever
characters it has, it has just those characters, and none other. A is A. It
is impossible to think of As not being A, for to say that A is not A would
be in effect to say that the thing having the character C does not have the
character C; and this would amount to saying something and immediately
retracting it, so that altogether nothing was said. It is in this sense that
"it is the same thing that can be thought and that can be." The goddess did
not mean, of course, that there must be mermaids in the ocean because we can
think of them. She meant that reality and thought must alike be
non-contradictory.
THE WAY OF TRUTH and THE WAY OF OPINION
Author: Parmenides of Elea (c.515-c.456 B.C.)
----------------------------
Anaximenes, the third of the Milesian "physicists," held that the
fundamental stuff is Mist Everything is really Mist; the things that do not
appear to be Mist are Mist that has been thickened or thinned. Very thin
Mist is fire; Mist somewhat thickened is water; thickened still more it is
stone.
There is an inconsistency here which Parmenides (in effect) pointed out. No
doubt the theory of Anaximenes squares with observation, for fire, when
cooled and "thickened," becomes smoke and smoke is easy to regard, at this
stage of thought, as a kind of fog or Mist. Condensed Mist is water, and
water thickened still more becomes ice, a solid, a kind of stone. But is the
theory compatible with logic? Fire is (identical with) "the hot and dry";
water is (identical with) "the cold and wet". How, then, can the one be
transformed into the other without violating the fundamental principle that
nothing can come from nothing? Where did the cold come from? Where has the
hot gone? If cold and hot are thought of (so to speak) as substances, it
seems that there can be no satisfactory answer to this question. Something
has come out of "nothing"; something has disappeared into "nothing." Worse
still, as Parmenides saw, if there is ultimately just one stuff, that stuff
must be just the kind of stuff it is, so that it cannot logically be both
hot and cold, both wet and dry. Therefore change is impossible. If things
seem to change (as they do), this must be mere illusion, for logic
pronounces it contradictory.
It is important to see that Parmenides was right, given his assumptions of
monism, nothing-from-nothing, and identity of things and qualities.
Parmenides had another argument (a fallacious one) to show that the kind of
change called motion cannot really occur. It is this: If a thing moves,
there must be room for it to move into-that is, there must be empty space.
But there cannot be any empty space, for empty space would be just
"nothing," "that which is not," and the assertion that there is empty space
amounts to saying "That which is not, is," a statement of contradiction.
DEMOCRITUS: FRAGMENTS
Author: Democritus of Abdera (c.460-c.370 B.C.)
Masterpieces of World Philosophy in Summary Form
by Frank N. Magill (Editor), Fran Magill
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0060037806/
But John asked about descriptions....
(it is unknown as to how it was deduced)
Must have interpreted that wrongly, sorry. Of course he came to ideas
of identity, contradiction and exclusion from his predecessors:
In addition to the ideas of ultimate oneness, development, and
"justice" inherited from religion, the earliest philosophers assumed
with "common sense" that nothing can come out of nothing, or be
absolutely destroyed, and that our senses reveal to us directly the
constituents of the world, at least as it is now. We feel heat and
cold; we taste sweetness and bitterness; we see red and green. Heat,
cold, sweetness, bitterness, red, and green are therefore parts of the
objective world; together they make it up. We should say that these
are qualities of matter, but early Greek thought does not make this
distinction; "the hot," "the cold," "the wet," "the dry," and so on,
in various combinations, are the stuff of things. One must simply find
out the unity underlying this diversity.
Thus, for example, Anaximenes, the third of the Milesian "physicists,"
held that the fundamental stuff is Mist Everything is really Mist; the
things that do not appear to be Mist are Mist that has been thickened
or thinned. Very thin Mist is fire; Mist somewhat thickened is water;
thickened still more it is stone.
There is an inconsistency here which Parmenides (in effect) pointed
out. No doubt the theory of Anaximenes squares with observation, for
fire, when cooled and "thickened," becomes smoke and smoke is easy to
regard, at this stage of thought, as a kind of fog or Mist. Condensed
Mist is water, and water thickened still more becomes ice, a solid, a
kind of stone. But is the theory compatible with logic? Fire is
(identical with) "the hot and dry"; water is (identical with) "the
cold and wet". How, then, can the one be transformed into the other
without violating the fundamental principle that nothing can come from
nothing? Where did the cold come from? Where has the hot gone? If cold
and hot are thought of (so to speak) as substances, it seems that
there can be no satisfactory answer to this question. Something has
come out of "nothing"; something has disappeared into "nothing." Worse
still, as Parmenides saw, if there is ultimately just one stuff, that
stuff must be just the kind of stuff it is, so that it cannot
logically be both hot and cold, both wet and dry. Therefore change is
impossible. If things seem to change (as they do), this must be mere
illusion, for logic pronounces it contradictory.
It is important to see that Parmenides was right, given his
assumptions of monism, nothing-from-nothing, and identity of things
and qualities. Parmenides had another argument (a fallacious one) to
show that the kind of change called motion cannot really occur. It is
this: If a thing moves, there must be room for it to move into-that
is, there must be empty space. But there cannot be any empty space,
for empty space would be just "nothing," "that which is not," and the
assertion that there is empty space amounts to saying "That which is
not, is," a statement of contradiction.
DEMOCRITUS: FRAGMENTS
Author: Democritus of Abdera (c.460-c.370 B.C.)
Masterpieces of World Philosophy in Summary Form
by Frank N. Magill (Editor), Fran Magill
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0060037806/
In the above it is easy to see how the description of identity came
about as a concept in literature, though known long before that in
usage. But a more appropriate approach on my part, accourding to you,
would be to proceed something like:
A is A: Aristotle's Law of Identity
Everything that exists has a specific nature. Each entity exists as
something in particular and it has characteristics that are a part of
what it is. "This leaf is red, solid, dry, rough, and flammable."
"This book is white, and has 312 pages." "This coin is round, dense,
smooth, and has a picture on it." In all three of these cases we are
referring to an entity with a specific identity; the particular type
of identity, or the trait discussed, is not important. Their
identities include all of their features, not just those mentioned.
Identity is the concept that refers to this aspect of existence; the
aspect of existing as something in particular, with specific
characteristics. An entity without an identity cannot exist because it
would be nothing. To exist is to exist as something, and that means to
exist with a particular identity.
To have an identity means a single identity; an object cannot have two
identities. A tree cannot be a telephone, and a dog cannot be a cat.
Each entity exists as something specific, its identity is particular,
and it cannot exist as something else. An entity can have more than
one characteristic, but any characteristic it has is a part of its
identity. A car can be both blue and red, but not at the same time or
not in the same respect. Whatever portion is blue cannot be red at the
same time, in the same way. Half the car can be red, and the other
half blue. But the whole car can't be both red and blue. These two
traits, blue and red, each have single, particular identities.
The concept of identity is important because it makes explicit that
reality has a definite nature. Since reality has an identity, it is
knowable. Since it exists in a particular way, it has no
contradictions.
http://www.importanceofphilosophy.com/Metaphysics_Identity.html
Many people get their philosophy from little paperbacks that talk
about "Aristotle's Law of Identity." The exercise is to write a paper
about it. What is the Law of Identity? How did it come up, i.e. what
was Aristotle talking about when he introduced it? What role does it
play in his philosophy, and in subsequent philosophical systems?
You are supposed to write this paper off the top of your head, based
on what you have heard, or what you have learned in class, or what you
have learned from your own reading. In other words, write it without
going to the library.
"The mark of an educated man is the clarity of the line drawn in his
mind between what he knows and what he doesn't know."
Is there such a line in your mind? Look over what you have written
about the law of identity, and ask -- which side of the line is it on?
Are you sure?
http://www.geniebusters.org/915/04d_ex01A.html
[the above is groping baby, you know like metaphysics or starting from
scratch playing the dumb role, thats how me and JJ operate. but you
want to start further up the way (heathen life without FAQs)]
-----------------------------------
identity/non-identity
identity/non-identity. I have used the word "central" to describe most
of the korzybskian terms I have presented so far in this glossary.
That's how it goes in a system, a neuro_linguistic_cohort, where every
defining term is directly related to all of its verbal associates. No
cluster of terms can be said to be more 'central' to general-semantics
than non-identity and its rejected misevaluation, "identity."
I deem it useful that we consider non-identity from two points of
view: the historical ('Aristotelian') and the specifically
korzybskian.
The 'Law of Identity' of Aristotle had been challenged on limited
verbal-philosophical grounds by Western scholars well before
Korzybski. The challenges to and/or rejections of the Aristotelian
"Laws of Thought" have a long and honorable history, beginning with
Aristotle's own period (384-322 B. C.), reaching an early peak during
the mediaeval era (pace, Thomas Aquinas), but rising to a sturdy
chorus from the mid-nineteenth century and reaching a most personal
crescendo in the writings of Korzybski.
It seems worth pointing out here that Korzybski's position was not
anti-Aristotelian. He expressed great respect for the achievements of
Aristotle (one of the dedicatees of Science and Sanity). Korzybski's
concern was to show the limitations of the Aristotelian orientation,
especially as developed by Aristotle's followers over the last 2500
years. Indeed, Aristotle did not himself formulate the 'Law of
Identity'; it was said by his disciples and interpreters to be implied
or presupposed with reference to his explicitly stated laws and by his
methodological treatises in general (Organon ). (1) By
"non-Aristotelian" Korzybski formulated a point of view which
encompasses the valuable aspects of Aristotle while going beyond
('non' in the modern, philosophical-scientific sense) the great
formulator from Stagira. After all, Aristotle saw 'logic' as only a
preparation for scientific knowledge, not as knowledge itself. (2) He
is regarded as the first in both 'West' and 'East' to insist on
rigorous scientific procedure, i.e., to be what we would call
extensional and what the general scientific community would call
experimental: i.e., self-challenging via non-verbal (silent level)
tests and observations. Korzybski was fully aware of all this and took
pains to point out that his non-Aristotelianism was targeted to a
rigid commitment to aspects of Aristotle which Aristotle himself might
have rejected — especially if he lived in 1933! However, Korzybski
forthrightly rejected Aristotle's essentialism which became so
'spiritualized' by Thomas Aquinas (the 'substance' and 'accidents'
opposition) and others during the heyday of Scholasticism.
"Identity" in the domain of formal logical discourse, which usually
remains strictly verbal/intensional, simply affirms that a statement
is ' itself ': "A is A," in modern usage, a tautology. The copula
"is," which links the terms of the above proposition ("A is A"),
Korzybski called the "is of identity." (3) He maintained that, even at
this level, statements of identity ("absolute sameness in 'all'
respects") are false for many structural (process) reasons. He did
not, however, deny that we can agree on a kind of " 'is' of stability"
(my formulation: RPP) to provide consistency within discourse. After
all, he often said, when misquoted or misinterpreted, "I say what I
say; I do not say what I do not say!" But when used to refer to
experiences in general, including not only our statements but the
non-verbal processes which subtend and give rise to them, identity
statements are not only invariably structurally false to fact but
potentially dangerous.
Korzybski was not a practitioner of modern logical-mathematical
formalism. He did not attempt to present 'breakthrough' formulations
in the rather hermetic and hieratic fields of symbolic logic,
mathematical logic, propositional calculi, etc., though he did
recognize their value as disciplines which might find eventual
applications. (Witness the burgeoning field of 'software
engineering'.) Yet he did construct a meta-linguistic schema for
examining the structural relations among languages, nervous systems,
non-verbal structures-in-general, and human doing. He called it
"General Semantics," designed for adequately formulating those
structures and combatting neuro-linguistic auto-intoxication.
This is where the "identity" that most concerned Korzybski comes to
the fore. When humans who are engaged in abstracting identify
(confuse) orders of abstracting, they are "identifying" in the
uniquely korzybskian sense. Korzybski emphasized that orders (levels)
of abstracting, while constituting mutually-influencing phases of a
totality, (4) ought not to be mistaken for 'each other.' He affirmed
this identification as the primary mechanism of misevaluating.
"The word is not the thing." Indeed. But neither are non-verbal
('silent') perceptions, 'feelings', etc., to be confused with the
quantum-level processes to which they are personal summary responses
(ultimately, semantic reactions). We ought not to confuse the state of
our bellies with the state of the world, even though we-bellies are
part of (but only 'part' of) that world.
Human nervous systems/brains (organisms-as-wholes) con- stitute
mapping systems. We abstract. Our abstractions are maps that we have
constructed. The formulation of non-identity, so central (again) to
general-semantics, reminds us that, though we can (must) build useful
maps to make our way in the world, "The map is not the territory."
http://www.generalsemantics.org/Articles/Glos7idn.htm
----------------------------------
But me and JJ are like Jazz musicians makin the shit up as we go and
letting it self-correct in its continuity if the focus be sustained.
http://www.bright.net/~jclarke/kant/princip2.html
http://www.bright.net/~jclarke/kant/analogy1.html
http://www.bright.net/~jclarke/kant/princip1.html
http://www.bright.net/~jclarke/kant/index.html |
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| mitch |
| Posted: Wed Dec 31, 2003 3:39 pm |
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Guest
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The Immortalist wrote:
<snip>
Quote: "The mark of an educated man is the clarity of the line drawn in his
mind between what he knows and what he doesn't know."
Is there such a line in your mind? Look over what you have written
about the law of identity, and ask -- which side of the line is it on?
Are you sure?
http://www.geniebusters.org/915/04d_ex01A.html
[the above is groping baby, you know like metaphysics or starting from
scratch playing the dumb role, thats how me and JJ operate. but you
want to start further up the way (heathen life without FAQs)]
It was not me, I assure you. One day soon I will actually read Aristotle so that he cannot
be used to blindside me.
The fact of the matter is that I sat down one day and asked, "Why should I believe this
nonsense about set theory since it does not seem to be coherent with the rest of
mathematics?" So, I reflected on what I knew about mathematics and logic (first-order
logic--the crud they tell mathematics majors about) and came to very different conclusions
about what I had been taught. It all centered on the identity predicate.
Blame me if you want.  I will counter with the observation that I am not the jackass
logician/philosopher whose unfounded justificationalism has so influenced curricula in
mathematics departments.
I do not fault the utility of the material. So, obviously, I believe that these things
should be taught. But, I do not believe that the failed experiments of logicians should be
presented as anything otherwise to mathematicians. Becoming interested in the wrong
questions can ruin a career.
The line in my mind about what I can and cannot know about the identity predicate are
captured in the formal logic statements below. It does not extend to a useful set theory
because one of the axioms does not allow the arbitrary formation of pairs.
So, let me ask a question. When you draw a picture of a set, you draw a circle. You can
draw an element of the set by placing a dot within the circle. How do you draw "identity"?
Next question: Why should mathematicians be bound to the presuppositions of logicians?
There are no FAQ's for that one.
:-)
mitch
-----
These were written in response to a post on sci.math....
....the sentences were chosen for a
variety of reasons, but they had been intended to convey the fact that sets
have an object representation and an extended representation. I had not been
overly concerned with meaning derived from infinite hierarchies since
mathematicians usually express set concepts with pictures.
The first sentence introduces an irreflexive transitive predicate. It is
interpreted with standard set diagrams using nested circles.
Ax Ay( x c y <-> (
Az( y c z -> x c z )
/\
Ez( x c z /\ ~(y c z) ) ) )
The second sentence introduces the syntax for a substitution. In topology,
nested closed sets converge to a point when their set diameters go to zero.
Some of the circles from the diagram used above are replaced by points. The
two sentences share form, but consistency with the axiom of foundation is
expected. So, the substitutions are not intended to be correlates.
Ax Ay( a e b <-> (
Az( y c z -> x e z )
/\
Ez( x e z /\ ~(y c z) ) ) )
This is standard identity defined for a theory with a finite number of
predicates. It was not a set theoretic identity in the usual sense. So, I
differentiated between the role of identifying symbols related to one another
in the language and the role of identity between underlying referents. I
refer to this equivalence as the notion of well definition or the
characteristic equivalence relation for the language.
Ax Ay( x eq y <-> (
Az ( x c z <-> y c z )
/\
Az ( z c x <-> z c y )
/\
Az ( x e z <-> y e z )
/\
Az ( z e x <-> z e y ) )
The next three sentences make the equivalence above consequent to each of the
four subformulas independently. Although unintended, the first of these
sentences restricts the theory to a linear ordering. The usual relationship
by which 'c' is defined in terms of 'e' follows from these sentences.
Ax Ay(
Az( z c x <-> z c y )
->
Az( x e z <-> y e z ) )
Ax Ay(
Az( z e x -> z e y )
->
Az( y c z -> x c z ) )
Ax Ey Az(
z e y <-> z c x )
Curiously, after considering which of the four subformulas should be
principle, I concluded that identity should be based on [the negation of
distinctness understood as the] topological separation
of points.
Ax Ay ( x = y <->
Az ( x e z <-> y e z )
One of the reasons for this was interpretation of quantification. The sense
of the predicates had originally come from diagrams, and, the use of circular
reference precluded a standard extensional interpretation. The sense of the
identity predicate in terms of topological separation permitted unique
reference to maximal and minimal referents.
Ex Ay(
~( y c x <-> x = y ) )
Ex Ay(
~( x c y <-> y = x ) )
This last sentence is necessary to ensure that the maximal term referent
satisfies a regularity condition (non-self-membership of the axiom of
foundation). It normalizes the interpretation of the universal quantifier to
that of an extensional interpretation.
Ax(
Ey(x c y )
->
Ey( x e y ) )
Well, it is not a great theory. But, it does have some relation to
apartness. Moreover, I would like to think that it says something about the
relationship between universal quantification and identity than standard model
theory. One of the reasons I asked you for references is because I have been
looking in the wrong places. But, for me, the stability of identity seemed to
have been an important issue. |
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