Enduring Problems in Philosophy

[Wyote]

Lolololol yes!

The first time I saw Sidis' post, I thought he was binging on some music. And then this image and I realized oh it's a game. I should really google more.

He is a music dude, it was a logical conclusion! Lol!

 

[mintoots]

He is a music dude, it was a logical conclusion! Lol!

It was a presumptive assumption that concluded into a fallacy. (I'm just trying to be fancy with the many words.)

I really thought oh wow 60 hours of straight music? Wait, 60 hours of straight anything?

 

[Ren]

It was a presumptive assumption that concluded into a fallacy. (I'm just trying to be fancy with the many words.)

I don't think any fallacy was involved. One of your premises was wrong, which led to your conclusion being wrong. A perfectly legitimate, logically irreproachable syllogism

 

[mintoots]

I don't think any fallacy was involved. One of your premises was wrong, which led to your conclusion being wrong. A perfect legitimate, logically irreproachable syllogism

I'm going to have to actively replace my Troll hat with the Dumbledore hat. Please wait a minute.

...
I mis-used my adjectives and totally did not even have a factual premise but rather a thought fart caught mid-air. But I do like syllogism.

 

[Ren]

A fallacy more likely occurs when the structure of the syllogism is not respected, i.e. when from a true and a false premise, a true conclusion appears to follow. For example:

"In life, you can only move forward or backward. But to move backward involves a regression. Therefore, it is better to move forward."

Let's see why this proposition (once made in a slightly different form by Jordan Peterson) is a fallacy. Premise 2 (To move backward involves a regression) is arguably true. But Premise 1, although it looks true, is actually false. What about not moving at all? What about aiming for perfect stability? Is it not sometimes the better strategy, depending on where we are in life? So here we have a false dichotomy.

The fallacy occurs because on the assumption that both premises are true, the conclusion ("It is better to move forward") must be true. But since Premise 1 is actually false, the conclusion is false.

By contrast, there is nothing fallacious about a syllogism where a false conclusion follows from one or more false premises. The structure of the syllogism is respected in this case.

 

[Ren]

I'm going to have to actively replace my Troll hat with the Dumbledore hat. Please wait a minute.

...
I mis-used my adjectives and totally did not even have a factual premise but rather a thought fart caught mid-air. But I do like syllogism.

Lol, you are so goddamn cute sometimes.

Don't underestimate your cognitive powers, Min. Like it or not, you are one of us:

 

[mintoots]

Lol, you are so goddamn cute sometimes.

Don't underestimate your cognitive powers, Min. Like it or not, you are one of us:

 

[Wyote]

The structure of the syllogism is respected in this case.

The structure of my syllogisms is always respected ifyouknowhatimean

 

[Ren]

The structure of my syllogisms is always respected ifyouknowhatimean

Lmao. To be precise, the structure of your syllogisms is always built so as to be impervious to critique, because a dose of ironic fuzziness is usually added to it.

 

[Wyote]

Lmao. To be precise, the structure of your syllogisms is always built so as to be impervious to critique, because a dose of ironic fuzziness is usually added to it.

You got me there. Existence is fuzzy, I just embrace that silky quilt of the universe.

 

[mintoots]

You got me there. Existence is fuzzy, I just embrace that silky quilt of the universe.

The penultimate Coyote argument is like this:

Spoiler

 

[Wyote]

The penultimate Coyote argument is like this:

Spoiler

View attachment 80974

 

[John K]

What about not moving at all? What about aiming for perfect stability? Is it not sometimes the better strategy, depending on where we are in life? So here we have a false dichotomy.

Just go around the damn thing, or jump over it ..... or through it with Wy's quantum tunneling

 

[Ren]

I've only skimmed through the last couple of pages, and haven't fully got on board with how this topic evolved here yet. Going cold at it though, my feeling is that identity, in the sense of individuated objects, is an emergent property and isn't a fundamental one. I think it's best to think of nature hosting distinct objects only relative to particular perspectives. For example, in the case of objects humans are familiar with, they are only distinct when seen on a large enough scale - which is how we normally see and think. If you look at subatomic levels though, everything we are familiar with is made up of quarks, electrons, and the bosons that bind them or repel them - it's impossible to lable and distinguish between these particles, and they aren't even well defined things of the sort we are used to because they are in a sense fundamentally indeterminate, yet everything we know of is made of them.

Another perspective is that of time. We almost always think of an object's distinctness as it is at a frozen point in time, but this is not the reality if you look at things longitudinally throughout extended time. Your example of the boat is a good one - and even more spectacularly, this is true of people too, because all our atoms and cells are replaced over and over during our lifetimes. I'm not made up of any of the same stuff as 10 years ago, but it goes deeper than that because I'm not the same person as I was when I was 8 years old. Extrapolate across the whole of time, and there is a tree of becoming that binds everything together in a vast network that started in the big bang, and where everything merges together into a single trunk at the beginning, and all apparently distinct objects are actually branches and twigs on this huge tree.

So what is it that gives identity? It seems to be something a little ghostly - a pattern, a configuration, and the relationship of this with other patterns and configurations. Mostly it's like this:

The cloud remains a coherent shape yet it's constantly being reformed - its substance is not the same from one minute to the next. Persistent eddies and waves in a stream of water are the same, and so are people on a longer timescale, and so are rocks and mountains on an even longer timescale.

So to a great extent, I think identity is in the eye, and at the convenience (or inconvenience lol), of a beholder, and their particular needs and purposes, and is actually more to do with software than hardware. Of course the danger then is that we get too clever, and start to think in terms of software templates, heirarchies of identity (humanity v John K for example), and idealised generalisations of identities, and then we may run headlong into Plato, but that's another story lol.

Thank you for this John, this is a fascinating and very thought-provoking contribution. It also has the significant merit of recasting the problem in a context that was simply not available when the paradox was formulated for the first time (around the time of Aristotle, I believe.) I am thinking especially of the subatomic lens you are bringing to focus.

I agree with pretty much everything you said. In a sense, I have a vested interest in wanting the argument to be conclusive, because it would happen to fit squarely with the postulates of open monism, lol. Let's see what I think are some potential issues with it that require ironing out.

Back home in the south of France, there is a pine tree in our garden and a cedar tree in our neighbour's garden. I have no idea what the essence of a pine tree is, nor what the essence of a cedar tree is. I am indeed inclined to think that the whole concept of essence is ghostly, and likely a perceptual output of the mind (following a Kantian line of thinking). Ultimately, like you said, the pine tree is just an aggregate of subatomic particles, and so is the cedar tree in the neighbour's garden. In those aggregates there is nothing that could be called 'essence', so that if essence exists, it must either be an emergent property or a conceptualisation of the mind.

And yet I cannot help but wonder. Is the fact that our pine tree is not the same thing as the neighbour's cedar tree, really just a concept of the mind? Let's forget about essence for a second, and consider identity as such. It is not obvious to me that identity is, in fact, a property. Does the number 1 have the property of being not the number 2? Or is the number 1 different from the number 2, simply by virtue of its being the number 1? In other words, by virtue of being that which it is, and not something else? Is the difference between our pine tree and the neighbour's cedar tree a creation of the mind, or is it given to experience, in a prior fashion, by the reality of the external world?

Let's imagine a world in which there is no Planet Earth, and no living beings anywhere. In such a world, there is no subjectivity, no consciousness, no thought at all. Are we willing to state that in such a world, there is no real, objective planet corresponding to Jupiter in our world? No objective star corresponding to Vega? No distinct galaxies corresponding to the Milky Way and Andromeda? If there is no beholder, and hence no identity, doesn't it seem like the inevitable conclusion? But it seems to me like a dubious conclusion. I tend to think the identity of those planets and stars is already there, outside of a human consciousness being there to structure them into concepts.

In other words, I haven't found a completely compelling argument to the extent that identity can be eliminated from the physical world, i.e. relegated purely to the activity of the mind. Quantum physics has destroyed essence, in my opinion, but it has not destroyed identity. Much to my dismay!

 

[Sidis Coruscatis]

I thought it was a composer.

No, but also yes.

Ren: Let's solve philosophy
My brain:

 

[Sidis Coruscatis]

People in this thread be like

 

[Anomaly]

Nah I thought it was a composer.

I had to google it.
I waste away my sleeping hours either in imagination or research. I admire anyone who can game effectively, as I am useless at it.
All this to say, you aren't alone. haha.

 

[mintoots]

No, but also yes.

Ren: Let's solve philosophy
My brain:

Your brain is trolling! I dare you to sing this shinderera song in Japanese! This is exactly the sort of track that fills the airwaves over at Daiso. And this composed by the game??? Was there a syllogism? I'm confused.

Edit: the song is stuck in my head.

I had to google it.
I waste away my sleeping hours either in imagination or research. I admire anyone who can game effectively, as I am useless at it.
All this to say, you aren't alone. haha.

Same. Though I did play Among Us with forum humans and absolutely enjoyed it. Killing was fun. Killing and lying about it was even more fun. LMAO.

Also, this forum constantly puts my googling skills to shame.

Thank you for this John, this is a fascinating and very thought-provoking contribution. It also has the significant merit of recasting the problem in a context that was simply not available when the paradox was formulated for the first time (around the time of Aristotle, I believe.) I am thinking especially of the subatomic lens you are bringing to focus.

I agree with pretty much everything you said. In a sense, I have a vested interest in wanting the argument to be conclusive, because it would happen to fit squarely with the postulates of open monism, lol. Let's see what I think are some potential issues with it that require ironing out.

Back home in the south of France, there is a pine tree in our garden and a cedar tree in our neighbour's garden. I have no idea what the essence of a pine tree is, nor what the essence of a cedar tree is. I am indeed inclined to think that the whole concept of essence is ghostly, and likely a perceptual output of the mind (following a Kantian line of thinking). Ultimately, like you said, the pine tree is just an aggregate of subatomic particles, and so is the cedar tree in the neighbour's garden. In those aggregates there is nothing that could be called 'essence', so that if essence exists, it must either be an emergent property or a conceptualisation of the mind.

And yet I cannot help but wonder. Is the fact that our pine tree is not the same thing as the neighbour's cedar tree, really just a concept of the mind? Let's forget about essence for a second, and consider identity as such. It is not obvious to me that identity is, in fact, a property. Does the number 1 have the property of being not the number 2? Or is the number 1 different from the number 2, simply by virtue of its being the number 1? In other words, by virtue of being that which it is, and not something else? Is the difference between our pine tree and the neighbour's cedar tree a creation of the mind, or is it given to experience, in a prior fashion, by the reality of the external world?

Let's imagine a world in which there is no Planet Earth, and no living beings anywhere. In such a world, there is no subjectivity, no consciousness, no thought at all. Are we willing to state that in such a world, there is no real, objective planet corresponding to Jupiter in our world? No objective star corresponding to Vega? No distinct galaxies corresponding to the Milky Way and Andromeda? If there is no beholder, and hence no identity, doesn't it seem like the inevitable conclusion? But it seems to me like a dubious conclusion. I tend to think the identity of those planets and stars is already there, outside of a human consciousness being there to structure them into concepts.

In other words, I haven't found a completely compelling argument to the extent that identity can be eliminated from the physical world, i.e. relegated purely to the activity of the mind. Quantum physics has destroyed essence, in my opinion, but it has not destroyed identity. Much to my dismay!

Thank you for giving me something to think about, Renny. You put it eloquently, however I need further explanation as to how essence was destroyed by Quantum Physics in your view.

 

[Ren]

:3white:

Thank you for giving me something to think about, Renny. You put it eloquently, however I need further explanation as to how essence was destroyed by Quantum Physics in your view.

You're welcome.

Okay, my claim that quantum physics destroyed essence might have been a little hyperbolic. But it should not be so hard to articulate the claim, because John has already done the work for me, hehe.

By definition, the essence of something is that fixed, unchanging part of a thing that gives it its nature. The idea is that if you take the essence out of a thing, it is no longer that thing. Clearly, if I lost my hand (I pray that it doesn't happen) I would still be Ren. So my hand is not my essence. Since Aristotle, philosophers have tried to come to grips with this concept of essence. It seemed to them that without essence, it would be impossible for a thing to be that which it is. Now, they might not be able to actually tell what the essence of a thing is, but they inferred that it must necessarily have three interconnected properties:

a) Unchanging
b) Unbreakable
c) Determinate

Essence has to be determinate, otherwise it would not be possible to give it the attributes of unchanging-ness and unbreakability.

But now look at what John says here:

If you look at subatomic levels though, everything we are familiar with is made up of quarks, electrons, and the bosons that bind them or repel them - it's impossible to lable and distinguish between these particles, and they aren't even well defined things of the sort we are used to because they are in a sense fundamentally indeterminate, yet everything we know of is made of them.

If the building blocks (i.e. the subatomic particles) of all things are fundamentally indeterminate, how could there be something else in them (an essence) that is itself fundamentally determinate? It does not seem to follow.

Therefore, quantum physics destroys essence!

 

[John K]

@Ren on the face of things I think modern physics gives good support for monist philosophy.

Something to explore though is whether the generalisation of the concept of software could keep the door open to a more heterogeneous philosophy? Is software just a human artifice? By this I include the laws of nature that determine how the world behaves. If this has a reality beyond the human intellect then it could be that software is the fundamental reality not the actual physical components of the world. That could leave the door open to essence once again maybe?