When you cook a potato...

SealHammer said:
I think you've been looking at this wrong the whole time. Clearly it's always a snake, but it's a snake which changes its disposition over time.

First it's a snake embryo, then it's a juvenile snake, then it's a mature snake, before becoming a snake carcass, snake fossil, etc.. It stops being a snake of some form when anything which once would have positively identified it as a snake is gone, i.e. it has decomposed sufficiently as to be unidentifiable.

The same applies to almighty potato. It is potato when it satisfies all the conditions of being potato (is edible, is full of starch and delicious) and it ceases to be potato when it is no longer necessary for it to be potato (in stomach/trash (hahaha, good joke. no one throw away potato)).
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Yes. What if you knew what it was though?

If you cremate somebody and have their ashes in a jar, what is it? How do you identify it? Certainly not by the form of the ashes, as a thorough cremation even destroys DNA. Only the history tells you what it is.
 
I'd like the throw the question back at you [MENTION=6917]sprinkles[/MENTION]. When do you believe that the snake (or potato) is no longer a snake (or potato).
 
Jacobi said:
I'd like the throw the question back at you [MENTION=6917]sprinkles[/MENTION]. When do you believe that the snake (or potato) is no longer a snake (or potato).
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I don't. Not in the way other people think. Nothing has independent origin so the snake wasn't really only a snake and the potato wasn't really just a potato to begin with.
 
sprinkles said:
Yes. What if you knew what it was though?

If you cremate somebody and have their ashes in a jar, what is it? How do you identify it? Certainly not by the form of the ashes, as a thorough cremation even destroys DNA. Only the history tells you what it is.
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What it was in the past is not necessarily what it is at present. Ashes that were once a person are still just ashes. It's not an "ashy person" or anything like that. Once its form reaches a point where it is indistinguishable from the previous product, it has changed state.
 
This is the most potato thing I've ever read.
 
SealHammer said:
What it was in the past is not necessarily what it is at present. Ashes that were once a person are still just ashes. It's not an "ashy person" or anything like that. Once its form reaches a point where it is indistinguishable from the previous product, it has changed state.
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Then why is a fossil a snake? 90% of the actual snake is gone, isn't it?
 
sprinkles said:
Then why is a fossil a snake? 90% of the actual snake is gone, isn't it?
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Through comparing the live/dead snake and the snake fossil, one can readily deduce that the fossil, at one point, was a living animal. The general form between the two is the same.
 
SealHammer said:
Through comparing the live/dead snake and the snake fossil, one can readily deduce that the fossil, at one point, was a living animal. The general form between the two is the same.
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Was. Past tense. o.o

And if they're the same thing, then why do you need to compare or deduce anything? Seems to me like the only difference is whether you know about it or not, and knowing something is different is not what makes it different.

Cat poop could have been a mouse. Does knowing whether it was or not make it any different or special?
 
Moreover, if the fossil is mineralized then it's not even made of snake stuff, it just has the same shape.
 
Is this question about articles such as "A" and "The"? Such depends on the number of potatoes for referencing purposes. However if the question is about digestion I would say that with plants often times roughage can be passed that still resembles the plant after defecation.
 
Dohavior said:
Is this question about articles such as "A" and "The"? Such depends on the number of potatoes for referencing purposes. However if the question is about digestion I would say that with plants often times roughage can be passed that still resembles the plant after defecation.
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It's about descriptors and what makes a thing be what it is.

For example, if you cut a potato in half, what is it? Is it a cut-in-half potato? What if you continue to cut it geometrically until it's a pile of "potato atoms?" what is it?

Some here have said that it stops being a potato when you can't identify it anymore. I don't necessarily agree with this because I don't think identification is what makes a thing be what it is, it just changes the name you give that thing, and names are labels, not essence. The name is not what makes the thing be what it is, the name is what you give the thing after you've puzzled it out.
 
sprinkles said:
It's about descriptors and what makes a thing be what it is.

For example, if you cut a potato in half, what is it? Is it a cut-in-half potato? What if you continue to cut it geometrically until it's a pile of "potato atoms?" what is it?

Some here have said that it stops being a potato when you can't identify it anymore. I don't necessarily agree with this because I don't think identification is what makes a thing be what it is, it just changes the name you give that thing, and names are labels, not essence. The name is not what makes the thing be what it is, the name is what you give the thing after you've puzzled it out.
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Aren't we all just packets of matter and energy just arranged in different ways anyways? I think the decriptions are just what they are and are only good as long as the descriptions serve some purpose. Atomically, potatoes are hardly different from you or I or any other living thing, but after a certain point, a pattern can be discerned, where those atoms are arranged in such a manner that only a potato, or something very similar to one, is the only possible outcome. At this point it is useful to just call it a potato.
 
what is this thing you call a potato , mortals ?!
 
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