Yes, but I see no reason to take such a view seriously. — Banno

I've discovered that I'm a bit prone to being distracted by side-issues, so I won't ask what that means.

Dialectical movement does not resolve things, it keeps them in play. — Fooloso4

I'm puzzled. I thought Socrates/Plato invented dialectic. What's the evidence that any pre-Socratics knew about dialectics?

And did Kripke invent causal necessity as well?

But, supposing I am the first child of my parents, there would still be a first child. Why wouldn't that be me, but different?

I happen to know that they intended to call their first child Ludwig if it was a boy. I forget what the choice would have been if I had turned out to be a girl.

And then, presumably, the name Ludwig would have rigidly designated their first child if it was a boy, or their second if that was a boy and so on. Then gametes would be irrelevant.

That is similar to Kripke's causal-theory of proper names and use of rigid designators. — schopenhauer1

You say that as if it settled the matter. Is there a universal consensus that Kripke is necessarily right? That would indeed be remarkable.

But when discussing the past, it's always going to be in relation to the YOU existing now. — schopenhauer1

In a sense, yes. Which is why I went back to the past before I existed - when there was no me for anything to be in relation to.

To put the point another way, if any discussion about the past is always going to be in relation to Ludwig V, is it always going to be in relation to schopenhauer1, my sister Mary Anne and the postman. Why am I so special?

Zeno provides the arguments. — Fooloso4

Quite so. But if he was misled, doesn't that suggest that the conclusion of the argument is wrong, or at least may be wrong? Does that really make no difference?

Well, bits of metaphysics that I can never know do not concern me greatly. I'm funny like that.

The person Ludwig V is linked "as an individual person" by way of causal instance of gametes combining. — schopenhauer1

If the link is causal, it is empirical. Which means it is not necessary.

It would have been someone else. — schopenhauer1

How could it be someone else if I don't exist?

It is impossible that I moved the bishop and won the game, because I moved another piece and lost. — unenlightened

So maybe I considered moving the bishop and decided to do something else. When I did something else, it was no longer possible. But it was possible when I considered it. Surely?

It makes a difference because indeterminate future is one without you. The five minutes changes the gamete to someone else’s genetics. — schopenhauer1

No, it does not. Because the person who would have been born 5 minutes earlier never existed and never could have existed. There's only person one who exists. You can say that there are possible people who would have existed if I had been conceived 5 minutes earlier or 5 minutes later. But you can't say anything about them, not even whether they would have been the same or different - except by arbitrarily stipulating that they would. Where would your evidence be for saying that they were the same as me, or different from me in ways that matter or different from me in ways that don't matter?

I'll sort something out for you. But that's only about "real" and "reality". The bit about concepts is my own invention.

You frame this issue as "... but that wouldn't have YOU". In brief, I think the issue is partly created by the way it is framed. Given that I exist, my possible supposition that my gametes could have been different from the ones I actually have is hampered by the absolutely certain fact that they weren't. If the question was differently framed, I think it would get a different answer. Suppose you are a parent trying to make a baby. Do you seriously think that whether you performed the action 5 minutes ago or in 5 minutes time matters. You may realize that there may be some differences - even serious differences, but do they make any difference? I don't think so. The difference is that there's no me to make any difference. (cf. Ryle)

But then this brings up ideas of different causes for the same outcome. — schopenhauer1

Yes. Isn't that implicit in "necessary but not sufficient"?

How much does the limit have to reach 100% for it to considered a necessity that everything had to be exactly the same? — schopenhauer1

I would say it has to reach at least 100%. But maybe you don't?

using a rigid designation. — Banno

I wish I had thought of that days ago. But I'm not sure it applies. Doesn't Ryle's argument about the future mean that rigid designators cannot be rigid in the future tense?

this is not some fantasy world for Zeno, — Richard B

That's certainly true. I didn't distinguish carefully enough between Zeno's thinking and ours. We have the benefit of an established distinction between theory and practice, which didn't exist in Zeno's time.

All I am saying is experience settles some questions not just lingustic analysis. And in this case, experience should be arbiter. — Richard B

That's true. It would be interesting to know why you think that experience should be the arbiter in this case. By the way, I don't think that anyone thinks that Achilles won't overtake the tortoise.
Experience isn't a given. It needs interpreting. You experience the sun coming up over the horizon on Monday morning. You have the same experience on Tuesday morning. What tells you that it is the same sun and not a new one every day? How do you know that the sun doesn't rise, but the earth turns?

it should be to ask why would anyone be tempted to take this serious to begin with. — Richard B

Well, Zeno did. So have many other people. If you want to know why, read Ryle.

I think that the best answer to what you are saying is that the paradox isn't a problem. It's a puzzle. Whether it's a serious puzzle or not is another question. Whether it's an interesting puzzle is yet another question.

We can't name the individual accidents that were avoided, but can still maintain that the overall probability of an accident was reduced. — Banno

Yes. That's because, of course, there are, ex hypothesi no individual (actual) accidents to be averted. I don't see that Ryle is at all confused here.

Clearly, we have an answer to the problem of who will win the race between Achilles and the Tortoise. — Richard B

Surely, you are missing the point here. No-one doubts who will win the race. The question is how Zeno makes it appear that there is some question about that. The answer is that he considers the race from a certain, misleading, point of view. Ryle's project here is to understand how that illusion is created. Wittgenstein speaks of conjuring tricks. Austin, in Sense and Sensibilia has similar, but less brutal, descriptions of the process.

He says, “Yet there is a very different answer which also seems to follow with equal cogency from the same data.” But what “data” is that? — Richard B

Ryle is not always precise in his language. "Data" just means the set-up of Achilles racing the tortoise

which are not rival solutions of the same problem, but rather solutions or would-be solutions of different problems, and which, none the less, seem to be irreconcilable with one another.” — Richard B

Yes, I think that's exactly what Ryle is saying about this problem.

So, why did Ryle not just declare a winner and be done with it? — Richard B

Well, he wants to diagnose why anyone would have taken Zeno's problem seriously - and, by the way, Zeno also took this problem seriously in that he believes that all change, including motion, is an illusion.
I think there is a real problem here, and it needs to be acknowledged. You can calculate the time it takes for Achilles to complete the race and for the tortoise to complete the race, you; you can then compare the times and see that Achilles will win. But if you ask when (or where) Achilles will catch up and pass the tortoise, you can't - not accurately, as you can with the first calculation. The consolation prize is that you can calculate it to any degree of accuracy you like; but that didn't become possible until the calculus of infinitesimals was invented in the 17th century CE.

To actual cake, or some abstract object call “a cake”? This is where I think Ryle presents a confusing picture. — Richard B

Yes, Zeno's problem is purely theoretical not, in some sense of the word, real. Which is why it is so tempting to simply declare the winner.

But Ryle wants to say something additional, Zeno is putting forth an abstract platitude. But I say Zeno parades a metaphysical fiction disguised as a scientist hypothesis. — Richard B

Well, yes. Zeno does have a metaphysical solution to the problem, which is to declare motion impossible. Philosophy has progressed to the point where we don't need to argue about that any more. Who says philosophy never makes any progress?

Oh by the way, what I am discussing versus a specific identity versus a general future event, is not so indirectly related to this passage in Ryle: — schopenhauer1

Yes. That puts a different perspective on things. Very helpful.

Here's my summary/reconstruction of lecture III on Achilles and the tortoise:-

The first part of the third lecture is about a real chestnut. But it is rather hard to follow, in the sense that it is hard to see where he is going. I think it helps to start with his conclusion, his diagnosis of the problem.

His final remark is not a surprise – “Similarly (i.e. to the fatalist’s dilemma) here we have been talking, so to speak, in one breath with the sporting reporter of a newspaper, and in another breath with our mathematics master, and so find ourselves describing 1) a sprint in terms of numerators and denominators and 2) of relations between fractions in terms of efforts and despair.” p. 53 (numbers and strikethrough mine).

On the previous page (52), we find the specifics – “We decide factual questions about the length and duration of a race by one procedure, namely measurement; we decide arithmetical questions by another procedure, namely calculation. But then, given some facts about the race (such as whether Achilles will win) established by measurement, we can decide other questions about that race (such as where and when Achilles will overtake the tortoise) by calculations applied to these measurements. The two procedures of settling the different sorts of questions intertwine, somehow, into a procedure for establishing by calculation concrete, measurable facts about this particular race. We have the pony in the harness that was meant for any such pony, yet we can mismanage the previously quite manageable pony in its previously quite manageable harness.” His summary his helpfully simpler – “Two separate skills do not, in the beginning, intertwine into one conjoint skill.”

(I think this is his gesture towards the mathematical solution of the problem by application of the calculus which demonstrates that we can calculate when Achilles will overtake the tortoise to any level of accuracy that we desire).

Going back a bit further he acknowledges the common ground between the two skills (p.48) “… in an important way we are, in all applications, thinking in terms of or operating with the same overarching notions of part, whole, fraction, total, plus, minus and multiplied by.” He articulates the question (p.50), as “How is (what we know quite well about the stages of an athlete's victorious pursuit) to be married with (what we also know quite well about the results of adding together a fraction of a whole, that fraction of the remainder, that fraction of the next remainder, and so on)?”

He partially answers this question by pointing out:-

1) that “never” in this scenario is ambiguous between the harmless truism “To say this (sc. that the sum of 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16 etc., never amounts to unity). is simply to utter the general proposition that any particular remainder-bisection leaves a remainder to bisect.” and the alarming prophecy that “if a silly computer were to attempt to continue bisecting remainders until he had found one which was halved but had no second half, his attempt would then go on to all eternity.” p. 50/51.
He also, less transparently, finds an ambiguity between “all” as in the total when all the parts are added up and “any”. I don’t quite understand it and cannot find a suitably brief quotation.

So that’s my backwards summary of the part of his lecture that begins on p. 48 with:- “Now let us draw some general lessons from this dilemma.” Returning to the beginning, Ryle’s aim is getting us to see that the paradox hypnotizes us into seeing it only as an endless series. We need to appreciate two distinct points of view. One is the overview of the whole event (by a non-participant) and the other is the narrow view of a competitor in the race. He approaches this by considering dividing up a cake alongside dividing up the race. I think the point is that in dividing up the race, we tend to forget the overview of the whole; it is easier to keep the whole cake in mind because it is not a temporal process. Some of the points that I found helpful:-

1) On p. 42, he imagines that we might mark out the course by planting a flag at each point of the calculation. At the half-way mark, the quarter-way mark and so on. The method itself guarantees that there will always be a place for another flag, so we think that Achilles will never reach the tortoise. But if we reversed the process, would we be convinced that the race did not have a beginning?

2) “Similarly Zeno, in his mentions of the successive leads to be made up by Achilles, is, though surreptitiously and only by implication, referring to the total two-mile course run by Achilles in overtaking the tortoise; or in other words, his argument itself rests on the unadvertised premiss that Achilles does catch the tortoise in, say, precisely two miles and in precisely one hour.” p.44.

3) We need to see that there is a crucial difference between two questions – “To put a central point very crudely, we have to distinguish the question' How many portions have you cut off the object?' from the question 'How many portions have you cut it into?’”. (p. 46) In the first question, we have partly cut the cake and there is always part of it left. In the second question, we have cut the whole cake up.

I agree with you. The only thing I would add is that it is a surprise, at least to me, to realize that "While it, is still an askable question whether my parents are going to have a fourth son, he cannot use as a name the name 'Gilbert Ryle' or use as a pronoun designating their fourth son the pronoun 'he'. Roughly, statements in the future tense cannot convey singular, but only general propositions, where statements in the present and past tense can convey both. More strictly, a statement to the effect that something will exist or happen is, in so far, a general statement. When I predict the next eclipse of the moon, I have indeed got the moon to make statements about, but I have not got her next. eclipse to make statements about."

What is new to me is the idea that the future tense is different from present and past because we cannot refer to things that do not yet exist.

That's fine by me. These summaries - at least in the case of this book - are not that easy to do, so I will appreciate having some extra time. That doesn't mean I don't appreciate your comments, for which I thank you.

So does this mean that the idea that I might have been a musician, or an accountant, or a Roman Catholic, are all nonsense? Odd, don't you think? Might have I had fair hair or blue eyes? Could I have married someone else? Might my children have turned out to be criminals or saints? It's all very peculiar.

DNA matching is indeed the gold standard of identity, but only in the way that fingerprints are a silver standard and facial recognition a bit unreliable. That is, DNA was identified and installed as an empirical criterion, not a conceptual criterion.

To put it another way, DNA is part of the story about how I came to be - a cause. So perhaps you are picking up on causal determinism? But it is not the whole story. What happens to me while I am growing plays just as important a role as DNA. Compare an oak tree. It starts from DNA, but the tree that it becomes depends also on how it grows in the environment that it happens to be in. If the acorn had landed elsewhere, it would have been a different tree. Perhaps we can agree that DNA is a necessary, but not sufficient, cause of a new person being created, thus recognizing that other factors play their crucial parts.

And then, that body or mind is subject to changing experiences that could alter the course of their outlook, life, personality, etc. — schopenhauer1

This is very helpful. It indicates that the foundation of personal identity, for you, is spatio-temporal continuity in the narrative of a life. If that's right, then you are denying that people who undergo changes that they think they have become a different person are simply wrong. I admit that is a bit problematic, but I don't see how you can dogmatically rule that out. Perhaps we need to think more carefully about what being a person is, and how it is something different from being a human being.

But if people can change in the course of their life, without those changes being so radical that they become a different person, what makes the gametes so important and sensitive that ANY change in them produces a different person. It seems absurd to suppose that if I was conceived 5 minutes earlier or later, the resulting person would not be me.

His particular style of writing feels like a lot of foreplay without a crescendo. — Richard B

I'll do my best. As to the problem with his style, I can understand that would be disappointing. Perhaps my introduction should make it clear what the climax is.

I can't say this thread is working very well, but if two or three people are interested and actually reading the book, I'm perfectly happy to continue.

It is pretty clear that there is no reaction to lecture I, so I'm thinking of moving on to lecture II.

But I need some guidance, particularly from you, Antony. Are you cogitating any comment on lecture I? If so, I'm happy to wait. If not, perhaps it is time to move on.

So being of the same gametes is necessary but perhaps not sufficient to identity. — schopenhauer1

I did read it. But I guess I didn't pay enough attention to that last sentence.

Well, you are slightly moving the goal post. — schopenhauer1

That's what a discussion is about, surely. Listen to the other guy, adjust your view and on we go. With luck, we might even reach agreement!

However, we have some way to go, and I'm a bit concerned that this issue is clearly off-topic. One of us could start a different thread, and I think that would be a good idea. How about it?

I'll wait for you reply before actually replying to that message. You won't be surprised that I have a good deal to say.

For the moment, I notice that you don't say that the fertilized egg is me; I'm assuming that you mean that it is the origin of me.

And in response to

All I am establishing is that if the gametes are different than the one that was your set of gametes, whatever the case may be (whether they are similar to you or not), THAT person who was conceived a second before or after with different gametes is not you. — schopenhauer1

That can't be true. A clone of me (such as a possible identical twin) would not be me, either. And if you look carefully at what is written about DNA, there is a possibiity (several million to one) that someone else might be born with the same DNA as me.
I admit that DNA is treated as a unique identifier for me. But this is an empirical relationship, like the supposed unique pattern of my fingerprints (or, I understand, my palm-print or ear-print). I mean that the uniqueness of DNA was established on the basis of our understanding of personal identity. So it doesn't establish any logical relationship.

Anyway, let me know about the new thread.

conceived in different conditions whereby the set of gametes was different than the ones that comprise you — schopenhauer1

OK. I'll skip the issue whether the baby that is born is the person who will develop over the next twenty years or so. But there is a development process there which is recognized in most societies (all that I know of).

You have two criteria there. Suppose I had been born in different circumstances (but the same parents) and the same DNA. For example suppose I was born as a second child, not the first. Would I be the same person? I say, yes. What would you say?

On the other hand, I can imagine (just about) having been born in China in 1947. But that's imagining me born in China in 1947, or rather imagining being in the circumstances of China in 1947. I accept that I cannot imagine the person that would be me having been born in China in 1947.

My point here is that there is a wild forest of circumstances that might have been different. In some of them, I would be the same person. In others, I would not. In some, I might not be able to decide. For example, suppose I was born - same parents, same DNA - in 1947. I think that's undecidable.

about why I think its good to let those explanations speak for themselves, — Apustimelogist

I think of myself as a kind of instrumentalist about everything which most would say is just anti-realism. — Apustimelogist

LaPlace's famous reply to Napoleon (I think) that he has no need of the hypothesis of God marks the point at which instrumentalism, which had enabled the new science to evade the religious challenges ever since Copernicus, "collapsed" into realism. (I'm gesturing at an argument here but I think you probably know how it goes).

But how about a more radical position? Avoid speaking about "reality", just as one avoids speaking about "existence". (I don't remember whether you ever looked in on the thread about Austin's "Sense and Sensibilia", but the argument is in there.) Suppose we treat concepts as instruments (cf. telescope, microscope, galvanometer, etc.). Instruments do not make claims about particular empirical truths (or the generalizations we derive from particular truths). They enable us to establish empirical truths. You would be a realist and an anti-realist at the same time.

Because you haven't seemed to grasp the main point of my argument which is that if a set of parents, even your own, had two gametes that were different than the ones that created you, that is indeed a different person. This isn't even controversial. If 10 seconds later, the there was another sperm, that is no longer you. That was someone else. We'd have to establish we agree here. — schopenhauer1

There you go again. I agree that you can call that a different person, but I claim that I can decide on a case-by-case basis whether the difference warrants a change of identity or not. In addition, I claim that a fertilized egg is not a person - yet.

Yes, I've heard that story. As a result that quotation has become one of my favourites. But actually, you can't just go on about differences without acknowledging similarities. It's just that most philosophers like similarities and tend to ignore differences and panic when they are faced with them, fearing that they have encountered that boogey-man of all philosophy - a counter-example. But it's the combination that makes the world go round.

I don't see any other way you can misconstrue this idea that a differently conceived person would not be you. — schopenhauer1

Well, I have quoted the bit I just quoted again here. You originally said that just after you quoted a long argument from me, trying to explain why I thought you were wrong. But all you give me is a claim that I am misconstruing the idea. There's no explanation of what the misconstruction is. So I have nothing to engage with (apart from the rather surprising remark that you agree with Ryle's argument against fatalism, again without explanation). But apparently you do not accept that what you say is an application of the fatalism argument to this special case, but you do not explain what the relevant difference is.

And so we go back and forth. To no purpose. What do you think is needed to break the cycle? From my point of view, it seems that I present examples to you that seem to me to be incompatible with what you say, but you ignore them, without explaining what is wrong with them. What do you think?

I don't see any other way you can misconstrue this idea that a differently conceived person would not be you. — schopenhauer1

I could have fair hair and still be me. I could be six inches shorter than I am and still be me. I could have musical talent as opposed to competence and still be me. Minor changes don't matter. The issue is what features of me matter - and not all of them matter. You can decide as you wish, but others will decide as they wish.

By the way, almost all of my features are the result of a combination of genes and environment.

Thank you very much for this.

So, Ludwig V, I do take the focus on particulars, dichotomies, goals, means of reasoning, criteria of what matters, similarities and differences, case-specific categories, and considerations in each case, to be right up the same alley as Austin and Wittgenstein — Antony Nickles

Yes. I was more interested in the differences between the three than the similarities. But I didn't mean to suggest that there were no similarities. I was, I admit, concerned to bring out how little OLP was ever a school or a movement in a conventional sense. So I wouldn't argue with what you say here.

However, I do think that

Ryle does say it is not our logic, but our relationship to others that is the problem. (p.1) — Antony Nickles

is a bit misleading. It took me a while to realize what was going on.

Ryle has a rather ornate style and a great fondness for metaphors, preferably a collection at the same time. Look at what he does in paragraph on p.1 seems to be para 3:-
"There often arise quarrels between theories, or, more generally, between lines of thought, ... A thinker who adopts one of them ... In disputes of this kind, we often find one and the same thinker - very likely oneself - strongly inclined to champion both sides. ... He is both well satisfied with the logical credentials of each of the two points of view, and sure that one of them must be totally wrong if the other is even largely right. The internal administration of each seems to be impeccable but their diplomatic relations with one another seem to be internecine."
I don’t say he’s wrong. On the contrary. But it is clear that the problem can be characterized at many levels, and no characterization seems to have any special place.

But you are right, actual people do have a special place. Theories can be compatible or incompatible, points of view contradictory, and so forth. But you can see where people are special in p.11 para. 2:- "Sometimes thinkers are at loggerheads with one another, not because their propositions do conflict, but because their authors fancy that they conflict. ... It can be convenient to characterize these cross-purposes by saying that the two sides"
Believing wrongly that propositions conflict is not something that theories or points of view can do. They can apparently conflict – and who can grasp an apparent conflict except a person? A new meaning for "to err is human."

I

Perhaps Ryle will say that we see others as rivals because of our pushing an agenda (“goal”) from the start, much as we fixate only on the example that makes our best case (pain, illusion, etc.) — Antony Nickles

This is right. He does say, in the first sentence of the same para. 3 p.1 "… which are not rival solutions of the same problem, but rather solutions or would-be solutions of different problems, and which, none the less, seem to be irreconcilable with one another." But this is only the first version of what he says. Take the three examples he offers:-

Of the first case, he says "This point is sometimes expressed by saying that the conflict is one between a scientist's theory and a theory of Common Sense. But even this is misleading." He means that common sense is not a theory, so the issue is not a conflict between theories; I think he would express it as a conflict between points of view. I think also that it is important that the one actually undermines the other. By the way, I think that his formulation of this issue is different from the standard formulations, just because the skeptic does not feature; instead, we have a working physiologist. That helpfully (to me, at least) puts the argument in a different context.

Of the second, he says on p. 4 para 1:- "Consider, next, a very different sort of dilemma." and so it is. "We feel quite sure both that a person can be made moral and that he cannot be made moral; and yet that both cannot be true." This is not a conflict between theories with different goals; it is, I shall say, a conflict between points of view within common sense.

He introduces the third example on p. 6 para 3 with:- "I want now to illustrate this notion of litigation between theories or bodies of ideas with another well-known example in order to bring out some other important points."
In this case, there is certainly an issue about the pursuit of different agendas, but (and this is me speaking, not Ryle) they share an ambition - to explain everything in the terms that suit their business. Not quite Hume’s “augmentation”, but next door to it.

Ryle's discussion of categories is similarly confusing. At first sight, Ryle seems to think that this concept is cure-all and for a long time, I bought that story. But by the time he has finished his discussion (pp. 9 - 11), he has said that rejected any systematic classification of them and we are left with the concept as "not more than convenient". The real business is "showing in detail how the metiers in ratiocination of the concepts under pressure are more dissimilar from one another or less dissimilar from one another than the contestants had unwittingly supposed." – as you said at the beginning of your post.

In other words, you could NEVER have been anyone but what you are now when discussing your initial conception and birth. — schopenhauer1

Well, this is just a special application of the general argument framed by the fatalist. I guess you are not impressed by Ryle's arguments. It would be interesting to know why.

At first sight, you seem to be applying a criterion of causal continuity between conception and now. That's an understandable choice and does presuppose that our identity is not what the identity of indiscernibles proposes. I have no problem with that. Whether your choice in this case is reasonable is another question.

Your formulation is a bit confusing, since your use of "anyone" suggests that we are talking about people, but your use of "what I am" suggests that you are talking about things. Since, at conception, I am not (yet) a person, you are not asking the interesting question, which is "WHO I am". The difference between those two questions needs a bit of sorting out before we could begin answering either question.

Most people take birth as the moment when a person's life begins, though they also accept that there's a long way before one becomes an adult, fully-grown person. The question of identity in the case of human beings is complicated for that reason.

Another reason why it is more complicated than you seem to allow that I can, and do, make decisions about my own identity, and, although one might say that those choices should be respected, other people also make decisions. Conflicts are, in some cases, very difficult to resolve.

That would be an interesting thread, but for this thread, the interesting and relevant question is why you are not impressed with Ryle's arguments against fatalism.

Rather, I would want explanations of how science works, how people's cognition works, how brains work, how language works and let those things speak for themselves. — Apustimelogist

Yes, that sounds sensible. But that's an ideal and there may never be answers that are more than provision (see philosophy of science). Can you suspend all judgement while people work out all those answers? And can people work out all those answers without negotiating the issues we are bothered by - just without us? What do we do with our confusions while we are waiting?

So because they are no more than where they fit as part of our experiences, their ontological significance is kind of deflated somewhat — Apustimelogist

Well, I would go further than that.

the words / concepts we use as part of "explanations" and "knowledge" are effectively just moving parts embedded in the stream of the very thing trying be explained — Apustimelogist

That's right. Not merely fixing the ship while we sail in it, but building a new one while we sail in it.
If philosophy was easy, everyone would be doing it. Oh, yes, they are. Most very badly - even worse than you and I.

I think that there are two issues at stake here.

One of them is the definition of identity. You seem to have what I think of a strict definition of identity. Any change is a change of identity. This follows from a strict application of the Identity of Indiscernibles and it seems to follow that the identity of anything consists only of a series of time-slices of what is represented as a single enduring object in "common sense". I don't share that view but recognize that the other view is, in some sense, possible, because I don't think that there is a conclusive refutation of it.

On the other hand, there is the fact that people, unlike beings and objects that are not self-aware, are capable of making choices about what changes in themselves make a difference to their identity and what changes do not. Their choices may not be the same as the choices of other people, and this may create problems. The decision that some change does not imply a change of identity, I characterize as deciding that change is "minor".

You identity the other issue by your comparison with Ryle's argument about Waterloo, which I think is correct, when you think about the problem before conception. But your strict view of identity seems to suggest that, once I am conceived, everything is inevitable and there are no possibilities - and no uncertainties - in my life. In other words, a fatalist view of my life.

And then there is your point:-

But I am not even going down that route. I'm simply saying, that there is no way you "could have" been any other person than "you". — schopenhauer1

To which I reply that is true. But the question is, who am I? I would ask, in addition, who decides who I am?

Our moral judgement is made to judge itself unfavourably. — unenlightened

Thank you for drawing my attention to that case. I missed it because I was focused on the second lecture.

I had thought that there were two separate judgements (as suggested by Ryle's formulating the dilemma as from the parents' point of view or from the son's point of view) which contradicted each other. Hence "dilemma" instead of paradox.

On the other hand, there is a paradox in here, prompted by the paradox that if God wants to create moral beings, they need to create beings who will choose to follow their precepts freely. But then, there's an equivalent paradox that, as moral beings, we need to choose freely to follow god's precepts. There is the additional issue is that a "precept" that may be followed or not is probably not a precept, but advice or exhortation. The same could be said of parents and children - and indeed teachers and students.

This is a new thought to me.

The question now is whether Bateson (or you) think that all dilemmas are really paradoxes, or that paradoxes are one form of dilemma. Ryle, so far as I can see, seems to think that there are different forms of dilemma. I'm inclined to agree with Ryle.

Ryle was not really sure he has conclusively refuted fatalism. He says at the end of this lecture “I have produced quite an apparatus of somewhat elaborate arguments, all of which need expansion and reinforcement. I expect that the logical ice is pretty thin under some of them.” p.29 , so I feel justified in posting some of my – doubts, let’s call them – about this lecture. There are two main issues:-

1. In the first place, Ryle’s argument about the cross-roads ( pp. 24 – 27) is all very well. But I don’t quite see how it affects the fatalist’s argument. Surely, I can say that the annual village fete will be held next Sunday afternoon, and it can be true! What’s more, if it rains and the fete is cancelled, I can say that the annual village fete was cancelled (or prevented, or averted). And I can’t think of a reformulation that would work. I don’t quite trust his generalization that future tense cannot refer to events that have not yet taken place. I see that it works in some contexts, but it doesn’t follow that it works in all contexts.

2. The arguments he gives pp. 16 – 18 discuss the way that knowledge (especially God’s), and predictions, especially of anyone else are involved in the premiss of the fatalist’s argument. Then he gets to the hard core issue of truth and falsity. Now, I’ve always believed that “true” and “false” are timelessly true. Thus Pythagoras’ theorem is not true at any particular time, or at all particular times. In the case of more ordinary truths, the tenses are embedded in the that-clause. (The fete will be held, is being held, was held) The truth predicate is in the timeless present. That’s where the problem originates. Ryle seems to want to bring that into doubt.

Hi first argument (pp.17 – 18) consider what might have been meant by a timelessly true proposition like “Ryle will cough and go to bed on the evening of Sunday (day/month/year). Not an actual prediction, not an impersonal prediction (“The forecast is for rain tomorrow”), but a possible prediction (if anybody had predicted rain tomorrow, it would have come true.) He dismisses that, in an argument that is reminiscent of the argument in 1. But I don’t think it is the slam-dunk that philosophers seek to achieve by relying on logic. (Slam-dunk is the point of logic, isn’t it?)

His first move is “There is something of a slur in ‘false’ and something honorific in ‘true’, some suggestion of the insincerity or sincerity of its author, or some suggestion of his rashness or cautiousness as an investigator.” p. 18. I would call this a sub-text, and likely dependent on context. It certainly isn’t the kind of thing you expect to find in a philosophy text – and it might be argued that it depends on context anyway. I think philosophers might want to call it part of the illocutionary force of a speech act – and Ryle was writing well before they were invented.

He reinforces the point:- “This is· brought out by our reluctance to characterize either as true or as false pure and avowed guesses. If you make a guess at the winner of the race, it will turn out right or wrong, correct or incorrect, but hardly true or false.” p. 18 Well, I can’t argue that he is wrong, and it would make sense if his sub-text is correct. But he recognizes at the top of p.19 that the sub-text he has proposed is not always there but nevertheless, makes a crucial move - “But, for safety's sake, let us reword the fatalist argument in terms of these thinner words, 'correct' and ‘incorrect'.” H’m. Maybe.

There’s a persuasive paragraph on p. 20 about categories, but Ryle doesn’t expect any more than our feeling “more cordial” to the idea that the right predicates to apply are ‘correct’ or ‘fulfilled’, but not ‘true’.

From there we get to prophecies being “fulfilled” or not rather than being “true” or not, and so to the idea that the fatalist’s premiss is not, strictly speaking, true or not, but correct or fulfilled or not. I think he has shown that it is possible to present the fatalist’s premiss in that way, but not that it is impossible to present it in the fatalist’s way. Which is a step forward, but far from conclusive.

Yes, I can think I can see what Bateson is getting at. Forgive me for being dense, but I'm not clear how this relates to Ryle's use of the idea.

I agree with what you say, particularly about the discovery that one's parents are not the people who are bringing you up. But I also think that minor variations do not make a difference. Are you seriously trying to tell me that if I had been born five minutes earlier, or five hours earlier, it would not have been me that was born? I concede that someone might decide to take it that way, but, under otherwise normal circumstances, most people, I am sure, would not.