You're probably giving us too much of an active role. What are we?

Kripke transcendes these views by showing that individuation is about names - rigid designators.

HE proposes a causal theory for names, and hence for individuation. — Banno

Nixon comes already individuated at the beginning of the story. The causal chain might account for the use of a certain name, but for how parents distinguish their baby from a lamp?

My view is slightly different, in that I view naming as something we do; we use names to pick out individuals. — Banno

I guess you missed my post about how langauge paints a certain picture and for all practical purposes the objects in that picture are real. Lacan says language plays a role in individuation.

Kripke shows that any properties, including those that are called essential, can be removed from an individual, and yet that individual remains. T — Banno

I don't think so. Rigid designators and essential properties are connected ideas. Anyway, he was talking about stipulated possible worlds. We have a priori knowledge of objects in those worlds (per Kripke).

It's interesting to compare the view you're expressing with Hume's bundle theory.

Essence: the intrinsic nature or indispensable quality of something, especially something abstract, that determines its character.
"conflict is the essence of drama"
synonyms: quintessence, soul, spirit, nature; More
PHILOSOPHY
a property or group of properties of something without which it would not exist or be what it is.
plural noun: essences

What am I missing?

We know from Kripke and friends that essences are logical rubbish. — Banno

Why do you say that?

Rigid Designation and Essentialism

Throughout Kripke's discussion of names in lecture 1 of Naming and Necessity he takes it for granted that the distinction between essential properties of an object and its contingent properties is a legitimate one. — Soames 2003

I think it's an important part of his observations in Naming and Necessity.

That sounds like exactly what I should be doing.

If the soul is the having, then it is empty apart from the had. — John

But there is no having without the had. They create one another.

Do you mean about family health issues?

Here's what I think will happen. Due to a temporal rift, an angry Romulun will blow up the Vulcan home planet as revenge on Spock for his failure to save Romulus. Star Trek will be rebooted as an alternate reality.

Me too.

Is it the emptiness that keeps exploiting people and having holocausts? No self, no foul.

Agree. The real USA is Wonder Woman! — ArguingWAristotleTiff

Dude, the power of the ring was real (in the story). I think the image you want is the one where the Devil offers Jesus the kingdoms of the world for one act of worship. That's been used to describe the experience of alcoholics.

Sober self vs drunk self. Sober world vs acid-world. Where is the truth?

That's a question best discussed stoned at night in the middle of nowhere burning a couch that somebody didn't like.

OK. :)

Good for you but I'll need to cross-check your certificate.:) — TheMadFool

It's written in chalk on the pavement near that grocery store you frequent. I'm surprised you didn't see it.

Humor me for a moment. Say I am the creator we're considering. I created x. I could have created y. Did x ultimately obtain by chance?

Following the scenario, the fact that x is actual proves God did want it. We can imagine that he might have wanted something else. You're saying this entails a capacity for multiple outcomes (which you're calling "chance.") Is that right?

H&K University (school of hard knocks)

I'm a certified roll-out checker.

What I am suggesting is that the basic essence of being human is dispersed beyond the brain. — Rich

Yep. Chalmers had an angle on that as well.. extended mind..

I think of Robert Redford when I hear that song.. for some strange reason :)

One of philosophy's roots is an interest in doing something about snake-oil salesmen and the power of mystery religions. 'Be open-minded, but not so open-minded your brain rolls out.'

It could fail to obtain just because it is contingent. That is, it is just analytically true that a state of affairs that obtained contingently could've failed to obtain. — Brayarb

It's analytically true that an omnipotent God can't fail. So are you starting with a contradiction?

and one can begin to understand how it may persist beyond the physical body. — Rich

I think it already exists beyond the physical body. Part of my memory is in my cell phone.

I recognize the song. Your post opened some mental doors for me. :)

There's scientific proof that optimism works. Optimistic people undergoing cardiac surgery fare better their counterparts. For some people writing wishes down repeatedly has positive results (possibly the power of focus and belief). The practice of writing down wishes is an aspect of voodoo.

I don't know if it's that superstition works... just some of the stuff we associate with superstition works for reasons we might know or speculate about.

Because God is supposed to have the property of omnipotence, he usually gets what he wants. So if God wants x, there's a 100% chance of x. :)

Maybe redo the scenario without an omnipotent creator. Like me, for instance. I created x. I could have failed to create x. Does x exist by chance? Why wouldn't that scenario work for your purposes?

God choosing to create X could've failed to obtain. It contingently obtained, — Brayarb

Is this part of the scenario you were constructing or a conclusion you're arguing to?

(Y)

Is there something to memories other than language use? The dreaded continental Wittgenstein: language is mechanistic, thoroughly conventional, and it speaks us.. not the other way around.

Discarding essences, the self can be thought of as like a rope in which no strand runs the full length, and yet the rope is treated as a whole.

But even then, what exactly are the strands that go from one life to another? — Banno

What are the strands that go from one hour to another? Memories?

Anyway, again, simply why did God choosing to create X obtain instead of fail to obtain? — Brayarb

Because God had the power to do it and there was nothing to stop him?

A lot of people do think of the soul as immaterial. My point was that it hasn't always been thought of that way. I spend a lot of time thinking about ancient history so the present sometimes seems far off to me. I guess the smiley I put didn't get across that my comment was meant light-heartedly.

Peace out.

wut

Help me out, then. Has the soul always been thought of as immaterial?

The Inferno wasn't written by Virgil, btw.

Wouldn't you want to understand what people mean by the term before explaining its requirements?

It gives one a hint as to how people at the time understood the soul. So your "souls by nature" comment is bullshit. :)

Virgil's soul had no problem moving around in hell in the Inferno.

Out of curiosity, suppose someone asked you why an initial (or origin, as you put it), contingent state of affairs obtained instead of another state of affairs that could've obtained. Maybe you could use the state of affairs of God choosing to create X. Presumably that state of affairs obtained contingently (I.e., God choosing not to create X could've obtained, or whatever). What would you say settled the matter? When I say chance settled the matter, I'm pretty much saying that the matter got settled but it's not as if there is something that made it settle one way or another, it just did settle one way over the other. I'm at a loss for what else I could say other than chance. — Brayarb

The origin point in a causal chain doesn't have a cause, so God couldn't choose it. That point is incomprehensible. The alternative is that there is no starting point and the chain is infinite (potentially, not actually).

Someone might point to God choosing to create the universe as the reason why the universe exists. In other words, God choosing to create the earth settled the matter of whether or not the earth was created. So, even though the earth being created obtained contingently, it wasn't by chance in the immediate sense, but in virtue of being contingent, it will have been by chance in the ultimate sense. — Brayarb

You're heavily prone to deterministic thinking. The saying associated with Schopenhauer is that 'You can't want what you want.' In other words, as you're suggesting, all choices ride on a deterministic foundation.

Well, I don't really see it or use it as another word for contingency. I generally say that contingency entails chance, so they're closely related, but I don't use the terms interchangeably, usually. — Brayarb

OK. Just note that your usage of "chance" is idiosyncratic, and it's not at all clear how you're using the term. You're laying the groundwork for equivocation.