That's a big "if". I would have thought that the criteria most important to most people are social - and even when they are physical, they often also have social connotations.If the criteria for establishing identity are physical, — Janus
Changes in actual DNA are mutations and part of what's going on, but not, I would have thought a major part. At least, I had in mind the point that the way that DNA is expressed often depends on environmental factors. I have seen it is claimed that there is as much reason to say that we are products of our environment as products of our DNA. The idea that everything is down to DNA is an over-simplification that panders to our essential inclinations that DNA is the essence of what we are.Whether those DNA patterns can change, as physiognomy obviously does would not seem to matter. — Janus
I won't argue with you. But isn't that an empirical claim, which it is difficult to impossible to refute. Isn't the real truth that the probability of an two leaves being identical is very, very small. But still, it can't be ruled out completely. When you get down to brass tacks, the same is true of DNA.but the details will not be exactly the same in any two cases, — Janus
The Heraclitean/Bhuddist idea that everything changes is the obverse/reverse of the claim that everything stays the same. As your next sentence shows, the truth is much more complicated than either. The mistake is to fasten on one view as The Truth and not to pay attention to what is really going on, which is a mixture.If that is the case then to say anything stays the same is a fallacy and it would also make the term is/change identical. — I like sushi
I think my favourite complexity is the one about the non-coding bases, which are 98% of the molecule. What is all that stuff doing there? I don't believe it is doing nothing. The question is, what is it doing? Talk about terra incognitaI will have to consider more subtleties like this into my view. — Apustimelogist
Agreed, but then it's just an historical fact about you.The combination of the DNA code from the set of gametes. The fact that this has slight changes over time or whatnot does not invalidate this. — schopenhauer1
Sure, but can't we say the same about all the facts in your personal history?it can't be any set of gametes, it has to be that set and not another. — schopenhauer1
I think my favourite complexity is the one about the non-coding bases, which are 98% of the molecule. What is all that stuff doing there? I don't believe it is doing nothing. The question is, what is it doing? Talk about terra incognita — Ludwig V
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2267819/Embryonic development in nonmammalian vertebrates depends entirely on nutritional reserves that are predominantly derived from vitellogenin proteins and stored in egg yolk. Mammals have evolved new resources, such as lactation and placentation, to nourish their developing and early offspring. However, the evolutionary timing and molecular events associated with this major phenotypic transition are not known. By means of sensitive comparative genomics analyses and evolutionary simulations, we here show that the three ancestral vitellogenin-encoding genes were progressively lost during mammalian evolution (until around 30–70 million years ago, Mya) in all but the egg-laying monotremes, which have retained a functional vitellogenin gene. Our analyses also provide evidence that the major milk resource genes, caseins, which have similar functional properties as vitellogenins, appeared in the common mammalian ancestor ∼200–310 Mya. Together, our data are compatible with the hypothesis that the emergence of lactation in the common mammalian ancestor and the development of placentation in eutherian and marsupial mammals allowed for the gradual loss of yolk-dependent nourishment during mammalian evolution.
Sure, but can't we say the same about all the facts in your personal history?
If you went back in time and encountered your younger self, you would consider that youngster a person distinct from yourself. If youngster stubbed his toe, only he would feel immediate pain. I account for the distinction in terms of histories: your history differs from youngster's, even though there's overlap. — Relativist
This is another topic, but this kind of parallels our debate for why it matters whether one has achieved some "unity" of this monism (aka Nirvana), or nothingness. What if there were no lifeforms, as was the case prior to 4.5 billion years ago, give or take? Energy and matter on their own don't seem to need liberation from anything. It seems at the least, the problem is biological as much as it is existential, as existential matters not without the biological. And thus, this is contra to the always existing mind of idealism. — schopenhauer1
But again, quite tangential to the OP. — Wayfarer
I think you are going a step beyond this and saying that there is a greater existence beyond this is beyond the constructs of the mind, and some nirvana-like state is the real, non-illusory or whatnot, and this individuation we feel is illusory. — schopenhauer1
That's the thrust of Watts' book, yes. — Wayfarer
Just curious, what do you see as a counterfactual to this view, and why wouldn't it be right? Why couldn't there be simply individuation without the unity that you posit? In a trivial way, we can say by way of empirical studies that the world is fundamentally unified in that it matter and energy particles that came from a singularity right before the big bang. But of course, that is not what you mean either. — schopenhauer1
I just don't think it entails a sufficiently complete concept of identity. — Relativist
When we think of ourselves as experiencing something, don't we generally think that what we experience is other than ourselves? — Janus
You can lose parts of your body that are not critical to your survival and still be a living, experiencing body. — Janus
However, if you lose your eyes or lose your hearing you will not experience in those domains. A mere population of cells does not necessarily experience anything like you as an organism consisting of a self-regulating population of specialized cells does — Janus
Roughly speaking the boundary of your being is your skin; it is natural enough to think of whatever is sensed within that boundary as part of oneself and whatever is sensed outside of that boundary as other. — Janus
I would say your dead body is the dead you, which is very different than the living you, because it is no longer capable of internal self-regulation or of experiencing anything at all, either internal or external to it. It has become like any non-living object, but every particular non-living object is still thought to have a unique identity. — Janus
"Object-oriented thought holds that there are two principal strategies for devaluing the philosophical import of objects.[18] First, one can undermine objects by claiming that they are an effect or manifestation of a deeper, underlying substance or force.[19] Second, one can "overmine" objects by either an idealism which holds that there is nothing beneath what appears in the mind or, as in social constructionism, by positing no independent reality outside of language, discourse or power.[20][21] Object-oriented philosophy fundamentally rejects both undermining and "overmining", since both approaches hand-wave objects away by attributing their existence to other, more fundamental elements of reality.[22]
In a 2013 paper, Graham Harman also discussed the concept of duomining.[23] Borrowing the word from computing science, Harman uses "duomining" to refer to philosophical or ontological approaches that both undermine and overmine objects at the same time. Harman asserts that Quentin Meillassoux's ontology is based on "a classic duomining position", since "he holds that the primary qualities of things are those which can be mathematized and denies that he is a Pythagorean, insisting that numbers do not exhaust the world but simply point to sort of "dead matter" whose exact metaphysical status is never clarified".[24]" — Wiki Article
Thanks for the interesting article, but I don't see a direct relation to the notion of individual identity, and it persistence over time. The issues here are not valuation, but how to precisely define what constitutes a persisting identity. I lean toward hyperessentialism and perdurance, and I don't think these conflict with valuations of objects. — Relativist
Perdurance entails an object having "temporal parts". So there's a unique Schopenhauer1 at each point in time of your existence. The individual parts are linked through a causal chain. In gross terms: Schopenhauer1@Monday causes Schopenhauer1@Tuesday which causes Schopenhauer1@Wednesday...You seemed to hold the the opposite, negating its "perdurance" and essence over time. — schopenhauer1
The temporal parts aren't strictly identical to each other because the history builds over time (thus accounting for your changes over time), but collectively- the entire temporal, causal chain precisely defines the "something".
Identity of indiscernibles applies to each object at time t: all the properties the object has at time t are essential to being that object at time t. It also applies to the entire chain: only one individual can possibly correspond to the set of all those temporal parts. — Relativist
This is consistent with perdurantism.the whole course of the causal-temporal chain starts somewhere. It doesn't start at the Big Bang. It doesn't start at your grandfather's birth. It started at the point when there was the set of possibilities that is the YOU now reflecting back, was put into play. Without that set of gametes, whatever object 1, 2, 3.. is would not be YOU, but another set. — schopenhauer1
I think my favourite complexity is the one about the non-coding bases, which are 98% of the molecule. What is all that stuff doing there? I don't believe it is doing nothing. The question is, what is it doing? Talk about terra incognita — Ludwig V
it would be a rather daunting task for most to come up to speed on what is understood about noncoding DNA these days. — wonderer1
In some sense my name rigidly picks me out, and it would be true that the particular me could not, under any circumstances, be made out of ice from the Thames. But that's the name, and not the unique and particular description of my genetic code at the time of my conception. And for that it seems that DNA doesn't behave in a necessary relationship to the name that picks me out: rigid designators aren't ruled by causal patterns, but rather are just how we use names. — Moliere
I know you’re trying to get some sort of rigid designation to work out here with your conception, but “what” object is the rigid designator rigidly designated with? You might be tempted to say that it can be anything or it’s functional, but there are certain physical substances that differentiate one object from all the other objects, there is a point at which am object could no longer be that object. There is a point when water is not water for example (it’s not H20). — schopenhauer1
Water is a bit different from identity because we can speak of a chemical's identity, but I don't think that's an existential identity like I allude to above. But I think I'd say that if water in Bizarro-world was primarily comprised of H3O and still was the stuff we drink when thirsty and more or less did all the same things which water does then I'd say it's the same stuff, even though in Bizarro-world the description differs -- but this wouldn't be on the basis of it caring. I think at a certain level "water" is such a clearly human interest that it's strange to think that this interest must have a corresponding descriptive correlate to it. Rather I think we're really interested in water because it's connected to our being alive, and so we investigate water and see what it is we can see about it. Here our name is much more in a functional space -- it's what it does for us rather than what we've come to describe it as which we're picking out. — Moliere
One puzzling consequence of Kripke semantics is that identities involving rigid designators are necessary. If water is H2O, then water is necessarily H2O. Since the terms 'water' and 'H2O' pick out the same object in every possible world, there is no possible world in which 'water' picks out something different from 'H2O'. Therefore, water is necessarily H2O. It is possible, of course, that we are mistaken about the chemical composition of water, but that does not affect the necessity of identities. What is not being claimed is that water is necessarily H2O, but conditionally, if water is H2O (though we may not know this, it does not change the fact if it is true), then water is necessarily H2O. — Wiki Article
Water is a kind, not an individual. The logic is a bit different. A closer example would be the Lectern used in Identity and Necessity. There i tis used with the demonstrative: this lectern. Kripke chose not to use that example in Naming and Necessity. But I wonder if the lack of clarity here is what led Kripke to drop the example. — Banno
That's a big "if". I would have thought that the criteria most important to most people are social - and even when they are physical, they often also have social connotations. — Ludwig V
Changes in actual DNA are mutations and part of what's going on, but not, I would have thought a major part. At least, I had in mind the point that the way that DNA is expressed often depends on environmental factors. I have seen it is claimed that there is as much reason to say that we are products of our environment as products of our DNA. The idea that everything is down to DNA is an over-simplification that panders to our essential inclinations that DNA is the essence of what we are. — Ludwig V
I won't argue with you. But isn't that an empirical claim, which it is difficult to impossible to refute. Isn't the real truth that the probability of an two leaves being identical is very, very small. But still, it can't be ruled out completely. When you get down to brass tacks, the same is true of DNA. — Ludwig V
I've always thought that some modifications were necessary. For example, there are two different kinds of water - heavy and light. Wikipedia tells me that "Ice exhibits at least eighteen phases (packing geometries), depending on temperature and pressure". (See Wkikipedia - Ice. These differences are associated with different behaviours of the material. We call both kinds water and all eighteen kinds ice - (though maybe those differences are not relevant - who would decide?). "Water is H20" and "Ice is H20" could politely be called an over-simplification. It's true that for some purposes, the differences don't matter, but for other purposes, they might. How does Kripke's argument cope with this?So, I think I am in alignment with this, but with some additions. — schopenhauer1
It is possible, of course, that we are mistaken about the chemical composition of water, but that does not affect the necessity of identities. — Wiki Article
I think you are on the right track. But you are missing out the complexity of people. The unique identifier is surely "I", which does inescapably refer to the speaker (if used correctly). Admittedly, understanding "I" requires an understanding of "you" and the third person as well. Our names are useful as well, once we have learned them and learned how to respond to them. (You will understand that this is only a gesture for the much longer account that would be necessary to even approach accuracy.)The upshot in Identity and Necessity seems to be that while this person could not have had a different genetics, schopenhauer1 might have. — Banno
And I would agree with you.So, I would not say that DNA is the essence of what we are at all. — Janus
Yes. But you inadvertently run into the oddity about the Identity of Indiscernibles. If you know you have two objects in front of you, you know they are not identical in all respects. The only way this problem could arise would be if you knew about two different appearances of the same object, which may not be both in front of you at the same time. We know how to cope with that in practice, but I'm not sure that logic does.Whether we could ever find any two natural objects of the senses, whether biological or not, which were physically indistinguishable, is an empirical question I agree. — Janus
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