This seems to be a contradiction. You are saying that they occupy two different portions of reality, therefore they can't be the same.When you take a look at two different portions of reality and see that there is no difference between their contents then we say that these two portions of reality are the same. — Magnus Anderson
Through a socratic dialogue, either with yourself or with others, which serves as a falsification method. Much like the correctness of a scientific theory is tested through particular experiments, we can test the correctness of a definition through particular examples. Say your first attempt to define triangle-ness is "a plane with three angles". I falsify this by pointing out that this shape is a plane with three angles but is not a triangle. So we must add to the definition that the sides must be straight. Then, I might add the property "red" to the definition, and you falsify this by pointing out that some triangles which are not red remain triangles. So we remove "red" from the definition, and the result is "a plane with three angles and straight sides." If it cannot be falsified any more, then we have obtained the perfect definition. — Samuel Lacrampe
But... notice that we both seem certain about the correctness of the examples used to falsify the definitions. Where does this knowledge come from? It must come from the concept which we already had. As such, the exercise was never to find the concept, but to express it correctly with words. In other words, we all have the implicit knowledge of concepts, and we just try to obtain explicit knowledge from this. This explicit knowledge is useful to deduce universal truths such as "no triangle can fill up a circle", because we now know that all triangles have straight sides where as no circles do. — Samuel Lacrampe
So why would to decide to have a discussion with strangers if there is a possibility that none of the words used have the same meaning? — Samuel Lacrampe
Actually, inasmuch as a 'better' implies a 'best'; and a 80% mark implies a 100% mark, then a 'more correct' implies a 'fully correct' or 'ideal'. This is necessary. If the ideal does not exist, then neither does the 'more correct' in any objective sense. As such, if you believe that no ideal definition for triangle-ness exist, then it follows that the definition "three angles" is no more correct than "four angles", which is absurd. — Samuel Lacrampe
This claim sounds ad hoc. Can you back it up? If I obtained a 100% mark on a math exam, then my answers have reached the ideal, and I cannot better myself on that exam. — Samuel Lacrampe
Does a 100% similar = the same? And if not, how not? — apokrisis
We are talking about a similarity with a lack of any actual difference. — apokrisis
Where I might disagree with MU is with his apparent claim that "the same" means "the one". If two things are the same that does not mean they aren't two things. Sameness is a relation and as such it exists "between" two things and not within a single thing. In order to say that two things are same they must first be two things i.e. distinct things. — Magnus Anderson
He's defining similarity to mean "the percentage of elements the two sets have in common". Thus, "100% similarity" means "the percentage of elements the two sets have in common is 100%" or in plain terms "the two sets have all of their elements in common". But that's not the standard definition. The standard definition of similarity, as Google can tell us, is "having a resemblance in appearance, character, or quantity, without being identical". Similarity, in other words, implies difference. But even if we accept his definition, it does not follow that "the same" is "the limit of the similar" or in plain terms "the value similarity can approach but never attain". The problem is created by his inability to fix his attention. — Magnus Anderson
Great. Glad you agree. — apokrisis
So, in the case of 'the triangle', you are denying that a triangle is the same for you and Apokrisis - that because your idea of a triangle, is different from his idea of a triangle, that they're not two instances of the same thing? — Wayfarer
Because that is what you seem to keep saying, again and again and again, so it seems to me that you're the one participant in this debate who is 'arguing nonsense' which you have accused him of doing. — Wayfarer
Sameness isn't something that can only be approached. It is something that is regularly attained. This is, in fact, why sameness is a perfectly meaningful term. The fact that we can think of infinite series where a value, such as sameness, is approached without ever being attained does not mean that every infinite series is of that kind. — Magnus Anderson
For any two things to be the same (sharing 100% of all properties and attributes) then doesn't that mean that for any two things to be the same they'd have to occupy the same space at the same time? Wouldn't that be impossible? — Harry Hindu
The law of identity relates that thing to itself, saying a thing is the same as itself. — Metaphysician Undercover
Any reasonable person can see that this is where the nonsense really lies, in such principles as that, which allow for two distinct things to be called two instances of the same thing. — Metaphysician Undercover
No two triangles are the same any more than two objects of any kind are the same. — Janus
Consider that when you think about triangularity, as you might when proving a geometrical theorem, it is necessarily perfect triangularity that you are contemplating, not some mere approximation of it. Triangularity as your intellect grasps it is entirely determinate or exact; for example, what you grasp is the notion of a closed plane figure with three perfectly straight sides, rather than that of something which may or may not have straight sides or which may or may not be closed. Of course, your mental image of a triangle might not be exact, but rather indeterminate and fuzzy. But to grasp something with the intellect is not the same as to form a mental image of it. For any mental image of a triangle is necessarily going to be of an isosceles triangle specifically, or of a scalene one, or an equilateral one; but the concept of triangularity that your intellect grasps applies to all triangles alike. Any mental image of a triangle is going to have certain features, such as a particular color, that are no part of the concept of triangularity in general. A mental image is something private and subjective, while the concept of triangularity is objective and grasped by many minds at once.
That's precisely what Epp means. — Akanthinos
That is why "same" is a meaningful term, it is used to signify that one particular object is being referred to whether it is at the same time or not. — Metaphysician Undercover
They're not the same in the sense of 'being identical' but in the sense of all being of the same type. — Wayfarer
For Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, and other ancients and medievals, the main reason why the mind has to be immaterial concerns its affinity to its primary objects of knowledge, namely universals, which are themselves immaterial.
When you take a look at two different portions of reality and see that there is no difference between their contents then we say that these two portions of reality are the same.
— Magnus Anderson
This seems to be a contradiction. You are saying that they occupy two different portions of reality, therefore they can't be the same. — Harry Hindu
That's exactly the point, by the law of identity, "same" refers to one thing, and one thing only. The law of identity relates that thing to itself, saying a thing is the same as itself. But there are not two things which are the same as each other, there is one thing, which related to itself, is the same as itself. This is expressed by Leibniz's identity of indiscernibles. If two things are said to have 100% properties the same, then they are necessarily one and the same thing. Calling them two things is a mistake, they were only identified as two distinct things until it was determined that they are one and the same. — Metaphysician Undercover
If the fact of generalization itself constituted a knock-down argument that it, and hence the mind that generalizes, must be "immaterial" (even assuming that we knew what that even meant) then everyone who thought about it would be convinced by it and no one would be able to deny it. — Janus
Conversely, two different beings can be the same at different points in time. For example, a man and his clone are two different beings that are identical. We wouldn't say that they are one and the same person simply because they are identical. — Magnus Anderson
The problem is that others disagree with your position regarding the implications of the phenomenon of generalization. — Janus
Obfuscation is the obscuring of the intended meaning of communication by making the message difficult to understand, usually with confusing and ambiguous language.
Pan-semiosis is achieved as the material description and the immaterial description are two ways of saying the same thing. — apokrisis
So we can say that the same thing can exist at two different moments in time, but not that the same thing can be in two different locations at once. — apokrisis
This is your mistake. According to you, there are no types. — Wayfarer
Two instances of ‘a triangle’ are two instances of the same thing. — Wayfarer
Apparently this simple fact is contradicted by your view. — Wayfarer
There is no absolute sameness — Janus
So, it's not true that A equal to A - it's only ever true that one particular instance of A is equal to A. — Wayfarer
Does that mean that when we say that two balls are the same, in the sense that they have the same color and the same size, that we are wrong because the two balls occupy different positions in space? — Magnus Anderson
One and the same thing can be different at different points in time. For example, a man in his 60's can be very different from the man he was in his 20's. We wouldn't say that the young version of that man is an entirely different person than the old version of that man. — Magnus Anderson
Conversely, two different things can be identical at different points in time. For example, a man and his clone are two different persons that are identical. We wouldn't say that they are one and the same person simply because they are identical. — Magnus Anderson
Anyway, the point I was clarifying, is Metaphysician Undiscovered's continual obfuscation of the meaning of the term 'the same': — Wayfarer
In your argument for information being non-physical, you do not qualify "same" in this way, you say the "same information", not "the same type of information". — Metaphysician Undercover
But we then need to be careful not to confuse the physical representation, the instances of "a triangle" which are on the paper, with the concept itself. — Metaphysician Undercover
The 'triadic relation' of Peirce's semiotics is between sign, thing signified, and interpreter. I will never understand how, in the absence of mind, there can be 'an interpreter'. — Wayfarer
Are an object's coordinates in space-time a property of the object, or no? Is the object's position in space-time just as important to know as its size and color, yes or no? — Harry Hindu
The point about semiosis is that Peirce worked out a fundamental notion of self-organising relations that could apply both to "the mind" and to "the world". Philosophy had become broken by a duality - realism vs idealism - and he picked it up and put it back together. He showed how the material and the immaterial could be related via the mediation of "a sign". — apokrisis
“This new ontological picture requires that we expand our concept of ‘what is real’ to include an extraspatiotemporal domain of quantum possibility,”
he was trying to fix the subject~object dualism of philosophy with his holistic triadism, not simply perpetuate it in some more obscure and complex way. — apokrisis
it would be ironic if you claim to be arguing for the validity of generalisations - agreeing they are real - and yet denying Peirce's rather absolute metaphysical generalisation of whatever people might mean by "mind" — apokrisis
That's precisely what Epp means.
— Akanthinos
And what precisely does 'Epp' mean? — Wayfarer
Actually, it's not. I've had a fair amount of consensus on many points, as can be noted from Apokrisis' reply to yourself. — Wayfarer
show no understanding of the basic point at issue ("It's not clear to me....") and then cast aspersions on the basis of the provenance of the arguments. — Wayfarer
In its symbolic representation, "a=a", "Epp", or "For all x: x = x"." — Akanthinos
But I think the 'self-organising relations' idea is not from Peirce, but from 20th century organic chemistry - Prigogine, Kauffmann, and the like. — Wayfarer
By the way, I don't know if you noticed but Kauffman was one of the authors on the QM paper I mentioned earlier. — Wayfarer
He rejected Cartesian dualism, to be sure, but I don't think it's equally obvious that he rejected idealist metaphysics tout courte. — Wayfarer
My only real point of divergence with you, is that you seem to think the whole process is fundamentally physical, still, whereas I think in the overall scheme of things, matter is not causative - in other words, it can't be truly 'self-organising'. — Wayfarer
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