This might sound like a goofy question, but there's a reason I'm asking it ... which I'll share a bit later on.

Everything including floom is quite simply .....thought.
And if you disagree, well thats thought too.
I think?

An apple would be a specific arrangement (or series of arrangements) of floom. It wouldn't be mere floom.

Substitute goat for f'loom and you have it almost correct, just ask Banno.

Everything is basically made up of atoms and they are in turn made of smaller particles. It is just the arrangement of those particles that make them different.

I might be wrong, but I don't remember seeing anywhere that an electron in one element is any different from those in other elements.

How deep/close is the relationship between an object and its most fundamental building block?

Let's say X is an object and Y is its fundamental building block, where any part of X could be broken down entirely into Ys (but no further).

Does it make sense to say: "X is really just Y" ? — rachMiel

I'd say that objects are identical to all the properties that comprise them. So the answer to your question is an identity relationship: X is Y. But bear in mind that all of the Ys are non-identical (i.e. nominalism), and the way they interact with each other makes X what it is.

Does it make sense to say: "X is really just Y" ? — rachMiel

A house is just a pile of bricks; why don't you live in a pile of bricks? I find that when the bricks are arranged just so, I can live in the space between. So a house is a pile of bricks - with lots of nothing between them. I don't care much about the bricks, it's the nothing that's important.

You know, I think the back-story behind this question has to be 'atomism'. That was the original rationale behind materialist reductionism. I once did a unit in the classical prose poem, De Rerum Natura, by Lucretius. 'The poem, written in some 7,400 dactylic hexameters, is divided into six untitled books, and explores Epicurean physics through poetic language and metaphors. Namely, Lucretius explores the principles of atomism; the nature of the mind and soul; explanations of sensation and thought; the development of the world and its phenomena; and explains a variety of celestial and terrestrial phenomena. The universe described in the poem operates according to these physical principles, guided by fortuna ("chance") and not the divine intervention of the traditional Roman deities.'

His predecessors, Democritus and Leucippus, were the originators of atomism, proper. But Lucretius' text is brilliant both as literature and as philosophy and enjoyed an enormous popular revival amongst the French philosoph of the Enlightenment; after all, it was one of them, Baron D'Holbach, who famously said 'I see nothing but bodies in motion'.

The problem which the ancient atomists tackled, was how The One could give rise to The Many. Recall this was the basic metaphysical conundrum posed by Parmenides - that nothing that truly is, could not be, and nothing that is not, could come to be. The atomists solution was to propose 'the atom' - meaning 'un-cuttable' or 'in-divisable' - as the form of the changeless in the middle of change. Now of course this is drastic simplification of a dialectical process that unfolded over centuries, but that is still an important part of the drift of it.

This is one of the main sources the idea that the universe can really be best understood in terms of ultimately-existing material point-particles or 'fundamental constituents'. There are other factors behind it as well but I think this is the most important one.

BUT, that said, it's worth a read of Werner Heisenberg's lecture, The Debate between Plato and Democritus. Heisenberg, as you're no doubt aware, was one of the founders of modern quantum mechanics (along with Neils Bohr, Wolfgang Pauli, Paul Dirac, and several others). Later in life he wrote a book on Physics and Philosophy, of which this piece is representative. It's not that long, and well worth the time to read IMO.

I think? — Marcus de Brun

Thought thinks?

An apple would be a specific arrangement (or series of arrangements) of floom. It wouldn't be mere floom. — VagabondSpectre

And this is kind of what I'm trying to get at. If X consists solely of Y, does it make sense to say X *is* Y?

A diamond is carbon.
Michelangelo's David is marble.
A human being is quarks and leptons.

I'd say that objects are identical to all the properties that comprise them. So the answer to your question is an identity relationship: X is Y. But bear in mind that all of the Ys are non-identical (i.e. nominalism), and the way they interact with each other makes X what it is. — numberjohnny5

Let's say you've got two blocks of pure Carrara marble. One is carved into an exquisite sculpture by a master artist. The other is left untouched.

To what extent is it valid to say: They are simply different forms of marble.

Let's say you've got two blocks of pure Carrara marble. One is carved into an exquisite sculpture by a master artist. The other is left untouched.

To what extent is it valid to say: They are simply different forms of marble. — rachMiel

I think it's true that they are two different forms or pieces of marble. All existents/objects are different from one another. With regards to resemblance, existents/objects are always on a degree/spectrum between similarity and difference and never identity.

Wayfarer,

The OP was not clear ... or at least my intent behind it. Lemme try again:

To what extent can one reduce the 'essence' of an object to that of its fundamental parts?

(To paraphrase a well-known metaphor:) Let's say you have three solid gold rings. One is an old family heirloom, handed down through five generations. One is a simple flat band sold by a jewelry chain store. One is a striking piece of wild ring art made by a local craftsman.

To what extent are these three rings all just (different shapes of) gold?

Let's say you've got two blocks of pure Carrara marble. One is carved into an exquisite sculpture by a master artist. The other is left untouched.

To what extent is it valid to say: They are simply different forms of marble. — rachMiel

I think it's true that they are two different forms or pieces of marble. All existents/objects are different from one another. With regards to resemblance, existents/objects are always on a degree/spectrum between similarity and difference and never identity. — numberjohnny5

To what extent is it 'valid' to say: Their forms are different, but in essence they are both just marble.

To what extent is it 'valid' to say: Their forms are different, but in essence they are both just marble. — rachMiel

It's true to say that since the two separate "forms" are made of the same "kind" of stuff.

And this is kind of what I'm trying to get at. If X consists solely of Y, does it make sense to say X *is* Y? — rachMiel

Nope.

Your forum password consists of 1's and 0's, but your password is more than mere 1's and 0's: it's information contained in the arrangement of 1's and 0's that represents your password. If you change the specific arrangement of 1's and 0's then it's no longer your password. Extra information is contained in the arrangement, and cannot be found or inferred from the basic constituent alone. (you know that my password is 1's and 0's, but you don't actually know my password)

A diamond is carbon.
Michelangelo's David is marble.
A human being is quarks and leptons. — rachMiel

But if we're all really just the same, why do diamonds outlast apples?

Why doesn't Michael's David join the forum and start posting in this thread, and why am I not currently posing naked in the Galleria dell'Accademia in Florence?

A very interesting question. I find it very important to see similarities than differences. Even animals possess the power of discrimination e.g. prey (goat) -predator (tiger). It's only humans that can see past the differences and realize the similarities between things (goat and tiger are mammals). So, it's very human to say that everything is a f'loom.

To what extent is it valid to say: They are simply different forms of marble. — rachMiel

It is not valid to say that, you could say however that they are marble in different forms.

And this is kind of what I'm trying to get at. If X consists solely of Y, does it make sense to say X *is* Y?
— rachMiel

Nope. — VagabondSpectre

You are saying that X consists solely of Y and X is Y are nontrivially different.

It's pretty clear what X consists of Y means.

So what does X is Y mean?

Thanks to everyone who participated in the thread. I was originally going to respond to each response, but that would be a little too OCD, even for me. So I just chose a few that rang a bell for me, I hope I didn't offend anyone by not responding to their msg.

To what extent can one reduce the 'essence' of an object to that of its fundamental parts?

(To paraphrase a well-known metaphor:) Let's say you have three solid gold rings. One is an old family heirloom, handed down through five generations. One is a simple flat band sold by a jewelry chain store. One is a striking piece of wild ring art made by a local craftsman. — rachMiel

What you’re saying here amounts to something like the mixing of metaphors.

The idea of ‘essence’ is associated with Aristotle’s metaphysics. ‘Essence’ is derived from ‘esse’, so really amounts to declaring what a thing really is, or what it is about it that makes it what it is. So the hallmark of Aristotle’s approach is ‘essence, substance, and accidental qualities’. There are many discussions about substance and how it is related to the form and the act of manufacturing and so on.

But I don’t think that approach is reductionist. Reductionism, as it’s usually understood, is more associated with philosophical materialism as outlined in my earlier post. But it’s also often associated with science in the form of ‘scientific reductionism’ which is precisely ‘the idea of reducing complex interactions and entities to the sum of their constituent parts, in order to make them easier to study.’ But you don’t find much discussion of essence in scientific reductionism.

I was originally going to respond to each response, but that would be a little too OCD, even for me. — rachMiel

I know you were not intending to, but I want to interject and say that OCD can be a serious psychological disorder that significantly impacts the quality of a person's life. OCD is not just, or even, perfectionism, but unfortunately, this colloquial designation continues to be widespread. This makes it difficult for people with OCD, such as myself, to be taken seriously when they say they have OCD because it is assumed that we are simply perfectionists or even just joking around when in actuality it is something we struggle with every day. Just for future reference.

You are saying that X consists solely of Y and X is Y are nontrivially different. — rachMiel

I'm saying that X consists of more than just Y, it consists of specific arrangements of Y. The arrangement itself is a part of what constitutes X.

Yes, mixing metaphors, that sounds right. But I'm not sure how else to get at what I'm trying to get at.

What is the essence of a marble statue?

1. Marble
2. Statue-ness
3. That which the statue depicts (bird in flight, mother and child, etc.)

To what extent is it valid to say, of *any* marble statue, that its essence is marble?

Likewise, to what extent is it valid to say of any human being that its essence is quarks and leptons? Or cells? Or energy? Or consciousness? (Or, if you're a Buddhist, anything at all?)

I know you were not intending to, but I want to interject and say that OCD can be a serious psychological disorder ... — darthbarracuda

Yes, you're right, I'll be more careful.

I was diagnosed with OCD 20 years ago. So when I refer to "my OCD" I know of what I speak. I like to talk about OCD with humor, but I might be in the minority on that. So your point is a good one.

I'm saying that X consists of more than just Y, it consists of specific arrangements of Y. — VagabondSpectre

But every arrangement of Y consists solely of ... Y. No? (If an arrangement of Y is, in turn, a more deeply nested arrangement, this nested arrangement still consists solely of Y. And so on, all the way down.) Doesn't this propagate back all the way up so that it can be said that X consists solely of Y? And doesn't this equate to X is Y? Or X is in essence (ultimately) Y?

How deep/close is the relationship between an object and its most fundamental building block? — rachMiel

The question conceals an error. We do not know that there is any "fundamental building block(s)." The history of recent physics reveals that each object viewed as fundamental can give rise to new, previously unknown, objects.

This means that the building block paradigm, irrationally accepted from the Greek atomists, is fundamentally flawed. A better way of thinking about nature is to say that there are actual objects, out of which we can create finer objects and out of them finer objects still -- perhaps ad infinitum. Suppose you think string theory is viable. Then, what is to prevent strings from being modeled from, or actually decomposed into, components? And those components from being decomposed again?

None of the finer objects are discrete entities until we destroy the whole. in the original whole, they are potential, not actual individuals.

Further, we don't know that wholes contain no more information than obtainable from each component examined in isolation (if such an examination were even possible). In fact, we know the opposite. No examination of a proton in isolation would show that it will repel other protons at long range (via E-M interactions), bind to other nucleons at close range (via the strong interaction) or possibly transform into a neutron (via the weak interaction)?

So, clearly, behavior in holistic contexts is not reducible to behavior in isolation. Or, as Aristotle noted, the whole is not just the some of its parts.

Viewing objects as reducible to "atomic" building blocks is an example of Whiteheads fallacy of misplaced concreteness. When we're doing physics, we don't care if an electron is in an isolated hydrogen atom or in a human being. So, we abstract away (leave on the table) all of the data that distinguishes a human from a hydrogen atom. Once that data is gone (and it is gone from physics), it's not available to construct biology or describe a human. So, biology and human psychology can't possibly be reduced to physics -- there's no data in physics to do so.

Physics may leave open the possibility of bacteria, frogs and humans, but that is not information about actual bacteria, frogs and humans. As Claude Shannon, the founder of information theory, pointed out, information is the reduction of possibility. Possibility is not information. Biology reduces some of the possibilities left open by physics to actuality. So, it is not reducible to physics. It has its own, independent methods and data.

But every arrangement of Y consists solely of ... Y. No? — rachMiel

Distinct things must consist of more than the same fundamental constituent in order to be distinct from one another. The different arrangements themselves play a role in what things consist of.

What is the essence of a marble statue?

1. Marble
2. Statue-ness
3. That which the statue depicts (bird in flight, mother and child, etc.)

To what extent is it valid to say, of *any* marble statue, that its essence is marble? — rachMiel

If you're asking about essence then really I think the answer is: read a bit more in Aristotle's metaphysics. I myself haven't read the original in the full or studied it formally, but even a synoptic account will convey the general idea.

But one point that I could make, is that the term that has been translated from Aristotle as 'substance' was originally 'ouisia', which is a form of the verb 'to be'. So it's a very different meaning to the word 'substance' conveyed by 'marble'. The meaning of substance in Aristotle is nearer 'the subject in which predicates inhere'. Nowadays we instinctively understand 'substance' in a more materialist manner.

Also I concur with DFpolis' response above. It's important to understand how modern culture has unconsciously assimilated materialist atomism into its thinking. The person-in-the-street will generally say that the Universe is 'made from atoms', and they are understood very broadly as the 'fundamental building blocks of nature'. But Aristotelean philosophy (which despite its differences is broadly Platonist) was never 'atomist' in its outlook to begin with. So again, thinking about ontology in terms of 'essence' is not what 'reductionism' usually means. In fact the beginning of modern philosophy proper generally shunned the Aristotelean first causes, essence and substance, which were associated with the scholastic philosophy of the Middle Ages.

(Buddhism has a different approach, but is also addressing a fundamentally different kind of question.)

The question conceals an error. We do not know that there is any "fundamental building block(s)." — Dfpolis

So again, thinking about ontology in terms of 'essence' is not what 'reductionism' usually means. — Wayfarer

I feel like a guy who's walked into a room of sommeliers and asks: "Umm ... how do I get the cork out of this here bottle?" I apologize for not being more clear about what I'm trying to get at. (And I thought it was such a pellucid little question!) I'll try again. :-)

Some believe that everything is (made of) one and only one unchanging (non-)thing: consciousness. (This is the non-dual understanding of consciousness, not the conventional one.) When asked "If consciousness is all there is, why is there so much variety in the world?" these non-dualists will often say something like: "The apparent variety is merely different names and forms of consciousness."

This is what I'm trying to get at in this thread: Is it valid to say that an elephant and a rock and the feeling of looking at a sunset are all merely different names/forms of X (consciousness in this case)? Or do these things 'possess' some sort of essence/identity that make them ultimately unique, despite their all being sublated by consciousness?

I think that hit it. If you understand the above paragraph, you understand the reason I opened this thread. (Hopefully!)

The question conceals an error. — Dfpolis

So again, thinking about ontology in terms of 'essence' is not what 'reductionism' usually means. — Wayfarer

In non-dual circles it is often said that consciousness is the ultimate substrate, i.e. that everything is (made of) consciousness. When you ask a non-dualist "If everything is (made of) the same consciousness, why is there so much variety in the world?" the typical answer goes something like:

"The (apparent) variety is merely different names and forms of consciousness."

What I'm trying to get at in this thread is the viability of the above sentence. An elephant, a rock, and a memory of childhood ... can they all be reduced to being merely different names and forms of the same thing, consciousness? Or do objects possess an ultimate (essential) uniqueness that goes beyond this underlying sameness?

What's 'truer': X Y Z are the same, X Y Z are different ?