* I'm also pointing out that all of this stuff occurs in the present. It in no way suggests that a past still exists . . . and I have no idea why anyone would take it to suggest that, as it seems like quite a bizarre thing to believe in my opinion. — Terrapin Station
If Joe (say, via some form of conscious or subconscious self-deception that occurred yesterday) now honestly remembers that Betty wore a blue shirt yesterday, does that then change the fact that Betty wore an orange shirt yesterday? — javra
No, that doesn't change that fact, but that doesn't imply that the past exists and contains things.
It's not that the past isn't independent of the present--of course it is, as it doesn't exist any longer. — Terrapin Station
Believing something in the kind of manner in which one could be mistaken or not, for example "I am seeing a pink elephant" is always a matter of what is generally called 'propositional knowledge'.
There is no other context in which the dichotomy of being mistaken/not being mistaken is relevant or even makes sense, — John
When you have that sense data present, you have it present. — Terrapin Station
No, you are just mistaken about the sense of the OP, in my opinion — John
No, I have already agreed that what you have been arguing is tautologically true; I just don't agree that it is of any significance to the thrust of the OP. If you think I disagree just for the sake of it then you are sadly mistaken. — John
Ontologically it's not. I already specified a reason for this--all of the molecules that make up the chair (and all of the atoms that make up all of those molecules, and all of the electrons in those atoms, and so on) are constantly in motion, constantly changing relations with respect to each other, and so on. — Terrapin Station
Well, either it's correct to say that it is the same chair, or it's not. You say that it is not. That means that the old chair must be replaced by a new chair. If you do not think that the old chair is replaced by a new chair, why not just accept that it's the same chair, as most normal people do? Clearly it is perfectly acceptable to say that it is the same chair with minor changes. Why do you need to insist that it's not the same chair, while not being prepared to follow through with the logical consequences of this claim? Those consequences are that the old chair must be replaced with a new chair if it does not continue to be the same chair.No one is claiming anything like that. — Terrapin Station
Well, either it's correct to say that it is the same chair, or it's not. — Metaphysician Undercover
Suppose Theseus takes his ship (ship A) and uses its material to build himself a cabin. It’s the same material but no longer a ship, so the identity of that addressed has changed. A week following, Theseus changes his mind and uses the same material, now a cabin, to rebuild the same ship he had before (ship B). It becomes Theseus’s ship again. Complexities could ensue as regards identity, but to the extent ship A and ship B are the same ship (as would uphold someone off for the month in which it was rebuilt in to a cabin and back), it would be the same ship for what reason? Neither due to logical nor material identity—the latter, on its own, would make the cabin identical to the ship. — javra
I am not convinced that you realised it was a mere tautology, otherwise why would you bother to present it? — John
My view is that re (a)--logical identity, that is, it's incorrect to say that something is logically identical at two different times. You agreed with this earlier.
Re (b)--which is basicallty how someone uses/thinks about concepts, on my view, it is not correct or incorrect to say that something is the same x. — Terrapin Station
The point is that we just name the material "A". Then the material continues to just be "A" no matter which form it has, the ship, the cabin, or the other ship, it is always just A. — Metaphysician Undercover
The real problem with material identity is in deciding what does and does not constitute the material of the entity. So if a part is taken off, and replaced by a new part, or just if a new part is added, what determines how the old part ceases to be, or the new part becomes, part of the material entity? Like when you eat, and defecate, how is it possible that you gain material, and lose material, yet you maintain the same material identity. So "change" is like a coin, we look at it from two sides, form, and matter, but both sides give us difficulty. — Metaphysician Undercover
The other way to look at it is what you're calling "common language." Per my views, what's going on there is what I described above: it's a matter of how an individual partitions their concepts with respect to the necessary and sufficient criteria to call some x (some particular existent) an F (some type/universal name). There aren't correct or incorrect answers in this realm. — Terrapin Station
Unless one endorses substance pluralism, wouldn’t everything then hold the material identity of A? This then would make individuality indiscernible. — javra
I have to admit that I didn't understand your argument for identity from purpose.Is it due to disagreement that you’ve bypassed my argument for identity resulting, in part, from purpose/functionality? — javra
I’ll provide another example. Take something organic like the flower of a fruiting plant. We could give it any other name but it will still be that which it is. At which point in the bud phase does it become a flower? And, how many petals must wilt off before it ceases to be a flower? My argument is that it is a flower between a young bud and before the beginnings of it being a fruit (if pollinated and if of a fruiting plant) due to its functions/purpose as a flower. This both conceptually and physically. — javra
Again I don’t maintain that purpose is the only element to identity; rather that it is an integral element of identity among others. — javra
I'm asking you if the existent continues to be the same existent through a duration of time, despite some minor changes to it. I'm not talking about whether we should call the item a chair or not, I'm talking about whether the thing which has been called a chair continues to be the same chair even after the upholstery gets torn, or even some minor molecular change which is imperceptible to us. — Metaphysician Undercover
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