But the difference is that now I have made the natural relativity of the question of identity explicit. — apokrisis
While I am at it, do you agree or disagree with my other "first cut" definitions of "contextual" that parallel what Peirce wrote about "vague" and "general"? — aletheist
But contextuality leaves it open whether the further possibility is 1ns or 2ns. It could a future condtional (the coming battle with the Persian fleet) or it could be some event already fixed by a determination (what will I discover when I finally check my ticket for the lottery drawn last week?). — apokrisis
Of course then along came relativity to demonstrate all this classical definiteness was relativistically contextual and quantumly indeterminate. That is why Peirce gets credit for foreseeing the physical revolutions about to come. — apokrisis
So the idea is that the context of x is not-x, and defining the identity of x as not-not-x recognizes this, rather than making it a contextless tautology? "x is x" does not apply to the contextual, but "x is not-not-x" does apply as an apophatic alternative? — aletheist
Mind you, if you claim that everything actually does matter to you, excuse me if I think that is patent bullshit. Does it make any difference to you if I wear a red or blue shirt tomorrow? Do you need that to be another determinate fact ... or do you believe in free will in contradiction to your what you just posted? — apokrisis
Yep. The problem with Spinoza is that he was right about there having to be a "One", but wrong in conceiving of that basic materiality as a singular substance rather than as the vagueness of unbounded action. So it is material cause ... in its most insubstantial form. So action utterly lacking in form or purpose. An everythingness that is a singular being only because we call its fundamental disunity or lack of direction a single property or characteristic.
Vagueness is the canonical many. And when the question is asked of how many manys there are, the answer that comes back is "I am only counting the one". — apokrisis
Yeah, so you will be with those who feel that nature frustrates you with its fundamental quantum indeterminism and general relativity. You want existence to be exact and totallly knowable, even if that has already been discovered to be a kind of mania. — apokrisis
Peirce observed that, among those metaphysics that recognize all three categories, “there are other philosophies which seem to do full jus- tice to Categories Second and Third and to minimize the first, and among these perhaps Spinoza and Kant are to be included” (PPM 172). However, by the next lecture, Peirce had changed his mind. He listed as proponents of the ontology that recognizes only Secondness and Thirdness “Cartesianism of all kinds, Leibnizianism, Spinozism, and the metaphysics of the Physicists of today” (PPM 190), but listed Kantian- ism and especially Aristotelianism (to which Peirce this time paid particular attention) as among the metaphysical systems that accept the reality of all three categories (PPM 190).
Thus, Peirce not only identified metaphysical systems that embrace all three categories as fundamentally Aristotelian; he also linked Aristotle’s metaphysics (and, by extension, those metaphysics that embrace Firsts, Seconds and Thirds) with evolutionism.16 During the same period, he made the difference between real Aristotelianism and the “imaginary” Aristotelianism of the scholastic period to rest in the for- mer’s evolutionism and the latter’s rejection of same. Finally, in a text from the same period, he praised Spinoza’s “slightly modified” Aris totelianism, maintaining that Spinozism shows no trace of influence by the scholastics.
[Peirce...M]y chief avocation in the last ten years has been to develop my cosmology. This theory is that the evolution of the world is hyperbolic, that is, proceeds from one state of things in the infinite past, to a different state of things in the infinite future. The state of things in the infinite past is chaos, tohu bohu, the nothingness of which consists in the total absence of regularity. The state of things in the infinite future is death, the nothingness of which consists in the complete triumph of law and absence of all spontaneity. (CP 8.317)
Elliptic cosmologies accept the reality only of percepts and reject both the origins and the telos of those percepts as fictions.24 Peirce in more than one text identified this position with Epicureanism,25 although we might think of Humean and statistical mechanical cosmologies as likewise exemplars of this type.
The second possible cosmology also accepts the reality of percepts but sees these as emerging not randomly but from a real origin. This position is, however, analogous to a parabolic curve in that its origin and terminus are coincident. Parabolic cosmologies hold that the universe’s telos just is its origin—that the universe will end as it began. For parabolic thinkers, there is no genuine Firstness, only Secondness and Thirdness. Peirce labelled this position pessimistic.26 However, those infused with Nietzschean amor fati would call it optimistic. It is a position with considerable Stoic affinities,27 and one, it is worth observing, that most would identify with Spinoza.
The final cosmology that Peirce laid out is his own. This is the view of those who regard Absolute Firstness and Absolute Secondness as both real and as really divergent from one another. In geometrical terms, the curve described by two points infinitely distant from one another is hyperbolic. On Peirce’s account, if you hold “that the whole universe is approaching in the infinitely distant future a state having a general character different from that toward which we look back in the infinitely distant past, you make the absolute to consist in two distinct real points and are an evolutionist” (CP 1.362).
In an 1891 article for The Monist, entitled “The Architecture of Theories,” in a section on the nature of space, Peirce inferred from the revolution in geometry an anti-deterministic revolution in metaphysics. “It is evident,” he wrote, “. . . that we can have no reason to think that every phenomenon in all its minutest details is precisely determined by law. That there is an arbitrary element in the universe we see—namely, its variety. This variety must be attributed to spontaneity in some form” (CP 6.30).
Spinoza’s commitment to conatus underwrites his criticism of Cartesian mechanics. On Spinoza’s account, Descartes was mistaken to regard matter as inert. For Spinoza, matter, like mind, is active; it is in its very essence dynamic. The important role that Spinoza accords to dunamis in his physics no doubt influenced Peirce’s linking of Spinoza with “historical Aristotelianism.” And, since Peirce cites Aristotle’s own principle of dunamis in support of his
attribution to him of evolutionism, so the traces of Aristotelian dunamis in Spinoza’s principle of conatus almost certainly played a role in Peirce’s association of Spinozism with hyperbolic cosmologies.
To say that Spinoza was a possibilist is not to deny that he was a necessitarian. He was a necessitarian in the sense that he recognized necessity as real. However, he was also a possibilist, who regarded possibility as real and as extending beyond actuality—just as Peirce did. The details of Spinoza’s possibilism go well beyond the scope of this essay, and will have to wait for another time. However, here is a sketch of how the story goes.
For Spinoza as for Peirce, being is at bottom indeterminate; individual things are not substances. Indeed—and here we glimpse another aspect of Spinoza’s pragmati(ci)sm—they are only individuals to the extent that they have effects. For Spinoza, however, for a thing to have a determinate effect is for other possible effects to be closed off to that thing. Thus, to be an individual thing, on Spinoza’s view, is not to perdure (like a substance) but to have limitations....To be a substance, for Spinoza, is to be utterly unlimited—to be pure possibility.
All of the passages that are usually adduced in support of the necessitarian, mechanistic-deterministic account of Spinoza confirm this. CM 1,iii: “The Possible and the Contingent are not affections of things [rerum].” E1P33: “Things [res] could not have been produced by God in any other way or in any other order than is the case.” E1P33S1: “I have shown here more clearly than the midday sun that in things [rebus] there is absolutely nothing by virtue of which they can be said to be ‘contingent’. . . . a thing [res] is termed ‘contingent’ for no other reason than the
deficiency of our knowledge.” These passages all explicitly make reference to things [res]. Things are not possible but fully determined. In Spinoza’s idiom, this is not a grand metaphysical claim; it simply follows analytically from the definition of “thing.”
If you want to be taken seriously, talk sense. — apokrisis
When we seek the truth, differences never cease to matter. — Metaphysician Undercover
A difference, by its very nature, as a difference, is a difference, and therefore it must be treated as a difference. If one adopts the perspective that a difference may be so minute, or irrelevant, that it doesn't matter, and therefore doesn't qualify as a difference, then that person allows contradiction within one's own principles (a difference which is not a difference), and the result will be nothing other than confusion. — Metaphysician Undercover
If we allow that some differences do not matter, then we allow that two distinct things can have the same identity. Since giving two distinct things the same identity is a mistake, then in relation to identity, there is no such thing as a difference which does not matter. — Metaphysician Undercover
Failure to hold fast to strong logical principles allows vagueness to creep into the logic. Such vagueness hinders our ability to determine the truth. Therefore, if our purpose is to determine the truth, we must uphold the principle of identity to the strongest of our capacities, and assume that every difference matters. — Metaphysician Undercover
But since the principal purpose of identification is to identify the particular, distinguishing it from other similar things, you negate the capacity to fulfill this fundamental purpose of identity, with that process, the flip. — Metaphysician Undercover
For Spinoza possibility is necessary. It never ends or ceases. — TheWillowOfDarkness
Spinoza understood the need for pure potential more than anyone else. He realised it must be beyond "firstness" (or "secondary" or "tertiary" ), finally realising potential's poisonous grip on metaphysics, where it thought to be something a force (i.e. a final cause) must "add" to the world for anything to make sense. — TheWillowOfDarkness
God has infinite attributes. To only be one would be a contradiction with God's very nature. — TheWillowOfDarkness
God is infinite. God cannot be said to begin or end at any point. It's anything but vague. — TheWillowOfDarkness
Realising the necessity of potential, Spinoza also points out potential cannot be "firstness." Why? Well, because it never begins nor ends. — TheWillowOfDarkness
The very act of distinguishing one thing from other things already involves neglecting differences that do not make a difference. Why do we pick out this chair or that table or this book or that door as individual objects, rather than always and only referencing them at a molecular, atomic, or even quantum level? Because the difference between one particle and those adjacent to it within the object is irrelevant to our purpose in picking out that object as a single object. You do this all the time, but it comes so naturally that you do not realize it. No one is capable of paying attention to every single difference among phenomena, because there are far too many of them to do so - even just within your field of vision during the passing of one second. — aletheist
For the purpose of understanding the nature of nature, we need precision otherwise we miss the boat. — Rich
It is alright to say that a book, for practical purposes, has the same identity before and later. But it is more precise to say that the book has changed and continuously changes so that it is never is the same in duration. — Rich
The very thing of a purpose defines its own epistemic boundaries - the point at which differences don't make any difference. And if you can't follow that argument, then that's your problem. — apokrisis
Read more carefully - in the comment that you referenced, ↪apokrisis did not say anything about a difference not being a difference; he was talking about a difference not making a difference. — aletheist
But in this situation there is no such thing as a difference which doesn't make a difference. Consider identity A and identity B. If these two identities are the same, then according to the principle of identity of indiscernibles, they are one and the same thing. If you deny that principle of identity, and say A and B are really not the same thing, because of some difference between them which does not matter, and is therefore not part of the identity, (the identity being one and the same), then how is it true to say that this difference does not matter? It is only by claiming that there is a difference between them, which does not matter, that you can say they are two distinct things, rather than necessarily one and the same thing, as stipulated by the "identity of indiscernibles". So it is false that this difference does not matter, because it is the only difference which makes them two distinct things.So the laws of thought presume the brute existence of the indiscernible difference that secures the principle of identity. And Peirceanism flips this to say indiscernability kicks in at the point where some 3ns ceases to have a reason to care, and so 1ns is left undisturbed. — apokrisis
Why would this always be a mistake? Standardization and mass production are all about minimizing unimportant differences, such that we can treat different things as effectively identical. When I select a particular section for that beam, I am counting on the fact that it is irrelevant which mine produced the iron ore, which cars and washing machines provided the scrap metal, which mill melted all of that together to make the steel, which service center stored it after rolling, which fabricator assembled it, or which erector installed it. None of those differences make a difference in the finished product, as long as it meets certain minimum specifications - i.e., there are no differences that would make a difference - and that is a good thing! — aletheist
But what if it turns out that vagueness is a fundamental and ineliminable aspect of reality? What if the truth is that vagueness constitutes an actual limitation on our ability to determine the truth? In that case, your dogmatic insistence on assuming that every difference matters hinders your ability to determine the truth about vagueness. — aletheist
The very act of distinguishing one thing from other things already involves neglecting differences that do not make a difference. Why do we pick out this chair or that table or this book or that door as individual objects, rather than always and only referencing them at a molecular, atomic, or even quantum level? Because the difference between one particle and those adjacent to it within the object is irrelevant to our purpose in picking out that object as a single object. You do this all the time, but it comes so naturally that you do not realize it. No one is capable of paying attention to every single difference among phenomena, because there are far too many of them to do so - even just within your field of vision during the passing of one second. — aletheist
I am surprised that you would say this, considering that we started the thread with your comments to the effect that discrete mathematics cannot properly represent the continuity of nature. Precision is a matter of measurement, and measurement is a matter of discrete mathematics; but the continuous is indeterminate. — aletheist
I made this point earlier; the contextuality of actuality entails that it is not necessarily true that this object from one point of view, or at one place and time, is identical to this object from another point of view, or at another place and time. Perhaps we can agree that it is more precise (in your sense) to recognize the imprecision (in my sense) of reality. — aletheist
I don't see a problem. Nor does one appear when we make a second cut at >2. We now have three pieces: <2, 2, >2.
Nor is a problem introduced when considering continuity. My simple understanding is that a line is continuous if it is differentiable. Well, the limit of <2 as it approaches 2 is 2. It does not seem problematic. — Banno
If you are prepared to say, that two things with the exact same identity, are not in fact the exact same thing, (according to the identity of indiscernibles), because of some differences which do not matter, then you only defeat the purpose of identity, which is to distinguish one thing from another. — Metaphysician Undercover
It is only by claiming that there is a difference between them, which does not matter, that you can say they are two distinct things, rather than necessarily one and the same thing, as stipulated by the "identity of indiscernibles". — Metaphysician Undercover
My car is the same object as your car, because they are mass produced and identical. Your desire is to claim that the factors which differentiate them (the differences of the particular) do not actually differentiate them, and identify them as distinct, as those differences are unimportant. — Metaphysician Undercover
The purpose of the law of identity is so that we can distinguish one object from another, and come to know that object as the thing it is. To claim that we can overlook some minor differences such that numerous objects may have the same identity only defeats this purpose. — Metaphysician Undercover
Measurements are always approximations and it is why measurements specifically and mathematics in general (because of its discrete nature) are very poor tools for understanding nature. — Rich
Peirce employs this notion, of a difference which doesn't matter, to support the proposition that a continuity is divisible. — Metaphysician Undercover
If we can divide a continuity, at 2 for example, such that we have <2 and >2, then there cannot be any real difference between <2 and >2 or else that difference would indicate that there was no continuity here in the first place. — Metaphysician Undercover
Peirce proposes that we can assume a difference which does not matter, such that <2 and >2 may be identified as different, but because this difference doesn't matter, <2 and >2 can be said to be the same, so that there is no real difference between them, and there is continuity through 2. — Metaphysician Undercover
A continuity cannot have a point of difference because this would make it discontinuous. — Metaphysician Undercover
No one is disputing that actually dividing a continuum introduces a discontinuity. However, that discontinuity is not there until we break the continuity by that very act of division. — aletheist
Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.