You don't see the relevance of counterfactuals to questions of possibility and necessity. Ok, then.
I gather this doesn't help... Counterfactuals? — Banno
That's very interesting. So many questions. I used to accept it before I read Naming and Necessity but that article persuaded me that it's meaning, if any, is extremely obscure. One day, perhaps, I will be able to cross-question you.K1 is invalid. Kripke justifies its occasional use as “by a priori philosophical analysis”... a somewhat ambiguous phrasing. — Banno
Yes. I was entranced, reading that passage, by the rhetorical gestures that Kripke felt he had to resort to in explaining his meaning; one could almost hear him thumping it. It isn't quite clear to me why that was necessary. Surely "this particular lectern" would have done the job. Schopenhauer's use of "YOU" as opposed to "you" or even "Ludwig V" is similarly fascinating.The example from (1971) is that this wooden lectern could not have been made of ice, because then it would not have been this lectern... it would have been a different lectern. — Banno
Yes. Am I right to suppose that what makes a rigid designator rigid is our decision to keep it rigid, which means following the rule for its use rigidly. It makes a kind of sense, though I can't help wondering what Wittgenstein would have made of it.Notice that this is not an empirical issue; it is an "a priori" commission - "this genome counts as schopenhauer1". — Banno
I would have thought that causation (broadly understood) would have a great deal to do with the continuity of anything that exists in space and time.I'm curious what you think about natural kinds and causation Ludwig V -- it seems that since continuity of a person is the real underlying topic, though through the lens of the identity of objects (however we wish to construe that), I'm wondering if you believe natural kinds and causation have anything to do with the continuity of a person? — Moliere
Personalities it has been reported, are very much tied to genetics, even though it is also shaped in large part by environment, for example. It is probable that various capacities and abilities are more likely tied to genes than people might admit, etc. — schopenhauer1
I take it that you would object to any suggestion that either hydrogen or oxygen is water in any sense. It is only the combination that is water. Equally, each of us is the result of our genes and environment in combination. Your claim that my DNA is me is the same misunderstanding as the suggestion that hydrogen is water. It is the combination of genes and environment that results in the person. To put the point another way, personalities are very much tied to genetics and also to the environment. Both connections have been widely reported and extensively analysed. Bluntly, I am just as much the result of my environment as I am of my genes. After decades of debate about which has priority, there are now some sensible voices that declare that the influence of the two cannot be disentangled.When hydrogen and oxygen combine in a process to make water, when water forms, it is now that substance and not its antecedents we are discussing. — schopenhauer1
I see four issues here.Even if it was a different sperm that conceived that night a second earlier, that is not you, so the set of possibilities that encompasses the YOU looking back in hindsight is no longer even a fact. — schopenhauer1
Oh, this is an actual question about another poster?
No I am not him. Why did you think that? — Apustimelogist
I don't understand what natural kinds are supposed to be. The oft-cited example of water does not help me. In the first place, water is one of three forms of that particular molecular structure - (steam (gas), water (liquid), ice (solid)). Second, there are two forms of water (light and heavy) and no less than eight forms of ice. Third, Putnam's twin worlds seem to demonstrate that it is an empirical fact that water could have more than one molecular analysis, though his hypothesis that we might be unable to tell the difference seems wildly implausible to me. In addition to that a quick look at, for example, the Wikipedia article on this topic indicates that there is a wide range of views about what they are, which means that simply to accept that there are natural kinds is to accept a pig in a poke. — Ludwig V
The individual molecule does not have a name or the identity "water", and so while the molar quantities of H2O form water, if we want to be technical, water is not just H2O but H2O in molar quantities at a certain temperature-pressure point. A single H2O molecule floating across space is not wet, though water is. — Moliere
This is to my eye the best way to understand rigidity - as a rule of grammar. It sets out a way of talking about counterfactuals that inherits the coherence of Kripke's formal treatment, while avoidingthe ontological complications of Lewis' account.Am I right to suppose that what makes a rigid designator rigid is our decision to keep it rigid — Ludwig V
Anyways, this is indeed extra-scientific as it is dealing with causality, possibility, and identity. These things are not going to be seen in a microscope or shouted at you from the universe in some way through an equation. Rather, it has metaphysical implications as to how possibilities are carried out over physical things, like objects.
And thus, I take a "natural kind", Moliere, to be something that one can break down into some substance. A chair by itself is a concept that depends on one's notion of what a chair does or how the maker intended it to work. That isn't a natural kind. However, a piece of wood from the chair would be of a natural kind as you can analyze its substance to some physical property. But of course, since ideas, and neurons, and concepts ultimately come from some "physical substrate", it can be argued this too is natural. However, now we are going far afield as it turns into the mind/body problem and how the neurochemical configures are the same as "chair", and we have lost the point of this thread.. Because that argument would not matter to the point I am making.. Once "chair" the concept is found to be a "natural kind" in the neurochemistry, let's say, it too would be subject to this theory as well.
Thus, natural kinds, like humans, and the gametes, are of a substance and a causal instance. At that point where the substance is present, that causal-historical point in time, that becomes the point at which that object can be said to carry with it the possibilities of that object. And thus, you the human looking back to see if you could have lived a counterfactual life, can only go back so far before the very possibility that brought about this person of this substance was no longer even a possibility to begin with. I identified this at the point of conception. — schopenhauer1
Actually, this gives more understanding of the matter than if it was straightforward 1:1. That is to say, it is necessary for it to be water, but not sufficient. Certainly, without H20, it would not be water, even if various other mechanisms were in place that are involved in molecular bonds, structural relationships that are contingent to the molecular properties, and so on. — schopenhauer1
Well, that resolves one of my difficulties about Kripke. It would be interesting to know whether Kripke thinks that this fits with what he has to say about rules.This is to my eye the best way to understand rigidity - as a rule of grammar. — Banno
Well, it might be easier - but that doesn't seem to make it easy. One thing that makes it much more difficult is that if you are talking about the person, not just the human being, you are talking about a being that is not passive, but participates in the identity game and has views of his/her own. Many people would think that it is outrageous to reduce (and they mean that word literally) a person to their gametes. Heredity is not identity.Further I'd say that the case of water is easier than the case of a human being, so figuring out how we're supposed to talk about the identity of water might shed some light on how we might talk about genomes and humans, — Moliere
The gametes issue doesn't take into account the fact that I am a participant in this game; that is, I have views about what possibilities I have and what possibilities would make me a different person and what possibilities would reveal the person that I actually (in my view) am. I'm not saying that I can dictate, but I can certainly demand that my views are taken into account.all possibilities of specifically, you (the person reflecting back in hindsight) to obtain, INCLUDING the one in the very present, right now, without it no longer being specifically YOU but someone else. That point is conception of those particular sets of gametes, in that causal-historical space. — schopenhauer1
Ha, have any of your suspicions been verified? — Apustimelogist
Well, it might be easier - but that doesn't seem to make it easy. One thing that makes it much more difficult is that if you are talking about the person, not just the human being, you are talking about a being that is not passive, but participates in the identity game and has views of his/her own. Many people would think that it is outrageous to reduce (and they mean that word literally) a person to their gametes. Heredity is not identity. — Ludwig V
I'm not so certain that the account of a posteriori necessity works very well for water, though. Even the water in my cup right now. This is because I tend to agree with Hume on causation -- that it is a habit of ours as creatures who look for patterns, and that tomorrow water could turn out to be something aside from what we thought it was by exploring those patterns. This is a feature of most scientific knowledge: the knowledge is always provisional, and built around technical problems of a particular group of knowledge-producers. If water is H2O, then water is necessarily H2O -- of course! But is it actually H2O? — Moliere
The gametes issue doesn't take into account the fact that I am a participant in this game; that is, I have views about what possibilities I have and what possibilities would make me a different person and what possibilities would reveal the person that I actually (in my view) am. I'm not saying that I can dictate, but I can certainly demand that my views are taken into account.
Why do you feel the need to write "YOU" instead of "you", and why do you not consider the identity of a third person - not me, not you, but him/her over there? It seems you think it makes a difference. — Ludwig V
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. — Rigid Designator
Yes. Kripke does the same thing with his "this very lectern". I don't see the difference, philosophically between THIS person and this person.THIS person (the present you, not a counterfactual you that could have actualized differently), could not have been THIS person without certain factors. — schopenhauer1
There's only one way that I can think of that makes sense of this. Essentially, it involves attributing to "possible" the logic that we see in "probable". The latter, at least for the purposes of mathematical theory, is essentially future-looking, because it is defined in terms of a future event - the outcome. The probability of my next throw of the die coming up 6 is 1:6. When I throw the die and it comes up 5, the probability of that throw coming up 6 is 0, i.e there is no probability of that throw coming up 6.If water is H2O, then water is necessarily H2O -- of course! But is it actually H2O? — Moliere
It is difficult. The answer, in a word, is - cautiously.When or how should a technical body of knowledge be used philosophically? — Moliere
There's only one way that I can think of that makes sense of this. Essentially, it involves attributing to "possible" the logic that we see in "probable". The latter, at least for the purposes of mathematical theory, is essentially future-looking, because it is defined in terms of a future event - the outcome. The probability of my next throw of the die coming up 6 is 1:6. When I throw the die and it comes up 5, the probability of that throw coming up 6 is 0, i.e there is no probability of that throw coming up 6.
We could say that there is a possibility of club X winning the match against club Y. When club X loses the match, there is no longer any possibility of it winning. (Although you can say, counterfactually, that they might have won.) When the possibility of rain this morning is 60% and it rains, there is no possibility of it not raining. — Ludwig V
Water viewed as a chemical substance, regardless of its physical state (and so including ice and steam), now recognized to be a compound of hydrogen (two volumes) and oxygen (one volume) having the formula H2O; (in early use usually) water as one of the four or more elements of ancient and medieval philosophy
I'm in favour of case-by-case rather than trying to draw up rules. — Ludwig V
That's right. And my correspondent on mathematics in general and probability in particular tells me that these are regarded as degenerate cases of probability. I think it is more helpful not to call them any kind of probability, since it is the end of the logical cycle of probability, from uncertainty to resolution.Yes on future-looking, but I'm uncertain on probability. If water actually is H2O, for instance, the probability of the statement is 1, and if it is not then it is 0. — Moliere
I'm afraid common usage is too messy for us. Common usage can distinguish between water, sea water, sewage water, rain water, &c. Pure or distilled water is part of that range, but is really a technical idea, now adopted by common usage. Perhaps we need a natural kind for each of them?So that the common usage does not always pick out the very same thing even in our world, and so the claim to necessity is hampered by that possibility. — Moliere
Well, you're being a bit strict there. I don't think comparisons are really true or false. I prefer to think of them as helpful or not, illuminating or not and so on. I certainly think that, in this conversation, the comparison between water/H2O and people/genomes is unhelpful. Water is H20. But people are not their genomes.that there may not be a comparison between water and people, or H2O and genomes, after all. Fair point. — Moliere
But even here I'd note that a chemist differentiates between aqueous solutions and water, and the normal usage calls the sea "water" even though it's actually a mixture of water, ammonia, salt, etc. So that the common usage does not always pick out the very same thing even in our world, and so the claim to necessity is hampered by that possibility. — Moliere
I'm afraid common usage is too messy for us. Common usage can distinguish between water, sea water, sewage water, rain water, &c. Pure or distilled water is part of that range, but is really a technical idea, now adopted by common usage. Perhaps we need a natural kind for each of them? — Ludwig V
I certainly think that, in this conversation, the comparison between water/H2O and people/genomes is unhelpful. Water is H20. But people are not their genomes. — Ludwig V
Yes. Kripke does the same thing with his "this very lectern". I don't see the difference, philosophically between THIS person and this person.
We both agree that this person is the result of various factors. But you pick out one of them - admittedly an important one - and sweep away the rest as trivial. — Ludwig V
Seems to me anyone can get as precise as one wants in distinguishing things and all "natural kinds" require ignoring some kinds of details, differentiation, contextual relevance. Nothing we categorize in the world avoids arbitrary abstractions. — Apustimelogist
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.