When I think about it deeply, I am skeptical about such coherent ontology of the individual where the causo-historico thing has any signicance beyond a kind of bookkeeping role of keeping track of things. — Apustimelogist

Why would you believe that? What about causo-history would be so impotent?

Simply because if one is skeptical about a coherent ontology for identity then there is nothing for it to be potent about. All it would then be about is labelling things and keeping track of those labels.

Simply because if one is skeptical about a coherent ontology for identity then there is nothing for it to be potent about. All it would then be about is labelling things and keeping track of those labels. — Apustimelogist

So are you denying causality? Causality doesn't exist without a label??

So sure, all that causally does have to be in place, and I am not denying that this causal chain has to be in place. However, the terminus for which this has to take place, where otherwise you would not even be there in the first place to reflect back is the conception. Anything after that, could still be a version of you, perhaps. Anything before would not even be a version of you, but a version of someone else. It would be someone else's range of possibilities (including the actualized one there is now looking back). — schopenhauer1

All chains are selections from the many interconnections of the web. When we articulate a specific causal chain, we make decisions about where it starts and where it finishes, to suit the needs of the moment. But if we attend to the context and recognize the web, we can see that those are decisions, not facts. I can understand why some people would like to think that the causal chain that you select is important. But other choices are equally valid. There's no magic about the fertilization of egg by sperm. Many people would high-light birth as the magic moment and this makes perfect sense when you remember that we do not know about your magic moment, except by inference. I'm deeply suspicious of these ideas, as you can guess by what I call them. The growth and development of a person is a complicated and lengthy process, not an instantaneous creation.

Meant I should reconsider some things because I think people are actually referring to what they say they are referring to. The difference between "water" and "H2O", in a technical sense, seems to depend on this. If what people really mean by "water" is "H2O" then I have no case at all. — Moliere

I would agree that the intention of the speaker is important in recognizing what is being referred to. In some cases, where I have misunderstood what the term refers to (I think that "mule" also refers to "donkey"), I need to be corrected. But this is an awkward case. Kripke, if I have him right, says that when I refer to Hesperus, I am referring to Venus, whether or not I know that Hesperus is Venus. This is all very well, so long as the context of use is shared between both parties. But if I don't know that Hesperus is Venus, my use of the term will be incomprehensible to you.
Similarly, if I don't know that water is H2O, my use of the term will be incomprehensible to you - especially if I'm not familiar with modern science. The issue is compounded by the use of the phrase "what people really mean". "Mean" is vague enough as it is and adding "really" makes it completely obscure. What is the criterion for what someone really means, as opposed to what they mean?
I don't think there is a general rule about this. We resolve issues like that as we go along, on a case-by-case basis. That is, there is no substitute for identifying and clarifying the differences between us. Once that's done, mutual understanding is restored. Kripke seems to think that it is beneath his dignity to recognize issues like this.

It seems to be idealizations everywhere though. Even if you want to go past the idealization of water=H2O, then the less idealized descriptions will include idealizations as per the nature of chemistry where various models still involve idealization. — Apustimelogist

Perhaps it would be better to think of what is going on as simplification. We have to decide (and agree) what features of the world are important in a particular context and need to be attended to and which are not.

I am denying objective identity and so I am denying that the developmental trajectory of an organism is deeply intwined with some objective identity. The organism is a collection of components, always changing, always in flux, taking things in from the environment, spitting things back out. There is no essential self there.

Can you define, "What counts"? — schopenhauer1

John Searle gives the most complete explanation. I think I;ve already pointed you to the thread on Institutional Facts.

That's ok so far as it goes. — Ludwig V

Yes, individuation is a social activity. Language is not private. And yes, there are differing, and even inconsistent ways of individuating the things around us.

My thought here is that in common usage we don't distinguish between the elements that are within a glass of water. — Moliere

The advantage of possible world semantics is that it provides a way of talking about counterfactuals that we know to be consistent. It is important to note that possible world semantics is extensional. There will be intensional word uses not captured by an extensional system.

Superman is Clark Kent, and extensionally Superman sometimes wears glasses - when he is dressed as Clark Kent.

A glass of pure H₂O just is a glass of pure water, and an impure glass of water just is an impure glass of H₂O. The lone water molecule floating through space is not wet. Moliere, you are drawing out intensional differences, and so far as they go that is fine, but extensionally these differences are simply dropped. already made this point. B ut I can see no reason to supose that there are not free individual water molecules.

...biological organisms can generally be identified by their DNA — Janus

Yep, we may well choose to do that. I\'m just pointing out that doing so is making a choice, not just making an observation. Moliere, ice is also water, but not wet.

I don't think people necessarily really mean h2O when they say water. — Apustimelogist

Here again is the common distinction between sense and reference, between extension and intension. Possible World Semantics is extensional.

Perhaps it would be better to think of what is going on as simplification. We have to decide (and agree) what features of the world are important in a particular context and need to be attended to and which are not. — Ludwig V

Yes, I think this is a core part of science. We carve up nature into systems that are easier to handle, ignoring its interactions with the outside world, averaging over the details to produce simple rules or descriptions. This is exactly what we do in experiments too by controlling the environment so inferences are simpler. Arguably, brains even do this when you consider some common ways of conceptualizing how neurons work like efficient coding.

Well @Moliere can correct me if I am wrong but I think they are using intension to motivate an argument which is about extension.

So I'm saying the extensional case is consistent. I suspect we can also deal with any intensional case without inconsistency. That is, I do not think there is an inconsistency in the modal account.

Heh. I'd say I'm confused and trying to figure things out. :D But thank you for the vote of confidence.

The advantage of possible world semantics is that it provides a way of talking about counterfactuals that we know to be consistent. It is important to note that possible world semantics is extensional. There will be intensional word uses not captured by an extensional system.

Superman is Clark Kent, and extensionally Superman sometimes wears glasses - when he is dressed as Clark Kent.

A glass of pure H₂O just is a glass of pure water, and an impure glass of water just is an impure glass of H₂O. The lone water molecule floating through space is not wet. Moliere, you are drawing out intensional differences, and so far as they go that is fine, but extensionally these differences are simply dropped. ↪Janus already made this point. B ut I can see no reason to supose that there are not free individual water molecules. — Banno

Cool, so I'm misusing "extension" then -- though if it can be shown that "H₂O" and "water" have different extensions then you'd accept that they are different individuals?

Moliere, ice is also water, but not wet. — Banno

:D -- good point. I retract using "...is wet" as a basis for differentiating H₂O from water.

...if it can be shown that "H₂O" and "water" have different extensions then you'd accept that they are different individuals? — Moliere

Well, the contention is that if water = H₂O then ☐water =H₂O.

I wouldn't characterise what you said as a misuse. There is a difference in sense between "water" and "H₂O". John can believe that liquid water is wet but not that liquid H₂O is wet... Or protest against those evil moguls who put dihydrogen monoxide in his drinking water.

Well, the contention is that if water = H₂O then ☐water =H₂O. — Banno

With the lectern this makes a lot of sense to me because I can't honestly think of how an individual under discussion could possibly be made of ice from the beginning of time, or other outlandish predicates -- it would be like a zygote turning into a bus through the process of birth, just absolutely not on my radar as a possibility though it is a possible sentence. But with the case of water I get hesitant because it's a kind, and because we're also equating it to the chemical composition. On one hand I know of many classifications of water in the technical sense, but on the other I know we don't identify water by these technical classifications -- it's not like I detect that the liquid has two hydrogens and one oxygen, but rather, I see the clear odorless liquid coming out of the faucet and presume it's H₂O

In addition I think that it's still possible, right now, for water to not be H₂O, which gets into the silly syllogism I put up yesterday. But this is in a forward-looking sense, and not by fiat -- I'm thinking "Scientific knowledge is always provisional, and so it is possible for water to not be H₂O" -- but this may be the technical, scientific side that I'm trying to avoid falling into in thinking about the identity of objects from a philosophical perspective. Does it matter that scientists might change the classification later on? Pluto was recently reclassified, but I don't believe that Pluto changed -- just our categories did. So perhaps the categorization isn't as important because right now we treat H₂O as water and water as H₂O in an extensionally equivalent manner.

But my thought is that the scientist does not treat H₂O in an extensionally equivalent manner. A beaker of 1 M Hydrochloric acid is comprised primarily of H₂O molecules, and in keeping track of the acid-base reaction you'd definitely refer to H₂O, but you would not call the beaker water. This strikes me as a better case than the others, but let me know what you think.

I wouldn't characterise what you said as a misuse. There is a difference in sense between "water" and "H₂O". John can believe that liquid water is wet but not that liquid H₂O is wet... Or protest against those evil moguls who put dihydrogen monoxide in his drinking water. — Banno

True. Could there not also be a difference in reference?

Although I don't know how I'd demonstrate such a thing. Sort of like @Ludwig V pointing out how what someone really means is entirely obscure.

I see the clear odorless liquid coming out of the faucet and presume it's H₂O — Moliere

It is very unlikely to be pure H2O. You could make an argument that because water commonly contains all sorts of solutes and is yet still referred to as "water" that 'water' is therefore not equivalent to H2O. The truth or falsity of such an argument would depend on perspective, though, so perhaps there is no unequivocal fact of the matter there.

All good questions. I think we are getting into accessibility relations. So in our natural language we would like to say that it's possible that water is not H₂O, and hence in some possible worlds water is not H₂O, and this does not seem outlandish. We can picture these possible worlds as related to the actual world.

But now we find that water is H₂O, and we decide to only call things "water" if they have the atomic structure H₂O. So we decide that "water = H₂O" is true, and add that ☐water = H₂O. In doing this we remove access to those possible worlds in which water is not H₂O, effectively pruning the tree of possible worlds.

But only if.

So I don't see a problem with your syllogism as such; it's just that if we take water = H₂O, the second premise is false, and if not, it isn't.

It is very unlikely to be pure H2O. — Janus

Yes, I agree.

And normally I wouldn't bother to make a distinction.

But then there's the part of me that thinks "Well, I know this is persnickity, but if we're talking about necessity..."

You could make an argument that because water commonly contains all sorts of solutes and is yet still referred to as "water" that 'water' is therefore not equivalent to H2O. The truth or falsity of such an argument would depend on perspective, though, so perhaps there is no unequivocal fact of the matter there. — Janus

:D That is the argument I'm making, basically, with the acid example, although it has a stronger rhetorical force because we have a different name for it. I'm wondering if it's just too silly. With acid we have a name that differentiates it so the percent composition ought not matter even though most of the molecules aren't H3O but H2O, but then that's exactly it -- a reference for "H2O" that is not water..

But then it seems a bit too clever. It's not like I don't understand what people mean by these terms even though these distinctions can be brought up.

But now we find that water is H₂O, and we decide to only call things "water" if they have the atomic structure H₂O. So we decide that "water = H₂O" is true, and add that ☐water = H₂O. In doing this we remove access to those possible worlds in which water is not H₂O, effectively pruning the tree of possible worlds.

But only if.

So I don't see a problem with your syllogism as such; it's just that if we take water = H₂O, the second premise is false, and if not, it isn't. — Banno

Actually this is making more sense. It's not a reductio -- it's just that you can flip the truth-values depending upon what you believe. And actually the conclusion makes a good deal of sense if we accept premise 2 -- it's basically just making a distinction between ways of using "water" and "H2O", and as long as we understand these distinctions together we can continue to refer to the same individual.

All good questions. I think we are getting into accessibility relations. So in our natural language we would like to say that it's possible that water is not H₂O, and hence in some possible worlds water is not H₂O, and this does not seem outlandish. We can picture these possible worlds as related to the actual world. — Banno

Right, that's basically what I mean.

Ok. So we have an end to this part of the discussion?

Relating this back to the topic, If someone is identical to their genetics, then (arguably) they are necessarily identical to their genetics.

If.

The same answer the Spartans gave Athens

Ok. So we have an end to this part of the discussion? — Banno

Yup.

Miracles really are true, we managed to close a thread of thought.

Relating this back to the topic, If someone is identical to their genetics, then (arguably) they are neceisarrily identical to their genetics.

If.

The same answer the Spartans gave Athens — Banno

What say you @schopenhauer1?

I'm wondering if the premises from causation could act as a kind of support for the implication.

I'm wondering if the premises from causation could act as a kind of support for the implication. — Moliere

I haven't been keeping track of the thread for a bit. Basically identity through the meeting of those gametes is the outcome of the causal argument.

The causal argument is thus:

What event was it whereby all the possibilities that could have led to the person who is presently reflecting back on their lives could have obtained?

AND

Whereby if you went back any further, there would be no person who could have obtained as the person who is reflecting back on their lives, as that would not even be a possibility.

That event would be conception. Anything prior to that, could have led to outcomes that would not have been you. In fact, if one thing changed even a milisecond prior to your conception, you would not have been actualized.

However,

AFTER your conception, while it is arguable "you" might have been a "different person" due to epigenetics and experiences, we can at least say, if all events played out as they did, the actual person that is looking back in hindsight would be one of those possibilities, and in fact, is what actually happened.

With , we are just back to the beginning, playing with essences again.

Anyway, I'm happy. Essences are decided more than discovered.

But I think rather the essence secondary to the necessity of causality. The theory is causal, and this leads to a conclusion of an event (the combination of gametes). Once causality and what counts as possible and not possible based on prior events is part of the picture, this is not just about how language is used, which is why I asked whether you thought causality didn't exist somehow if there are no labels for it. For example, clearly "individuals" don't need to be picked out with words, or so it would seem to me. There are individual animals, etc all prior to humans designating this or that thing "an individual".

Started a thread I started reading today with a link to this Anscomb paper titled Causality and Determination

What's your take?

I am denying objective identity and so I am denying that the developmental trajectory of an organism is deeply intwined with some objective identity. The organism is a collection of components, always changing, always in flux, taking things in from the environment, spitting things back out. There is no essential self there. — Apustimelogist

Same with other posters.. This is about causality, but causality leading to an event whereby all possibilities are the start for that individual. The event defines the parameters of the "what" which in this case is the combination of the gametes.

John Searle gives the most complete explanation. I think I;ve already pointed you to the thread on Institutional Facts. — Banno

So how do institutional facts have to do with the idea of causality? Is causality itself now institutional? But I believe you were talking rather of my idea of the gametes... But again, whilst this is a pseudo-identity of substance (the two gametes), the reason for it is causal. That is to say, none of this need rely on the social activity of making rules for these definitions- they are very much "real" if causality is "real".. real as in, you don't need human social activity for this to be a "thing" in the universe.

I'm going to need time to digest it.

:up:

I asked whether you thought causality didn't exist somehow if there are no labels for it. — schopenhauer1

I didn't notice.

Causality is far from unproblematic.

For example, clearly "individuals" don't need to be picked out with words, or so it would seem to me. There are individual animals, etc all prior to humans designating this or that thing "an individual". — schopenhauer1

Nothing I've said should be understood as suggesting otherwise.

The bits here are not tied together with sufficient clarity.

I'll back up and explain...

It seemed to me you were making an argument that "individuals" is liken to "institutional facts"- what designates this individual or that, is a choice, that may or may not become "institutional" (become part of a language community, or "way of life" or whatever you want to say in this realm of social explanation). Rather, I was countering that "individuals" are beyond simply conceptual constructs, but actual "entities" in the world, with a "real" causal history. The tricky part, is what is meant here by "causal history", but that is the matter that is my theory in question, so I can go into that more, but I just wanted to see what you were trying to assert with ideas of it being about "choosing" or and institutional facts, etc.

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/8713/causality-determination-and-such-stuff/p1

ah! I should have linked that one.