Water = H20?
Water and H2O are two different things because one can intelligently talk about water without knowing anything about chemistry. For example, "that water tastes OK". To talk intelligently about H2O, on the other hand, requires some background knowledge of chemistry. Of course, someone who doesn't know anything about chemistry can say, "That H2O looks cloudy", but if you ask them what they mean by "H2O", they won't be able to talk intelligently about it.
Thoughts?
Thoughts?
Comments (113)
Well, no; they are two different references to the same sort of thing. It's important to express such things well, so that confusion does not follow.
Modal logic and all that.
Perhaps I know Jennifer as an artist. Whereas you have no idea about this side of Jennifer and know her as the director of a bank. You had no idea that Jennifer paints, and I had no idea that Jennifer is the director of a bank. Nevertheless, we're talking about one and the same person.
What do you say about my example of Jennifer - are we both talking about the same person?
I take it the answer is an obvious 'yes'.
Now does it make any difference if, despite my belief that Jennifer is an artist, she's never painted anything in her life? That is, she's shown me paintings and told me she has painted them, and on that basis I have formed the belief that she is a painter, but in fact she was lying the whole time and has never painted a thing?
I take it that the ansewr is obvious: we're still talking about the same person. I (falsely) believe she is an artist; you correctly believe she is the director of a bank. That my belief about Jennifer is false makes no real difference, so long as it was through interacting with Jennifer that I acquired it.
Well, a scientist who has examined water in a certain way and formed the belief that it is H2o is still talking about the same substance as I am, even though I am an immaterialist and believe that no material substances exist in reality and thus that water is not composed of tiny molecules.
The typical scientist is going to think that H2O is a physical substance that exists external to you. You, the idealist, would obviously not agree with that.
As far as Jennifer goes, we're talking about the same person, but not necessarily the same thing. You, the materialist, are referring to a collection of particles. Me, the idealist, am referring to...an aspect of the one-mind? But obviously the idealist is not going to see Jennifer as a physical thing. Personhood complicates things.
Also, I'm not assuming you're an idealist or materialist.
That water can refer to something else doesn't seem relevant here.
So, you and I have quite different ideas about Jennifer - I think she's an artist and you think she isn't - yet we're both talking about the same person.
This is why materialists and immaterialists can be said to be 'disagreeing' about the nature of water as opposed to talking about quite different things.
I would replace "Jennifer" with "house plant" because personhood issues muddy the water. Also, "object" implies a physical thing. So, if we're both referring to the same house plant, I would say we're both referring to a collection of shared perceptions we have (at least, we think they're shared) that we give the label "house plant" to: it's located over there (or seems to be over there, the idealist would say), it's green, has three leaves, etc. That, we agree on. What the ultimate nature of the house plant is, we might not agree on.
The same person, yes. A shared sense of perceptions that we label "Jennifer", yes. The same thing, no. To get to "thing", I would have to unpack what you mean by "Jennifer", and there would eventually be a disagreement, I think.
Agreed.
I don't think anyone claims that.
But water is physicals stuff.
I'm not saying that. I'm saying water is consistent with two modes of reality: materialism and idealism. H2O is only consistent with materialism.
And this has nothing to do with naming goldfish. If we both are looking at a glass of water, and I say "that's a glass of water", that statement makes sense in an idealistic reality and a materialistic reality. If I say, "That's a glass of H2O", that only makes sense in a materialistic reality.
It's ideas all the way down. Seriously, why torment yourself positing the existence of unprovable stuff? Materialism is not needed to solve anything. It creates endless problems.
I don't know what you said there but if you're interested I'd like to chime in.
First off, water is an older concept than H2O. Those who first encountered water most certainly didn't have knowledge of chemistry and so wouldn't have understood water in terms of Hydrogen and Oxygen (H2O).
Thus, I surmise, correctly I suppose, that water was defined in terms of its physical properties - transparent, liquid, odorless, tasteless, good for washing, bathing, drinking, putting out fires, cooling the body, and so on.
Imagine now an alien world, another planet, inhabited by aliens and there's a substance on that planet that fits the description I gave above of water. Call this substance retaw. What retaw is to these aliens is water to us, in terms of its physical properties that is.
However, when we do a chemical analysis of retaw, we discover that it's CH4 and we know water is H2O. Basically, water isn't always H2O. Alien retaw is water to us and our water is alien retaw; they both have a similar function in, essentially, being the basis for life as we know it and ss the aliens know it but they're chemically distinct species.
Yeah, nuh. I don't want a nice cool drink of ideas on a hot day. You're on your own there.
It doesn't muddy it, so much as clarify it. I'm an immaterialist, but I'm still talking about the same person when I talk about Jennifer as someone who is a materialist. We differ radically in what we think Jennifer - the object - is made of, but we are talking about the same entity nonetheless. If we were not, then materialists and immaterialists would not be disagreeing with one another, but talking past one another.
If I think the distant object is cylindrical, but you think it is square, we are still talking about the same object, even though if it is cylindrical it is not square and vice versa.
If we were looking in different directions, 'then' we would not be talking about the same thing, but just mistakenly thinking we were.
Quoting RogueAI
No, it's the same thing. We just disagree about the nature of what we are perceiving.
This can be illustrated quite easily. Just imagine two people in exactly the same perceptual state. They both get the identical impression of a person, and they both label this person Jennifer. However, one has got to be in this state via a drug and the other by sensibly encountering Jennifer. Are they both talking about the same person when they talk about Jennifer? No. One is talking about a drug induced hallucination ,whereas the other is talking about Jennifer. The fact the perceptual experience is identical does not entail that they are talking about the same thing, then.
Now imagine two people in quite different perceptual states - one is only hearing Jennifer (via a phone) whereas the other is only seeing her. Are they perceiving the same person? Yes.
There's a famous thought experiment - designed by Hilary Putnam - partly to illustrate this point. Imagine a twin earth in which there is a substance that has all the same surface properties as water - Twater - but that has a different chemical composition (XYZ, not H2O). Well, are those on the twin earth talking about water when they talk about twater? That is, if we could somehow bring a denizen of the twin earth to ours and they spotted some water in a lake and said "water!" would they be talking correctly? Surely not. For they use 'water' to refer to a substance that has a chemical composition XYZ, not H2O, whereas the stuff in the lack is H2O.
Old but good. :up:
I don't understand. Surely under idealism, if I open up my tap and let that stuff go into a cup, that's called water, right? Surely then, under idealism, if I run a DC current through the water and collect the bubbles off of the positive side, that's called oxygen, right? And if I do that on the negative side, that's called hydrogen? Then why can't H2O be an "idea"?
:up:
Transworld identification between world alleviates the referent issue, and a pinch of scientific thought about the misnomer for water in science.
I think the difference mainly shows up when we're talking about what people know or believe.
Harvey believes H2O is combustible. He doesn't believe water is, though. He just doesn't know the two have the same extension.
That's not really the issue though. What's of significance is that we often can't layout the meaning of a word by pointing to it's extension.
Banno is dropping bits again.
Extension? Meaning is not relevant here, but what is, is that the extension is enabled for lack of a better term, by science.
Enabled?
Yes, modally, de jure is what Kripke calls it in technically true terms.
The OP is clearly talking about intension, not cases of aposteriori necessity.
You're talking about something completely different. I'm responding to @RogueAI talking about idealism-water, which is not in fact H2O, because H2O must be a substance.
Put it this way. Which of these do you agree with or disagree with?
The first makes idealism a red herring. The second is equivalent to a claim that idealism is trivially testable. The third is equivalent to a claim that idealism somehow compels you to assign terms differently. What I want explained to me is why H2O must be a substance, not why H2O and water are different concepts.
How so? Point it out for me.
Sorry. I don't know what you're talking about.
Quoting RogueAI
He's talking about what a speaker does and doesn't know. He's pointing to intensional operators.
Yeah, I was just pointing out that's it's not really chemistry; but, science ad hoc, according to Kripke.
Ok
Naming and Necessity. It's cheap.
Intension.
Regarding Kripke, I'd send a PM to Nagase. He shows up every now and then. He's pointed out problems with my secondary resources, so see if he can give you better ones.
A molecule of H20 does not have have some of the properties we associate with water. It is not wet.
Quoting RogueAI
We have hard water where I live. We had to put in a water softener. In order to talk about the difference between hard and sort water you need to know a bit of chemistry. Otherwise you might think that hard water is ice cubes.
Not according to Kripke, but as I explained, this is not the issue being raised in the OP.
Talking about gases like xenon, argon and carbon dioxide is a different conversation than talking about the air, the wind, the breeze, the sky, or various other nouns having to do with "air".
Posts, conversations, dialogues, discourses, and discussions are not the same thing either. Nobody holds a discourse over the fence with their neighbor--unless they are inordinately pretentious.
Your post about the difference between water and H2O is somewhere between opening a delightful discussion and opening a can of worms that's been in the hot sun.
Water and H20 can mean two different things and refer to two different objects.
But to tell the truth I don't know what the issue being raised in the OP is. It does not seem to be the same issue raised in subsequent posts.
Sure. The example of H20 and water is part of a famous Kripkean demonstration of necessity in his possible worlds framework.
Quoting Fooloso4
It's about intension. Someone derailed the thread with talk of modal logic.
What does he say? I am not asking you to point to a book or article.
Quoting frank
What do you understand this to mean?
I'll match the energy you put into talking about Wittgenstein with me. It's about possible worlds.
Quoting Fooloso4
There's an SEP article on it. Linked above.
And how does that relate to water and H20?
Quoting frank
Yes, but that does not tell me what it means to you.
Nope. Not interested.
From the link you provided:
In the example I gave both the designation and meaning are different, that is, both the extension and intension are different.
Hesperus is Phosphorous both refer to Venus, but water and H20 do not necessary refer to the same thing. I do not have any problem with the fact that this known a posteriori, but with the fact that a clear distinction can be made in the case of water and H20 that does not exist with Hesperus is Phosphorous.
If you go into the lab and use tap water instead of H20 insisting that they are the same thing because Kripke told you they are, the experiment will fail. Tap water or water from a lake or river or rain all contain things other than hydrogen and oxygen in the ratio of two to one.
So let's shelve Kripke, ok? It's not relevant to the issue raised in the OP.
Note my previous comment:
Harvey thinks H20 is combustible. He doesn't think that water is, though.
It doesn't matter that "water" could be used to mean a mixture of chlorimine and water that might come from your tap. One is expected to discern the use here.
If you haven't grasped that use yet, then read on:
In terms of extensional definitions, these propositions are contradictory. This is an example of the value of thinking in terms of intension.
So by now, you should realize that the flexibility of language use is irrelevant.
Got it?
I quoted this in my post:
Quoting RogueAI
Again, RogueAI is explaining why H2O and water mean different things. But his explanation is that, under idealism, H2O doesn't exist, since H2O has to be a substance.
I find the explanation a bit off. Is it really true that idealists cannot be chemists? If it's not true, this cannot be the explanation for why H2O and water mean different things.
That's going overboard to find a wedge to drive between the terms.
It's much easier than that.
I have a feeling you're not even having a conversation with me. Why then do you reply?
First you didn't respond to what I wrote. Then you claimed you didn't understand what I wrote. Now you're taking issue with the fact that I even said something. None of your three comments addressed the concern I raised.
The question I have is, why does idealism have to deny H2O? Again, a direct quote from RogueAI: "H2O only refers to a physical substance."
Replying to me without answering this question is... kind of pointless.
Idealism doesn't have to be substanceless. Some would say the world is made of idea stuff. In that case, an idealist would say H20 has substance.
We could conjure a kind of idealism that allows water, but not H20. This could be explained any which way in our world building expedition.
Does that come closer to answering?
If I grant this, then the explanation is wrong. H2O can be an idealistic substance.
Quoting frank
But for this to be an explanation we need to fit some relevance criteria. So long as we're world building, let's grant "this" universe is materialistic. And let's just imagine a universe B the same as this one, except "water" in universe B refers to what we would call a cow. So now in universe B, water is not H2O. But that doesn't quite sound like it should be relevant to the nature of meaning in "this" universe; it sounds, rather, that universe-B-water is simply a different kind of thing than this-universe-water.
But let's compare this-universe to idealist-universe. We now have this-universe-water which refers to the same thing as H2O, and we have idealist-universe-water which is not. But is that relevant to meaning in this-universe, any more than universe-B water not being H2O is?
These things don't sound the same as semantics as I understand it. Clark Kent, in this universe, is Superman. So Clark Kent and Superman refer to the same person. If Lois was defenestrated and Superman saved her, it follows that Clark Kent saved her. But if Lois believes Clark Kent will help her write her next article, it does not follow that she believes Superman will help her write her next article. Here, we're talking about meaning in this universe, so it sounds relevant.
As an idealist, I would say water is just part of the dream, and it will do whatever the dreamer wants it to do. It will look like a solid sometimes, or a liquid, or a gas. We've all had dreams of snow and rain and clouds. Why not dreams where water appears to be a collection of tiny particles? In idealism, there really isn't "water" just like there's no "water" in our dreams. There's just mind(s) experiencing the ever-changing dream they're (or it's) projecting.
The difference is that I am asking for definitions of specific technical terms. Terms that do not have one single agreed upon usage. Hence I asked you about your understanding of those terms. In our previous discussion, if I remember correctly, no specialized vocabulary was used. There are other differences as well, but I will leave it there.
Quoting frank
The use of what? The term water? The difference between intension and extension?
The elements of H20 are two hydrogen molecules combined with one molecule of oxygen. This is the case in all possible worlds. Water will have the elements of H20 plus some combination of minerals and impurities. When the chemist uses the term H20 she does not mean water. She means only that substance that contains two hydrogen molecules combined with one molecule of oxygen.
Naming and Necessity, reading group?
Naming and necessity Lecture Three.
Kripke, as a child, developed a formal version fo the logic of possibility and necessity - modal logic. This book is his applying that logic to modal issues, with philosophically interesting results.
The stuff you pointed to on 2D logic builds on this basis.
Is it accessible?
Quoting Banno
I think I'm gonna have to drop out here. Sorry!
Quoting Fooloso4
I use the abbreviation H20 to refer to sterile water pretty regularly. Somebody put it in a drop-down menu that I use.
For meaning, look to use.
Pretty much. You have exactly the same mechanics here as you do with materialism. The only difference is that you posit those things to be composed of ideas.
Quoting RogueAI
I don't think this works in practice. We don't have idealists trying to fly by wishing they can fly. They still live in the same world self proclaimed materialists do, and still buy the same airplane tickets.
An idealist in a chemistry class will still note twice as much gas being collected at the negative probe as they would at the positive probe. Such consistent behaviors of the idea-of-water and the idea-of-DC-circuits, which seems independent of the wishes of the person performing the experiment, deserves names to call them for pragmatic reasons. "Hydrogen" is a perfectly good name for the gas that comes out at the negative end; that's what other English speakers call it. "Oxygen" is a fine name to call what comes out at the positive end. You could even go so far as to get a PhD in chemistry; even win Nobel prizes for it, and still be an idealist... all you're committing to is that somehow these descriptions are describing ideas.
There's a difference between observed behavior and the true nature of things. An idealist and materialist aren't going to agree on the mechanics of things, because an idealist will always say, "the dreamer is the reason we're seeing what we're seeing" to the question "Why are we seeing this?". The materialist, of course, will not accept that as an answer. That's the mechanics of the issue (which I take you to mean "how things really are").
As an idealist, I'm not going to claim that water is an idea that is made up two distinct ideas joined together. For one, that's incoherent (again, there's the difference between how things appear to be and how things really are- water appears to be made of hydrogen and oxygen. Water is not actually made of hydrogen and oxygen), and for another, I don't have to claim that, because reality is a dream and the foundational substance of things is thought and ideas. Thought and idea can be literally anything, except a logical contradiction.
"I don't think this works in practice. We don't have idealists trying to fly by wishing they can fly. They still live in the same world self proclaimed materialists do, and still buy the same airplane tickets."
The fact that this is a dream doesn't entail that I think I'll be able to fly. I act just like materialists do, but at the foundational level, I don't agree with their claims, such as I don't believe water is made of anything. It appears to be that way, but it's not.
An idealist in chemistry, when asked "why are you observing what you're observing", will ultimately claim, "I observe whatever the mind(s) creating this reality are projecting." The materialist chemistry teacher will not agree with that.
No, that's not what I mean.
If I mix baking soda with vinegar, it will bubble. The bubbling produces a gas we call carbon dioxide. That gas is heavy; you can actually pour it into a candle holder with a lit candle in it, and put the candle out in such a fashion.
What I just described above is mechanics; there are chemical mechanics that I described and physical mechanics that I described. In describing this scenario, I did not attempt to convince you of any "true nature" of things. I did not deny the notion that baking soda is ultimately made of ideas. All I did was tell you what would happen if you do certain things.Quoting RogueAI
Of course it doesn't! But if the fact that this is a dream doesn't commit you to think you'll be able to fly by wishing it, why do you think the fact that this is a dream commits you to think mixing baking soda with vinegar won't form bubbles, or that the resulting thing cannot be poured over a candle and put it out? I am reading you as saying that thinking this is a dream absolutely commits you to deny chemistry (aka that H2O is a thing).
But I say hogwash. It no more commits you to deny chemistry than it commits you to think you can fly by wishing it so.
Quoting RogueAI
Okay, but if the mind wants me, an idealist, to see chemical mechanics, why should I deny chemical mechanics? If the mind wants me to see that the bubbles from baking soda/vinegar puts out candles, why would I deny that doing so can put out candles? If it wants me to see twice as much gas as the negative end as the positive end, why should I deny that?
I think you're too keen to connect chemistry to materialism here. Certainly it works under materialism, but it works just fine under idealism too.
I have no problem with water appears to be H2O. I have a problem with water is (=) H2O. When you unpack "water is H2O" you immediately run into a problem: "water is H2O" means, among other things, that water is a combination of things. I don't agree that water is a combination of things.
Any description of the physical world by any person is simply a model. This includes the description "water is H2O".
Quoting RogueAI
I have a deeper problem that starts when I unpack "combination of things".
I can demonstrate what I mean by water being a combination of things using electrolysis. If you agree that we can make hydrogen and oxygen using electrolysis while simultaneously reducing the total amount of water in direct accordance with the model of chemistry, then in what sense does your claim that it's not a combination of things mean something?
It means reality is such that water is not made of particles, but is an idea. That's a meaningful statement about reality. Proving it is hard, but idealism certainly isn't meaningless.
To me, the word "water" is a label that I attach to a particular kind of thing in my environment. The stuff that comes out of my taps when I open them that I can hold with a cup... that comes clear and has a particular familiar taste, qualifies as water. The part of the question where I presume this is a simulation bears no relevance to the answer.
Quoting RogueAI
Under the MWI, it's not really made of particles either. Under MWI, it's not so much that it's an idea as it is that it's a portion of the universal wavefunction oriented in such a way as to interact with certain other portions of the wavefunction consistent to simulate something like classical physics. So in a roundabout way, MWI is kind of a simulation hypothesis itself.
But under MWI, I can still meaningfully talk about water being H2O. All I need mean by making such a claim is that H2O under the model of chemistry works to describe the thing in my environment that I attached the label "water" to. Per the approach I take above, I don't need to change my entire vocabulary every time I entertain a new hypothesis about what the ultimate reality is... and why should I? What do theories of the ultimate nature of reality have to do with what I call the stuff coming out of my taps?
To me, the pondering of the underlying nature of the thing is a separate concern... maybe it helps understand more fully what that stuff is that I attached the label to, but it doesn't really change it... I don't presume to start with a complete model of what water is, so I don't have anything to correct when I learn more about it.
And this is why just any water will not do in the chem lab. What you take H2O to mean based on the use you are familiar with is not the concept, not the same substance, not the same structure, not the same meaning, and not the same use as what you will find in the lab.
So we agree that sometimes "H20” means water and sometimes it doesn't. Right?
From my second post:
Quoting Fooloso4
So you believe H20 is necessarily water?
I would argue that there are possible worlds where reality is a simulation and H2O isn't water.
Could be.
I'm assuming that in a simulation, much of the world is sort of like in superposition. Things become specifiable and tangible as you go.
They could do experiments that show what water breaks down into just like we can.
"Bits" assumes classical computers, simulating classical universes. Try instead to imagine a quantum computer simulating classical universes. As mentioned, it's not a huge stretch to say that MWI is at least a natural version of this very thing... and MWI is at least a mainstream interpretation. This is probably close enough to consider viable and close enough to the simulation hypothesis to at least be relevant.
If he doesn't, I'll defend that view from the point of view of Kripke. Water = H?O. "H?O" is a rigid designator. Water is a rigid designator.. Hence. necessarily, Water = H?O.
Two Dimensional Semantics may provide an alternative, and I would welcome such a discussion.
Cool. I think @Fooloso4 would enjoy that. I really enjoyed the N&N reading you and I did.
Yes, but water is not necessarily H20
The object of a rigid designator is the same. If water is the same object as H20 they could be used interchangeably. They cannot. The molecular structure may not be identical. Water may contain minerals and contaminants. H20 does not. So despite whatever Kripke may claim they are not identical.
I know nothing of all possible worlds, but I know in this actual world in laboratory conditions you cannot simply use water in place of H20. You can, however, use H20 in place of water.
Why necessarily? Couldn't the laws of the universe be different such that H20 is a mineral?
This is the line of thought Kripke addresses.
Necessary in the same sense that a dog is necessarily a mammal, but a mammal is not necessarily a dog.
I cannot say what would or would not be if the physical laws of the universe were different. Apparently in your scenario they would not be so different that there would no longer be molecules of H20. Whether it was classified as a mineral would be up to whatever beings there were doing classifications. In our universe, however frozen water is classified as a mineral but not liquid water.
Quoting frank
I know very little of Kripke's line of thought.
I should have said metal, not mineral.
Quoting Fooloso4
Yea, we're not really getting any closer.
Well, you could explain his line of thought, but you have no interest in doing so. Or, I could spend some time reading Kripke, but I have no interest in doing so.
If H2O was a mineral in a universe with different laws, wouldn't it be H2O*? Presumably, the different laws of nature that allow H2O to become a mineral would affect either the Hydrogen, Oxygen, or chemistry of their interaction, so that you're really talking about something other than what we mean by H2O.
I was wondering if this holds true in a simulation too. Could the simulators take H2O, as it's currently understood by us, and make it become a mineral just be changing the simulation?
So let's use Hesperus and Phosphorus instead. Hesperus is seen only in the evening; Phosphorus only in the morning. It took empirical observation and theorising for us to understand that they are the same - Venus.
But in every possible world, Hesperus = Phosphorus.
Which is to say, in supposing a possible world in which there was an object named Hesperus and another, different object names Phosphorus, we stop using these terms to talk about Venus. At least one of the objects is not the same as Venus. It's not that Hesperus is not the very same as Phosphorus in that world, but that there is something else that just happens to have the name Phosphorus or Hesperus.
This is a grammatical point that comes directly from the formalised language of possible world semantics. You can take it or leave it as you wish, but if you leave it you also leave the logical structure of possible world semantics and the ensuing capacity to keep modal sentences consistent.
The point is that the expression confuses what would be going on. There is no possible world in which H?O is not water. There may be a possible world in which the term "H?O" is used to refer to something else.
Quoting TwinBanno
Hence the need for an actual observation to take place to endow it with the name 'Venus'.
Except where the words coextend.
This is Kripke in a nutshell. Kripke demands that we pay attention to use. The rigid designator is like a tracking device stuck on a particular usage.
Sorry, that's a de re. De dicto, de jure, and de facto's take precedence to determine the de re's.
I don't think so. From Stanford:
My claim is that H20 is not in all cases the same object as water. The molecular structure can differ. H20 always has the same structure. Water does not. Water contains minerals and contaminants. H20 does not. A chemical analysis will reveal this. If they are the same object then they could be used interchangeably in all possible situations. They cannot.
Quoting Banno
But that missed the point. Hesperus and Phosphorus designate the same object. In many cases H20 and water also designate the same object but not in all cases.
On the contrary, it re-makes the point your pedantry tries to ignore.
You want to use "water" for impure H?O. Go ahead. Pure water is necessarily the very same thing as H?O. Point made.
Impure H?O?
It is not a matter of how I want to use the term water, it is the common usage for the stuff that comes out of the tap, the stuff in lakes and rivers and rain. It is not pure H20. Generally potable water is considered pure but it contains minerals and so is not H20, it is a mixture of H20 and other stuff.
I see no problem with this: a molecule of water = H20. Or molecular grade water = H20.
Perhaps, but the question and topic of the OP are not about pure water. @Fooloso4 makes a valid point that H?O is necessarily water "but water is not necessarily H?O".
I understand rigid designators to refer to some particular physical object or stuff regardless of the name, so whether that physical stuff is "water" or "H?O" depends on which stuff is designated.
The point is that it is a flaccid designator.
It seems as if there are three different issues under discussion here:
1) Whatever distinction the OP is making. 2) The distinction I am making. 3) Kripke's a posteriori necessities.
Not quite. Water is bouncy. Elastic.
See a drop of water fall into a pool of water in slow motion. It bounces back.
I actually don't know if the shots I have seen about this referred to pure water, dirty water, someone named Walter in a different universe, contaminated water in a third world country, or to H20 in any world, universe or country.
I guess the word "water" and H[sub]2[/sub]O shares reference.
Does that work?