Is change a property of space, objects, or both?
An object being something with finite extent in at least one of its properties (a particular entity); space being that which separates distinct objects.
Try to keep on topic if you decide to comment.
Try to keep on topic if you decide to comment.
Comments (65)
The usual answer is that it is an attribute or characteristic of some individual; an individual being a thing we might name. Hence the common logical notation f(a), were 'f' is a predicate or property and 'a' is an individual.
Change, then, is simply what occurs when a property true of some individual is no longer true of that individual.
Space, and time, is involved only incidentally.
So the answer to your question is that while properties might change, change is not a property.
The other thread on change makes the same logical error.
Quoting Banno
Quoting Banno
I think I understand. But let me ask you something: an individual must occupy some sort of space (an individual must necessarily be different from whatever it is that contains it to be categorized as such - it must differ from its "background", or it must be discernible from it); if individuals are contained within a space and properties are features of individuals, could we conclude that properties are features of space and not of individuals, the latter being a property of space itself?
The thing is that properties of objects are spatial. You may try to highlight a property, but it includes space, you can't take it out.
Changes can occur in the object, or in the perceiving subject. It depends on each specific circumstance.
In positing this you are restricting your discussion to physical individuals.
That is, there are other sorts of individuals besides physical objects.
So suppose we take on that restriction, confining ourselves to physical individuals. Must it be the case that these individuals be discernible? There are various problems with this view - see The Identity of Indiscernibles. That this principle holds is at least arguably not the case.
But beyond that, whether you consider being at points (a,b,c) in space a property of an object or prefer to consider having an object at point (a,b,c) a property of space seems to be just two ways of saying the very same thing.
In either case, change is not a property, so much as what properties sometimes do.
Why would you think that?
Being the Capital of France does not seem to be a spacial property of Paris. It's not hard to think up other examples.
Paris is spatial. So is the sentence. You can't say "Capital of France" absent space. You need a world with people who speak to each other and can understand such things as "the Capital of France".
Another issue is if you want to say that the Capital of France is a property, as opposed to a fact.
Sure. But your claim demands that being the Capital of France is spacial. So if Orleans became the Capital, it would presumably have to move to where Paris is.
Quoting Manuel
No, they don't. Being half of six is a property of three. What space does "half of six" occupy? Being the third letter of the alphabet of a property of "c". What space does "being third in the alphabet" occupy? The loaf of bread cost $2.00. What space does "costing $2.00" occupy?
Philosophical mistakes occur when one considers only a limited set of examples. Look for more counterexamples yourself.
If there exist individuals that do not occupy a space, how can they be differentiable? How do you separate an individual that does not occupy a space from another individual that does not occupy a space?
How do we tell my mortgage from yours? The money in my account from the money in your account? Not all properties are physical.
by time.
the space between B and D.
:smile:
Why would this not be the same individual, extended in time?
To ask whether change is a property (of space, objects, or anything else for that matter) is like asking whether paying is money? Paying is what happens to the money and itself can't be money.
Neither it seems to me. I think both "space" and "objects" are "properties" (i.e. events) of change (i.e. advent) just as currents, eddies, ripples, waves, whirlpools are emergent aspects of running rivers.
Because my answer was to the simple and general question of how to differentiate entities not in space. .
Someone other than I postulated a mortgage as an example of an entity that is not in space.
After that, someone other than I asked how would you differentiate entities not in space.
And it occurred to me that if we accept for the sake of discussion that mortgages are not in space, we can differentiate them by the order in which they are created, i.e., we could differentiate them by time. That is why we call one mortgage the first mortgage and the other mortgage the second mortgage.
And I suppose there are methods in addition to time such as by reference to other entities that may or may not be in space. For example, this mortgage was taken out by Bob who lives down the street while that mortgage was taken out by Sylvia who is now deceased.
Simply put, if we accept for the sake of discussion that there are entities not in space, then time is one method by which we can differentiate them.
But this raises an additional and perhaps more fundamental issue, i.e., even if we accept for the sake of discussion that there are entities not in space, do they not necessarily refer to an entity that is or once was in space?
Anyone?
An entity having necessary properties cannot exist independent of its necessary properties and properties have no existence independent of that of which they are a property. So your formulation suggests that there can be no change in the absence of space and objects. And if we accept for the sake of discussion that change necessarily implies (and may be synonymous with) time, then there can be space and no objects and no change in the absence of time.
So in the end, isn't it likely that space, objects, and time are all necessary properties of each other and none of them can exist independent of the others? Perhaps that is why Einstein called it the space/time continuum rather than the space and the time continua?
Simply put, I think you are 2/3rds right.
If we accept for the sake of discussion that some entities have necessary properties, then an entity with necessary properties cannot exist in the absence of a necessary property.
If we accept for the sake of discussion that some entities must change, then why wouldn't change be a necessary property of such entities?
Is it possible for change to be an entity having properties in some situations and to be a property of an entity in other situations?
We are so binary.
The mortgage example is not good, it's just a ruse. Numerals have spatial presence, along with the other stated conditions of a mortgage. If we couldn't refer to the numerals and the conditions somewhere, no one would ever know how much anyone owed, and we wouldn't have to pay our mortgages. So that's just wishful thinking, but not reality.
Quoting Arne
If there is not any spatial difference between them, they would all appear to be exactly the same. So how would you be able to say when one or another got created? If there was one in existence, it would just seem like there was still one in existence, because you'd never be able to observe any change, no matter how many, and how often new ones were supposedly created.
Quoting Arne
I don't think we should accept such a proposal without some sort of demonstration as to how such proposed entities could exist. Banno is prone to making assertions, then refusing to justify them, so you ought to take this suggestion with a grain of salt.
Quoting Arne
I don't think it's very useful to "accept for the sake of discussion" a phrase which no one has any real understand of what it means. "Entities not in space" is such a phrase. Banno's examples refer to things whose spatial presence is difficult to describe, being very complex, not things which do not occupy some space. It is the approach of a lazy, unphilosophical mind, to simply assume that these things have no spatial presence, just because their spatial existence is difficult to understand.
However, I've heard of things being described as changeless as if it were a property e.g. God's described as unalterable but this pertains to the properties of God.
Coming to space and objects, we would have to check if the properties of space remain constant over time to come to any conclusion regarding whether they're changeless or not.
That's not really true AS. Change is what happens to the thing. The thing either has or does not have the property, and in the time between it is changing. The property cannot change, or it would not be that property. It is, by definition, the stated property and there is no possibility of a changing property. Change is what happens to the thing in between having, and not having, the stated property.
This comes concurrent with what I own as a human being... part of an economy. I think its very important to ask yourself what things can I have of what value and for how long? The answers so far that I have come to acknowledge is that "physical properties" as in land, houses, or cars, are probably the most valuable and have the highest potential of being changeless.
One modern philosopher said, if you don't own property you don't have much at all.
Its very relevant from a personal view-point to see things and their continuity (in space).
I'd also like to add that physics started out as the "method of calculating change." There is something to that when applied. Things change, and you have to focus in on them, to view their place in space-time, having a past, present, and future. All things are cut into those time dimensions.
"If we accept for the sake of discussion" is used in place of "if".
And I use it because I am tired of having to point out that "if" indicates that I do not necessarily agree with what follows but that I would nonetheless like to discuss its implications in the event it is true. I guess I was spoiled by the Philosophy Department's universal acceptance and understanding of the conditional nature of "if".
As for the rest of my post, I was clear that I was working with the examples and questions as already given by others. Perhaps your criticisms of their examples could be addressed to them? I am sure they would appreciate them as least as much as I. Though perhaps you could spare them the ad hominems.
But thank you for taking the time.
Asfar as I'm concerned change happens to properties (colors, shapes, temperature, weight, etc.)
Numerals are symbols and as such they are especially useful when that for which they stand has no spatial existence.
If you would have spent a tad more time reading the last full paragraph of the comment you clearly spent a significant amount of time criticizing, you would see that I already addressed the possibility that even if we accept for sake of discussion that there are non-spatial entities, wouldn't they necessarily have to refer to an entity that is or was a spatial entity.
And if you choose not to accept for the sake of discussion, then we have nothing to discuss. And I good with that.
Insofar as an entity must have mass, then mass is a property of that entity.
Insofar as an entity must change, then change is a necessary property of that entity.
Your concerns notwithstanding, there is no way out.
"Color" does not refer to a property, nor does "shape", "temperature", or "weight". Otherwise red and green would be the same property, round and square would be the same property, hot and cold would be the same property, and 5 kg and 100 kg would also be the same property. Surely you've got something confused AS.
Quoting Arne
Call me daft if you want Arne, but you'll have to explain this to me. In my usage 2 stands for two distinct things with spatial separation between them, and 3 stands for three spatially separated things, etc.. Therefore, contrary to what you say, numerals seem especially useful when they refer to things with spatial existence. And I really don't see how they would be at all useful (except for the purpose of deception) to refer to things without spatial existence, i.e. fictitious things.
Quoting Arne
As I said, I see no point in accepting for the sake of discussion that "there are non-spatial entities", until someone can explain in a reasonable way exactly what a "non-spatial entity" could be. It's one thing to accept the possibility of non-spatial entities, and then move to discuss what a non-spatial entity might be, but it's a completely different thing to accept that there are non-spatial entities, when no one has made it clear how an "entity" could be non-spatial.
Color: Red, Green, etc.
Shape: Circle, Rectangle, Triangle, etc.
Classes of of properties (shape, color) and individual properties (red, green, circle, rectangle, etc.).
I'm not saying anything new here.
Change is a property, ok! Taking a page out of Buddhism, things are transient/ephemeral.
If you say that color is a property, then when something changes from being green to being red, it still has the same property, color. So you assert change is a property, because for you a property is something which changes. But if green and red are distinct properties, then when something changes from green to red, the change is not a part of either of these properties, and change is not a property.
Using these definitions of object and space, objects and space would be the medium of change.
Another way of looking at it would be objects and space are the means by which minds model change (or process) which would mean that change/process would be fundamental and objects and space would be a mind's (which itself is a process) way of perceiving and knowing change/processes.
Quoting Arne
What if they (the mortgages) are created at the same time (and taken out by the same person)?
In the same way we think of substance and properties, and the relation between each other but do not for a moment think that these notions have any meaning outside of frame of reference. They are needed for us to think at all, operators, but I never saw a property as such, I only saw some definite properties. I also never saw substance as such, I only saw definite substances.
Change therefore is not a property, not of space, not of anything else. Change is a category of thought. I would even argue it is a-priori since change is not something learned by being experienced, but change is what experience is, aka it makes experience possible.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
That does not seem very correct, or at least it seems only a way to imagine something. such as numbers. 2 and 2 is 4 independent of there being 2 things and 2 other things. In the same way that in the syllogism If p. then Q, p. Thererfore Q, does not have to be rephrased as: "If Socrates is a man, then he is mortal, Socrates is a man, therefore he is mortal". Quantity and space are not relatable to each other because they are both necessary categories. (I believe that for Kant space was a category of the intuition and quantity of thought, but that does not matter and I am not very certain about it and the picture I paint is more Hegelian than Kantian anyway). Maybe I missed something, or maybe the categories got jettisoned by the analytics in concert with the phenomenologists...
Time is one method that non-spatial entities could be differentiated. I never said it was the only method nor did I say it was a perfect method.
I suspect you are just as capable as I at answering your question.
Sure, but "2+2=4" is rather useless accept when applied to actual things, just like "if P, then Q" is rather useless without any things that P and Q refer to. Arne was saying the opposite, that numerals are especially useful when there is no spatial thing which they refer to.
These are all examples of information. Information occupies space. If you don't believe me, look at the contents of your hard drive on your computer. Does not the signed copy of your mortgage agreement occupy kilobytes of space on your drive? This forum occupies space in the cloud. Type 300 in a text document and you can see that the text occupies space and the document occupies space in RAM until saved to your hard drive's space. For something to exist and for you to be aware of and talk about it, it must occupy space.
If that be true than whether the morgage is stipulated in Word or in PDF would make a difference to the motrgage, since it will occupy a diffferent amount kilobytes of space on my hard drive. However, it does not. Likewise if Banno's morgtgage would somehow be eradicated from his harddrive and from the hardrive of the company he has a mortgage from, that would somehow destroy Banno's obligation to pay. That however is false.
Quoting Harry Hindu
I could subscribe to this though. Every change has a certain material aspect. Even if I conclude a mortgage, it will have some effect on the pathways engraved in my mind. That oes not mean a mortgage is that pathway or that change is a property of space.
Like I said, it was a COPY of your mortgage agreement. You'd have to hack into the bank's computer and delete it there too for your mortgage ro be gone.
Quoting Tobias
Word and Adobe add extra information that is not part of the mortgage information and that is what makes the difference. If there us no record that Banno has a mortgage then he is not obligated to pay something that doesn't exist. If you ask the bank for evidence that you have a mortgage, what do you think they will show you? If they can't show you any information of your mortgage then you effectively don't have a mortgage. If you are talking about his memory of his mortgage, then we are still talking about information that occupies the space in his head.
If everyone forgot that Paris is the capital of France, would Paris be the capital of France?
Ain't it the matter on which zeroes and ones are formed that occupies space? You can use different stuff to push in a form of ones and zeroes, referring to objects in the world. You can uses tiny rings on a metal grid, or levels of liquid. The matter used in forming information is the occupant in space, not the information itself, which refers to the ones and zeroes, which again represents an object. It depends on what we decide where the patterns of ones and zeroes refer to. A memory with random zeroes and ones will contain a tiny bit less energy than a patterned one. The pattern with highest order, weighing the most, will be just as useless as the random one, contradictory as it may sound.
Change is being at the centre of this fold, manifolding.
A good image is having a flat face with two eyes, and out of the corner of each eye is seen a precise left and right in accordance with the flat face; seemingly infinite space is suppressed in mind but you could imagine that perceived left and right to go on forever and fold back on itself. Thus, change is focusing on that central region, causing a manifold.
No, Harry. The mortgage is an agreement. But this sort of thing has been explained to you before, by many folk.
The information that represents a mortgage (whatever its format - hard copy, virtual copy, mental copy) must have a limit (or set of) that defines its individuality - a given mortgage is different from other mortgages or other legal documents, i.e. a purchase and sale agreement. That is, this information has a shape (its shape being a set of particular, finite properties that define it as being information about a given mortgage). That this information has a shape indicates that it is different from wherever it is contained; that is, it occupies a space. In its verbal form, when communicated, the information gets recorded in the brain of the person that hears the information (represented physically by changes in the physiology of neurites, synapses, and other cellular phenomena - changes that are exposed to decay). Even the first person that came up with the idea of a mortgage must have given this idea a shape in its brain, differentiating it from other ideas.
Same as keeping a verbal promise.
I've also been told by many folk that God exists and wants me to be saved by him. Does that make it true? You're not appealing to popularity are you?
Then if you remove one of the members of the agreement, you remove the agreement? Then agreements are composed of members of the agreement and therefore occupy space.
What is it that keeps the agreement intact? If at any moment I can make an agreement, at any moment I can cancel the agreement. It takes more than one to make an agreement but only one to break the agreement. If I decide not to abide by the agreement then I don't need to pay my mortgage?
What else are numbers if not scribbles on a page, which occupies space?
So brothers and sisters, let's hold hands and prey! Let's say gratitude to our Shephard and Divine Examplar!
Indeed. Only on a material form, a number can occupy space. It depends on the volume of the material used how much space is occupied. You can use bronze to form a one, or use the spin of an electron as 1 or 0. Small space. Anyhow, information, by the rule of essential necessity, needs space.
An agreement is in no way an object or an entity, so it's not even worth your while arguing that an agreement is a non-spatial "object" or "entity". And since it is a relation between a plurality of individuals, it is in no way an "individual".
It might be worthwhile to investigate whether relations can be non-spatial. But the op defines space as that which separates objects. Relations do the exact opposite, they unite separate objects. So it appears like all relations, under that definition of space, are non-spatial. But this just tells us that we have a poor definition of space.
You put that very well! I learned more from these words than a whole book of Salmon I had to read once, about "causal statistical laws and causal forks". Space is indeed needed for interaction. It separates but has, by interaction through it, the potential to unite. And that's what an agreement is about. There is a will inherent in nature. It uses space to articulate oneself and to reach out and be with others. Already in the fundamentals this can be seen. Space in between as the expression of the will to be separate or together. And time is the result. Without interaction no time and change. In which case space is totally useless. All matter would be without will, and it's the question if space could even exist.
Yet it only takes one individual to break the agreement, or relationship.
Is not space a relationship between individuals?
No, as the op defines, space is what separates individuals. Relationships, as we generally use this term are what unites individuals. "Separates" and "unites" are somewhat opposed.
The definition in the OP is wrong. Scientists have described space as a thing that can expand or contract. Put a wall between you and I and an object, not space, separates us.
These are both types of relationships. A couple can be married (unites) and then divorced (separates) and both are types of relationships between them. You could be sitting right next to me or across the country and that is a relationship between you and I.
In measuring the space between individuals are you not establishing a relationship between them? Thats what a measurement is - a relationship.
The divorce does not separate them, it still describes a unity, but it also puts a temporal constraint on that unity by saying that it has ended.
Quoting Harry Hindu
People do not 'measure the space' between things, they measure the distance between them. So yes, by measuring the distance between them you are establishing a relationship, and this is inherently a unity between them. You are making them both one predicate of the same subject (which is the unity of the two) by saying that the two exist with such a distance between them. Measuring the distance between them is not to posit a space between them which is being measured, it is to posit a principle of unity between them, the act of measurement unites them.
Why not just agree that divorce and marriage are relationships so that you don't contradict yourself in saying that a divorce is a type of unity. What you mean is that it is a type of relationship.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Every time you say "unity" you mean relationship. Every time you say "distance" you mean space. We are both saying essentially the same thing, but using different words. With our different words, we are pointing to the same thing. Thanks for agreeing. :smile:
Change is not a property. It is a process. Property is an attribute, a quality, a characteristic.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Relations would require space since they occur among/between? separate objects.
There are all sorts of different relations, and some are not between objects, like the relation between hot and cold.
Quoting Harry Hindu
No that's not what I meant. I meant what I said. The word refers to the state, or condition of a certain type of unity. The type of unity being marriage, and the condition, that it has been ended. And if you cannot understand this without seeing it as a contradiction, I don't think it's worthwhile to say anything more.
Well, there is the relationship between hot and cold, and then there is the relationship between your body temperature and the air's temperature. The difference is what you feel as hot or cold. Hotter bodies will feel cold, while colder bodies will feel hot. Everything is a relationship.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Ask any individual that has been divorced and they won't use the word "unity" to describe their current status, or relationship, with their former partner. If I can substitute the word "unity" with the word, "relationship" and it not take away from or unnecessarily add more to what you are actually saying, then we are both saying the same thing. It is now up to you to show how the two words have different meaning in what you are trying to say.