The Adjacent Possible
Innovations help give rise to other innovations. The invention of the microchip spurred the invention of the smartphone; the invention of the steam engine spurred the invention of the locomotive. In the biological parlance, every new evolutionary trait expands the sphere of the "adjacent possible". But what is the adjacent possible? A: It is the sphere of new possibilities engendered by the introduction of any one invention.
To borrow an example from Steven Johnson (who himself borrows from Stuart Kauffman, the theoretical biologist who coined the term): "In the case of prebiotic chemistry, the adjacent possible defines all those molecular reactions that were directly achievable in the primordial soup. Sunflowers and mosquitoes and brains exist outside that circle of possibility." The idea of course is that they can be brought inside that circle of possibility after a certain level of evolutionary achievement has been reached (source here! - a good read).
Johnson again: "The strange and beautiful truth about the adjacent possible is that its boundaries grow as you explore them. Each new combination opens up the possibility of other new combinations. Think of it as a house that magically expands with each door you open. You begin in a room with four doors, each leading to a new room that you haven't visited yet. Once you open one of those doors and stroll into that room, three new doors appear, each leading to a brand-new room that you couldn't have reached from your original starting point. Keep opening new doors and eventually you'll have built a palace."
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Can we draw any philosophical significance from the idea of the adjacent possible? I think so. For one, the idea of the adjacent possible makes it possible (hah) to think of the emergence of possibilities; usually, possibility is thought of as a purely abstract modal category in which certain possibilities are simply either 'realized' or not. Possible cat, real cat. In this schema, 'existence' lies wholly on the side of the real. However, with the idea of the adjacent possible, possibility itself is granted existential status: there are possibilites which are either actual or not, and which themselves can be made actual by changes in the real.
In other words, possibility itself can be thought of as indexed to the real, and is not simply 'prior' to it. All of which is to say that the idea of the adjacent possible forces us to revise the very status of modality as classically conceived. Possibility should not simply be thought of as simply pre-existing the real, as though models stowed in a Platonic locker room simply awaiting their realization, but rather, as themselves emerging from the changing configurations of reality itself. Leibniz had a similar approach to possibility in his understanding of 'incompossibility', as did Kant in his advocacy of a 'transcendental logic', but I'll simply mention them as philosophical precedences to the idea outlined above.
To borrow an example from Steven Johnson (who himself borrows from Stuart Kauffman, the theoretical biologist who coined the term): "In the case of prebiotic chemistry, the adjacent possible defines all those molecular reactions that were directly achievable in the primordial soup. Sunflowers and mosquitoes and brains exist outside that circle of possibility." The idea of course is that they can be brought inside that circle of possibility after a certain level of evolutionary achievement has been reached (source here! - a good read).
Johnson again: "The strange and beautiful truth about the adjacent possible is that its boundaries grow as you explore them. Each new combination opens up the possibility of other new combinations. Think of it as a house that magically expands with each door you open. You begin in a room with four doors, each leading to a new room that you haven't visited yet. Once you open one of those doors and stroll into that room, three new doors appear, each leading to a brand-new room that you couldn't have reached from your original starting point. Keep opening new doors and eventually you'll have built a palace."
--
Can we draw any philosophical significance from the idea of the adjacent possible? I think so. For one, the idea of the adjacent possible makes it possible (hah) to think of the emergence of possibilities; usually, possibility is thought of as a purely abstract modal category in which certain possibilities are simply either 'realized' or not. Possible cat, real cat. In this schema, 'existence' lies wholly on the side of the real. However, with the idea of the adjacent possible, possibility itself is granted existential status: there are possibilites which are either actual or not, and which themselves can be made actual by changes in the real.
In other words, possibility itself can be thought of as indexed to the real, and is not simply 'prior' to it. All of which is to say that the idea of the adjacent possible forces us to revise the very status of modality as classically conceived. Possibility should not simply be thought of as simply pre-existing the real, as though models stowed in a Platonic locker room simply awaiting their realization, but rather, as themselves emerging from the changing configurations of reality itself. Leibniz had a similar approach to possibility in his understanding of 'incompossibility', as did Kant in his advocacy of a 'transcendental logic', but I'll simply mention them as philosophical precedences to the idea outlined above.
Comments (96)
But where your description does not seem to be accurate, is that the possibility of the smartphone was still there prior to the invention of the microchip, at a lower probability, requiring the invention of the microchip. So "adjacent possibilities" are not brought into existence by the preliminary invention, they always existed before. The preliminary invention makes the "adjacent possibilities" apprehendable to the human mind.
Quoting StreetlightX
I think that you have this backward. Bringing something into existence, creating or inventing something actually limits possibilities because any possibility which is excluded by that invention is now denied. What you describe is that bringing into existence something new, allows human beings to apprehend more possibilities. Those possibilities were there before, but not apprehended, as potential ends which require too many means to be apprehended as ends. Knowledge progresses by limiting possibilities, producing impossibilities. This is the nature of certainty, that which is impossible.
This doesn't make any sense to me. Within modality, to be "possible" simply means to obtain in at least one possible world. Given that "emerging possibilities" obviously reference possible ways realities, this doesn't force any changes in how we conceive of modality.
Really, what the philosopher is likely (and correctly) to say is this. There are possible world's which are closer to some world's than others because certain states for affairs are live possibilities for some worlds and not for others, e.g. "It's possible that Bruce Wayne has red hair" is only accessible from worlds in which Bruce Wayne exists. Modal logics have an accessibility relation.
This "adjacent possibility" idea is basically already part of modern discussions of modality.
Well, to put my cards on the table early, I think the whole attempt to cash out possibility in terms of possible worlds is a giant mistake, and that any analytic metaphysics that takes that route is basically a new scholasticism not deserving of being taken seriously. That said - what I find attractive about the notion of the adjacent possible is that it attempts to take seriously the need to account for the individuation of possibility. It does not take the possible as a 'given', simply waiting in the wings to be actualised, even if as a second-order 'non-live' possibility. In the scientific context in which the concept was elaborated, the adjacent possible is created or brought into being where it simply did not 'exist' before hand even qua possible; In Kauffman's own words:
"The ever changing actual “context” of the biosphere constitutes “enabling constraints” that as enabling constraints “create” the Adjacent space of possibilities into which evolution can become. Then that becoming creates a new specific evolutionary situation or context of actual adaptations that again act as enabling constraints creating ever new, typically unprestatable Adjacent Possible directions for evolution." (source [PDF] ).By contrast, possible world semantics is what I see as 'dogmatic' in the properly pejorative, Kantian sense of the term, insofar as it desperately needs something like a Critique of Pure Possibility. Or to put it otherwise, what I like about the adjacent possible is that it provides what I think is another, far superior, scientifically grounded way of thinking about possibility than the idealist logical toys of modern day analytic metaphysicians.
Possibility depends on actuality..
What is actual changes.
Anything that depends on something that changes, itself changes.
Therefore possibility changes?
What is possible depends on what is actual.
What is actual changes.
Anything that depends on something that changes, itself changes.
Therefore what is possible changes.
Change "change" for "evolve" if you prefer.
I think ''adjacent possible'' is a very important idea. I can picture it slowly but surely eating its way through the walls of impossibility - that ever so frustating limit one, now only supposedly, can not cross.
We can know that making a change expands the range of possibilities of additional change, but we can't really know how that will manifest itself. We've discussed emergence vs. reductionism before. The lesson I took is that reductionism is a one-way trip. We can explain higher levels based on lower ones, but we can't predict higher levels based on lower ones. Doesn't that take the wind out of the adjacent possible's sails?
I don't think this is right. The expanding sphere opens up new possibilities that are not predictable. This shows up every time someone tries to speculate on the world of the future. It's always wrong because the whole system pivots on some little feature no one thought of before or noticed when it happened.
Eh, I can't go that far. Partly, because possible worlds are, as the current history suggests, the impetus behind the resurgence of metaphysics within analytic philosophy. Kripke, that frigging genius, developed it when he was in high school (we should all feel depressed; luckily we can find solace in Kripke's hilariously awful voice).
I mean, even in computer science I basically have to use possible worlds (which in my work I will construe as possible states of a computer), so there's a real boon to using them; I can make recourse to well understood formalisms to make sense (on a logical level) how to describe what I'm doing.
Now of course, there are many semantic & metaphysical views about what possible worlds are that I can't accept or understand (I'm still not sure I understand the position known as "possibilism"), but I don't think I personally would compare them to scholasticism.
Well I guess I just don't see the upshot of that position. Possibilities are individuated in talk of possible worlds. It's just that some possibilities are only accessible given some other possibilities being the case (e.g. the Bruce Wayne being a redhead example I gave).
Quoting StreetlightX
What does it provide that is superior? From the Kauffman quote, he seems to be using essentially the same idea of modality as I'm familiar with:
[quote='Kauffman']that as enabling constraints “create” the Adjacent space of possibilities into which evolution can become. [/quote]
This is exactly what I understand worlds being "more accessible" to other worlds to mean in Possible Worlds Semantics. Certain possibilities open up a space of other possibilities which would otherwise not be adjacent to them, to use Kauffman's terminology.
The discussions we've had about reductionism and emergence in the context of the development of life are my favorites here on the forum. These ideas say profound things about the way our world works. Because of that, they also say profound things about what knowledge and existence are.
But that guy said we all have perfect boyfriends/girlfriends; husbands/wives in some possible world. He even says we can write letters to them? If he's wrong, then I'm a complete loser feeb. That can't possibly be true.
I don't think the OP is pointing out anything particularly deep. Once you fry an egg the raw egg can't be gotten from it. Similarly, you can't make a fried egg sandwich without frying the egg. Obvious check towards @apokrisis here regarding dichotomies and constraints and the arrow of time induced by irreversible processes.
You could of course model that with a poset accessibility relation producing a linearly ordered series of worlds; like a flow chart for making a fried egg sandwich. But...
I read that the difference between the adjacent possibility in the OP and the adjacent possible being the nearest neighbours of an index world in the graph of an accessibility relation is that the possible is internalised to the world. It's the difference between 'this rock falls in some possible world' as a sense of possibility for the rock falling vs 'this rock has the potential energy to fall'. More precisely, the sense of possibility potential energy imbues to the rock vs the sense of possibility of it starting to fall in a nearby possible world.
I think there's also an implication that the potential-sense of possibility for rock falling is logically prior to the possible-world sense of possibility for rock falling, the latter would be said on the basis of the former. Adjacent possibility (potential being constrained by the actual) being the condition for the possibility (lulz) of substantive possibility (contingent truth or falsehood turning on holding in a possible world).
A brief response to this as I'm about to hit the sack: part of what I want to do is suck the explanatory air put of possibility-talk altogether; possibility is what must be accounted for, and is not what ought to do the accounting. @Fdrake is on the money here:
Quoting fdrake
Possible-worlds talk is always ex post facto, what Bergson called the retrograde movement of the true.
Au contrarie, the idea is that the adjacent possible takes the wind out of reductionist sails. The Kauffman paper I linked to is not for nothing titled "Beyond Reductionism Twice".
I downloaded the paper.
I think in that case you're talking about physical possibility, whereas I was referring to metaphysical possibility. And besides, even in that example, I don't see the issue. The actual world is part of the set of possible worlds. So a rock having the potential energy to fall can be said to be possible within that world itself. After all, nearly every accessibility relation of nearly any modal logic will imbue give that relation a the reflexive property; worlds can access themselves.
Reflexivity of the accessibility relation just says that the actual world (whatever that is) is always a possible world (whatever that is). So:
yes of course. The possible worlds of various counterfactual states of the falling rock are generated by how it could fall. Collapsing the sense of that could to simply be worlds which differ counterfactually gives only an extensional definition of the could without the means that the terms in that extensional definition were paired to it.
You could say the same of any possible world, actuality becomes just an indexical property if its sense is equated with the reflexivity of an accessibility relation.
There's a rejoinder I've seen before about a hierarchy of possibility senses:
physical possibility < metaphysical possibility < logical possibility
I think the OP's operating from a perspective from where giving an account of physical possibility is a healthy part of the metaphysics of this world rather than treating 'the metaphysical', whatever that is, as some indeterminate excess of the physical (whatever that is) - with usual examples of 'laws with changed physical constants' or (arguably) p-zombies.
Isn't it more interesting to try to give a good account of how potential and actuality relate as concepts and realities than a deflationary account of both in terms of possible world semantics?
I propose a name for that realm outside the circle of possibility - 'the circle of the fantastic'. It seems to me that myth and fairytale have explored this un-possible world, and civilisation is the process of realising the fantasies, from Mercury's winged Virgin sandals to Thor's intercontinental ballistic hammer. One facebook to rule them all, and in the darkness bind them.
Once an organism masters a particular constructive act, then that opens up some new space of possible things it could construct. So it is about how evolution can get going once there is a source of requisite variety. Once you can make proteins, all sorts of protein based innovation becomes evolvable.
But the ordinary physical world is simpler, less semiotic. It is just a set of historical constraints that have locked in the accidents of the past and shaping the possible range of accidents in the future as the whole world rolls down its thermal gradient as a developing field of meaningless accidents.
So the physical world produces complication rather than complexity. It blindly develops as dissipative structure, where life and mind are about the invention of construction and the new constraint of evolutionary selection that goes with that.
I remember Kauffman pushing the adjacent possible in a quantum context, so he did stray beyond his initial point. But it seemed one his less impressive moves (and generally I really like his stuff). I think it reflects the fact that the Santa Fe brand of complexity lacked the clarity of more semiotic approaches (like Rosen, Salthe and Pattee). DST had the same problem. The dynamicists tended to blur the line to make everything a simple story of constraints and self-organisation. But for life and mind, the fact of memories, codes and algorithms have to be included as the part of the story that doesn’t reduce to the physics.
So the adjacent possible was a weak idea in not highlighting the difference between the increasing negentropic possibilities of complex construction and the diminishing thermal possibilities of simple dissipation.
But a possibility does not need to be predicted, or even to be apprehended in order to exist as a possibility. After it is apprehended it exists as an apprehended possibility. So the "expanding sphere", if this refers to the sphere of what is apprehended, does not open up new possibilities, it just the apprehension of possibilities which were previously not apprehended. And if "expanding sphere" refers to the creation of new physical realities, this does not create new possibilities, they were already there as possibilities which required the expanding sphere in order to be actualized.
Quoting StreetlightX
This is a mistaken idea. The possibility always "existed", it is just one step closer to becoming a reality. Most possibilities require numerous efficient causes to be brought into reality. Each efficient cause which is fulfilled brings the possibility closer to reality. But it is wrong to say that fulfilment of one or another of the efficient causes brings the possibility into existence.
Quoting fdrake
That's the point I made, creating something produces impossibilities, not possibilities. It eliminates the possibilities which the creation of that thing excludes.
That's basically what I said. If worlds couldn't access themselves then they wouldn't be a live possibility... with respect to themselves!
Quoting fdrake
I don't think I equated actuality with reflexivity, I brought that up when I was trying to think of what else you might have meant by "possibility in this world" Besides physical possibility. I think only on a modal realist's account is actuality just an indexical property. Arguably, that is a really attractive view in how to define actuality, though the rest of the theory is a bit... much.
Quoting fdrake
I've often seen this, but I'm always struck by how odd the last two are. Much of the time, metaphysical possibility/necessity are cashed out in terms of logic. That is, X being consistent is necessary and sufficient for being metaphysically possible, being a logical truth is necessary and sufficient for metaphysical necessity, and impossibility is for the contradictions. It makes those two modalities seem to be synonyms. At the risk of bringing this thread too far of course, how do you differentiate metaphysical and logical modalities?
I tend to think of logical modalities as a sort statement about a particular logical formalism, e.g. P & ~P => Q is logically necessary in Classical Logic. Giving them too much metaphysical baggage seems to result in odd questions like, what's the metaphysical analogue of these laws? In the logic, it seems like the rules I establish as valid, and I can do all sorts of manipulations that have no metaphysical equivalent (like deploying a contradiction).
I prefer the more mundane 'impossible'. It interests me too because in political theory there is an approach to understanding proper political action as that which aims to bring about the impossible: that is, to change the very distribution of the possible such that what was once deemed impossible is rendered otherwise through acts of political courage. To demand the impossible: the basic definition of a politics worthy of the name. So another advantage of thinking about the adjacent possible as a ever-moving horizon of possibility.
To come back to this: they really aren't. There's no actual individuation that goes on at all: the whole idea is that possible worlds are a given set out of which the actual world is simply one; as you said, "the actual world is part of the set of possible worlds". But one is hard pressed to come up with a more stupid account of individuation: "well it is possible because it is possible that it is possible (and we've invented some rules regarding this!)". One wants to say to the whole enterprise of modal semantics: fuck off.
But in all seriousness, in the background here is Bergson's critique of possibility: for Bergson, the very idea that there are individual possible entities (whether 'worlds' or events or whathaveyou) is something of a mere grammar mistake. It used to be that to say that something was possible was just to say that it was not impossible. "We can do the thing" (given the current conditions). But then some idiots decided that it'd be a good idea to reify individual possibilities as quasi-substantial entities in-themselves. So where possibility once designated a mere truism ("it is not impossible"), it began to taken on a positive sense which Bergson refers to as "pre-existence under the form of the idea". But for Bergson, this approach to possibility is thoroughly parasitic or derivative of actual things. As he says, there is in fact 'more' in the idea of the possible than there is in the idea of the actual:
"But there is especially the idea that the possible is less than the real, and that, for that reason, the possibility of things precedes their existence. They would thus be representable in advance; they could be thought before being realized. But it is the inverse that is the truth... For the possible is nothing else than the real with, in addition, an act of the mind which casts the image of it back into the past once it comes forth... Just to the extent that reality creates itself, unforeseeable and new, its image reflects itself behind itself into the indefinite past; thus it finds itself to have been possible at all times, and that is why I said that its possibility, which does not precede its reality, will have preceded it once the reality appears. The possible is thus the mirage of the present in the past." (Bergson, Creative Evolution).
So the positive sense of possibilities pre-existing the real is basically a retroactive illusion based on nothing more than a mistake of grammar. The entirety of PWS is bad grammar, and everyone who works on it should go back to elementary school and learn some proper english before engaging in metaphysics. So while it's always 'possible' (not-impossible!) to ratiocinate and say things like "So a rock having the potential energy to fall can be said to be possible within that world itself", the whole recasting of potentiality into possible worlds and accessibility relations is entirely parasitic act that takes for granted the very thing it attempts to account for. (Hence fdrake: "The possible worlds of various counterfactual states of the falling rock are generated by how it could fall').
Quoting MindForged
Yeah, was rephrasing what you said to show we're on the same page.
Quoting MindForged
Do you think that the potential energy the rock we've been talking about has isn't actual - part of this world?
I disagree with Bergson. Flying was dreamed of while it was impossible; seven league boots were dreamed when a horse was the limit of travel. What you want to call the impossible, or the not yet possible is represented in advance. I agree about politics - the only politics worth considering starts with "I have a dream..."
The business of the engineer and the architect is to concoct a realisable dream, to [s]represent[/s] pre-present in plans and specifications the adjacent possible. The business of poets and shamans is to have more foresight and pre-present the impossible.
Clearly it wasn't.
In any case the "dreams of possibilities" have nothing to do with possibility as a modality. One can dream all one likes. To confuse the two is grammatical equivocation.
Mercury, Pegasus, Daedalus, witches... to name but a few. And it's not equivocation; nature is blind to everything but the immediate, but human history simply is the realisation of fantasy under the guise of 'planning'.
Oh is that what it was about? The Sorcerer's Apprentice with his broomstick robots - a warning from mythology.
Fantasy <> possibility. If you want to modalize fantasy, go ahead, but don't pretend it's philosophy.
Yes that's exactly what I'm doing. Fantasy is real in the sense that we really fantasise, and fantasy is efficacious in that it makes possible teleology. One can readily see the real effects of fantasy in the apocalyptic planning that is driving a lot of current politics. Ignore it at your peril, because fantasy burns witches on its way to Jerusalem the Golden.
How would one differentiate the actual from the possible, if the actual is supposed to be one of the possible? Would this be an arbitrary designation?
Quoting StreetlightX
But what's the difference between identifying (individuating) a real (actual) thing and identifying a possible thing? On what principles is the proposition that a real (actual) thing is identifiable, and a possible thing is not identifiable based?
On the other hand, if there is "creative advance" (per Whitehead) then possibilities are not inherent in the beginning, and "present" at every point along the way, but are themselves actualized by emerging conditions. So, actual possibilities evolve, and what is actually possible is ever-changing.
These differences, the ideas of omnipresent possibility (really necessity) and locally emergent possibility seem to be obvious logical concomitant of determinism and indeterminism respectively,so I'm not seeing how the idea of the "adjacent possible" is in any way profound, or new or different then what follows logically from the idea of indeterminism with its inbuilt notion of novel actuality and possibility.
As an aside, the only 'eternal' constraint of possibility on actuality would be what is logically possible. But there seems to be a sense in which this must always be understood 'after the fact', and in any case, it is so general as to be uninteresting.
To identify something is to recognize it as distinct from everything else, which is to assign to it a specific character, and this is to individuate it. "Identification", and "individuation", are two different ways of describing the very same act.
OK, explain how you understand these two terms then.
In the classical (Artistotelian) conception, possibility is constantly being transformed into actuality (by other actualities), and the constant actualization of possibility is used to explain how, on the one hand, being can change, and on the one hand, how the essence/nature (of things) is circumscribed. Both possibility and actuality are real, they exist, and everything latently has its own possibilities (rather than them all being separately stuck in the "Platonic locker room," as you so felicitously put it).
So, any object is actual in one form (in the form we perceive it), but it also has a limited range of other possible forms (that limited range being its particular essence or nature), which can be actualized only by the causal impingement of something else that's actual.
IOW, in the Aristotelian conception, possibility is a third option inbetween being (actuality) and nothing, and being has the two modes of possibility and actuality, its actual way of being here and now, and the range of (possible) actualities it can transform into, which await actualization by other actualities.
One of the cool things about the idea of adjacent possible is precisely that it actually has been already taken up in contexts outside the biological: the author of the article I cited in the OP, Steven Johnson, employed the idea in the context of technological innovation, to great effect (it's also why I used the microchip and the locomotive as examples). I think the idea of the adjacent possible is made particularly clear in the context of biology because it's so concerned with tracing out the evolutionary paths that species take in the movement of historical time, which allows for a particularly clear-eyed approach to questions of modality - but I don't think that really grants it any particular conceptual privilege; just a pedagogic one.
With Hegel, I'd be hesitant to assimilate his thought to this because of there's alot of weird shit going on with the aufhebung ('sublation') which I suspect would take alot of conceptual fiddling about to align just-so, but I'm not quite prepared to do that right now. As for Aristotle - while I think he made a step in the right direction in aligning the potential with matter and thus with the sensible rather than the supra-sensible (as in Plato), he still subordinated potentiality to form (morphe) in a way which I don't think is congruent with the understanding of 'the adjacent possible'. I think there's more resonance in both Leibniz and Kant on this score, although both in their different ways. All of which is to say that I think there's definitely room to think about the idea independently from it's biological roots.
Not to answer for StreetlightX, but to me, modal logic overmines (as per Graham Harman's usage) the concept of possibility when it leaks over into ontology. And because I hold epistemology and ontology to be codetermined, this contamination is pretty much unavoidable.
Modal logic is fine when it serves the exclusive purpose of mapping the behaviour of modal expressions. The problem comes from the seemingly inevitable need to relate Possible World Semantics with ontological observations. Which, to be fair, wasn't (imho) the objective of either Kripke or Lewis.
Individuation is not an "act", or at least it is not an act performed by the subject. Individuation is an objective reality that allows for the subjective act of identification. Differentiation leads to difference, which is individuation. Individuation allows for identification, which gives rise to the idea of identity.
I think the suffix "ation" indicates an act. If this act is not carried out by a subject who individuates something from that thing's environment, then what does carry out this act? An object cannot individuate itself.
Who carries out the acts of precipitation, adaptation, conflagration, (non-human) propagation, prolongation...and so on?
Objects are individuated by constitutional difference as I said before. If there were no individual differences between things we would not be able to differentiate them in the first place, would we?
These examples are irrelevant. We are talking about the act of individuation, what this consists of, not what some other types of acts consist of. That's just changing the subject.
Quoting Janus
The assumed existence of differences does not constitute individuation. The differences must be judged, distinctions must be made, in order that there is individuation. It is the act of judging the differences which creates an individual. This is very evident from the fact that the very same differences can be judged in different ways, therefore the same things individuated in different possible ways. I can look at my lawn as an individual lawn, or I can look at it as individual blades of grass.
This is fundamental to arithmetic. 1 signifies an individual, 2 signifies an individual, 3 signifies an individual. 1, and 1, and 1, are three distinct individuals, but they are said to be equivalent to this individual, 3. The same individual, 3, can be represented in countless different ways, which are all equivalent yet different. These are some of the many possibilities, "5-2", "2+1", "9/3", etc..
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
They all possess said suffix. They are counterexamples to your baseless claim.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
You have it arse about. Individuation is not imposed on a seamless porridge of matter by making distinctions. Any distinction we make could be nothing but arbitrary unless it is due to real differences. It is difference, singularity, which constitutes individuation.
You said "Individuation is not an act, at least...". I said "the suffix "ation" indicates an act". That you can give examples of many "ation" words which are not acts carried out by a subject is irrelevant to whether individuation is or is not an act carried out by a subject.
Do you agree that "individuation" refers to an act? If so, we might proceed to discuss what sort of act it is.
Quoting Janus
As I said, "real differences" does not constitute individuation. A difference between here and there does not mean that here and there are separate individuals. Difference is not individuation. Is individuation an act? Difference is not an act.
What makes you think that a human act of individuation would necessarily be arbitrary? So long as there are reasons for the distinctions which are made, the distinctions are not arbitrary. The reasons for some individuations might even be what you call "real differences". Clearly there are reasons why we individuate the way that we do, so there is no need to invoke arbitrariness.
You haven't provided any argument as to how individuation could be any sort of act other than some sort of act of judgement. It seems quite obvious that you have no such argument. Obviously it is your claim which is baseless.
You said the suffix indicates an act ( presumably an act carried out by a subject); I also presumed that it was the suffix in "individuation" that is the part that you take to indicate such an act. Otherwise if you just want to say that "individuation" indicates such an act; you are begging the question, or merely emphasizing one possible interpretation of the term; an interpretation which is clearly not the predominant one.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
This seems like blatant sophistry, you are morphing the terms of the discussion. Of course here and there are not separate individuals, but two separate individuals cannot both be here in the sense of occupying precisely the same region of space. So the difference involved in spatial location is clearly a necessary element of individuation.
Yes, that's right, but it's certainly not a process that is entirely dependent on humans.
You should interpret as written, without adding your own presumptions.
Quoting Janus
You don't seem to know how to read very well. I use explanatory terms to help you to understand
Quoting Janus
Why would you say it's necessary? Individuation may be based on all sorts of things. Just because difference in location is commonly used as a principle for individuation doesn't mean that it always is, making it a necessary element. Different individuals can be at the same place, at different times.
Further, there are all sorts of instances where individuals overlap in spatial location. My example of a blade of grass, and the lawn, is an example of spatial overlapping of individuals. The earth is an individual, and the solar system is an individual, and they are both right here.
They cannot be at precisely the same place even at different times. In any case it should have been obvious that I was referring to being at the same place at the same time.
Nothing else there to respond to, so....
Yes, individuation is a process which gives existence to an individual. But that process is not the ever changing world, through which things come into being and perish, it is the process whereby human minds determine the boundaries of things. Individuation requires boundaries and the human mind assigns these.
Quoting Janus
Clearly, as my examples show, different individuals are at the same place at the same time, depending on how one individuates. So you're still making baseless claims without substance. You've provided no argument at all, just a failed attempt to back up your claim with examples
More sophistry, MU.
So, you think the world is utterly homogeneous, undifferentiated until the human mind comes along and carves it up? No constraint on the way the mind carves things up from nature at all?
I said that two individuals cannot inhabit precisely the same region of space simultaneously, and you reply with the lame objection that, for example two individuals could be in the place at the same time "depending on how one individuates". What, you mean like two people could be in the same room? As I said this is mere sophistry; but at least its kinda funny... :rofl:
Do you not understand that there are differences, and then there is the recognition of differences? These two are completely different. The latter is referred to as differentiation, and it is a human act. The former is just a general reference to an assumption of something called difference. To differentiate, just like to individuate, is what human beings do. How can you believe that something has differentiated between the differences prior to something like a human being actually differentiating? The existence of difference does not constitute differentiation, but differentiation is to determine a constitutive difference.
Quoting Janus
I guess you forgot to read my other examples? More evidence that you do not read very well. It appears like anytime you can't understand what another has written you declare it as sophistry and pass over it. So instead of understanding that human beings individuate by observing real differences in the world, you insist that if it's human beings which individuate, then they must do it in a random way. But that's complete nonsense, as your entire discourse here has been.
If there is real difference then things are already differentiated. And they are therefore also individuated.
OK, let's assume that there is an act of differentiation which is responsible for real differences as a cause of differences, as you suggest, such that we can say "if there is difference there is already differentiation". Do you agree that this is a different use of "differentiate", with a different meaning, than the way that I used it to describe the act by which human beings differentiate?
Now our subject is "individuation", not "differentiation", and my claim is that human beings individuate through the act of differentiation. So all you have done is produced an argument from equivocation. You have given a different meaning to "differentiation" in an attempt to mislead me.
The logical association between individuation and differentiation requires that we define the words in my way, as human acts, such that the human act of individuation requires the human act of differentiation. You are referring to a different type of differentiation, so your conclusion "they are therefore also individuated" does not follow. It is a conclusion produced by equivocation. You have not established that differences constitute individuals without a human act of individuation. Nor have you established any relationship between differences and individuals. The only relationship between differences and individuals, which we have to go on is the one which I refer to as the human act of individuation.
Furthermore, individuation requires differentiation, but differentiation does not necessitate individuation. Differences do not necessarily constitute different individuals. There can be differences which are not differences of individuals So it is impossible to conclude that if there is differentiation therefore there is individuation, as you do. Therefore your argument is non sequitur in two distinct ways. Clearly it is you who is trying to put forward some sophistry.
If all you are arguing about is the use of the words, then I would say, as i already have, that your use is less in accordance with convention. But, that would not be an interesting argument, anyway. The salient point is that there is real difference, differentiation, individuation or whatever you want to call it, which is independent of the human mind, and which we are pre-cognitively affected by. The further point is that this pre-cognitive difference is prior to identity, which is obviously a cognitive development of this pre-cognitive affection.
Well, clearly differentiation is something completely different from individuation. As I explained to Streetlight, individuation requires boundaries in order that there are separate individuals. A difference between my head and my torso doesn't make these separate individuals. So individuation cannot be reduced to differentiation because individuation requires the assumption of boundaries between the differences to justify the assumption of "individuals" as distinct objects.
This is the issue with the sorites paradox, and its relation to mereological nihilism. Are you familiar with this issue? It doesn't suffice, as a metaphysical principle, to simply assume that objects, as individuals, have existence, this assumption must be justified by demonstrating the real existence of boundaries.
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Why can the head and torso not be considered as individual components or processes of the body? Of course they are not radically separate, but why should that matter? The point is that all differentiation presupposes, consists in, real individual differences. All things, all processes are interconnected in more or less attenuated ways.
All boundaries and interdependencies are "porous", not absolute. But that does not entail that boundaries and interdependencies are merely arbitrary. Using your example, the question is 'What is it that allows and enables you to non-arbitrarily distinguish between your head as a whole and your torso as another whole?
Each, the head, the torso, and the unity, can be considered as individuals. That's my point, individuation is how we judge things. One way of judging might say that the head and torso are not individuals, another might say that they are.
Quoting Janus
I don't know what you would mean by "real individual differences" here. I can see how you would claim that a difference is real, but on what principle would you claim that a difference is individual? When we judge differences we refer to general principles, and these are not particulars or individuals, they are universals. So when we say that the difference between X and Y is as such, this is not an "individual" difference, it is a general type of difference. This is simply how we describe things, in general terms of description.
Quoting Janus
Remember, I keep having to remind you that I am not arguing that individuation is arbitrary. Of course we have reasons for the way that we individuate. So the fact that we individuate, and I think this is indeed a fact, does not mean that individuation is arbitrary.
And, as you yourself say, boundaries are "not absolute", and this allows us to place the boundaries where we see fit. And it is the placing of boundaries which is what individuation is. Since we can place the boundaries where we see fit, we have to ask whether there are any real boundaries other than the ones we place. If there are no boundaries other than the ones we place, then there is no individuation other than what we do.
Every difference is individual insofar as it is not exactly the same as any other difference. So, I argue that differentiation is a real phenomenon; the differentiation of cells in the development of organic beings is an example. To be differentiated just is to be individuated I would say. (Although in some instances for example some fundamental particles) there may be no individual differences, except for the spatio-temporal).
Of course we can say that, for example, the head and torso are not individuals, but rather the body is, and the grounds for saying that would be that the body is an organic unity that depends on both head and torso for its existence. (Although, of course, in the future this may turn out to not be the case).
But then looked at from another perspective the body is not separate from everything else; so we might have a case for claiming that even the body is not really individuated. But again, this holds only if we expect boundaries to be absolute. The fact that boundaries are more or less permeable does not contradict the reality of individuation; a reality which is independent of human judgement, unless our judgements be merely arbitrary.
We should acknowledge, though, that this real differentiation or individuation is virtual, in that it is something that affects us pre-cognitively, and is in fact the basis, for any of our judgements of individuation.
Different means not the same, unlike, and "a difference" is an instance of this. As such, "difference" is a general term, it doesn't refer to an individual thing, nor does it refer to a particular. So there is no means by which we can say that a difference is individual. Nor can we say that any difference is not exactly the same as any other difference, unless they are judged as being different.. That is because "difference" is conceptual, it is a judgement of different. So each difference is essentially the same, in so far as each is an instance of judgement of unlike. The difference between 3 and 5 is the same as the difference between 7 and 9. Each is 2.
And there are many other instances in which two distinct instances of difference can be said to be the same difference. That is simply the way that we judge differences, by comparing them to other instances of difference to see if they are the same difference or a different difference. The same difference cannot be excluded. Temporal differences are another good example. An increment of time is the same difference, but it could occur at any time, thus being a different instance of the same difference. So we have no logical means to conclude that two instances of difference are necessarily not the same. In fact that goes against the definition of what a difference is, and what we actually look for in differences, whether or not they are the same difference.
If no two individuals are the same, by the law of identity, then it is impossible that a difference is an individual, because two instances of difference can be the same difference.
The only differences you can reference which are always exactly the same, such as the numerical differences between pairs of numbers, are conceptual differences. So, you are now changing the subject, since I was taking about actual differences. Actual differences are individual, conceptual differences of course may be general, but this is irrelevant.
The difference between two natural forms, for example, can never be exactly the same as the difference between any other pair of forms. Thus each difference is unique, individual.
why wouldn't it do both? Your claim suggests that ultimately we will run out of possibilities. Unless of course there are an infinite number of possibilities. And if there are an infinite number of possibilities, then new possibilities has no effect on the number of possibilities.
And are not some foreclosed possibilities necessarily less attractive possibilities anyways? If not, then would they be foreclosed. And are not the new possibilities more likely to be a higher level possibilities than those that have been foreclosed? And even if the number of arguably higher level possibilities is fewer than the number of foreclosed lower level possibilities, then do we not have a quality/quantity distinction in which we are still arguably better off with the fewer?
And what about time in addition to probability? If the newly created or now emerged existing possibilities not only more probably, but if they are going to happen, then are now more likely to happen sooner than later?
This is some really great stuff.
The point is that all differences are conceptual. "A difference" is a function of the description. We can attribute difference to the independent world, and assume that there are differences, but if we try to isolate a particular difference we do this through description, and therefore through the use of concepts. So an isolated "particular" or "individual" difference is purely conceptual, like the difference of 2.
Quoting Janus
You have not demonstrated that there are actual differences. That was simply your claim, that there are individual differences, other than conceptual differences. I think that this is nonsense. I think that there is actual difference, in a general sense, but to say that there are actual differences, in the sense of individuated differences, without a mind to individuate those differences, is nonsense. I did not change the subject, I'm just stressing the point that your claim of "actual differences" other than conceptual differences, is just begging the question.
Quoting Janus
Since it is by conception that actual differences are distinguished, then an actual difference is conceptual. What exists in the world, independent from minds is just undifferentiated difference, in a general sense.
Quoting Janus
Again, you are begging the question. You are assuming two distinct natural forms, with a difference between them. But the point I am arguing is that they only exist as distinct forms because a mind has determined a separation between them, individuated them. The "difference between any pair of forms" is nothing but a comparison, a judgement, made by a mind. But prior to even being able to compare them we must individuate them as distinct forms. That is why I am arguing that individuation is based in something other than difference. It is based in the apprehension of boundaries. So you're really barking up the wrong tree with this talk of differences, moving further away from our point of interest, individuation, instead of moving toward it by looking at boundaries. Boundaries are what make individuals real.
Quoting Arne
Yes, it would appear like we would run out of possibilities eventually. That would seem inevitable unless something is creating possibilities. I was talking about acts of human knowledge as limiting possibilities, but it is completely possible that something else in the universe could be creating new possibilities. In this case we wouldn't run out of possibilities.
Quoting Arne
I wouldn't say that the possibilities which are foreclosed are foreclosed because they are less attractive, they are foreclosed because they are made impossible. So if you speak about choosing something attractive, this choice forecloses certain possibilities by making them impossible. Many of these possibilities would not even have been recognized as possibilities. And if they were, they might have been seen as more attractive. But if one recognizes a possibility, and renders it as impossible by choosing something else, this does not make the chosen one a "higher level; possibility". It just means that it was more desirable to the individual, a better goal. Furthermore, I was not arguing that we are "better off" with fewer possibilities, I was just describing the natural course of what knowledgeable acts do, they limit possibilities by making certain things impossible. Whether or not this process renders us "better off" is another issue.
Quoting Arne
My argument was that possibilities do not emerge in this way. New possibilities are not created by us directing our course of action. Such direction merely increases the probability of certain possibilities by transforming other possibilities into impossibilities. When the probability of a possibility is increased, it may go from being an unapprehended possibility to being apprehended, and this would make it seem like the possibility "emerged", but in reality our knowledge just changed so that we could grasp this possibility.
You say there is difference, but no differences; to me that is a nonsensical statement. if there is difference then there is plurality and if there is plurality then there are differences.
Do you know the difference between the general and the particular? It is not the same as the difference between the singular and the plural. To say that there is difference is not to say that there are differences, nor is it to say that there is a difference. Your act of converting the general to the particular, in order to support your claim that there are individuals, is what I called begging the question. It's also a category mistake.
Explain then how there can be difference in general without there being particular differences; the idea makes no sense to me. Also, if there were no actual particular differences then any conceptualized particular difference would be arbitrary.
We're just going around in circles here. Different means unlike, not the same. If we notice that things are unlike, not the same, we say that thing are different then they were. When we know that things are different, we can conclude logically that there is difference. This is difference in general. We know that there is difference, because we notice that things are different. Suppose you enter a room and notice that things are different than the last time you entered that room, but cannot put your finger on the exact difference. We often notice that there is difference without being able to say what the difference is. To say what the difference is, is to justify the claim that there is difference.
To isolate particular differences requires a type of description, memory, comparison, and judgement. Let's say you enter the room and you notice that a chair is in a different place. You have identified a particular difference.
Now, let's remove conscious judgement from the scenario. We have no chair isolated, we have no room isolated, as these, are things identified by me, the conscious agent. Can we assume a universe with time passing? This is to identify a particular thing, the universe, and it is a conscious mind doing that. The existence of particular things, whether they are individuals, or differences, is an act of assumption made by a conscious agent.
We went through the issue of arbitrariness already. The conscious mind has reasons for individuating the way that it does, so the boundaries which it draws in individuation are not strictly arbitrary they are principled. You want to say that the boundaries which the conscious mind draws must be supported by real boundaries or else the drawing of boundaries is arbitrary. But this is not the case. We can produce our boundaries based on any principles which we want, and that does not make them arbitrary, as they are still principled.
All I am saying is that the drawing of boundaries, which constitutes individuation by the human mind, is not based on following naturally occurring boundaries, it is based on other principles. As soon as you recognize this, then you have to reconsider how you approach the issue of naturally occurring boundaries.
Quoting Arne
What I am saying is that Janus assumes the existence of such independent boundaries without justifying this assumption. Janus assumes that there are individuated objects in the world regardless of whether or not they have been individuated by a conscious mind. I argue that it is the mind which individuates, and the assumption of such boundaries, independent of minds, required for independent individuation, is unwarranted.
Take the earth and the sun for example. We say that they are separate, individual things, but where is the boundary between them? Someone might argue that they are both part of one thing, the solar system, and there is no boundary between them. But then what makes the solar system one thing, and not just part of a bigger thing, if we do not apprehend a boundary between it and the universe?
And I agree. And as far as I am concerned, Janus has gone too in even conceding the possible existence of boundaries. People are uncomfortable with the notion of the universe as just a bunch of gray clouds of electrons (let us give them at least a minimal visualization) floating around and bumping into each other.
I am not going around in circles: apparently it is your head that is spinning around in its attempt to find a way out of its morass of inconsistency and nonsense. :rofl:
Why do you assume that I buy into your talk about boundaries? What I am saying is that, logically, it makes no sense to speak of difference without allowing that there are differences, unless we were to posit that there is just one difference, and that makes absolutely no sense.
Imagine a virtual field of fluctuating intensities (that would seem to be the most minimal determinate model we can imagine); unless the intensities of all the fluctuations are exactly the same, then there are individual differences between the fluctuations. In fact no two fluctuations would ever be exactly the same.
Your example with numbers should have alerted you to the fact that although there is the same difference between many pairs of numbers there are also many (infinitely many) different numerical values between sets of numbers, so the infinitely many individual numbers represent infinitely many individual differences.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
This is where you go wrong. You need to explain how there could be actual difference without there being actual differences, unless there be only one actual difference; which, again,is nonsense. Also, you are forgetting that there are no actual generalities, generalities do no exist, they subsist in particulars; so really there is no actual general difference, because it is only individual differences that act, that cause change and that are thus actual. Difference in general can cause nothing in particular to happen. So our positing of differences must be mediated by real (even if virtual and indeterminable by us) differences, not simply by the general idea of difference, or else our determinations are merely arbitrary; and this is the salient point you are apparently failing to grasp.
To put it more succinctly, the question would be whether there are any electrons there, or just clouds, without the human act of individuation, which distinguishes individual electrons.
Quoting Janus
You are the one claiming individuals, and individuation. I know that there cannot be an individual without a boundary which separates it from everything else. If you think that you know of a way that individuals could exist without such a boundary, then please explain.
Quoting Janus
What are you talking about? Intensities of what? Unless you specify what it is which is more or less intense, you're speaking nonsense. You have no example.
Quoting Janus
Sure, there are many different differences, but your claim was that it is impossible for two instances of difference to be the same. My example of number showed that your claim is false. And this is even more evident with time. The difference of five minutes is the same whether it is yesterday, the day before, five years ago, or whenever, it is the same difference.
Quoting Janus
No, I don't need to show any such thing. You are the one claiming that there are individual differences, without a human mind individuating them, so the onus is on you to demonstrate this.
That there is difference between then and now demonstrates the existence of difference. What exists at the two times, then and now, is not the same, therefore there is difference. That is my claim. So my claim is backed up by empirical observation, there is difference. You are claiming that this difference consists of individual differences, which exist without being individuated by a mind. So you need to justify this, demonstrate the truth of this claim. How will you proceed?
Or even clouds.
The differences between any two sets of times may be the same or different in a purely temporal sense. In a material sense no two differences can be the same. Anyway keep up the sophistry, it's a good way to continue failing to find your way out of the bubble of bullshit.
So they are the same difference, just like the difference between 3 and 5, and 7 and 9, is the same difference, 2. I take it you are giving up on your argument that no differences are the same, accepting the reality that this is a false premise.
Quoting Janus
That's nonsense and you know it. You're just making up an arbitrary qualification, "material sense" for the sake of excluding all the difference that are the same. So any example I give you of differences which are the same,, you will insist that they are not material differences, and therefore somehow don't count as differences. Sorry to have to disillusion you, but all differences are formal differences, and "matter" is the underlying thing which remains the same, unchanged, so there is no such thing as a material difference. You're blowing smoke.
Quoting Janus
Ha, ha, thanks for the laugh. You ought to try philosophizing, thinking about what you are saying, rather than just repeating the same boring (and false) assertion over and over again, while rejecting the overwhelming logic against your position as "sophistry".
No, even though you would obviously like to think so. I already admitted that differences can be the same, but only in the general sense. They can also be different in a general sense, as the differences between 1 and 2 and 1 and any other number attest. My main point all along has been that no two material differences can ever be the same.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
And you're full of shit. Give me one example of two materials differences that are the same. I can give you countless examples of materials differences that are different. (Just in case you misunderstand, material differences are differences between sensible phenomena).
There's no such thing as "material difference", that would contradict the concept of "matter". All differences are formal.
Material differences are perceptual differences; they are essential to the recognition of objects. Every human face, for example, is different than every other human face and is different in different ways in each case. The differences are not merely formal. Sure you can generalize and say that 'nose is bigger than the other', and this general difference will obtain between any pair of noses (since no two noses will be precisely the same size) but the precise size differences in each case will be unique to each case. And then you have shape, skin colour, skin texture, nostril size...the list is endless and these are all material differences.
What we perceive are forms, so perceptual differences are formal differences. "Material differences" makes no sense, as matter is by definition that which stays the same, does not change.
Are now agreeing with me though, that differences are a product of perception?
Quoting Janus
Of course the differences are formal, they are differences in form. The subject matter, "the human face" is the same in each case. What differs from one person to another is the form of the face,
Quoting Janus
All these are differences of form, formal differences. As I said, there is no such thing as material difference, this would be contradictory to the concept of matter.
Sure, but there is no separation between form and matter, so they are as much material differences as they are formal differences. Also, when you say that they are formal differences, it makes it sound like you think that the differences are merely conceptual, but they are not; they are perceptual differences that may be conceptualized (and only up to a point at that).
The other point is that, to return to the 'nose' example, differences in skin colour and texture are not perceived as differences in shape, and shape is the usual way that the idea of form is parsed. To anticipate an objection you might say that there is no skin colour without a shape (in this case, the nose) which is coloured, and I would agree with you, but when we perceive differences in colour the shape or form of the coloured areas becomes irrelevant.
This might be contradictory to your concept of matter, but I cannot help it if your concept of matter is inadequate. There is no formless matter or matterless form, so such a dichotomy cannot be metaphysically robust.
The whole point of distinguishing matter from form is to distinguish between that which is responsible for differences, form, and that which is responsible for sameness, matter. If you are just going to deny this distinction, then your use of "material" is meaningless. So either way, your talk of "material differences" is nonsense.
Either you use "material" in the accepted way, in which case it is contradictory to speak of material differences, or you use it in some other, arbitrary way, in which case you are just making up terms to try and support your position. Clearly it is the latter, so I take "material differences" as random nonsense, a term made up to support your position, pure sophistry..
Quoting Janus
If you're not adhering to the accepted concept of matter, then you'd better define your terms, or else your term "material differences" is just random nonsense. Since you've denied a separation between matter and form, it is quite clear that you now have no basis for your category of "material differences", in comparison to other types of differences.. So my examples serve to refute your claim that material differences cannot be the same. I have given you examples of differences which are the same, and your use of "material" doesn't amount to any type categorization of differences.
What do you mean by "perceptual differences"? Aren't these differences which are identified through perception? If these are material differences, then even material difference require a sentient being. So how does this get you anywhere in your argument that differences can exist without a sentient being?
Differences that are perceived, obviously. My idea of matter is not unconventional. Matter is what is perceived. It is not precisely the same idea as 'the physical'. Are you claiming that there is formless matter or matterless form?
How do you deal with colour differences when they are not differences of form?
So if individual differences are perceived, doesn't this require a mind to perceive them? Aren't you just confirming what I've been arguing? The mind individuates these differences in the act of perception.
Quoting Janus
No, matter is not what is perceived. We perceive the form that the matter has, shape, size, colour, etc.. These are properties, qualities. We assume matter as an ontological principle to support the notion that what we perceive is based in something real. To give our perceptions substance, we assume that there is matter underlying, supporting the things we perceive.. So matter is assumed, it is not perceived. If matter were perceived, you would be able to say what it looks like, tastes like, smells like, sounds like, or feels like. But we cannot say this about matter, because we do not perceive its existence, we just assume its existence.
Quoting Janus
No, I'm not saying that.
Quoting Janus
What do you mean? Colour is a property, therefore it is formal. We see colour differences, just like we see differences of shape, and even distances, size. The eyes are very useful, having many capacities, and capable of distinguishing different aspects of the form. Colour is just one aspect of the form of a thing. I think that if anyone tried to deny that differences of colour are differences of form, then that person would have a problem dealing with colour, not vise versa.
Colour is dependent on the nature of a material (and the ambient light), not on the form it has. But then of course you could say the nature of the material is its form. And then we will just go around and around the boring circle of ambiguous definitions again.
Form and material are inseparable, so we must perceive both material and form. The important point is that we recognize individual differences, and if we didn't we would not be able to tell one thing from another. Those differences or individual things that we are all recognizing all the time are not dependent on your mind or my mind, otherwise there would be no shared world unless our minds were connected in some telepathic way.
If you can't see this, then we will have to agree to disagree because I have said as much as I am going to say on it.
That's right, the nature of the material is it's form. That's why there is a difference between different molecules, and different molecules are responsible for different colours. It may appear like a case of going around and around in a boring circle, but really we're just getting to the bottom of this, and that appears to be necessary to rid you of your false beliefs.
Quoting Janus
No, you're wrong here. Matter cannot exist without form, but the logic allows that form can exist without matter. So we cannot say that matter and form are inseparable, because it is quite possible, and the logic supports this, that independent form is prior to matter. When matter comes into existence, it must have a form, but this does not preclude the possibility that the form pre-exists the matter.
When we perceive, what we perceive is the form of the thing. The matter stays with the thing, so we do not perceive it. We perceive a form. Consider seeing an object. We receive a form of the object within our minds, but the matter of the object stays with the object. We perceive a form, but we do not perceive the matter at all.
Quoting Janus
No, the important point, which you are completely missing, is that the "individual differences", are produced within the mind, they are creations of the perceiving mind. The senses are picking up information, data, or whatever you want to call it, they are sensing, and the mind is producing the "individual differences" which you claim are within the thing itself. That there are individual differences is a matter of interpretation.
Quoting Janus
I've explained to you already, numerous times, why this is an unsound argument. All that is required is that the mind has reason for individuating things in the way that it does, there is no need that the things of the world are actually individuated in this way. The mind often works with symbols, and the symbols represent, but the things represented do not have to be similar to the symbols. The mind understands what the word "water" means without the word being anywhere near like what water is. So the mind can individuate things in perception, and use these individuated things to understand reality, without these individuated things which are perceived (representations, images), being anything like the reality which they represent.
Quoting Janus
Well I can't see it because it's an extremely unsound argument. You are arguing that if real things aren't exactly like the mind represents them, then we could not communicate. But it's very obvious that we communicate by representing things with symbols which are nothing like the things which are represented.
So quite clearly we could very well represent the world as differences, and individuals, communicate with each other, and understand each other, and proceed toward a limited understanding of reality, when reality does not even consist of differences and individuals at all. This is evident from the fact that we can represent the world with words, communicate and understand each other, and proceed toward a limited understanding of reality, when the reality which we are describing doesn't even consist of words or anything like words at all. The thing being represented (the world) doesn't have to be anything like the representation (the symbol). So the fact that we represent the world as individual differences and we develop an understanding of the world in this way, does not necessitate that the world consists of individual differences. Otherwise you might as well argue that the world consists of words.
How could the mind have "reasons for individuating things in the way it does" if there were no differences independent of the mind?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
This is nonsensical to me; perceptual differences do not consist in words. Anyway I really think this conversation has run its course. Feel free to have the last word, though. :wink:
We went through this already. The reason is not necessarily difference. There is no difference between here and there, yet we individuate these as different.