A paradox about borders.
China and Pakistan share a border - on this everyone agrees. But the border's rightful location is disputed (untrue since 1963, but just suppose it for the sake of argument) and there is no undisputed portion of it. If China is correct, then the border is in one location, but if Pakistan is correct, then it is in another. So if possibility (A) is true, they share a border, and if possibility (B) is true, they still share one. From this we can conclude that China and Pakistan necessarily share a border.
However, when we make the claim that something exists, it seems evident that we ought to be able to point to that entity, to define it. So if we withhold judgment about which claim is true, then it seems that there is no existent border - it isn't both at once, but could be either one, like a superposition. Without some criteria for favoring one over the other, we are unable to say that any real border exists at all.
This paradox arises out of the ill-defined nature of borders and nations. Are there other things we can apply it to? It might be helpful in rigorously defining concepts.
However, when we make the claim that something exists, it seems evident that we ought to be able to point to that entity, to define it. So if we withhold judgment about which claim is true, then it seems that there is no existent border - it isn't both at once, but could be either one, like a superposition. Without some criteria for favoring one over the other, we are unable to say that any real border exists at all.
This paradox arises out of the ill-defined nature of borders and nations. Are there other things we can apply it to? It might be helpful in rigorously defining concepts.
Comments (56)
A border is a concept that people have and can agree on.
So nearly everyone can agree that there's a border between two countries (where they have to agree there are two countries), with no other territory between them, while disagreeing on just where the border should be considered to be.
What it is for there to be a border is for people to have a particular sort of geopolitical concept in mind. Pointing to it is pointing to that concept, and pointing to its expression, such as statements in almanacs, etc.
It applies to much of what we know or perceive. Some examples - colors, races, languages, motorcycles, species, forests, science, art, mental illness.
Rule of thumb - anything an elephant wouldn't recognize as a thing.
National borders are historically contingent. Surely this is a trivial point, not a profound one. The US was the US before and after the Louisiana purchase. It just had more land. Just as you are still you if you buy your neighbor's property and adjoin it to yours.
Is anything?
Not really,
We might start with saying that a) Beijing is in China, b) Mumbai is in India and c) if there is a route from Beijing to Mumbai where there isn't third country or a sea between the two, there has to be a border between the two countries. That two countries don't agree where exactly this border goes is actually not uncommon in history, yet that doesn't at all refute the existence of the border. We simply will define an area to be disputed, hence there is no paradox. India isn't arguing that Beijing belongs to India and China doesn't hold that Mumbai is in China, hence there has to be a border.
Do notice that my counterargument can be found in mathematical logic too and these kind of problems have left mathematicians scratching their head also.
Yes, real, but (a) they can be more or less fuzzy depending on the point of reference, and (b) there's nothing about them in terms of concepts that's real(/objective).
Re that, by the way, if someone thought that there was no clear/discernible real border for "objects"--for example, maybe they think that everything is really a more or less lumpy continuum (and somehow they thought that there was no intelligible way to parse "borders" for the lumps), they could simply say that there's one real particular--the more or less lumpy continuum.
That's not my view, by the way. It's just a possible view.
Of course. Most things are real in that sense.
An inability to determine the truth of a proposition x doesn't imply that x doesn't have a truth value. We just don't know the truth value. The border exists but we just don't know where it is. If only we could make war, racism, and everything bad disappear by disagreeing.
How would you suppose the geopolitical border exists where we just don't know where it is? What, exactly, do you think the geopolitical border is?
Quoting TheMadFool
Racism is a way of thinking about people. So if racist folks thought differently, racism would disappear.
Likewise, war only obtains via people deciding to engage in particular actions. If people made different decisions, war would cease.
The OP made things disappear simply on the basis of disagreeing. This isn't possible I believe. If we disagreed on matters of taste, which I presume is subjective, that would be different. Borders I hope are objective and disagreeing on it wouldn't make it magically vanish.
When enough people agree on there existing a state, that state and it's borders do exist. Sometimes people have problems in understanding the existence of human institutions and think they wouldn't exist because they are just 'made up', 'invented' or 'agreed upon'.
Are you using "objective" to denote agreement basically?
As I understand it borders are physical. It would simply exist whether we agree or not.
It's not easy to find a picture of what I'm looking for (though it's easy to find in person), so for the pic below, you have to imagine the sign isn't in the frame.
What would you say is the physical border there?
?
Even in my lifetime a lot of borders have been redrawn, one important border that I personally crossed over has vanished after the unification of two states. And where I live there are historical borders in my neighborhood where earlier was the border. A border is a perfect example of an institution, just like the picture above from Terrapin Station shows.
Well, you see that piece of grass, immediately to the right of the sign...? :wink:
Granting that a boundary is not something we merely think, it must be something we see or feel. Yet seeing and feeling are neural processes which means that they are also at least in part mental processes (if the brain is as you say identical with the mind). This leaves me wondering what it is that you think is real and yet wholly non-conceptual about the boundaries of objects.
So for example, material particles have spatial extension, but the spatial extension isn't infinite. The limits of that spatial extension is a boundary.
The same is true of particles in bonds with other particles. There's a spatial extension that isn't infinite.
And the same is true of particles in dynamic motions relative to other particles--for example, where those dynamic motions are dictated primarily by electromagnetic forces. The motions aren't just random and infinite in terms of spatial extension. They only spatially extend over a particular area. The limit of that is the boundary.
Quoting Janus
That's talking about perceiving boundaries, which is different than the boundaries themselves. The boundary of a particle is in no way dependent on us perceiving it.
A ‘border’ aims to signify the moment of four-dimensional change in spacetime from one ‘country’ (as a 3D object) to another. It can be defined only in relation to the experience of others. An exact position of the border in 3D or 2D space remains ‘fuzzy’ until a shared experience can be observed (in relation to another observer), and then measured (in relation to other objects) and marked (on a 2D plane) - in mutual agreement.
At this point in the negotiation, one may wonder why a border needs to be defined in the first place...
So the border signifies a relationship between subjective experiences of a particular four dimensional event.
How do you know that is the case, or even what it would mean? Does it even make sense to speak of fundamental particles having spatial extension?
See for example this: https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://thedutchparadigm.org/13-2/the-standard-model-of-fundamental-particles-and-interactions/point-particles/&ved=2ahUKEwiPm_Du973kAhUIfysKHdklAm4QFjANegQIChAB&usg=AOvVaw28lIcgNBmjbkmQTBoZmarh&cshid=1567833017704
So first, let's clarify that "Are the boundaries (borders) of objects real" and "What is it about the boundaries of objects that is real" are ontological questions.
"How do you know that is the case" is an epistemological question. And "What would it mean" is a question of semiotics or semantics.
Ontological questions don't require epistemology, because, for example, ontology can simply present a possibility, and that possibility can be chosen while discarding other possibilities for a number of reasons including coherence, pragmatism, and so on, where we don't have to be making a knowledge claim to not only present but to also choose an ontological stance. So making sense of an ontological stance, understanding the ontological stance, and choosing an ontological stance do not require epistemology.
When we start addressing the epistemological question as well as the semiotics question, we're doing something different than we were doing in addressing the ontological question.
We can move on to the epistemological question, but before we do, I want to clarify that the ontological stance was understood as a possibility. (And this includes the stance I presented as not my own, but a possible stance where one asserts there are no clear boundaries, yet there's a particular.)
This seems quite wrong-headed to me.
The claim that objects have real boundaries completely independently of our perceptions of them is either an empirical claim or it is not. If it is an empirical claim it must be testable, and if it is testable then it belongs in the realm of epistemology and is thus an epistemic claim. Now it is trivially true that objects are perceived as having boundaries, and thus it is epistemically true that objects have boundaries since that is how we know them. By the same token it is also obviously phenomenologically and semantically true that objects have boundaries.
If you want to make a claim beyond that you are entering the arena of metaphysics, of ontology, but the problem is that it doesn't really make sense to say that we can make metaphysical claims, because in order to qualify as a claim a speculation should be testable, or else merely be a claim in the form of a description of the way we speak coherently about things, but again such claims are just epistemic or semantic.
Of course there is no problem with ontological speculation per se, but such speculations should not be interpreted as stances that can be defended, simply because they are untestable.
Are you (partially) defining empirical claims that way?
Not wholly. (Shouldn't that be obvious?) In other words, I don't want to assume that's your complete definition of "empirical." Maybe it is, but I'm asking if it's at least part of how you'd define "empirical."
Okay, so presumably you'd say that some ontological claims are not empirical claims, right?
I don't know if you realize it or care, by the way, but every post you type to me comes across like you're a complete asshole who is only interested in arguing.
Quoting Terrapin Station
It depends on what you mean by "ontological". Of course ontic claims can be interpreted to be within the epistemological domain in which case they are either testable or semantic (true or false by convention or definition; for example "Sydney is the capital of New South Wales").
Quoting Terrapin Station
Why would say that? I have been nothing but polite and am merely telling where and why I disagree with what you have said. Are you saying that I should not disagree with you or that you should be exempt form supporting claims that you make or that your arguments should not be subjected to fair criticism?
I am open to different ideas, but only if they are supported by convincing arguments.
The standard definition. Ontology is theory/philosophy of existence or being.
So you'd say that all ontological claims are either testable or semantic (i,e, true or false by convention or definition)?
Quoting Janus
Because it's the way you come across. It's an attitude that's projected.
I didn't sat that. Here it is again: Quoting Janus
Whenever you say what something is that can be interpreted as being an ontic claim. For example: 'water is H2O'.
Heidegger makes a distinction between 'ontic' and 'ontological' on just this kind of basis.
Quoting Terrapin Station
So, just a subjective impression then; perhaps driven by your dislike of having your ideas challenged?
Sure. So then you'd agree that some ontological statements aren't either testable or semantic?
Of course, I said as much above:
Quoting Janus
Okay, so why when I'm talking about ontological claims are you reading it as if I'm saying something about them being testable?
Why would you say that?
Is it just an idiosyncratic way you use the word "c!aim"?
(Also, so we're saying that conflating ontology and epistemology is the result of some sort of quibble over the word "claim"?)
So here's one common definition of the word "claim": "state or assert that something is the case, typically without providing evidence or proof."
Can you find a definition of "claim" that says claims must be testable or semantic?
Where does that definition come from?
Oxford dictionary via Google.
Let's return to your original claim that objects have boundaries independently of all human thought and experience. How would you argue for that?
First, you didn't answer what I asked you: can you find a definition of "claim," in a philosophical context, that suggests that claims must be testable or semantic?
The question was about the word "claim."
Quoting Terrapin Station
You introduced the "particle"; originally the argument was about whether objects in general have boundaries independently of our perceptions of them. I want to know how you would argue for that.
(If you won't let this minor quibble over the word 'claim' go, then can you find a definition of "claim," in a philosophical context, that suggests that claims do not need to be testable, semantically true or argued for)?
These borders are well marked but it doesn't make all that much difference:
And thanks for going back to wherever you came from.
lol re adding "support" to your definition of claim now. Anyway, the only reason I was pressing this is because you were stressing it, but the definition you were proposing is idiosyncratic.
The reason you were stressing it was as a diversion from the point I was making.
You had asked:
"Are the boundaries (borders) of objects real, according to you?"
And then you asked:
"What is it about the boundaries of objects that is real according to you?"
I answered both of those questions, which are ontological questions, in some detail.
Then you wanted to switch to talking about epistemology. The epistemological question is a different issue than the ontological questions.
Now that's an interesting question. I know of no reason to subdivide Life, the Universe and Everything, except that it's too much for a human mind to swallow in one bite, so we split it up. This, if accurate and useful, is a good reason to classify borders as an illusion; a human invention. :chin:
So would you say that there's no real edge of a cliff, say? We just invent that, so if we decided to think about it differently/invent it otherwise, we could walk 15 feet further out without falling to our deaths?
The sea shore, a river or a sea does exist physically just like a mountain range. That they are a border between two states is something totally else.
I thought maybe you were talking about borders more broadly, since for whatever reason that's the direction Janus started pursuing.
I don't understand why people sometimes respond like this. If you suggest the possibility that the world our senses show us pictures of ... might not be Objective Reality. That it might not exist in the way we think it does. Then people respond by saying "stand in front of a large lorry, then".
Such responses miss the point and ridicule the point, at the same time. I can only conclude such responders are scared of the idea(s) raised, and just want to run away. :chin:
Anyone care to offer clarification?