RE: SUO: RE: RE: A proposed SUO content outline
Pat,
Comments below CP>
Regards,
Chris
-----Original Message-----
From: phayes@ai.uwf.edu [mailto:phayes@ai.uwf.edu]
Sent: 03 March 2001 03:46
To: Chris Partridge
Cc: standard-upper-ontology@ieee.org
Subject: RE: SUO: RE: RE: A proposed SUO content outline
>Pat,
>
>You wrote:
>Matthew, I think you could get continuants into a 4-d ontology by
>thinking of them as a certain class of temporal cross-sections of a
>4-d history. Given a history, consider the set of all spacelike (ie
>perpendicular to the time-axis) 'slices' of it: that set always
>exists, and it is 1:1 with the history but not identical to it. For
>histories of continuants, the things in this set will 'be' the
>continuant at the various times in its lifetime (to speak for a
>moment in continuant-talk) ; for other histories they won't, of
>course, but they might still be worth allowing to exist. The
>characteristically 'continuing' nature of continuants, to which those
>wedded to that way of thinking attach so much importance, may be
>phrased in terms of what Nicola calls identity criteria on the things
>in these slice-sets. For example, from the history (lifetime) of a
>person, this would construct the (single) person at each moment in
>that person's life. Each of these would 'be' that (single) person at
>a particular time, so if we were to (re)construct a temporal or modal
>logic by thinking of times - temporally possible worlds - as slices
>through the 4-d universe, then these things would be the (individual)
>continuant in each temporally possible world.
>
>This move would allow a 4-d ontology to accomodate
>continuant/occurrent talk quite naturally, I believe, even though it
>would not be a mapping that those who like that way of talking would
>approve of.
>
>This is a neat way of starting to explain to Perdurantists what
Endurantists
>mean.
>But the problem is that it is a local solution - not a global one.
I think it can be global strategy for finding entities on which both
sides can agree, and which can be used to translate between them (in
both directions).
>It does not even begin to explain why some properties belong to sets of
>time-slices (continuants) - e.g. being human - whereas others belong to
>fusions of these time-slice - e.g. being a human life.
>And why some things can be sliced into time-slices making continuants -
like
>humans - but others cannot - like football matches.
But Chris, now you are revealing your own endurantist prejudices,
seems to me, In Matthew's 4d world , there is nothing here to
explain. There is no distinction between being a human being and
being a human life (except maybe in the sense that the former applies
to timeslices and the latter to entire histories, but that
distinction is easy to characterize). That very way of talking
presumes the endurantist distinction between occurrents and
continuants which the 4-d perspective resoundingly rejects; it is in
direct violation of the principle of spatiotemporal extensionality.
(What one CAN do is distinguish between what might be called
continuant-style vs. occurrent-style history-slicing - spacelike
slicing versus timelike slicing - but that is not a type distinction
between kinds of 4-d entity.)
CP> I was trying to wear an Endurantist hat (rather than displaying a
prejudice) - to assess your proposal. As you point out, the problem is
re-creating the Endurantist world-view in a Perdurantist world. I suspect
the problem is v. difficult. It seems to me that a reconstruction of 3-D in
a 4-D world view (speaking loosely John) needs to reconstruct enough of its
meaning to be recognizable.
CP> Maybe I misunderstood what you were attempting to do. If it is mere
translation between the two then I am not sure what this adds over and above
a direct translation. If it was to explain - to give meaning - it seems to
me that it fails for the original reasons I gave - and that you confirmed.
That in the 4-d world the 3-D 'prejudices' (or meanings) are difficult to
recreate.
To a fully committed 4-d-er, being a continuant is simply an
arbitrary property of some histories. Some histories are histories of
continuants, others are not. Which are, and how can you tell? Only an
endurantist would know for sure. It would be like asking a
witch-doctor for a magic spell; you wouldn't expect to be able to
know the reason; and it doesnt matter, because it has no ontological
consequences in the 4-d framework.
CP> I think that you are backing the wrong horse here. My feeling is that
the continuant-occurrent distinctions that the Endurantist recognizes are
more features of how we determine what things are (rather than what they
are). John Sowa seems to be saying something like this when he says that it
depends upon the way you look at things.
For example, I can make a flicker-book set for a football match
(occurrent), and I can locate things on each 'page' which can be
strung together into smaller flicker-book sets, eg of one of the
players in the match (continuant). I can do *exactly* the same thing
to a flicker-book of me (continuant), and discover, say, a process of
digestion going on in my stomach (occurrent). As I carve up into
finer and finer flickerbooks (or histories) along spatial and
temporal lines, continuants and occurrent come and go, inside one
another like 4-d Russian dolls (a movement (O) of a leukocyte (C) as
blood (C or O?) flows (O) along a vein (C)....). Seems to me that to,
say, a biologist, this rapidly changing philosophical classification
of some pieces into the C and some into the O (and others, just as
interesting, into neither) is all rather irrelevant, and just gets in
the way. It certainly doesnt seem like anything very *basic* or
*important*. And, I might add, once you get into cell biochemistry
(where I am right now in another incarnation), it really does
seriously get in the way. Is a cell membrane a continuant or an
occurrent? It depends on what kind of microscope you are using. Fact
is, it is neither. You can't even classify it securely as either
liquid or solid, or as either permeable or impermeable.
CP> And, I think a central point, some things can be regarded as both
continuants and occurrents at the same time. I do not disagree with this.
All I am saying is that if we want to 'explain' the 3-D view, we need to
give some explanation of why and how we make the distinction - and I do not
see how sets of time-slices does this.
The actual criteria on which we base our everyday classifications of
pieces of the world into enduring objects are many and varied. Some
'objects' are systems in dynamic equilibrium; some are identified by
being inside certain kinds of enclosing barriers; some are identified
spatially, or by reference to behaviors of other systems, or by the
way they reflect light, and so on. This system of individuation is
elaborate and interconnected, and neither 'school' (perdurant or
endurant) either denies its existence or has any magic way of stating
it, so everyone has a lot of work to do. Just insisting on the
presence of a binary distinction doesnt seem to me to be much of a
head start, I must say.
>I think the best lesson this can give us is that it shows that translation
>rather than merging is a better strategy.
>
>And that we need to operate at a global level rather than a local one.
>
>These last two points are, of course, ones that you, Matthew and I have
been
>making for some time.
Agreed.
Pat
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