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.
I apologise for being too ad hominem there. But the 'flickerbook'
proposal didn't claim to be able to *explain* an endurantist position
to a perdurantist, only to be a way to provide a translation between
the frameworks via a 'neutral' concept acceptable to both. There is a
real problem of translation here. On the face of it, endurantists
seem (to a perdurantist) to be talking about things that are
*impossible*. (Continuants endure through time but are wholly
present at each time.... What?? This just doesn't make sense in a 4-d
world. When I first met the idea, from Peter Simons, it took me about
6 months to figure out what he was talking about, and I only managed
it because it was obvious that someone as smart as Peter couldn't be
as crazy as he seemed to be.) On the other hand, the space-time
'worms' that are the basic stuff of a perdurantist ontology seem
utterly unacceptable to a confirmed endurantist (eg read Peter Simons
or Barry Smith on the 4-d "fallacy", an idea they seem to classify on
a par with child pornography and cannibalism). I was only suggesting
a way of thinking which would be acceptable to both sides and provide
a way to translate between them. Mutual explanations are something
else again, requiring a much higher level of analysis and diplomacy,
and I suspect unnecessary.
>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.
I'm not backing either horse (though I find the 4-d perdurantism much
more congenial, personally), Im just trying to create an avenue of
communication; a kind of conceptual interface between the views.
Neither side knows why the other thinks the way it does, and they
will never agree; but if they can both agree about flickerbook sets
(and I think they both can) then they can at least talk to one
another. To an endurantist these things are like a kind of abstract
movie of a continuant through its lifetime; to a perdurantist they
are a set of timeslices through a history. But that's OK: they can
agree to disagree about how to map the flickerbooks into their
respective ontologies, and each walk away shaking their heads in
disbelief. They don't need to understand each other's reasons for
thinking the way they do.
>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.
I think John was making a much larger point which applies to all
ontological distinction of every kind, not just the
continuant/occurrent distinction. It is basically a philosophical
position on the nature of reality, that the structure we see in the
world is but a kind of projection of our ideas on the cosmic flux, or
some such.
>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.
It doesn't, but thats not what it was proposing to do. Actually I
personally have little interest in having the 3-d view 'explained' to
me, as I don't plan to ever use it. (My extended riff about cellular
biology, above, is a sketch of why not.) There will be flickerbooks
that an endurantist won't think are continuant-proper, I realise
that; but that has about as much interest to me as the fact that
there are foods which some of my friends won't eat, for reasons of
their own into which I have learned not to inquire, lest my
ill-concealed amusement gives offence.
Pat
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