Re: SUO: Continuants and Occurrents in 4D
Pat,
I don't believe that the difference between these points of
view is based on the 3D vs. 4D coordinate system. I think the
main problem with Nicola's point of view is his dogmatic view
of identity. He seems to have picked on the term "identity
condition" and made it a cornerstone of his religion.
I had many arguments with Nicola about that. In particular,
I maintained that identity was only well defined for formal
systems, where you could decide identity by fiat. For the
real world, identity is far more difficult to determine than
similarity, and similarity itself is extremely problematical.
If you don't have a formal system, then the only reliable claim
you can make about identity is that everything is identical
with itself. But somehow, Nicola has managed to deny that
as well.
>I like the 4-d but not the idea of 'sense objects'. But you also know
>what Peter, Nicola and others have said about continuants being more
>fundamental than processes.
Re sense objects: I think that W. dropped that term later.
Re continuants more fundamental than processes: That claim
is incompatible with modern physics, chemistry, and biology.
I can imagine that some people might believe it, but I don't
believe that anyone can make a serious case for it.
>For example, Nicola has often said that
>the individuation criteria for a continuant must presuppose other
>continuants; something must 'endure' from one moment to the next in
>order to stitch the flickerbook together into a real continuant. (For
>humans he suggests we might use same-DNA, for example.) One could
>hardly find a clearer summary of the fundamental split involved here
>than to contrast this view with Whitehead's idea of an object as a
>recurring event.
Whitehead, Peirce, and I have a simple answer to what endures:
the laws of physics, which determine certain conservation
principles, such as conservation of energy, momentum, charge,
spin, etc. That is the reason why certain aspects of processes
remain stable from one moment to the next.
Bottom line: What continues are the conserved properties that
are governed by the laws of physics. That is what objects are
made of: conserved elements of processes.
>The point of my flickerbook-set proposal was precisely NOT to
>adjudicate on whether Simons or Whitehead is the more correct
>world-view, but to provide a class of entities that they could both
>agree on, that would provide them a way to communicate about all
>relevant matters of practical fact, without feeling that they were
>admitting to the other's particular ontological reductionism (of
>things to events, or events to things). The idea was not to decide
>who was right, but to provide a way to communicate without fighting.
I am willing to accept different positions on metaphysical
principles such as nominalism, realism, and conceptualism.
I firmly believe in realism, but I can accept formulations
that are stated in nominalistic terms.
However, I can't take any metaphysics seriously when it is
clearly contradicted by physics.
John