RE: SUO: The Story So Far
Pat,
There are several separate issues here:
1. 3D vs. 4D coordinate systems.
2. Role of identity and identity conditions in ontology.
3. Process or object as the more fundamental kind of entity.
It is possible to take different positions on each of these
questions, and of the three, I consider either choice on #1 to
be less of an obstacle to translation than one's choice on
questions #2 and #3.
>Statue = clay makes a kind of sense, in 3-d or 4-d; but it goes
>further than that. Imagine the clay being fired in the kiln, and then
>it is both statue and clay and firing; the thing is identical to the
>event. Many people find that much harder to swallow.
I would say that firing is a larger situation that includes
more than just the statue or the clay. It also includes the
fire, the oven, and surrounding circumstances. So I would not
equate the firing with just the statue or the clay, but I would
say that the entity that is clay-becoming-statue remains the
"same thing" during that process.
>>Yes, that is the point of view that Whitehead would take,
>>it is the point of view that Peirce would take, and it is
>>also the point of view that Aristotle would take. I don't
>>know anybody, except perhaps Nicola, who would seriously
>>consider any other position.
>
>I really doubt that Aristotle thought about 4-d,
The question of the statue or the clay belongs to a class of
issues on which A. did take a position. I don't want to dig
out the exact passages right this minute, but the basic point
is that he did not consider multiple "entities" residing in
the same thing at the same time, but just one thing that was
being described in different ways.
> but others than
>Nicola would include at least Peter Simons and Barry Smith, to name
>two living colleagues. In fact I think that the endurantist view is
>much more common than the perdurantist one.
I would like to hear from them to say exactly what position
they would take on each of the three questions above. And as
I said in other notes, I don't like the terms "endurantist"
or "perdurantist". There are multiple questions involved,
and I would prefer to keep the answers distinct -- or at least
to distinguish 2**3 = 8 positions rather than just 2.
> It seems to be the line
>that people find most immediately compelling, probably since it fits
>very naturally with normal ways of talking. I recall causing a huge
>row on the PSL discussion group a few years ago by claiming that
>there was no real difference beteween a process and an object.
I would say that there is a difference in rate of change,
which enables you to ignore the changes in some with respect
to the others. I would call a glacier an object during
a ski trip, but a process when considered over a period of
centuries. Fundamentally, they are all processes, but when
the difference in rate of change is more than 2 orders of
magnitude, the quantitative difference makes a qualitative
difference.
> (I
>used the example of a ripening tomato, and showed that it fitted the
>PSL process criteria, and was chastised for causing silly
>time-wasting debates, since it was just obvious to all normal people
>that a tomato was NOT a process.)
Every living thing is a process, which unfortunately can be
stopped rather quickly in many cases.
>You know, why don't we all just say, to hell with endurantists? They
>cause no end of trouble. We can run rings around them in any
>technical debate, and in any case they are mostly nerdy academics who
>will never make serious $$ in their entire pathetic scholarly lives,
>so who needs them? The IEEE doesn't even know the difference.
That is why I insist on making the SUO broad enough to include
modern physics as well as "commonsense". I have never been
happy with the term "commonsense" as used in AI. To me, it is
just an odd synonym for that remnant of Aristotelianism that
has passed into the bulk of the English vocabulary.
If we just insist that the SUO must be able to cope with
physics, then the non-process oriented people will have to
cave in.
>>Nobody has ever asked me to pass a "continuant".
>And if you then smash it, grind it under your foot, sweep it up and
>pass them the pile of clay, will they be happy? (Sorry, I couldn't
>resist asking.)
They would be justified in complaining if I smashed it, since
they merely asked me to I pass it. (In my ontology of thematic
roles, moving takes a "theme", but smashing takes a "patient".)
But if I called their prized objet d'art a lump of clay, they
might feel insulted, but they couldn't claim I was making a
semantic error.
John