RE: SUO: The Story So Far
Pat,
Just some clarifications:
>Ive always wondered how it can be that you are such a
>thoroughgoing 4-d/process enthusiast, and yet at the same time you
>put the occurrent/continuant so prominently into your upper
>onotology: which is why we are even having this extended discussion,
>by the way.
The three distinctions that form my crystal lattice are
intended to illustrate three different kinds:
1. Physical vs. Abstract is a fundamental partitioning that
defines a disjoint partitioning.
2. Independent, Relative, Mediating is a three-way partition
of the way something is characterized, and the same entity
could be characterized in each of the three ways from
different points of view.
3. Continuant vs. Occurrent depends on time scale. It is a
very useful distinction for defining most common everyday
words. But it depends on some choice of "form" or
predicate for characterizing a recurring event type.
I put them all in the same crystal for several reasons:
1. They are all important distinctions that occur in many
different parts of the ontology.
2. They form an attractive illustration of a lattice, which
I contrast with "messier" top levels, such as Cyc.
3. I like it.
>> 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.
>
>OK, but you are now in a minority; most of the pragmatic folk out
>there certainly wouldnt make that identification. (I'm not saying you
>are WRONG, just not on the democratic side, as it were.)
On this point, I am not going to argue very strongly. As I
said above, I believe that identity depends on a conjunction
of many predicates of similarity. Since the process of firing
the clay breaks many of the similarities, I would agree that
for many purposes, the thing is different before and after.
But that just reinforces my point about identity: it largely
depends on your purpose. And that is another issue that
causes both Nicola and Barry to get upset. Barry is trying
very hard to find "purely objective" criteria, and I say that
it's impossible to eliminate the agent from triadic concepts.
>That is a useful way of thinking about it for many purposes, I agree.
>A related observation is that the reason space and time seem so
>different is because we are so incredibly slow compared to the speed
>of light.
An even more important distinction is that you can move back
and forth in space, but not in time. That is the link with
causality.
>As I said, though, the PSL community did not share this intuition.
Another issue is the PSL gang doesn't include causality,
which is what "really" determines the arrow of time.
John