No need -- just a possible path that I'm laying out to try to understand how I might say the same thing. Since I've already pretty much admitted to not seeing the necessity I'm trying to put forward possible ways I'd agree with the notion instead, but they are just guesses at possible beliefs rather than what I actually believe, and also I'm wondering if it's still too far astray.

What is the relationship between "genetics" and "necessary causal role"? The first is at least a classification of a technical body of knowledge, and the latter is a philosophical notion. That's where I get lost.

I have to confess that I don't really understand what modal identity is. A brief explanation or a reference would help me a lot. — Ludwig V

The salient bit is a subtle argument from Kripke, summarised in the SEP.

(K1) If Hesperus = Phosphorus, then necessarily (Hesperus = Phosphorus)
(K2) Hesperus = Phosphorus
(K3) Necessarily, (Hesperus = Phosphorus)

K1 is invalid. Kripke justifies its occasional use as “by a priori philosophical analysis”... a somewhat ambiguous phrasing. The example from (1971) is that this wooden lectern could not have been made of ice, because then it would not have been this lectern... it would have been a different lectern. The example here is that schopenhauer1 could not have had a different genome, because then he would not be schopenhauer1. So K1 would be

K1 if schopenhauer1 has such-and-such a genome, then necessarily schopenhauer1 has such-and-such a genome.

Notice that this is not an empirical issue; it is an "a priori" commission - "this genome counts as schopenhauer1".

I suspect @schopenhauer1, , too, think they are making an observation, but it doesn't look that way to me. More generally, if folk do not accept that we bring things about using words - that there are commissive utterance - they will have a hard time understanding what is going on here.

I suspect schopenhauer1, ↪wonderer1, too, think they are making an observation, but it doesn't look that way to me. More generally, if folk do not accept that we bring things about using words - that there are commissive utterance - they will have a hard time understanding what is going on here. — Banno

I don't really know what you are imagining here. Of course there are commisive utterances. I don't see what that has to do with this thread.

I don't see what that has to do with this thread. — wonderer1

Yep.

By way of trying, what status, what sort of sentence, do you think the one labeled K1 has? Do you think it an observation? Something that is empirically verifiable?

So all of these ideas seem to be circling around a similar hesitation I had regarding the idea of "conceptual schema" in another thread. What is this, "conceptual schema" other than fiat concept made up by a philosopher. It didn't seem to have its root in empirical sciences. However, as we discussed, it could be some grounds for a scientist to possibly incorporate a version of this idea in various studies. This was done let's say with John Searle's notion of intention and "social facts" and Tomasello's experiments on "joint intention" in animals and toddlers, comparing the two and seeing if other animals say, have the ability to call attention to things such that the other person needs to cooperate, and for something that is not an immediate reward. This was to be a possible evolutionary reasoning for an origin of the function of language in humans.

Anyways, this is indeed extra-scientific as it is dealing with causality, possibility, and identity. These things are not going to be seen in a microscope or shouted at you from the universe in some way through an equation. Rather, it has metaphysical implications as to how possibilities are carried out over physical things, like objects.

And thus, I take a "natural kind", Moliere, to be something that one can break down into some substance. A chair by itself is a concept that depends on one's notion of what a chair does or how the maker intended it to work. That isn't a natural kind. However, a piece of wood from the chair would be of a natural kind as you can analyze its substance to some physical property. But of course, since ideas, and neurons, and concepts ultimately come from some "physical substrate", it can be argued this too is natural. However, now we are going far afield as it turns into the mind/body problem and how the neurochemical configures are the same as "chair", and we have lost the point of this thread.. Because that argument would not matter to the point I am making.. Once "chair" the concept is found to be a "natural kind" in the neurochemistry, let's say, it too would be subject to this theory as well.

Thus, natural kinds, like humans, and the gametes, are of a substance and a causal instance. At that point where the substance is present, that causal-historical point in time, that becomes the point at which that object can be said to carry with it the possibilities of that object. And thus, you the human looking back to see if you could have lived a counterfactual life, can only go back so far before the very possibility that brought about this person of this substance was no longer even a possibility to begin with. I identified this at the point of conception.

I'll try again from another direction. When you say that schopenhauer1 necessarily has genome G, are you making a discovery about how things are, or are you telling us how you intend to use the name "schopenhauer1"?

Ah, I see, thanks for clarifying. I am I guess, "making a discovery about how things are", that is, as it relates to persons and the range of possibilities of those persons.

If schopenhuaer1 is a biological organism, then he necessarily has the genome he has. This would seem to be an empirical fact about all organisms.

, , So have you looked into every possible universe and seen that all the schopenhauer1's have the same genome?

Or is it rather that you have specified that any posited schopenhauer1 with a different genome is not a schopenhauer1?

On what grounds would any entity in some imagined universe count as being schopenhauer1?

By way of trying, what status, what sort of sentence, do you think the one labeled K1 has? Do you think it an observation? Something that is empirically verifiable? — Banno

It is a sentence you came up with. It is a simplistic assertion. No, it is not an observation. As it stands it is too vague to be empirically verifiable.

Anyway, I've never taken much of an interest in the details of language that you are interested in, and undoubtedly I'm not going to be very good at playing guess what Banno is thinking on subjects such as this.

Do you consider being scientifically informed an aspect of being well educated? I seem to get mixed messages on that subject from you.

On what grounds would any entity in some imagined universe count as being schopenhauer1? — Janus

Yes, that's what I'm asking you.

Too far off point. If you won't play neither will I. It's not an observation; so in what way could it be considered empirical?

Because I'm suggesting it is not empirical, but a choice about how you would use the name "schopenhauer1".

Yes, that's what I'm asking you. — Banno

Okay, well I'll rephrase the question: on what grounds, other than sharing the same genome, would any entity in an imagined universe count as being schopenhauer1?

So have you looked into every possible universe and seen that all the schopenhauer1's have the same genome?

Or is it rather that you have specified that any posited schopenhauer1 with a different genome is not a schopenhauer1? — Banno

The second one, but you have simplified it too much as I also explained the causal-historical aspect of it (which accounts for twins, etc.). It also depends on how we are using "genome", but for the sake of argument, I'll say the second.

Cool. That's closer to Kripke than to Lewis. I think this the best way for you to defend your account. I wasn't expecting you to take that option.

I don't quite agree, but it's now a fairly trivial point. If someone were to ask "What if schopenhauer1 had had a different genetics", your answer is that the question cannot be asked, that a schopenhauer1 with a different genetics is a different being, not a schopenhauer1, but something else which still might have the name "schopenhauer1".

I'd say that the question can be sensibly asked, and that if it is, it is a question about schopenhauer1.

Thus.

It's not an observation; so in what way could it be considered empirical? — Banno

It alludes to reasonable expectations we could have based on a wide range of empirical observations which have been made regardless of not in itself stating an empirical observation.

Because I'm suggesting it is not empirical, but a choice about how you would use the name "schopenhauer1". — Banno

Well it certainly isn't a choice about how I personally would use the name "schopenhauer1". I use the name " schopenhauer1" to refer to some dude on the internet I have a fairly fuzzy concept of, though I am quite confident that he has a fairly unique genome.

Cool. That's closer to Kripke than to Lewis. I think this the best way for you to defend your account. I wasn't expecting you to take that option. — Banno

:up:

I don't quite agree, but it's now a fairly trivial point. If someone were to ask "What if schopenhauer1 had had a different genetics", your answer is that the question cannot be asked, that a schopenhauer1 with a different genetics is a different being, not a schopenhauer1, but something else which still might have the name "schopenhauer1". I'd say that the question can be sensibly asked, and that if it is it is a question about schopenhauer1. — Banno

Yes correct. I just want to add that the genetics is part of the equation but the causal-historical aspect of that instance also is part of the equation. I can see by way of saying something like "instance" that this might confuse the situation. But all that means is that I acknowledge that it is possible for there to be duplicate combinations of a set of genomes (like twins or clones). This is why I say that there is another aspect to it. But I can see the possible confusion with something like, "This instance of schopenhauer1 is schopenhauer1 in this world as that is to that world, etc." and that is not what I mean.

Yeah. My only purpose here was to try to make the nuance clear.

Yeah. My only purpose here was to try to make the nuance clear. — Banno

:up: cool.

It alludes to reasonable expectations we could have based on a wide range of empirical observations which have been made regardless of not in itself stating an empirical observation. — wonderer1

Hand waving. Are you saying it is an induction, like "all swans are black"? If not, what?

Hand waving. Are you saying it is an induction, like "all swans are black"? If not, what? — Banno

As I said, it is a sentence of your creation. It seems to allude to inductions that are frequently made these days, but I don't see any need to pigeonhole your sentence as you seem interested in.

My only purpose here was to try to make the nuance clear. — Banno

Pointing out nuances has been one of my purposes in this thread as well, for example my pointing out tetragametic chimeras earlier.

In 2002, after applying for government assistance in the state of Washington, Lydia Fairchild was told that her two children were not a genetic match with her and that therefore, biologically, she could not be their mother. Researchers later determined that the genetic mismatch was due to chimerism, a condition in which two genetically distinct cell lines are present in one body. The state accused Fairchild of fraud and filed a lawsuit against her. Following evidence from another case of chimerism documented in The New England Journal of Medicine in a woman named Karen Keegan, Fairchild was able to secure legal counsel and establish evidence of her biological maternity. A cervical swab eventually revealed Fairchild’s second distinct cell line, showing that she had not genetically matched her children because she was a chimera. Fairchild’s case was one of the first public accounts of chimerism and has been used as an example in subsequent discussions about the validity and reliability of DNA evidence in legal proceedings within the United States.

https://embryo.asu.edu/pages/case-lydia-fairchild-and-her-chimerism-2002

Fine.

Since you offer no significant alternative, I'll repeat that it is a commissive, a choice about the use of "schopenhauer1" specifying that "any posited schopenhauer1 with a different genome is not a schopenhauer1". That

(schopenhauer1 has genome G) ⊃ ☐(schopenhauer1 has genome G)

and so is of the form Kripke discuses.

I am familiar with that case. What do you see as its relevance?

It is an example of how it can be simplistic to talk in terms of necessity regarding genetics.

Meh.

For me here I think it gets hazy because since in my example everything is completely identical except for this gamete part, it seems to me I could plausibly say they are the same person.

At the same time, I do see the causal intuition. But then again, in this context, I am inclined to ask what makes the causal-historico thing impart this you-ness in a way which is not just kind of arbitrary labelling. And I don't think that I can give myself a good response of what it is that is being imparted by the historico-causal connection.

As I mentioned in another poster, the closest I can find is some kind of intuitive notion that in this world, the lights of my consciousness are switched on, while in that world they are switched off. But I don't think that is well founded at all or gives some good criteria in terms of identity either.

For me here I think it gets hazy because since in my example everything is completely identical except for this gamete part, it seems to me I could plausibly say they are the same person. — Apustimelogist

Speaking of identity, I can with a high degree of confidence say that you are the same person as "Srap Tasmaner". Care to verify or falsify my intuition? :nerd:

on what grounds, other than sharing the same genome, would any entity in an imagined universe count as being schopenhauer1? — Janus

Taking "imaginary" to mean "possible"...

Simply by specifying the identity. That's how counterfactuals are usually understood: "Janus might have been wearing green shoes" is about Janus, in a possible world in which Janus is wearing green shoes.

No mention of genome.
But this has been explained to you previously.

It's not that I've not previously understood this, but that I see little philosophical significance in it. This modal notion of possibility, counterfactuality, is merely in the realm of fiction; tells us nothing significant about anything other than how we are can imagine stuff.

"Janus might have been wearing red shoes"—how many Januses are there in the world, and how do we know which Janus is being referred to, or even whether Janus is a real, or merely fictional, character?