How can pre-existence have a property? — Yohan

The term "nothing" is defined as "that which has no properties". Insofar that pre-existence is not nothing, then it has some properties. Or another way to look at it, if a term is not meaningless, then it has an essence, that is, some essential properties.

How can non-existence BE a property? Do not only things have properties? Non-existence isn't a thing. It refers to an absence of thing. Or rather, it tells you that not anything is being referred to. Like a finger that isn't pointing at anything. — Yohan

Sure, you are correct. "Non-x" is the absence of x. So pre-existence is similar to non-existence in that they both lack the property of existence.

Explain to me how an empty bowl is any way different than a pre-filled bowl. — Yohan

As mentioned above, the essence of a term is found by listing its essential properties. The essence of "empty" can be "absence of being filled". The essence of "pre-filled" is "absence of being filled" + "potential of being filled that will be actualized eventually".

A unicorn and a phoenix are exactly the same while NOT existing. — Yohan

This disagrees with common sense. In real life, neither a unicorn nor a phoenix exist, and yet the definition of a unicorn is different than the definition of a phoenix. The only property (or lack there of) they share is the absence of existence. To use yet another example: A bowl is empty; a bottle is empty; yet a bowl is not identical to a bottle despite both being empty.

So you are saying if you exist again, then you didn't really cease existing prior. — Yohan

Yeah.......no, not at all. If I make a snowball, heave it at the barn wall and it explodes, it has immediately ceased to exist as a snowball. If I gather up all the snow from the former snowball, make another snowball from that, there is then a snowball containing the constituency of the former, but not the identity of it. A snowball exists again; the snowball really does cease to exist. The arrow of time does not allow snowballs in general to exist, cease to exist and exist again as the same thing. This in response to......

If my status could change from pre-existence to existence, then necessarily my status could also change from post-existence to existence — Yohan

......in which the status of you is the snowball. Rather than being thrown against a wall, you just roll over and die, synonymous with post-existence. It is rather unlikely your splatter will be reconstructed such that your status re-emerges, in the same way the snowball was reconstructed, synonymous with changing your status from post-existence to existence. The point being, even if it could, your status would not be equivalent to the status you had as an existence, which is the same as saying your existence status really did cease to exist. And if your status did cease to exist, and some other status emerges, it would be impossible to distinguish whether the re-emergence was a reconstruction from former existence or born anew from non-existence.

It is not necessarily the case status can change from post-existence to existence in the same way as status can change from pre-existence to existence.
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Tautologies are only worthless if they are obvious. — Yohan

Any logical tautology is obvious to a sufficiently discerning mind. Any proposition with no knowledgable content is immediately obvious even to the common understanding. If I walk up to you, stick out my hand and declare, “this is my hand”, you would be excused for exhibiting a puzzled expression.

If everyone was saying some bachelor's are married, and I pointed out that actually nobody who is unmarried is married...it would be a tautology — Yohan

Propositional error: their proposition has married as a predicate, you proposition has unmarried as a predicate. I don’t see tautology as much as I see inconsistency.
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So a seed implies the possibility for a tree. In a sense though the tree already exists in the seed...it's just undeveloped. — Yohan

....which shows very well....

All proofs involve some form of axiomatic circularity — Yohan

....insofar as trees always arise from seeds, but not all seeds give rise to trees, and, insofar as “tree” contains definitive properties sufficient for the conception of it, those properties themselves do not inhere in a seed, which necessarily holds properties of its own such that the conception of “seed” is entirely distinct from the conception of “tree”.

An undeveloped tree is neither tree nor seed.
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You said if all possibilities exist, they are not mere possibilities.
What is a mere possibility? Is a mere possibility something that could be but isn't? — Yohan

A mere possibility is a thought to which a particular conception, out of the myriad of standing conceptions, has not been judged, or cognized, as consistent with it. In the event where the only perception you have is a noise; any individual cause of the noise, is merely a possibility for it. The conception of the actual cause requires either additional perception, or some logical deduction a priori, dependent on the extant experience with noise in general, re: having experience with firecrackers, from the noise you just heard you are justified in the deduction that it is not caused by a firecracker. In such case, you may know what the cause of the noise isn’t, but you cannot deduce what the cause is from that alone.

If all possibilities exist, they are not mere possibilities. This requires the distinction of categories. That which is possible has a distinct separation from that which exists. If this distinction is not granted, the logical argument dissolves. Nonetheless, if a mere possibility is nothing but a thought having no particular conception belonging to it, and if that which exists absolutely must have a conception belonging to it necessarily, in order to be judged as a thing at all, the logical argument stands unaffected. A mere possibility of a thing is very far indeed from the existence of that thing.
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The one does not necessarily follow from the other. While true you didn’t exist at one time, and did at another, doesn’t mean you came from nothing. — Mww

How is switching from non-existence to existence any different from switching between nothing and something? — Yohan

It isn’t, in general. Both require causality. In the case of your existence from non-existence, the causality is given by standard reproductive mechanics. General nothing to something would also have a dedicated causal mechanism specific to its effect, but what that particular mechanism is could not be conceived until the effect, the something, whatever it may be, is known.
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And then how far back can we go? If we go back in time far enough can we get to a place where I didn't exist? — Yohan

Again, human reason always seeks the unconditioned, that which is the irrefutable, absolutely fundamental ground for all thought. Problem is, that involves infinite regress, for any answer promotes the possibility of an underlaying query as to why such should be the case. In the interest of philosophy in general, and apodeictic knowledge in particular, interest is best served by terminating infinite regress in a logically consistent manner. Otherwise, we can claim nothing whatsoever as a ground. Thus, the question how far back in time can you go before getting to a place (in time) where you don’t exist is easily answered by the certainty of regular human reproductive mechanics: no childbirth, no you. Plain and simple and best of all, non-contradictory. The feeling of being dissatisfied with such explanatory simplicity doesn’t negate its effectiveness.

And, with respect to the title of the thread, there is nothing given from the mechanics of your existence, that wouldn’t apply equally well with the metaphysical “I” with which the title is concerned. Because the question “when is there no “me”” is so readily susceptible to an objectively valid response, if one should wish to manufacture a theory to supplant that which is established from experience, he had best be able to justify it with, not equal but greater, explanatory power.
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Seems nobody is getting my points. Oh well, sorry if it's a waste of time. — Yohan

If you’re going to buck established philosophy, you’d better have something interesting with which to do it. As long as your points can be so easily argued, from a strictly dialectical procedure, which in no way is meant as falsification of those points, is a sure sign you need a more substantial presentation.

If I make a snowball, heave it at the barn wall and it explodes, it has immediately ceased to exist as a snowball. If I gather up all the snow from the former snowball, make another snowball from that, there is then a snowball containing the constituency of the former, but not the identity of it. A snowball exists again; the snowball really does cease to exist. The arrow of time does not allow snowballs in general to exist, cease to exist and exist again as the same thing. — Mww

If I may. This is a nice illustration, but how does it demonstrate that the second snowball is not identical to the first one? Let's call your scenario scenario 1. Let's compare with scenario 2, in which the initial snowball was never thrown at the wall, thereby never got destroyed. What is different, property-wise, between the final snowball from scenario 1, and the snowball from scenario 2?

Sure you may, and.....thanks.

The two scenarios are too dissimilar to be compared, aren’t they? In mine, the snowball is built, destroyed and reconstructed. This in juxtaposition to yours, in which you’re standing there with a snowball in your hand. 1.) there is a change of snowballs, 2. ) there is no change in snowballs..

But the question is with respect to whether or not we are justified in claiming all the snowballs are identical. If the primary ground for establishing exact similarity, such that all snowballs may be called identical, is the holding of similar properties, then any snowball as such would be identical to any other. All three may be identified as snowballs, as opposed to, say....chicken coops, but each should have attributed to it an individual identity, re: SB1a, SB1b, SB2.

But wait, he said, with child-like exuberance.....what if the justification for itemizing, re: SB1a, etc., derives from that which is not itself a property? If space and time are nothing but pure intuitions, the necessary conditions under which human experience of objects is at all possible, then this becomes the true source of identity proper, for no two objects can exist simultaneously in the same place. That which is here and now absolutely must have a different identity that that which exists there and then, even if it is conceived as being constituted of the same properties.

‘Course, we could just Sharpie a black stripe on my snowball and your snowball, throw mine against the barn, re-assemble it and see where the stripe is compared to the stripe on yours melting away at rest in your hand. Entropy mandates the probability of re-assembling the destroyed snowball with the stripe intact is vanishingly small, so even the inclusion of markings as a form of common property, in some cases is insufficient for being identical, while still maintaining similarity.

Anyway......it’s all fun to think about.

To be clear, by "identical", I mean not that they are similar, but that they have the same identity, that is, they are one-and-the-same.

With that, two snowballs side by side would not be identical, because even though they share the same properties of material, size, and shape, they are not composed of one-and-the-same matter (ie they have distinct molecules of snow). But when we compare the snowballs in the two hypothetical scenarios previously described, they are then composed of one-and-the-same matter. So it would seem in that case it is correct to call them identical. Granted they have different histories, but this is like two different paths leading to one-and-the-same location.

Instead of ending with admitting I may have misunderstood what you’re trying to say, let me begin with it. If I got it right, the following pertains; if not, please correct me and I’ll go from there.

You’re asking about the initial snowball never thrown, in juxtaposition to the final (re-constructed) snowball initially thrown. This is why I thought the two scenarios too dissimilar: there is no initial snowball never thrown. To have such a snowball never thrown requires two entirely separate events, which has no equivalency at all to the original argument, and which you’ve agreed the two snowballs therein would indeed not be identical because there would have to be “two snowballs side by side”.

But you’re asking from a hypothetical, with respect to one-and-the-same matter constituting the original unthrown and re-constructed final snowballs, as an argument for equivalent identity. But is it exactly the same one-to-one matter? Is it even possible for it to be so? The same kind of matter, sure, but will the gathering of splattered snow material re-constructed, ever perfectly equal the pre-splattered material unthrown, such that the one-and-the-same matter is maintained? And even if it is, we still have to contend with the spacetime non-equivalence, re: can SB1b at t2 have the same identity as SB2 at t1?

Speaking of histories, I’m going to assume you’re familiar with Feynman’s sum over histories, in which he says, paraphrased, if we don’t know which path a particle takes we are permitted to say it takes all possible paths. When you invoke different histories for the snowballs in their taking of different paths, we are permitted to say we don’t know what happens on those paths such that when they end up in one and the same location, something happened to them to make them different from when they split up. We can only be absolutely certain nothing happened if we can be absolutely certain they are exactly identical before and after their different paths, which we’ve already established we cannot.

In short, we should guard against demanding waaayyy too much of our knowledge claims. Conventional human understanding allows the snowballs to be identical and by association have the same identity; proper philosophy, and indeed even physics, will allow no such thing.

I think your understanding of my scenarios is correct. But now I'm thinking the example of snowball is not adequate, for its complexity creates tangents such as spacetime non-equivalence, Feynman’s sum over histories, and other things I don't fully understand but are likely not relevant for the current enquiry.

Let's try again with a simpler example. Consider a stool composed of only 5 parts: 4 legs and a sit. The stool at time t1 is fully built, then deconstructed into its 5 parts at time t2, and then reassembled with its original parts at time t3. The question is: Is stool(t3) identical to stool(t1)? I would say yes, for all the properties are the same (with the exception of time, but time is not really a property of the stool).

Based on the quote below, I understood that your answer would be no. But maybe I misunderstood?

If I make a snowball, heave it at the barn wall and it explodes, it has immediately ceased to exist as a snowball. If I gather up all the snow from the former snowball, make another snowball from that, there is then a snowball containing the constituency of the former, but not the identity of it. A snowball exists again; the snowball really does cease to exist. — Mww

Science is now starting to understand how the nervous system sends 'messages' of a sort to future generations. How my environment affects me epigenetically can affect gene expression in my children and their children, including passing down fears, attractions, etc. It's not just about genetic coding anymore. There is continuity in all things. We are still reacting to the experiences of our ancestors. So yes, you were 'kind of' there before you were conceived. And if you understand the science of prenatal and early childhood brain development, you can understand that continuation into the life you are experiencing now.

It's not just about genetic coding anymore. — Mapping the Medium

Actually, it is. Epigenetics is about genes being ‘turned on/off’ and the cascade effects can lead to all kinds of things.

We’ve known for a long time that plants under different conditions grow differently, and that this affects the offspring. We know that cortisol levels in unborn children make them more prone to anxiety (more often than not). It’s complex, but it’s still just a matter of organisms readying themselves for life in biological genesis (there is a technical term, forgotten it ... ‘transgenerational epigenetic inheritance’ - be careful with the term ‘inheritance’!).

Again, human reason always seeks the unconditioned, that which is the irrefutable, absolutely fundamental ground for all thought. Problem is, that involves infinite regress, for any answer promotes the possibility of an underlaying query as to why such should be the case. — Mww

I agree. To me this idea is accessible and convincing, yet I don't see it come up much on forums.

Thus, the question how far back in time can you go before getting to a place (in time) where you don’t exist is easily answered by the certainty of regular human reproductive mechanics: no childbirth, no you. — Mww

We can also consider linguistic convention, what is typically intended by 'me' or 'you.' One is born. One dies. As far as I can tell, all counter-intuitive theoretical and/or mystical talk is parasitic upon ordinary usage.

Imagine your consciousness disassociating with your body, so that you can observe your body from a distance. From this point of view, "your" body is entirely not self.
The question is, why is this body associated at all with my self?
Why didn't this body become born without my consciousness. Why didn't I remain as nothing when this body came into being.
It would seem I was associated in some way with this body before it came into existence. Or else it would have been born without me. — Yohan

The natural response here seems to be that our networked brains create phenomenal selves that share a language. We learn to use the words 'I' and 'we' and 'consciousness.' Eventually we can imagine our thinking as detachable from our body, probably because our shared language is not dependent on any particular body. Most of our ideas are inherited. If we have fresh ideas, they can survive us. So the detachment of thinking-language from the body has some foundation, but it's hard to make sense of a detachment from all bodies.

That said, I still find consciousness strange when its familiarity temporarily recedes now and then.

Imagine you are an extension of the combination of your mom and dad's DNA. Imagine no soul, or spirit. — Per Chance

That's exactly my position: origin,continuity defines things and people.Where did an apple come from? It didn't come out of nowhere. It grew from the tree. It is a part of tree. It is a tree. A person came from his/her parents. The person is his/her parents. His/her parents are their parents. That shows in nature - in biology books it's written that animals care about two things: their survival and the preservation of their genes(their children). And like that we can go back in generations. And the scientists tell us about the evolution and the big bang. That at the beginning there was a big bang. So we all came from the big bang. So we all are the big bang. So every person is everyone.

There is nothing more I can say here, as I'm apparently not allowed to post links to the science. Enjoy the back and forth that seems to go nowhere.

I'm thinking the example of snowball is not adequate — Samuel Lacrampe

Lest we forget where this current dialectic came from, I submit it is quite adequate for a response to the original proposition......

If my status could change from pre-existence to existence, then necessarily my status could also change from post-existence to existence — Yohan

......in which an argument, via snowballs, is constructed in the attempt to show that any arbitrary status post-existence is indeed very far from that same status in existence prior. If “my status” is taken to mean the metaphysical “I” of the OP, and if the argument via snowballs holds, then the claim the metaphysical “I” is eternal, is successfully falsified, insofar as in one form “my status” is this, and in another form, “my status” absolutely cannot be the same this, but is rather, that. The second form has a status, certainly, just not the same status, which serves as sufficient reason to deny the externality of, not so much “status” as a general condition, but the “status of me” as a particular condition.

The logic grounding the falsification is the distinction between identical to and having the identity of. Granting that the common understanding allows, say, re-constructed snowballs to be claimed as identical to that from which it was re-constructed, merely given the sameness of its properties from which relatively indistinguishable appearances follow, does not grant the proper philosophical understanding the warrant to also grant the original and re-constructed snowballs to have the same identity. And because the subject matter has to do with metaphysical abstracts, philosophical understanding should have the floor, the empirical experiment being simply the ground for showing a logical proof is possible.

As to chairs, the argument would be much the same: the appearance of the re-constructed chair is justified in being claimed as identical to the original chair, merely from the fact the material for both is exactly the same material, but that in itself is not sufficient to justify the claim that it is the chair of singular identity. Say, for example, someone else comes into the room and not having the experience of all that material he sees laying around as having at one time been a chair, but having the experience of chairs in general, puts all that material together properly such that a chair is created, will not have any justification whatsoever in claiming the chair he just made, is the chair from which the pieces came. I mean.....as far as he is permitted to say, those pieces were just delivered from IKEA, and they never had been coalesced into the form of a chair at all.

OK, fine. But now we’ve incorporated different epistemological perspectives, which the original argument does not abide. We can overcome that by simply allowing the guy dissembling the original chair, having been called away for something, to return finding a chair, for all his intents and purposes because of the chair’s appearance, comprised of the pieces he left in a heap a few minutes ago. What right does he have to claim the chair he sees now is the same chair (some chair of singular identity) he took apart before? I submit he has no right at all, for he cannot know that someone didn’t bring in a twin-like chair and removed the pieces left strewn about when he left the room.

As long as these possibilities are logically reasonable, claims with respect to identity cannot be determined by them, which makes explicit the truth of identity cannot arise from appearance, which in their turn arise from properties, which in their turn arise from perceptions, which in their turn arise from empirical conditions, or, which is the same thing, objective reality.
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From all that, just between you and me and the transcendental fencepost, could you now think that your.....

by "identical", I mean not that they are similar, but that they have the same identity, that is, they are one-and-the-same. — Samuel Lacrampe

........may have an internal inconsistency? Because I think there is an internal inconsistency, I will say you are correct in saying....

I understood that your answer would be no. — Samuel Lacrampe

......in as much as, no, the two chairs do not have the same identity, they are not one-and-the-same.

I don't see it come up much on forums. — thing

Nahhhh......discourse on pure a priori metaphysics never was a popular pastime.

As far as I can tell, all counter-intuitive theoretical and/or mystical talk is parasitic upon ordinary usage. — thing

You mean like this:

“....the nervous system sends 'messages' of a sort to future generations....”

(Sigh)

Please refer to the other thread where this is being discussed. It is science, not theory or mysticism.

I don't understand why you are bringing knowledge and perception in a metaphysical topic. A thing is real/not real independent of our knowledge of it. In my hypothetical example of the stools, it is about facts, not perceptions. Let me try one more time to clarify the reasoning.

P1: "Two" things are identical or one-and-the-same if they have all the same properties that make their identity.
P2: Stool(t1) and stool(t3) as described here have all the same properties.
C: Stool(1) and stool(t3) are identical, one-and-the-same.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but my guess is that your objection is with P1. But in which case, what is your definition of "identical"?

I’m ok, thanks. Nothing against your science; I just prefer mine with a little more rational foundation.

It's not psuedo-science. It is mainstream, excepted science. Perhaps someday you'll be ready to accept it.

I don't understand why you are bringing knowledge and perception in a metaphysical topic. — Samuel Lacrampe

Because no metaphysical proposition can be shown to be valid without empirical justification.
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A thing is real/not real independent of our knowledge of it. — Samuel Lacrampe

Then you should be able to tell me about a real thing unknown to you.
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Two" things are identical or one-and-the-same if they have all the same properties that make their identity. — Samuel Lacrampe

Then why are you and I not identical? Are our respective identities really from the properties we have in common?
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what is your definition of "identical"? — Samuel Lacrampe

As I said, I don’t have a problem with identical things, if as you say, they all have the same properties, or empirical predicates. But no two things are identical before there is an identity for one thing to which the second may relate, and no one thing can be assigned an identity before the conditions for it are thought, in the case of ideas, notions and such subjectivities for which there is no particular object belonging to it, or before the conditions of things are perceived, in the case of all else for which there is a phenomenal object of some kind belonging to it necessarily. It follows that if either class has even one incongruent thought (properly conception) or perception (properly intuition), the things cannot be identical, for the simplest of reasons that they cannot have the same identity. Assuming correct judgement, naturally.

Furthermore, whether we grant two things are identical or not, we are given nothing from that, that we can use to establish the identity of just one of them. I can perceive two things which seem identical without knowing what those things are. Therefore, being identical must be different than having an identity. The irreducible ground for identity is of course, A = A, in which a thing is equal only to itself, which carries the implication that any A is equal only to its own self. A rose is a rose is a rose may imply rose A is identical to rose B, but does not imply rose A is equal to rose B.

I can muddy the philosophical pond further if you like: being identical invokes the categories of quantity, quality and modality, whereas identity invokes only the category of relation. The former juxtapositions things to each other as they are perceived, the latter juxtapositions things to us as they are thought.

Anyway.......call enough is enough? If you got more, though, I can keep up.

Direct experience does not reveal an external physical world.
You actually have to assume metaphysical physicalism in order to have the illusion of experiencing an external physical world.

[...] no metaphysical proposition can be shown to be valid without empirical justification. — Mww

If by that you mean the original data must come from empirical observations, then I agree. If you mean that the concluding metaphysical claim must be empirically verifiable, then I disagree. What is metaphysical is not directly observable; it can only be deduced.

Then you should be able to tell me about a real thing unknown to you. — Mww

Of course I can't do that; but I can tell you about a real thing that existed before I knew about it: dinosaurs. My point is that the existence of a thing is not caused by our knowledge of it. So in the stool example, it doesn't matter if a subject does not know if the stool was previously assembled or not.

Then why are you and I not identical? Are our respective identities really from the properties we have in common? — Mww

No; the opposite: our identities are distinct precisely because you and I have different properties. Matter, for one thing: my body is not yours. Then a few other properties I'm sure, like height, weight, etc.

It follows that if either class has even one incongruent thought (properly conception) or perception (properly intuition), the things cannot be identical, for the simplest of reasons that they cannot have the same identity. Assuming correct judgement, naturally. — Mww

I agree with the perception part (assuming true perception), because this informs about a property of the object perceived. But I disagree with the thought part, which I believe you categorized as subjective. Subjectivity by definition refers to the subject of thought, not the object of thought.

Furthermore, whether we grant two things are identical or not, we are given nothing from that, that we can use to establish the identity of just one of them. I can perceive two things which seem identical without knowing what those things are. — Mww

How could that be? As per P1 from this post, "identical" means they have the same identity, which is the list of their properties. It follows that the identity must be known in order to determine if the two things are identical. Could you give an example where we perceive two things which seem identical without knowing what those things are?

”Two" things are identical or one-and-the-same if they have all the same properties that make their identity. — Samuel Lacrampe

our identities are distinct precisely because you and I have different properties. Matter, for one thing: my body is not yours. Then a few other properties I'm sure, like height, weight, etc. — Samuel Lacrampe

So you’re saying our identities are distinct because we have different properties, as in, your height is this and my height is that. Your mass is this my mass is that. You’re right-handed, I’m left-handed. So you have one identity and I have another. If that is true, are identical twins one-and-the-same? Even if their parents couldn’t tell them apart by their properties, is it permissible thereby to say they have the same identity?

I submit that all empirical predicates are properties, without the least regard to the specifications of them. I doubt you think of yourself as “Samuel LaCrampe” just because you are a certain height, because “Samuel LaCrampe“ has been many heights. Therefore, some other condition must determine why we are separately identifiable as particulars in the set of all general instances. Existence in simultaneous time yet different spaces serves as sufficient conditions to distinguish the individuality of our proprietary phenomenal humanity, but still does not condition that which we each assume as a subjective identity specific to ourselves.
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[...] no metaphysical proposition can be shown to be valid without empirical justification.
— Mww
If by that you mean the original data must come from empirical observations, then I agree. If you mean that the concluding metaphysical claim must be empirically verifiable, then I disagree. What is metaphysical is not directly observable; it can only be deduced. — Samuel Lacrampe

What is metaphysical is not directly observable and can only be deduced.....absolutely. That different times are not coexistent but successive as different spaces are not successive but coexistent, is a metaphysical proposition because it is not directly observable, or, in proper philosophical parlance, is a synthetic a priori judgement. In order to justify that claim, however, to demonstrate an objective validity for it, if there should be one at all, there must be empirical observations sustainable from it. Otherwise, it remains rattling around between our ears, not doing anything useful. A metaphysical claim cannot be proven, but only shown to be non-contradictory in keeping with the principles of universality and necessity, consistent with the current state of our understanding. Case in point.....all mathematical propositions. In fact, any a priori metaphysical deduction. A = A, the LNC, the LEM.
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A thing is real/not real independent of our knowledge of it.
— Samuel Lacrampe

......Then you should be able to tell me about a real thing unknown to you.
— Mww

Of course I can't do that; but I can tell you about a real thing that existed before I knew about it — Mww

I was pretty sure that’s what you meant; just wanted to see what you did about it.
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So in the stool example, it doesn't matter if a subject does not know if the stool was previously assembled or not. — Samuel Lacrampe

.....which is why I covered my ass with, “...but having the experience of chairs (stools) in general...”. With that, he knows it is possible the pieces can become a stool if he puts tab A in slot B correctly.
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Subjectivity by definition refers to the subject of thought, not the object of thought. — Samuel Lacrampe

What do you mean by subject of thought? The answer to this is the beginning of the extrapolation of the notion of identity itself, which is what we’ve been stabbing at for days.

I offer subjectivity to be the conscious rational activity of a thinking subject.

The object of thought is a cognition, an empirical cognition grounded in phenomena is an experience, a rational cognition grounded in abstractions is a judgement, all of which requires a thinking subject, that to which those cognitions, without exception, all belong.
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Could you give an example where we perceive two things which seem identical without knowing what those things are? — Samuel Lacrampe

How about perceiving two things that each have 4 legs, wings, and speaks. It is entirely possible for such things to exist, because there is nothing contradictory about them, which makes explicit the possibility of perceiving them. Damned if I would know what they are, but I certainly could perceive and recognize the properties they have. Identical things only means we already have the intuitions representing their properties in us, such that we know what it means to be identical, even if we have yet to give them a name corresponding to the synthesis of those intuitions in that form. We know dogs so we know legs; we know ducks so we know wings, we speak so we know speech. We just haven’t antecedent experience of an instance where all three of those properties co-exist simultaneously. Another example of the distinction between identical to and identity of.

And if that’s a little too far-fetched, the same principles apply to any circumstance where something is first learned.

Ever onward........

Direct experience does not reveal an external physical world. — Yohan

Why wouldn’t it?
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You actually have to assume metaphysical physicalism in order to have the illusion of experiencing an external physical world. — Yohan

What if I don’t want my experience illusory?

Direct experience does not reveal an external physical world.
— Yohan

Why wouldn’t it?
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You actually have to assume metaphysical physicalism in order to have the illusion of experiencing an external physical world.
— Yohan

What if I don’t want my experience illusory? — Mww

I could try to explain my point of view ... But I don't want to argue it.

I figure it's likely you know the basic argument in favor of idealism.

Explain away if you’re so inclined; no argument from me.......promise.

Yes, I favor idealism of a certain sort, along other disciplines. But that doesn’t matter here, cuz I’m not arguing anything. Just listening, even though I might ask a question or two.

If I don't reply to some of your previous paragraphs, it is implied that I agree with them.

[...] are identical twins one-and-the-same? Even if their parents couldn’t tell them apart by their properties, is it permissible thereby to say they have the same identity? — Mww

No; in the sense that I give, "two" things would be identical if they are numerically one. E.g. you say you saw a brown dog at such time and such place, and I say I saw also saw a brown dog at the same time and place, then we conclude that your dog and my dog are identical, that is, we speak of the same dog. In the case of identical twins, "identical" just means that all or most of the properties are similar, yet the twins are numerically two. I'm okay using the term identical in either sense, so long as we are on the same page.

I doubt you think of yourself as “Samuel LaCrampe” just because you are a certain height, because “Samuel LaCrampe“ has been many heights. — Mww

Correct. While I believe that things must have the same identity to be identical, the reverse is not necessarily true. I retain my identity even if I have a few different properties from 2 years ago. The answer, as per Aristotle, lies in the distinction between essential properties and non-essential (or accidental) properties; where if you change non-essential properties, like weight, you retain your identity, but if you change essential properties, like dying, then you lose your identity.

Therefore, some other condition must determine why we are separately identifiable as particulars in the set of all general instances. — Mww

As per Aristotle again, when it comes to things other than persons, the cause of particulars is the matter. E.g. two triangles are numerically two because they are composed of separate atoms. When it comes to persons, I add the soul in addition to matter as the cause of particulars or individuality (but we can leave that can of worms alone).

What do you mean by subject of thought? [...] I offer subjectivity to be the conscious rational activity of a thinking subject. The object of thought is a cognition, an empirical cognition grounded in phenomena is an experience, a rational cognition grounded in abstractions is a judgement, all of which requires a thinking subject, that to which those cognitions, without exception, all belong. — Mww

Ah. So subjectivity means abstract, rational, non-empirical ideas, and objectivity means empirical things, is that more or less correct?

So we are not on the same page on these terms. Here is what I mean. "Object" is the thing observed, thought about. "Subject" is the observer or thinker. E.g. when I think "This apple is round", the object is the apple; the subject is me. From there we get the terms "objective" and "subjective", where a property is objective if it is about the object, and subjective if it is really about the subject. In the previous thought, the property "round" is objective, because roundness is a property of the object. On the other hand, in the thought "This apple is interesting", the property "interesting" is subjective, because it is really saying something about me when I think of the apple, ie, the apple interests me. Objective claims are about reality, and can be true or false, right or wrong. Subjective claims a mere matters of opinions, and cannot be true or false, nor right or wrong.

How about perceiving two things that each have 4 legs, wings, and speaks. It is entirely possible for such things to exist, because there is nothing contradictory about them, which makes explicit the possibility of perceiving them. Damned if I would know what they are [...] — Mww

It sound to me you equate the identity of a thing with its name. In your example, you can describe the things by listing their properties, but then the only thing missing is what they are called, am I correct? A name is only a symbol or sign that points to the identity, but is not it. E.g. say I just learned to speak english, and don't know what the word "bird" means, ie, I don't know what identity it points to. You describe it by saying it is the type of animal that has two legs, a beak, feathers, and can fly. I say "Ah! I get it. We call it 'oiseau' in french." You have described its identity by listing its properties, and now I know it.


Sorry for the long post.

Explain away if you’re so inclined; no argument from me.......promise.

Yes, I favor idealism of a certain sort, along other disciplines. But that doesn’t matter here, cuz I’m not arguing anything. Just listening, even though I might ask a question or two. — Mww

Well, physicalists claim ...correct me if I'm wrong...atoms of light reflect off of atoms in a "world" and those atoms hit our eyes. And the atoms of our eyes trigger atoms that make up "our" brain...and then what? many triggered atoms collectively have a particular atomic activity that corresponds to an "experience of an external physical world"
Did the atoms that make up "your" brain have a direct experience of a physical world?

Maybe I should wait for a response but...another quick point...
At most we could say that our experiences correspond with a world. But no amount of correspondance makes the experience of the real world itself.

Just like if you look at a photograph of the statue of liberty, you have not actually experienced the statue of liberty in its essence. You have only seen an image of the light reflected from it.