Yes, I think this is mostly linguistic too.

It's roughly what Wittgenstein said "Death is not an event in life." We can speak of dying, but not of the exact moment of death or afterwards, since nobody can tells us what happens (if anything, though it is likely similar to what before birth was), aside from very dubious near-death reports.

I'm afraid what you said there at the end makes no grammatical sense: “Socrates died when he was die” — Amalac

I'm sorry for that grammatical goof-up. It slipped past my grammar checker. :smile:

Please note that there has to be a difference between die and dead because if not the word "died" doesn't make any sense. "Died" definitely isn't the same as "die" (tense difference) but it can't be "dead" if "dead" is the same as "die". That would mean the word "died" is meaningless since it isn't "die" and nor is it "dead". What is "died" then? For the moment set this rather interesting puzzle aside and suppose that we had to match the word "died" with either "die" or "dead." My intuition, for what its worth, recommends that I should consider "died" as equivalent with "dead" and definitely not "die". This intuition may need further investigation but that's a topic for another discussion.

Returning to the Sextus Empiricus' paradox, he freely admits that Socrates is either alive or dead. Given that "died" is equivalent to "dead" as we found out in the previous paragraph. Socrates then must've died because he's dead! They're the same thing. :rofl:

Why not this way? Socrates gave up his mortal body, I.e., Socrates died. He now lives on as ghost.
Any ghost hunting by "ghost radar" made possible with advanced use of radiological device. Still the photons that also constitute the ghost of Socrates, not very different from how an air-detection radar works. You can also see photons being emitted from your own body if your buddy directs it at you.

I say Dualism is true yet in a troubled world It's difficult to produce the very public evidence of it! That is, the security for all people involved facing all corrupt monsters in the World!

What is "died" then? — TheMadFool

“Socrates died in 399 BC” has a clear meaning for me, “dying” is something that happened to Socrates, “died” means “ceased to be alive/ ceased to have living functions”.

My intuition, for what its worth, recommends that I should consider "died" as equivalent with "dead" and definitely not "die". This intuition may need further investigation but that's a topic for another discussion. — TheMadFool

“Died” is something that happens to a living thing, it means “ceased to be alive/ ceased to have living functions”.

“Dead” is a state, the state produced by having died, as in “She was found dead in her house”, it's a state just like the state of being unconscious, as in “she was found unconscious in her house”.

Clearly, they don't mean the same thing, and obviously neither mean the same as “die” either.

“Die” is just the present form of the past verb “died”.

Time and space are obviously physical. — Trinidad

Yep and yep. By pointing. By saying now. — Trinidad

"Obviously", "yep", ... It doesn't work this way. This is not a chat place. It's a philosophy forum. You have to present arguments and support what you are saying by reasoning.

@Alkis Piskas I just did.
Brevity is the soul of wit.

Here's another way to look at it:

The concepts alive, living, live, and others that I might've missed belong to the category life

The concepts die, dying, dead belong to the category death

In accordance with Sextus Empiricus, life and death are mutually exclusive categories.

Socrates could've been alive or dead admits Sextus Empericus.

Sextus Empiricus isn't sure whether Socrates died or not.

What does died mean, restricting our choices to the ones Sextus Empiricus himself provides viz. dead or alive? It surely can't be alive because alive belongs to the category life and died is about death. Thus died means dead. We know Socrates is dead and so, necessarily, Socrates died.

Then Sextus is going to say that if Socrates died at point t, and he was already dead at point t (since the state of Socrates at any given point in time is defined by the changes in the previous points in time), that implies he died twice — Amalac

I would reply that his claim of the state of Socrates at any given point in time is defined by the changes in the previous points in time is not possible, since there is no previous point in time. in the entire stretch up to point t but not including it, Socrates was alive, and at point t and after he was dead.

If we were to take the objection by Sextus seriously, we would accept that two different points in time can be side-by-side. But that is not possible.

I would also argue with Sextus that changes are needed to pass from living to dead. There are no changes. They are different states, like on and off. There is no change in the state of "on" for it to go "off". The entire premis by Sextus is impossible to support.

A bad title for a discussion that continued into Wittgenstein and thence to Kripke. Is the mooted standard Metre Rule, the one in Paris from which all others are copied, a metre long? How could you tell - by measuring it against itself? But that's not performing a measurement.

Yep and yep. By pointing. By saying now. — Trinidad

Sorry about the huge delay of my response. I just saw your reply just now.
It was my mistake to ask two questions. You answered the second one only ("Can you locate a point in time or space?"). OK. But what about the first one (which is the most important): "Can you perceive time with any of your senses?" (I have removed "space", so that there are no two questions again!:)

Sorry about the huge delay of my response. I just saw your reply just now. — Alkis Piskas

@Trinidad was banned, so I'm afraid he/she won't be able to respond to your post.

Alive -> Dying -> Dead

Socrates didn't die when he was alive. Check.

Socrates didn't die when he was died. Check.

Socrates died when he was dying. Check.

All good. No paradox. Take that Sextus Empiricus. :lol:

Is the mooted standard Metre Rule, the one in Paris from which all others are copied, a metre long? How could you tell - by measuring it against itself? But that's not performing a measurement. — Banno

I didn't notice this post before, and I confess that I'm a little puzzled as to what you are getting at here. Could you elaborate a bit on how this is related to what Sextus said?

When socrates died, he has already died, so the premise that socrates couldn't have died when he died seems invalid. When someone is already dead, it is not valid to declare, he cannot die.
Invalid argument led to the wrong conclusion.

When socrates died, he has already died, so the premise that socrates couldn't have died when he died seems invalid. — Corvus

A premise can't be valid or invalid, only an argument can. A premise can only be true, false or meaningless.

If you say that premise is false, what's your response to this then?:

nor did he die when he was dead, since he would have died twice. — Sextus Empiricus

When someone is already dead, it is not valid to declare, he cannot die. — Corvus

What do you mean by “not valid” here? I guess you mean illegitimate?

But why isn't it legitimate? Isn't it correct to say that a living thing can only die once? Because the only way someone could die twice would be if they died, then came back to life, and then died again, which is surely impossible right?

A premise can't be valid or invalid, only an argument can. A premise can only be true, false or meaningless.

If you say that premise is false, what's your response to this then?: — Amalac

I see some premises as arguments and some arguments as premises depending on the block of texts in the arguments. The point is that it is not coherent.

What do you mean by “not valid” here? I guess you mean illegitimate?

But why isn't it legitimate? Isn't it correct to say that a living thing can only die once? Because the only way someone could die twice would be if they died, then came back to life, and then died again, which is surely impossible right? — Amalac

Right!! Because a man cannot die twice. When already died, saying the he cannot die, sounds like some tautology or meaningless proposition to make. Not sure about not legitimate - never came across that term in the Logic books.

When already died (I guess you mean dead?), saying the he cannot die, sounds like some tautology or meaningless proposition to make. — Corvus

It's not meaningless (and it's not a tautology either, since it's not logically impossible for someone to come back to life, merely physically impossible as far as we know), the proposition: “When someone is dead, he cannot die (again)” is clearly true, since if someone was dead and then died, he would have died twice, which is impossible.

At least, that seems to be what Sextus is saying.

Not sure about not legitimate - never came across that term in the Logic books. — Corvus

“Not legitimate” as in unreasonable.

It's not meaningless (and it's not a tautology either, since it's not logically impossible for someone to come back to life, merely physically impossible as far as we know), the proposition: “When someone is dead, he cannot die (again)” is clearly true, since if someone was dead and then died, he would have died twice, which is impossible.

At least, that seems to be what Sextus is saying. — Amalac

Yes, I recall some miraculous cases of people coming back to life after pronounced dead. Would it not be the case of mistakenly pronounced death, when the person was just unconscious?

“Not legitimate” as in unreasonable. — Amalac

When someone says, not legitimate, it is usually for birth of child, I used to imagine. I am planning to get a good etymology dictionary soon.