And this coming from you who can never deal with the notion of vagueness, or emergent temporality, or finality that is not prior to what it calls to, or prime matter that is not already substantial. — apokrisis

It only demonstrates that unlike you, I am capable of adopting a different perspective. But also unlike you, I will not even consider a logically impossible perspective. You claim the primacy of a relativity induced vagueness, denying the logical priority of the relata. But a relation can only follow from the existence of the relata, so relativity cannot bring us to the primal condition. Therefore you proceed from a logically impossible position, and your emergent temporality is purely fiction.

I think I definitely agree with you that the advertising industry does attempt to exploit people psychologically.
I never thought about it as an important issue for some reason.
I mean I can't imagine what could be done to regulate that sort of thing? — m-theory

The bigger issue is the way that the advertising industry (along with its psychological abuse) is integrated into the entertainment industry as a whole, such that the entire entertainment industry can now be said to exploit people psychologically. It is very rare to find pure entertainment, entertainment for the sake of entertaining, as entertainment is overwhelmingly produced for the sake of making money. Now if we add the dimension of psychological exploitation, which comes along with this commercial activity, we can understand how entertainment is becoming more and more a source of psychological distress, which is opposed to its true purpose, or true use, which is as a source of relief from such stresses. There is something very unhealthy to be found in the way that the news media has become unified with the entertainment media.

Thus Becoming is 1/Being. It is whatever it is that would be the least possible when it comes to the complementary "thing" of being. Beyond that, talk about becoming becomes meaningless because it has snapped the connecting thread and left us talking merely about a singular and contextless one again. Which is - technically speaking - unintelligible. — apokrisis

This is exactly the problem which StreetlightX is trying to bring to your attention. You have transformed "becoming" into a form of "being", and in doing such you leave real "becoming" aside, claiming it's unintelligible so there is no point in guiding the mind toward that direction.

I think the primacy of relation is exactly what becoming gets at. — TheWillowOfDarkness

The point though, is that if "becoming" is to be conceived of as primary, it is necessary to lose this idea of becoming as relation. It is logically impossible that relations are primary. I think this is probably what Deleuze is getting at when he says that we must get rid of the idea of becoming as proceeding from here to there, because this necessitates a start which is prior to becoming. As The Great Whatever says "...relations still have relata..", so if becoming is necessarily relation, then the primacy of becoming is an impossibility.

I don't really understand the rhetorical strategy. If the point is that you want to think about becoming without recourse to substances, moving to relations doesn't seem to do that, since relations still have relata which are thought of as 'terms' – there's just more than one of them. So there's nothing intrinsically 'taller than' about Peter, but there is something intrinsically 'taller than' about the dyad <Peter, Paul>. Increasing the number of substances by one doesn't seem to change anything.

If anything you'd think you'd want to look at a zero-place predicate like 'rain' as a model, but even here, I 'm not sure what this accomplishes. — The Great Whatever

Notice, the op, how StreetlightX says relations "belong" to becoming, "if relation is the domain of becoming", relation "implies" becoming. This, I believe, is what Deleuze is trying to lead us away from, the idea that a "becoming" is necessarily a relation, toward the idea that a relation is necessarily a becoming. What we need to do is to see relations as examples of becoming, but make becoming the broader term, such that all relations are necessarily becomings (necessitated by the nature of time), but not all becomings are necessarily relations. This allows that there is (logically) a first becoming, with nothing prior to it. Then we are left to look at the nature of the relation without the relata. What type of thing, exactly is a relation, and how could it exist prior to the things being related, such that the relation only gains real physical existence when there are things which are being related?

What indication do you have that Augustine engaged in sex with more than one woman? This is certainly not mentioned in the Confessions, but it is certainly plausible. His grief was certainly not directed towards his promiscuity but rather towards his attitude of lust towards his partner. Given his struggle and his later evaluation of monogamy, I highly doubt that he engaged in sex with more than one woman. — Agustino

I think it was after he quit Manichaeism, and before he became a committed Christian, I believe when he was in Milan, he got involved in a Platonic commune. You know that Augustine had a very strong sexual appetite don't you? He spoke of that a few times.

Augustine didn't actually fuck prostitutes. He fucked bitches though >:O - more specifically only one bitch got that honour - and many times at that :P — Agustino

I believe Augustine was, for a while, a member of a Platonic commune, so men and women were not limited to exclusive sex partners, and children were children of the commune rather than children of specific parents.

Not necessarily prior, since identity is a relation. — aletheist

According to Aristotle's principle of identity, identity is not a relation. A thing is itself. That is its identity, its very self.

I reserve "upset" for a sort of distressed emotional state (not necessary a strong emotional state, but a distressed emotional state nonetheless). I'd have to guess that you don't reserve "upset" for that, because clearly, most people are not in distressed emotional states upon watching commercials. So I have to wonder just how you use "upset." — Terrapin Station

I would say that when there is produced within a person, the feeling of need, when that apprehended need has no rational basis, this constitutes a distressed emotional state. This would be comparable to an addiction which is not recognized by the addict as an addiction. There is a distressed emotional state which is not recognized for what it is.

As I said, defining the world in terms of relations is a useful thought exercise, but when you try to produce absolutes, fundamental principles, from relations (becoming) you render the world unintelligible, as you have demonstrated in your example.

Very good, you've demonstrated the point nicely. There is a veritable futility in describing the world in terms of relations (becoming). It produces the unintelligibility of infinite regress. Once this is fully grasped, we can move on toward describing the world in terms of being, "what is".

There's no reason to believe that you are though. Again there's no reason to believe that o be thing is primary over anither. — Terrapin Station

You don't see a reason to believe that your parents are prior (primary) to yourself?

What interests me, that is not being considered there, is not the effectiveness of advertising, in terms of how many people buy deodorant or vote for candidate X. Rather it is that whether anyone buys or not, each and every advert is designed to upset, and does upset. — unenlightened

That is, of course, the new trend in advertising. Instead of just providing the information, what is available and at what price, advertising has moved toward convincing you that you "need" X. When there is no rational need for that need, the "upset" produces that need through irrational means.

If you're worried about historical "coming into existence" positing something as primary doesn't solve anything. You still have the problem of that thing coming into existence or you need to posit it as always existing. — Terrapin Station

Correct, but you are one step along, in the long process of understanding. Learning is an extremely long process. Finding out that I came from my parents is just one step in determining where I came from. But it wouldn't make sense to say that, because I still must learn where my parents came from, there is no point in learning that I came from my parents.

When two distinct things, separable in analysis, are believed to be co-dependent, i.e. one is not prior to the other, then an infinite regress of existence of those two things is implied, rendering their existence unintelligible, unless we refer to a third thing, which is the cause of those two things coming into existence in their co-dependence. That third thing would then be prior to the two.

So the issue I brought, is how can becoming be primary, or prior, if it is a relation, and if a relation requires necessarily, things (beings) which are related?

Perhaps a relation is not necessarily a becoming, but a becoming is necessarily a relation.

To properly understand this, one needs to turn to the question of relation, which is inseparable from the question of becoming. This is because relations, like becoming, always stand outside the identity of any one thing. For example, while the predicate 'blue' might belong to the subject 'sky', the relation "taller than" does not necessarily 'belong' to the subject Peter. Peter might be taller than Paul, but shorter than Mary. In this case, "taller than" does not properly 'belong' to the concept of Peter (there is nothing 'intrinsically' "taller than" about Peter). The relation stands outside of it's terms. — StreetlightX

This is the foundation of relativity theory, which itself is fundamental to modern physics. Motion is not the property of an object, it is the relation between objects. In physics, this get's extended into the concept of energy, so that energy, strictly speaking, cannot be claimed to be the property of any particular object.

Becoming is a particularly hard thought to think. So hard, in fact, that at almost every point is it subordinated instead to 'Being'. This is particularly the case when becoming is thought of as simply another word for 'change'. But to think becoming as change is to more or less forget the specificity of becoming altogether. Why? Because to assert the primacy of becoming is precisely to assert what we might call becoming without terms. — StreetlightX

To assert the primacy of becoming may be a useful thought experiment to help one separate the concepts which are based in becoming, from the concepts based in being, but ultimately, to maintain and assert this, in an absolute sense, I believe, is to render the world unintelligible. Simply stated, this is because we must establish the existence of things first, before we can establish a relationship between things. So an understanding of things (being) is necessarily prior to an understanding of relations between things (becoming). To propose primacy of the relation, as a premise, is to propose an illogical, or self-contradicting premise, which if excepted will render the world as unintelligible.

As evidence, you will see this in the unintelligibility of apokrisis' metaphysics, with symmetry-breaking claimed as fundamental, but no approach to the symmetry itself, which logically must be prior to symmetry-breaking. All philosophies which claim the primacy of becoming (process philosophy) face this problem. The process ontologist must either accept that the universe is fundamentally unintelligible, or do as Whitehead does, and insert unintelligible aspects (e.g. prehension, concrescence) into the universe, in order to bring the universe into intelligibility. To propose that the universe is fundamentally unintelligible, I would argue, is expressly unphilosophical. So this "primacy of becoming" may be a useful exercise, to aid in understanding what is really the case, but I believe it is a dead end philosophy because it is unacceptable as an ontology.

How does Deleuze deal with this problem?

We are concerned about meaning (the meaning of death for example) - always seeking something - but the animals seek nothing, they are at peace in the moment - despite their awareness of the transience of life. — Agustino

Do you really believe this, that animals are at peace in the moment, seeking nothing? I conclude that you haven't spent much time observing animals. The only ones at peace, seeking nothing, are those animals bred, born, and raised for human consumption, like cattle being fattened for slaughter, we feed them into complacency.

It's the same thing for "that particular chair" at time T1 and T2. That functions as a type term in that situation. It's one term ranging over more than one particular from a logical identity perspective. — Terrapin Station

Well that's a different way of looking at it, but it's clearly wrong. And by wrong I mean it's not representative of what is really the case, it's false. When I see two different chairs, I recognize that they are two distinct objects, but "similar", and class them together, each one as a chair. But when I see the temporal continuity of a single chair, I claim that it exists as "the same" chair.

So it is not the case that "that particular chair" at T1 and T2 functions as a type term, because this is not what is claimed in the use of that term. What is claimed, i.e. intended, and therefore meant, by this statement, is that it is the very same thing, not that there are two instances of the same type of thing. So you only misrepresent what is meant, by saying that it functions as a type term. It doesn't, the purpose is to indicate one and the same item, not two distinct but similar items.

It makes a difference whether it meets the necessary and sufficient conditions for counting as "that particular chair" to the individual in question. That's all this is about--whether it meets an individual's criteria for bestowal of the name "that chair." — Terrapin Station

My claim is that it doesn't meet any criteria at all. I look at the chair, I stare at it, and after a few minutes I say that it is still the same chair. I am not counting its legs, memorizing its shape, or any such thing, I am only watching it exist in time. If it were the same chair by virtue of it meeting some necessary and sufficient conditions, then it would be the act of determining it as the same chair which makes it the same chair. But the claim here is that it is the same chair by virtue of its continued existence in time, not by virtue of this being recognized by me or any one else. This is how we claim an independent, objective reality, things exist as the things which they are, without needing a judgement as to whether or not they meet the necessary and sufficient conditions for being the things that they are. There is no need for the object to meet any necessary and sufficient conditions for it to exist as the object which it is. When I assume that the chair is the same chair, I do this without referring to necessary and sufficient conditions.

But that's what I'm answering! What makes it the same chair is simply whether we (individually) consider it the same chair per our concepts. In other words, in my view, that's all there is to this. — Terrapin Station

Oh, sorry, I was mislead by this:
"it's a matter of how an individual partitions their concepts with respect to the necessary and sufficient criteria to call some x (some particular existent) an F (some type/universal name)."

See, I'm not referring to some type, or universal name, I'm referring to the name of a particular. This is a particular entity which has been named "the chair". It makes no difference whether the entity fulfills any necessary conditions for being a chair, "the chair" is just the name that we've attached to this thing which appears to be an object because it appears to have temporal duration.

When we assign a name to an object, something which appears to have been remaining the same for a period of time, why do you think that this is "per our concepts"? There is no conceptualizing here, we just notice something which appear to remain consistent, and we assign a name to it. And, as we've been discussing, we really know that it doesn't remain the same in an absolute sense, so we know that it is illogical to name it in this way, as if it is the same, so if anything, this is contrary to conceptualizing.

I don't feel as if I live in a possible world, should I? — mcdoodle

Unless you're quite certain of what a world is, why shouldn't you feel like the thing which you call a world is really a possible world? This is what you say in the op:

...I wondered if I could first define 'world' for myself, so the concept didn't slide out of control.

Well, that didn't work... — mcdoodle

If you do not know what a world is, how could you ever know whether or not you live in a world? So if it feels like you live in a world, why would you think that this is anything other than a possible world?

The other way to look at it is what you're calling "common language." Per my views, what's going on there is what I described above: it's a matter of how an individual partitions their concepts with respect to the necessary and sufficient criteria to call some x (some particular existent) an F (some type/universal name). There aren't correct or incorrect answers in this realm. — Terrapin Station

But I'm not talking about the necessary and sufficient conditions for calling some existent an F. I'm asking you if the existent continues to be the same existent through a duration of time, despite some minor changes to it. I'm not talking about whether we should call the item a chair or not, I'm talking about whether the thing which has been called a chair continues to be the same chair even after the upholstery gets torn, or even some minor molecular change which is imperceptible to us.

Logic says that it is not "the same" chair, but common language use says that it is the same chair. I have driven the same car for years despite the fact that it's starting to fall apart. I am asking you which one do you believe. I am not asking about the necessary and sufficient conditions for calling some x an F, I am asking about the conditions for identifying a thing as being the same thing, one unique thing with temporal duration.

Unless one endorses substance pluralism, wouldn’t everything then hold the material identity of A? This then would make individuality indiscernible. — javra

Yes I believe that may be the case, but it just demonstrates that dualism is necessary in order to properly understand the existence of individual entities.

Is it due to disagreement that you’ve bypassed my argument for identity resulting, in part, from purpose/functionality? — javra

I have to admit that I didn't understand your argument for identity from purpose.

I’ll provide another example. Take something organic like the flower of a fruiting plant. We could give it any other name but it will still be that which it is. At which point in the bud phase does it become a flower? And, how many petals must wilt off before it ceases to be a flower? My argument is that it is a flower between a young bud and before the beginnings of it being a fruit (if pollinated and if of a fruiting plant) due to its functions/purpose as a flower. This both conceptually and physically. — javra

I don't see this as an argument for identity, I see it as a way of defining a term. You say that an object must fulfill certain conditions before it can be called a flower, so this is to define what it means to be a flower. But I understand the act of identifying to be the inverse of this. Rather than saying what it means to be a flower (that is defining rather than identifying), we take a particular object and say what the object is, that is identifying.

Again I don’t maintain that purpose is the only element to identity; rather that it is an integral element of identity among others. — javra

I definitely see your point, that purpose is an important thing to consider when identifying objects, especially in some instances, as many things, especially tools are defined by their purpose. But what I am getting at here is what constitutes an object having an identity. If we cannot determine how it is that an object actually has an identity, then all of our efforts to identify are subjective, grounded in arbitrary designations. So from my perspective, why do you think that your definition of "flower" is more "real", or states more precisely what a flower really is than another definition? If objects don't have a real identity which is proper to themselves, how is our naming of them anything more than arbitrary?

My opinion is that you should start by nullifying the presupposition that there is an actual world. From this perspective anything spoken is taken as a possibility. Statements which are consistent with each other, not logically exclusive, may co-exist as "truths" within a given possible world. Statements which are logically exclusive (contradictory for example) are exiled to separate possible worlds. If one desires to produce "the actual world", then conditions, criteria, are stipulated upon which a given possible world is said to be the actual world. Therefore I think your question would be better stated as "what is the actual world", as any logically consistent description is a possible world, but what is unknown is what makes a given possible world the actual world.

My view is that re (a)--logical identity, that is, it's incorrect to say that something is logically identical at two different times. You agreed with this earlier.

Re (b)--which is basicallty how someone uses/thinks about concepts, on my view, it is not correct or incorrect to say that something is the same x. — Terrapin Station

Ok, so if I understand, it is illogical to say that the chair now is the "same" chair as it was yesterday. And it makes no difference whether someone sat and watched the chair for that entire time period to make sure that it wasn't switched, the fact is that imperceptible changes occurred, so logically the chair is no longer the same chair.

Let me rephrase the question, because you seem to be avoiding it. We say that the chair is the same chair. That's common, acceptable use of language. So, what logic tells us, and what common language use tells us, are two distinct things, which are directly opposed. Logic says that it is not the same chair, common language use says that it is the same chair. I've asked you which do you think is correct, and you first replied that you believe that the logic is correct, and it is really not the same chair. But when I described to you the consequences of this assumption, (that it is not the same chair), you switched back, to try and say that somehow it neither correct nor incorrect. So what I am asking, is what do you truly believe? Do you think that the logic is telling us what is really the case, or do you think that common language is telling us what is really the case. If you think that it is neither, then perhaps you could outline some resolution which is not actually a disguised version of one or the other.

Let me remind you of the consequences of the logical assumption that it is not the same chair. If it is not the same chair, we must provide for the conclusion that at every moment of change, an old chair is being removed and being replaced by a new chair. I'm ready to accept this, after all, the old chair is always disappearing into the past, all we need to do is find out where the new chair comes from. Are you ready to accept this, or do you think that the logic, which says that it is not the same chair, is wrong, and common language use, which says that it is the same chair, is right?

This one touches upon an important issue. When we say there is a unique ket for each physical state, we are saying that the relation between physical states and kets is a 'function', as that word is technically understood in mathematics. That means that any physical state can only have one associated ket. It does not, however mean that two different physical states cannot have the same ket, and that's where your point about complete descriptions comes in. For any two different states to necessarily have different kets would imply that the ket is a complete description of the physical state. The postulates of QM do not claim that the ket is a complete description. Claims of completeness or otherwise of the kets are either interpretations of QM, or part of theories that seek to extend QM. They are not part of core QM. — andrewk

I think I understand what you say here, the ket describes the state of the system in such a way which allows that two distinct states have the very same ket. Therefore the ket cannot be a complete description of the state. To make an example in a very general way, the apple and the orange may both be represented by the same mathematical symbol (1), but this does not mean that these two things are the same, it means that the mathematical way of describing them, as each being one, is an incomplete description.

I didn't completely grasp all of your question, but I answered it as best I could. Let me know if I left anything out. — andrewk

The other issue I was trying to bring to your attention is the nature of the time-energy uncertainty relation. Some may say that this uncertainty relation is just a form of expression of the Heisenberg uncertainty, but it is impossible that these are the same uncertainty because time and energy are not canonically conjugate variables.

Time cannot be brought into the ket in the same way as the other variables, so it becomes a parameter. I believe that this is because time, t, is not an observable, and any relation between t and an observable is the relation of a function. I understand that Von Neumann wanted to make time an operator, most likely to maintain consistency with relativity. Apparently he tried having a t for each particle of the system, and also tried a designated t particle, to no avail. Consequently, field mathematics was utilized instead, to account for this difficulty with t. But field theory produces what I believe to be absurd conclusions, such as symmetries and anti-matter.

So the question is what is the relationship between these two distinct uncertainties, the time-energy uncertainty, and the Heisenberg uncertainty. Where exactly do these uncertainties lie, concealed within the mathematics, and what happens when they are brought to bear upon each other? The Heisenberg uncertainty is well documented and I assume the best expression of it is found in the Schrodinger equation. I assume that the time-energy uncertainty must be concealed within field theory. There's a Soviet paper, by Mandelshtam and Tamm, (Journal of Physics, vol. 9 no. 4, 1945), entitled "The uncertainty relation between energy and time in non relativistic quantum mechanics" which is quite descriptive. Also, there's a paper I haven't yet read, by D. A. Arbatsky (2006) entitled "The certainty principle". If you have the time, see if you can evaluate the mathematics of this "certainty principle". Intuitively, I feel that there is a mistake in Arbatsky's claim that the Heisenberg uncertainty is more fundamental than the time-energy uncertainty, and this might result in the falsification of Arbatsky's claim that the certainty principle is more fundamental than the uncertainty principle. but this may depend on one's approach (one's prior assumptions).

Suppose Theseus takes his ship (ship A) and uses its material to build himself a cabin. It’s the same material but no longer a ship, so the identity of that addressed has changed. A week following, Theseus changes his mind and uses the same material, now a cabin, to rebuild the same ship he had before (ship B). It becomes Theseus’s ship again. Complexities could ensue as regards identity, but to the extent ship A and ship B are the same ship (as would uphold someone off for the month in which it was rebuilt in to a cabin and back), it would be the same ship for what reason? Neither due to logical nor material identity—the latter, on its own, would make the cabin identical to the ship. — javra

I think you're falling for the same mistake here. You're calling it a "ship", and a "cabin", while "ship" and "cabin" have particular formal connotations. The point is that we just name the material "A". Then the material continues to just be "A" no matter which form it has, the ship, the cabin, or the other ship, it is always just A. It's when the name "ship" for example has a meaning, which we conform to, to believe that the material must have a specific form to be a ship, that there is a problem. So consider that there is no particular form which constitutes a ship. We point to the item and say "that is Theseus' ship". Then even when it's taken to make a cabin it is still Theseus' ship, as long as we point to it and identify it, and when it is rebuilt, it is still Theseus' ship. The problem is when we think that the name is more than just a name, when we think that the name must refer to a particular type of thing. But this is not indicated in the so-called paradox. The item is just named as a ship, but it is not indicated that any item must have a particular form to be called a ship.

The real problem with material identity is in deciding what does and does not constitute the material of the entity. So if a part is taken off, and replaced by a new part, or just if a new part is added, what determines how the old part ceases to be, or the new part becomes, part of the material entity? Like when you eat, and defecate, how is it possible that you gain material, and lose material, yet you maintain the same material identity. So "change" is like a coin, we look at it from two sides, form, and matter, but both sides give us difficulty.

.

Ontologically it's not. I already specified a reason for this--all of the molecules that make up the chair (and all of the atoms that make up all of those molecules, and all of the electrons in those atoms, and so on) are constantly in motion, constantly changing relations with respect to each other, and so on. — Terrapin Station

Actually, I think ontologically the chair is mostly the same. All those molecules you refer to are still the same molecules, that they change some relations with each other over time, is really a minor factor.

No one is claiming anything like that. — Terrapin Station

Well, either it's correct to say that it is the same chair, or it's not. You say that it is not. That means that the old chair must be replaced by a new chair. If you do not think that the old chair is replaced by a new chair, why not just accept that it's the same chair, as most normal people do? Clearly it is perfectly acceptable to say that it is the same chair with minor changes. Why do you need to insist that it's not the same chair, while not being prepared to follow through with the logical consequences of this claim? Those consequences are that the old chair must be replaced with a new chair if it does not continue to be the same chair.

Which do you prefer? Is it really the same chair, despite going through some changes, or is the old chair replaced with a new chair each time it changes, such that it's really not the same chair?



.

There's only (a) logical identity, and (b) whether we call something "the same x" by virtue of the necessary and sufficient conditions we construct via our concepts. There is no other sort of identity on my view. Re (a) it's not the same chair. Re (b) it can be, depending on your conceptual abstractions relative to the chair. — Terrapin Station

OK, so you deny that the chair which I sit in this morning is the same chair that I sat in last night. Of course that is contrary to the way we speak, and if it were true, or at least believed to be true by the majority of people, and held as true by the legal system, it would make ownership of objects impossible. The car that you bought yesterday is not the same car that is in the parking lot right now, so who exactly owns that car?

But let's put that issue aside, and assume that what you state is true. I believe that it could be the case, what you say, and our common affirmation that the object is "the same" object, is just done for convenience, and not a proper representation of what is real. But here's the problem I have with this position.

Let's say that every moment tiny parts of the chair change, but the majority of the chair appears to remain the same, unchanged. We are denying that it is the same chair from one moment to the next, because of those changes. Changes have occurred, therefore it cannot be the same chair. Why is it then, that the majority of the chair stays the same? We are claiming that the old chair is taken right out of existence, and replaced with a new chair at each moment of change. How is it that the new chair appears to be identical to the old chair? There are just minute, imperceptible changes.

Of course, some process has to manufacture a new chair at each moment, to replace each old chair which goes out of existence at each moment. So that process which is constantly manufacturing new chairs to replace the old chairs must be following some kind of design, in order that each new chair comes out looking like the old chair. Don't you think? How can we account for the existence of this design, which the manufacturing process must be following every time that it produces a new chair to replace the old chair? Where does that design exist, and what kind of machine is following that design in manufacturing a new chair at each moment?

My own argument would be that, as with the Ship of Theseus problem, the parts of the chair can change but as long as the whole, the gestalt, remains unchanged in form and/or functionality, it remains the same chair. Darn it though, this gets into issues of identity and change. ... But I too am an curious to see what Terrapin has to say. — javra

The Ship of Theseus problem takes the two distinct forms of identity, logical identity as claimed by Terrapin, and material identity as stated by Aristotle, and creates ambiguity between them. The appearance of a paradox is the result of this ambiguity. We have a named item, The Ship of Theseus, which is pointed to, and the temporal continuity of that item provides identity. This is identity according to the Aristotelian notion, material identity, it allows that parts can change, and the temporal continuity of the item is the identity of that item. If we maintain this identity, it doesn't matter how many parts are exchanged, or how many times they are changed, the named object is always pointed to, through time, it is always that named object, and there is no problem.

But if we allow formal identity, logical identity to enter the picture, then the named item, The Ship of Theseus, has a specific description, a definition, of what that item is. Then if the pointed to item ever ceases to fulfill the conditions of that definition, it is no longer the named item. In the so-called paradox, it is implied that the named item has a formal definition, but none is provided. If one were provided then we'd have a standard by which we could say whether or not the named item fulfills the conditions of the definition. Since none is provided, we must assume that the named item really has no formal definition, and it will always continue to be that named item no matter what changes occur. So the appearance of a paradox is created by implying that the named item has a formal definition when it really does not.

1. To any possible state of a system (collection of particles) there corresponds a unique set of information about it, called a 'quantum state', which is uniquely represented by a mathematical object called a 'ket' which is part of a collection of such objects, called a 'Hilbert Space'. [Later on, this is generalised so that kets are replaced by operators, in order to allow for non-pure states, but we won't worry about that here] — andrewk

Here's a question concerning this postulate, perhaps you can find an answer for me. Refer to the time-energy uncertainty which I mentioned at the end of my other post, and is described at the end of Shankar's ch. 9. If this uncertainty is excluded from the ket which represents the quantum state (as I believe it is, if I understand correctly), how is the ket said to be the "unique" representation? And how is the set of information which is said to be the quantum state, "unique"? I ask this because some at tpf claim that this unique set of information, and unique representation constitutes a complete description of the state.

But since this time-energy uncertainty is excluded, and time is made to be a parameter rather than a dynamical variable, as Shankar says, then it follows that there is some uncertainty with respect to the quantity of energy within the system. Accordingly, I would conclude that the ket which represents the quantum state, and even the conceived "quantum state" itself, is not a complete representation of the system, and probably not even an accurate representation of the system.

Thanks Andrewk for the clear explanation. I'm going to dwell on that for a bit, but I think we speak two different languages, you mathematics, me English. I don't think one is completely translatable into the other, there are roadblocks, things that just don't translate.

It's not logically identical to the chair it was yesterday because it's not the same in every detail, in every aspect. That it's worn a bit is part of it. It's molecules have also shifted position in countless ways, it's lost and gained molecules, and so on. — Terrapin Station

I'm not asking if you think that the chair today is logically identical to the chair it was yesterday. In fact, I described it as being somewhat different, for the very reason that you would know that I wasn't asking you this. What I was asking you, is if you think it is still the same chair as it was yesterday. This is Aristotle's principle of identity, it allows that a thing can change, and therefore be not logically identical to the thing which it was before, yet still be the same thing. What he said is that a thing is identical to itself. This means that a thing's identity is according to the thing that it is, not according to a statement of what the thing is. So it doesn't matter that a thing is changing, it continues to be the thing that it is by virtue of being the thing that it is, not by virtue of what it is, because precisely what it is is always changing, while the thing continues to be the same thing.

Whether there's any "continuity of existence" depends on whether you mean by that that the chair is logically identical at T1 and T2. If so, then there's no "continuity of existence." This doesn't imply that the chair at T2 has no connection to the chair at T1. They're developmentally, causally, continuously related. — Terrapin Station

Why don't you just confirm what we all know, and commonly say, that the chair at T2 is the same chair as the chair at T1, instead of some convoluted statement ("they're developmentally, causally, continuously related)? By saying "they're related", you imply that the chair at T1 and the chair at T2 are two different chairs. But they're not really two different chairs are they? No, they are the same chair at two different times. It's just the natural effect of passing time (what you call change), that the very same thing will not be logically identical at two different times. How could they be logically identical if the passing of time is change? But this doesn't mean that it's not the same thing, just because it's changed.

Please read the exchange more carefully. I was saying that this is what Terrapin Station's view entails, not that it is my own view. — aletheist

But Terrapin was arguing for an active present, "changes are occurring" at the present. It was only you who brought up the laws of non-contradiction and excluded middle. As I mentioned earlier, Aristotle demonstrated why change, "becoming" as it is commonly called, requires an exception to the law of excluded middle, in order to maintain the law of non-contradiction, and some form of intelligibility. Terrapin has opted for that exception to the law of excluded middle by describing the present as "changes occurring". So your insistence on these logical laws is not representative of Terrapin's position at all.

Good luck on that John. If you read the earlier posts, I already went through that very issue with Terrapin Station. I do believe we'll be at the third time around the circle soon.

You might remember from other discussions (although not with you) that I don't buy identity through time. In my view saying that the same thing persists through time is just a convenient abstraction--convenient because it's far easier to think and talk about things that way than as if we just have changing-but-developmentally-related things from moment to moment. — Terrapin Station

So do you think that my chair is not the same chair that it was yesterday because it's gotten a bit worn from me sitting on it? Are you saying that there is no continuity of existence of this entity, the chair, it's just convenient for talking about things, but there's no real continuity of that entity, the chair? That seems rather absurd to me. Do you think that at every moment of passing time, when a molecule, or even an electron of the chair changes, the hand of God is actually replacing the chair which was there, with a completely new chair? Is this what you believe, entities are continuously being replaced with a new entity at each passing moment?

On my view, time IS change, so it makes no sense to say that "there is no time for (a) change to have occurred." — Terrapin Station

Correct, but Terrapin Station defines time as the series of changes itself, so of course he holds that there is no time in between. He explains this by claiming that the changes are contiguous, while I do not see how they can be anything but discrete (in his model). — aletheist

I haven't been able to make any sense of Terrapin's notion of time. I've completely given up on that. I'm now trying to make sense of Terrapin's notion of the existence of an object, and so far it appears unintelligible as well.

That is not what I have been arguing at all, since I have not said anything whatsoever about "forms." We have been talking about gaining or losing a (non-essential) property. If we were using Aristotle's framework and terminology - which we are not - then this would be accidental change, rather than substantial change. Furthermore, if there really is a "very next moment," then I have been arguing that time is discrete rather than continuous. — aletheist

It is in the last passage I quoted from you. Here, something like this:

By the laws of non-contradiction and excluded middle, X is never both Y and not-Y at the same time, and X is always either Y or not-Y at any assignable time. Suppose that X is Y at time T1 and not-Y at time T2; i.e., X changes from Y to not-Y sometime between T1 and T2. There can be no particular instant of time between T1 and T2 when X is changing from Y to not-Y; it is always either one or the other, and never both. Hence if everything is particular, including time, then there is no "present" at which changes "are occurring," just discrete instants before and after each change. — aletheist

Do you deny that everything is always - i.e., at all times - either P or not-P, where P is some particular property? — aletheist

X is P before the change, and X is not-P after the change, but there is no time in between when X is changing from P to not-P. — aletheist

See, you are saying that X has one particular static form (state) at one moment (before the change), and another particular state at the next moment (after the change), but there is no time in between, during which the change occurs. So you have denied the possibility of real activity. All there is, is one particular state (static form), then the next particular state, and so on, each state being temporally contiguous, such that there is no time in between these states during which real activity could be occurring.

Well, in that case, you simply can't have any two contiguous things no matter what. You could only have one contiguous thing . . . although I don't think that makes any sense at all with respect to the word "contiguous." Contiguity is a relation. And while I wouldn't say that we can't have a relation of a thing to itself, I'm not sure if I'd agree that you can have any relation of a thing to itself other than identity, and even that's really just a way of speaking/thinking insofar as it being a relation goes. — Terrapin Station

There is an issue with contiguity and identity in relation to a thing's existence in time. We assume that the same identified thing exists through a period of time despite some minor changes to that thing. This is the principle of identity as presented by Aristotle, the identity of the thing is within the material thing itself, not the form of the thing, which may be changing. So the identified thing exists through a duration of time.

Now if the thing is changing, we can say that at one moment it exist with that form, and at a later moment it has this, slightly different form. Aletheist has been arguing that these two distinct forms must be temporally contiguous, that at one moment the thing has one form, and at the very next moment it has the other form. However, this position is what creates the absurdity pointed out by Aristotle. It leaves no time for the change from the first form to the second form, to have actually occurred. Therefore under this perspective "activity" is impossible. So we must be prepared to accept that such moments in time are not contiguous. But this lack of contiguity threatens the integrity of the thing's identity which is based in the assumed continuity of existence of the thing.

The Uncertainty Relation is derived directly from the four postulates of quantum mechanics, with no additional assumptions*. — andrewk

I know that you gave a reference here, but is it possible to state these four postulates in English? I took a look at the reference, and it seems to be all written in secret code (mathematics and symbols). Myself, I am very skeptical of imaginary numbers. I think that they introduce an unknown element into mathematical equations, because it is unknown how imaginary numbers truly relate to real numbers, so that using a mixture of the two will produce uncertainty. There hasn't yet been produced a set of numbers which incorporates real and imaginary numbers into one order, which demonstrates how they are differentiated from each other. For example, "zero" produces that means by which positive and negative integers are related to each other within one set.

I like the wording in section 9.4, "Applications of the Uncertainty Principle". You will find this: "Now the hand waving begins. We argue that...[two functions of the same order of magnitude are not strictly equal]... Once again we argue that...[the same inequality between two representations of the same magnitude] and get ... "
Here is the footnote:
"We are basically arguing that the mean of the functions (of X, Y, and Z) and the functions of the
mean (<X >, < Y>, and <Z>) are of the same order of magnitude. They are in fact equal if there are no fluctuations around the mean and approximately equal if the fluctuations are small (recall the discussion toward the end of Chapter 6)."

Incidentally, the only part of the chapter which seems to be well spelled out in English terms, is the part concerning the time-energy uncertainty. I've found this uncertainty relationship explained elsewhere, and it seems to be excluded from QM uncertainty by the way that the Hamiltonian operator is produced. As stated by Shankar "time t is not a dynamical variable but a parameter". I believe I read elsewhere that this was a choice made by Von Neumann. The time-energy uncertainty has to do with the indefiniteness of light frequencies, especially in very short periods of time. Resolution appears to involve allowing for violation of the law of conservation of energy.

By the laws of non-contradiction and excluded middle, X is never both Y and not-Y at the same time, and X is always either Y or not-Y at any assignable time. Suppose that X is Y at time T1 and not-Y at time T2; i.e., X changes from Y to not-Y sometime between T1 and T2. There can be no particular instant of time between T1 and T2 when X is changing from Y to not-Y; it is always either one or the other, and never both. Hence if everything is particular, including time, then there is no "present" at which changes "are occurring," just discrete instants before and after each change. — aletheist

This is very similar to the example Aristotle used to demonstrate why we need to allow exceptions to the law of excluded middle. Without the exception, "becoming", and all change, is unintelligible. If something changes from not-Y to Y, then if we adhere to the law of excluded middle, there is no time in between, when the thing is changing, or "becoming" Y. Sophists were accused of adhering to the laws of logic in order to produce absurd conclusions such as in your example. Therefore it was established that we should allow exceptions to the law of excluded middle in order that change and becoming may be considered as real.

You've lost me. I don't know what you mean by "observed reality". The reality I observed was that "one" and "two" were used in that particular way. How could I have seen something different when there was no such thing to have been seen?

The same way that I know the meaning of any common words by being taught by teachers, and observing usage. I was taught that one more than one is two, and that's how I know what it means.

The De Broglie-Bohm addresses the delayed choice by an instanteous action at a distance by the quantum field. — Rich

Let's consider the implications "an instantaneous action at a distance". Clearly this would bring us outside the confines of space-time, as Wayfarer suggests we should look. So we can separate space from time, to see if this instantaneous action at a distance would represent a function of space, time, or both. Here are some speculations.

Nothing can traverse vast space in no time, so if instantaneous action is a reality we have to shrink space, such that what appears to us as a vast space, becomes a small space, such that something can traverse the small space rapidly. We know that space itself is not fixed, static, because of the phenomenon which is called the expansion of space. So we can allow the possibility that space can change in time.

Next we have the phenomenon of time itself. We live at the present, and we can know with a good degree of certainty that there is no material existence in the future. This is very difficult to grasp, but our capacity to create, and shape the world through free will choices demonstrates that it is impossible that material things can exist prior to the present. This means that the entire material world, must come into existence anew, at each moment of time. You will find this principle well outlined in some religions. We can speculate about a "big bang" of rapid spatial expansion at each moment of passing time, as the material universe comes into existence at each moment in time.

Prior to the present, in the future, must exist all the "information" (for lack of a better word, though we should refer to Neo-Platonic Forms here) which determines exactly how the physical world will be at each passing moment. This world of Forms is a non-spatial world, being prior to the spatial, material existence which we experience at the present. Here I believe we have the possibility of instantaneous action at a distance.

Ultimately, Binney's approach requires knowledge of the state of the universe from some outside perspective. — Rich

This is the thing. We cannot know "the state of the universe" because time is continually passing. So this so-called "state" is a state of change, which is inherently indeterminable because it defies the law of excluded middle. Until we know what time passing is, we do not know what a state of change is.