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Post by DonDueed on Dec 15, 2018 23:41:49 GMT
You guys are having a fascinating discussion here, but I think the original question boiled down to "Is Annie alive or dead?"
To which I answer: she seems to me to be about twice as alive as she was before.
Assuming that at some future point the two Annies become reunited, it seems that she'd then have some very confusing memories of the current situation -- the same events from two different points of view (including both internal monologs). That might be pretty trippy.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 16, 2018 2:09:27 GMT
I suppose that I was not thinking that identity conditions apply only to things as fundamental as substances; and I was not thinking that Annie was anything like a substance. The first part isn't quite what I meant, only that the identity of objects and that of substances is not the same.
I'll try to emulate Spinoza (we can agree he is admirable) in style if nothing else, but will be omitting, in typical fashion -- wait for it -- the numbers. As well as the less admirable brand of thorniness, I hope. It's not by design. Here comes the catalogue:
- Both substances and objects are simply structures (maybe not just "sets", since e.g. they could be ordered by importance) of properties; the difference is that the substance is instantiated by the object. The object is unique in that it cannot be another object, but the substance can be instantiated by any number of objects at any point. (If I call a substance unique, that's an imprecise abbreviation for giving it the property that there can only have one instance at any point in time. No two substances are identical.)
- Substances can be compared to substances. Objects can be compared to objects. Between substance and object, though, there is never an identity.
- Objects are derived from substances, but substances are also derived from abstraction from matter. The first object, however, arises from the first substance: which is "your mind", or perhaps more precisely, the inborn toolkit by which you first arrive at the concept of "an object" at all. (Aside: I wish I could be clearer, but I essentially wasn't there for when that happened to me; is anyone?)
- The substance and object belong to different modes of human perception. Sermonizing intrusion: Neither is to be ignored, but the objects are more accidental to yourself, and your sense of self.
- The object arises from wrapping substance around matter. At the very least, it occupies space and time, even if only in imagination.
- The substance is closer to how your mind is structured while awake. (Dreams consist of substances in disarray: what you mean by one by day could, but need not, mean something else altogether while asleep, and the instantiation happens arbitrarily. I recently had someone spawn in my same night's dream thrice in three appearances, all of which I identified as of his substance, and none of which resembled much of his substance in conscious life. Though I should also note that none of these appearances were on-stage at the same time, but intuition is a lazy beast. Said dream predates this debate.)
- Continuity between objects is established by substance. What makes us recognize Annie from panel to panel is her substance; each Annie in each panel is an object of perception. The subject of Annie is not directly known (not even to Tom, since Annie is in some ways a reflex of objects he has perceived and which are not part of his subject). I've been avoiding to define the subject, but it is different from substance as well: Coyote arises immediately from the Etheric substance, and not (directly) from the subject of any particular minuscule coyote that once devoured a corpse in the desert (though the substance was informed by the object informed by the subject).
- The discernibility of objects by number does not imply a discernibility of substance. A substance is a product of the human mind; I'm rather agnostic about whether it exists independently of it. In the comic, I think it does, and the "carrier" of substance is the Ether, in the sense that the carrier of objects is matter.
- Substances consist of properties essential to their derived objects.
- A mutable property of the object does not belong to the substance, but the property of the object having said mutable property belongs to the substance. (I.e. an apple-object must have some kind of diameter, and this is prescribed by the apple-substance, but the apple-object could have any particular diameter.) Then again, substances arise in the human mind from the perception of objects. (One concrete apple-object that "left an impression" will probably add to the imaginary "type species" of your apple-substance.) -- One can (must, imho) have intuition and "secret knowledge" (and one is never a blank slate); but that is not enough by itself, and can just as well produce time-wasting delusions; as one matures, one will have less need (and time) to prod every bit of matter, but -- quote -- "before one can build an ivory tower, one must first kill a few elephants". And sometimes the elephant wins. I suggest, of course, the use of building blocks not considered harmful to charismatic megafauna.
- One more point -- You could have a substance each of "the colour blue", "the colour red", and so forth; then a substance of "colour" as such. Then the more specialized substances could be instantiated from the substance of "colour": to compare them, you would need to imagine a succession, either in space or in time, of objects you would describe as blue or red, even if they are simple planes, which would still not be the substances of blue or red themselves.
I'd agree with the Pythagoreans on this (in one direction, at any rate), but strictly keeping to that important qualifier "of objects". There are two Annies (or apples). What are you counting? The discernible objects. What is that by which you determine that counting them makes sense in the first place? Their shared substance. The other way out I see is asserting that "There are two Annies" is misleading in itself, because substances are merely layers of abstraction imposed upon matter for the human ease of keeping track of it. But then there is no longer a problem: it just so happens that two rather similar people who are still distinct have appeared close to each other (spatially, socially), and people are confused as to which one they should correctly refer to by some arbitrary signifier they've been using for a certain assemblage of matter, because they have incomplete information, and to err is human. The End. I confess I'm not at all familiar with Parmenides, but it might have seemed that I award the substances a more foundational meaning than the objects. Somehow Arius keeps sneaking back in. The variety of objects is not unreal, just more accidental to how you will organize matter, and thus to defining "oneself", which was the original problem: but where an object shows itself not to conform to its presumed substance, you have to make room for that, too.
In other words, the Annies have the same substance until the objects acquire some property that conflicts with this substance. As long as either Annie is a plausible continuation of the Annie before division -- as long as you would think it right to describe either one as "Annie" if the other was missing -- they are the same in substance, but different persons.
Not necessarily. If Annie consisted entirely of the property "has blue eyes" and there are Annie-objects with the properties "had eggs for breakfast" and "had bacon for breakfast", the underlying substance would first be the same, and you would be free, but not compelled, to derive new substances. Only if an Annie-object suddenly has green eyes, the conflict must be resolved. This is a bit trivial, and in practice new substances will be introduced foremost when the apparent properties suggest a contradiction. The substances do not pre-exist, except in so far as they are obliged to the matter that builds and binds one. As Runningflame said, I think humans compare both substances and objects by testing whether all their properties match (and even the omniscient observer would). I'd define it like this: As soon as the objects are distinct, but the substance is the same, that is division. As soon as the substances are distinct, that is individuation. I do not think your question about what makes a thing a thing can be answered in general, but I'm trying. Something is a thing as a substance if your mind concludes that it can and should be fathomed as one single structure of facts. Something is a thing as an object if it can be cut free, by subsuming it under some substance, from its surroundings (and this layer introduces space, time, measure and counting). Something is a thing as physical matter if it is physically elementary. But I'm too unripe to explain if or why one would be more inclined to see the apple and tree as distinct and related objects than to see the whole of apple and tree and seed as the same substance. Conjurers and psychologists might have some ideas, though.
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Post by mordekai on Dec 16, 2018 13:53:49 GMT
Welcome to the forum! I think Jones meant that as a representative of the Court she had the right to take Antimony back against her wishes, maybe because of Coyote's promise. But it might also mean that Jones is really strong, immortal, indestructible, and probably indefatigable. Even if trapped in orbit or buried in the center of the earth, she'll be back like the Terminator sooner or later and she won't quit. So maybe she was telling Coyote, "You'll get tired of this before I will." ... Although that's kind of a moot point if it's 3000 years later and Annie is long dead by then. Plus Coyote or Loup could probably accelerate Jones to escape velocity and hurl her out of Earth permanently, and even send her out of the Solar System, Voyager space probe style... |
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Dec 16, 2018 20:48:50 GMT
... Although that's kind of a moot point if it's 3000 years later and Annie is long dead by then. Plus Coyote or Loup could probably accelerate Jones to escape velocity and hurl her out of Earth permanently, and even send her out of the Solar System, Voyager space probe style... I don't disagree but that appears to be what she means. Essentially, "If you want to stop me you're going to have to use extreme measures." |
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