Posted by zeugma on May 7, 2006, at 14:58:23
In reply to Re: Venus calling » Estella, posted by zeugma on May 7, 2006, at 9:20:59
that way you can say 'hesperous appears in the morning sky' is true (if it is indeed 'cause i might have them the wrong way around) and 'hesperous appears in the evening sky' is false. and 'phosperous appears in the morning sky' is false. and 'phosperous appears in the evening sky' is true. and different parts of venus appear in the morning and evening sky.>
true that these pairs about hesperus and phosphorus have the truth conditions you state- in the Babylonian (or Greek, actually) dialects.
I just have a problem with calling a time-slice a 'part.' it does cause problems for self-identity and such. wildcard's amusing question, 'am i me again?' would have to be answered 'yes' we are ourselves again and again- and 'no,' because each time we ask the question we are a different part of ourselves, and so someone else (maybe). i did think her question was a little too deep for admin :-)
anyway i see a disanalogy between an object's extension in time and its spatial extent. so i saw part of long island when i visited (and didn't miss much). let's say i saw <long island may 7 '06 2-7 am>. this is an object, no question. and maybe i was the only one who saw that. the nearest someone else can come to that is someone who saw <long island may 7 '06 2-7:01 am>. now what the two of us saw sounds awfully similar. the component i missed is that minute after 7 am. but this is a gerrymandered object IMO.
anyway, it certainly is a Heraclitus' Paradox situation. the object <long island may 7 2-7:01 am> is fine, as a four-dimensional object, but then the problem i have is that its component parts are larger than the whole. Ie <long island> (the object) is a larger object, four-dimensionally, than the thing i saw this morning, but then it starts to sound like <long island> is actually a part of a proposition, and not a shorthand way of indicating ALL the time-slices of Long Island (which none of us can really gesture at or know). if so, then the object <long island may 7 '06 2-7:01 am> is one that awaits analysis (to be broken down into its component parts <long island>, <may 7 '06 2-7:01 am>). The latter object seems weird to me. Probably because time is more slippery than space.
anyway, if <venus> (meaning the reference, not the sense/concept) is acceptable, then it enters into propositions as a part, and the predicates it mates with are not parts of it in turn. So 'Hesperus is Venus' is not logically complex, just Hesp=V. I don't know how to put identities into propositional form, because i am accustomed to seeing propositions as sets, and it doesn't matter how an object is indicated for set theoretical purposes.
Provigil, Vivarin, headache.
-z
poster:zeugma
thread:618106
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/write/20060331/msgs/640992.html