Can Any Two Things Be Identical???

JLNobody wrote:

If two "things" were identical they would be the same thing.

Now, if only you had a good argument for that, you would be all set.

kennethamy wrote:

JLNobody wrote:

If two "things" were identical they would be the same thing.

Now, if only you had a good argument for that, you would be all set.

The obvious does not need support... All Identical things are the same thing... All trees are trees... All dogs are dog.... See what I mean; the same thing...

In which case, you are just begging the question, since it clearly is not obvious to those who think that A and B can share all the same qualities, and still be two different things. And it really will not do to say that it is obvious that is not true, since, "It is obvious" is not an argument. And it leads to the conclusion that the person who says that it is obvious is simply being dogmatic. What you say is obvious might turn out to be true, but not because it is obvious since those people who think that what you think is obviously true is not true at all, don't find what you insist is obvious, obvious. (Sometimes telling someone who disagrees with you that it is obvious that what you say is true, is just another way of saying that unless he agrees with you, he is a fool). History is littered with the bones of those who insisted that something was obvious when it turned out that it was no such thing. We can begin with the insistence that the parallel postulate of Euclid's geometry was self-evident (another way of saying "obvious"). It turned out that discovering that the parallel postulate was not only not obvious, but not even necessarily true, led to the discovery of non-Euclidean geometries.

JLNobody wrote:

If two "things" were identical they would be the same thing.

Now, if only you had a good argument for that, you would be all set.

kennethamy wrote:

JLNobody wrote:

If two "things" were identical they would be the same thing.

Now, if only you had a good argument for that, you would be all set.

In the real world, one way in which two separate objects must differ is that they must experience a different set of gravitational forces, due to their different position relative to the other objects around them. Even if one does not regard spatial location as a property in itself, the experience of a particular gravitational pull is clearly a property.

Therefore, in a universe containing other objects, two separate objects A and B cannot have all their properties the same, so they cannot be identical.

Can we not agree ?

I am trolly sorry Kenn, I choose Myself.

I am

When you say that in "the real world" something is true, I suppose you mean that although it is possible for it not to be true, it is, in fact true. So, in this context, what you are saying is that although it is possible for two things to have all their properties in common, it never, in fact happens. Of course, the question that philosophers have asked is whether it is possible for two objects to have all their properties in common, not whether there are any cases of it. Of course, if there are cases of it, then it is possible for it to be true, since if something is actual, it is possible. But the converse is not true, namely, if it is possible, then it is actual.

kennethamy wrote:

If we are talking about bare logical possibilities, let me remind you that it is logically possible that Quito is not the capital of Ecuador, or that unicorns exist, or that you are a brain in a vat. If you don't think these possibilities are of much philosophical interest, why should the logical possibility of two identical objects be any more interesting?

You are confusing issues. One issue is whether it is only contingently or necessarily impossible that two things share the same properties. That is one question. The other issue is about the nature of knowledge, and whether knowledge implied certainty. I have never argued that to know is to imply that it is not logically impossible to be mistaken because that possibility is not "of much philosophical interest". That would be simply an irrelevant consideration for the problem of knowledge or, so far as I can tell, any other philosophical problem, since I have no idea how to determine whether something is of philosophical interest or not, and neither, I bet, do you. On the contrary, my argument that knowledge does not imply that what is known is a necessary truth depend (for one thing) on having shown that view commits a modal fallacy. Not on whether it is of no philosophical interest that knowledge implies that what we know is necessarily true (whatever that comes to). And you will not be able to show me any place where I did make what I consider to be an idiotic argument of that kind. It is disappointing that after all the back and forth we have had, that you should think first that kind of argument had any role in my discussion of whether knowledge implies certainty, and second, that I would even employ such an idiotic consideration as the "philosophical interest" one. The second is far more disappointing than the first.

I changed my mind Ami
o 8-]

Can Any two Boeings have the same Identity ?