Can Any Two Things Be Identical???

The previous opinion immediately lead us to understand that all things are Necessary Truth´s, meaning, that they are exactly as they are given the particular precise context in which they emerge...even if to some extent they may seam identical to something else. But I think we have good reason to believe that such similarity is obviously flawed on close observation...

...no such thing as property´s having exactly the same property´s as apparently similar property´s...everything is unique !

Ken will obviously talk about the fallacy...

1 Reply

@Fil Albuquerque,

Hi Fil,
Thank you!
Best wishes.
Mark...

1 Reply

Hi All,
Now that we have established that everything is unique, I would like to pose further questions that are now relevant.

1) Is every thing (being unique) PERFECT, In ANY way or ALL ways whatsoever?
Keeping in mind that each thing is a perfect representation of itself...

Thank you all, Have a brilliant day.

Mark...

1 Reply

@mark noble,

mark noble wrote:

Hi Fil,
Thank you!
Best wishes.
Mark...

Hi there Mark ! Razz

Best Regards>FILIPE DE ALBUQUERQUE

0 Replies

@mark noble,

mark noble wrote:

Hi All,
Now that we have established that everything is unique, I would like to pose further questions that are now relevant.

1) Is every thing (being unique) PERFECT, In ANY way or ALL ways whatsoever?
Keeping in mind that each thing is a perfect representation of itself...

Thank you all, Have a brilliant day.

Mark...

Simply TO BE, is immediately BEING Perfect...

Best Regards>FILIPE DE ALBUQUERQUE

1 Reply

@Fil Albuquerque,

Hi Filipe,
Could you possibly turn up at the beginning of these threads of mine.

I might actually get to the end of my line of enquiry before 2013, when it'll likeky be too late.

Thank you for replying...And for having a working brain in your skull.
Kindest of regards.
Mark..

0 Replies

@kennethamy,

kennethamy wrote:

Fido wrote:

I am certain there is something transendental you do not get about the river thing...

And that is?

Well, if you were to say people confuse the water in the river with the river, if I have you correct, then you are more than a little wrong.... The river is the water, and the water is the river... The transendental thing is this: The river is a metaphore, and for time, or perhaps, Being... Such a thing, while we try to conceive of it is best understood as metaphore because the thing itself, time, life, being is change... It is not the the river changes while we stay stepped out of it, but that it changes while we are in it, and in addition, we change, and are change...If you look at all of our forms, which identity is only one, they try to capture the unchanging aspects of a thing, the part that is unchanged...Our social forms do as much, as do our moral forms... We want to grasp the eternal with our mortal lives as if that will some how help us to immortality...The fact is that being transends change, along with identity the way a kitten is a cat, and some day become what it is...

1 Reply

@Fido,

I'm reading this book by John Perry. He points out that if Heraclitus bought an ox and then somebody came and took the ox, noting that it's not the same one he bought, Heraclitus might have piped down about the river.

Somehow the ox he bought and the one he had a few days later are identical. For practical purposes at least.

2 Replies

This should have been a substantially shorter thread than it is.

No. They can't.

If they are two things, that means one has some property the other doesn't, otherwise there'd be nothing to distinguish the two from each other and they'd be the same thing.

See: Leibniz's law of identity.

0 Replies

@kennethamy,

kennethamy wrote:

The second meaning of "identical" is qualitatively identical. X and Y are qualitatively identical if and only if X and Y have exactly the same properties. That is, every property of X is a property of Y, and every property of Y is a property of X. In this sense of "identical", qualitatively identical, it is possible for two things to be identical.

If X and Y have exactly the same properties, how can they be two things rather than one? In other words, how can they be qualitatively identical without being numerically identical?

2 Replies

@Arjuna,

The fact that living organisms maintain an identity while constantly changing is a real conundrum isn't it? Are you the same person you were as a child? No. Are you a different person? Not really.

2 Replies

@ACB,

ACB wrote:

kennethamy wrote:
The second meaning of "identical" is qualitatively identical. X and Y are qualitatively identical if and only if X and Y have exactly the same properties. That is, every property of X is a property of Y, and every property of Y is a property of X. In this sense of "identical", qualitatively identical, it is possible for two things to be identical.

If X and Y have exactly the same properties, how can they be two things rather than one? In other words, how can they be qualitatively identical without being numerically identical?

Leibniz's Law of Identity holds that necessarily, if X = (is identical) Y, then every property of X is a property of Y, and conversely, every property of Y is a property of X. This Law is pretty well accepted as the definition of numerical identity. And has the name of of "the indiscernibility of identicals. The question you are asking is about the converse of the indiscernibility of identicals, namely, the identity of indiscernibles . Which is whether necessarily, if every property of X is a property of Y, and every property of Y is a property of X, then X and Y are identical. Now this is more controversial. Leibniz held that this principle was also true. But, if it is true, it is not intuitively true as the first principle is. After all, why could there not (to use Leibniz's example) be two (numerically two) different leaves which happened to have the very same properties? There are just two of them. Leibniz himself, although believing that the principle of the identity of indiscernibles was also true, did not think that it was self-evidently true as he thought that the converse principle, the indiscernibility of identicals, was self-evidently true. He thought it was true, but for metaphysical reasons such as that a rational God would not created two qualitatively identical leaves, since He would have no reason to do so. And, if He did, he would have no reason to place one in one place and the other in a different place. But the point is that there are two different principles: 1. If two things have all their qualities in common, then there are really not two things but just one thing under two different names. And, 2. that if there are 2 things with all their qualities in common, then there are not really 2 things, but just 1 thing. The principles are converses of one another (and so, not the same principle). And 1. is intuitively true, but 2, if true, not intuitively true.

2 Replies

@jeeprs,

jeeprs wrote:

The fact that living organisms maintain an identity while constantly changing is a real conundrum isn't it? Are you the same person you were as a child? No. Are you a different person? Not really.

This is the real philosophical problem of identity. Namely persistence through change. If you come to think of it, change requires that something remain the same, for unless something remains the same, what would then change? The philosophical problem is how to understand how something can remain the same, but change, nevertheless. Aristotle dealt with the problem by distinguishing between two different kinds of properties: essential properties, and accidental properties. And then he held that something remains the same something when its essential properties remain the same, although its accidental properties may change. For instance, to take a modern example: the essential properties of water are Oxygen and hydrogen in a certain proportion. As long as a substance is H2O it is water. But the substance may have other properties which may change. For instance, water may be a solid (ice) a liquid, or a gas (steam). But it is still water since ice, the liquid, and the steam, are still H2O. Aristotle's solution to the problem of persistence through change is one. But it has been rejected by philosophers who find the distinction between essential and accidental properties not sustainable. So, other kinds of solutions have been suggested. But it is agreed that the problem is, persistence (sameness) through change. It is not reasonable to believe that you as a 3 year old, and you as a 30 year old, whatever changes there have been, are not numerically (one and the same) individual. (By the way, the religious doctrine of Transubstantiation, and the Eucarist, is in line with Aristotelian doctrine -as you might expect- since there, of course, the accidental properties remain the same, but the essential properties have been changed, It is no longer bread and wine (although it has all the accidental properties of bread and wine) but after the Mass has been performed, the substances are transubstantiated into the body and blood of God).

1 Reply

@jeeprs,

jeeprs wrote:

The fact that living organisms maintain an identity while constantly changing is a real conundrum isn't it? Are you the same person you were as a child? No. Are you a different person? Not really.

Yea, it's a doozy. Personal identity. Isn't all identity, though? If you didn't know good and well that the river is an unchanging entity, you wouldn't be able to make sense of Heraclitus' insight... "the same river."

1 Reply

@Arjuna,

Arjuna wrote:

jeeprs wrote:

The fact that living organisms maintain an identity while constantly changing is a real conundrum isn't it? Are you the same person you were as a child? No. Are you a different person? Not really.

Yea, it's a doozy. Personal identity. Isn't all identity, though? If you didn't know good and well that the river is an unchanging entity, you wouldn't be able to make sense of Heraclitus' insight... "the same river."

But that is not true. The river is constantly changing in many different ways, but it remains the same river. And that is the puzzle. How it remains the same river even though it is constantly changing.

3 Replies

@kennethamy,

kennethamy wrote:

: 1. If two things have all their qualities in common, then there are really not two things but just one thing under two different names.

So like Muhammad Ali and Cassius Clay are the same person. Sounds like we're saying there never were two different things, just two different names.

So if I try to apply that to an object being the same over time....if I say that the cup from five minutes ago is the same one I see now... it's one thing, just two different names? Time is just a matter of naming?

0 Replies

@kennethamy,

kennethamy wrote:

Arjuna wrote:

jeeprs wrote:

The fact that living organisms maintain an identity while constantly changing is a real conundrum isn't it? Are you the same person you were as a child? No. Are you a different person? Not really.

Yea, it's a doozy. Personal identity. Isn't all identity, though? If you didn't know good and well that the river is an unchanging entity, you wouldn't be able to make sense of Heraclitus' insight... "the same river."

But that is not true. The river is constantly changing in many different ways, but it remains the same river. And that is the puzzle. How it remains the same river even though it is constantly changing.

Yea, I know.

0 Replies

@mark noble,

mark noble wrote:

Hi Everyone,
Can you think of any two things that are identical to one another in every way?
This is an ongoing research question, and all your answers will be gratefully received.
Thank you.
Mark...

Yes.
Yes.

0 Replies

@kennethamy,

kennethamy wrote:

Arjuna wrote:

jeeprs wrote:

The fact that living organisms maintain an identity while constantly changing is a real conundrum isn't it? Are you the same person you were as a child? No. Are you a different person? Not really.

Yea, it's a doozy. Personal identity. Isn't all identity, though? If you didn't know good and well that the river is an unchanging entity, you wouldn't be able to make sense of Heraclitus' insight... "the same river."

But that is not true. The river is constantly changing in many different ways, but it remains the same river. And that is the puzzle. How it remains the same river even though it is constantly changing.

Hi Ken,
How is that a puzzle? It isn't the same river - It is in a different place - It is only labelled the same river - Labelling doesn't make it so.
Kind regards.
Mark...

0 Replies

mark,

You still haven't responded to my question about your definition of "identical". Without confirming it is the same as mine there is no reasonable answer to your question.

1 Reply

Can Any Two Things Be Identical???

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