Is a combination of 'x', 'x'?

I know you only gave one example but chemistry is at work.

Just like water, water vapor and water ice are all water but in different states. Same with carbon. If you rearrange the carbon atoms they become coal or diamonds. Heat, pressure and time.

I know how it happens:)
My question is related to Law of Identity.
If "diamond is carbon", then all the properties of diamond should be same as carbon, and hence, coal.
It is not true. What is exactly wrong here?

Equivocation error.

That would be like saying all women are female. Should their height and weight all be the same too?

The thing is coal and diamonds are the same. Their arrangement of atoms are not.

But nothing in the term "female" specifies "height" and "weight".
So you can have different heights and weights.

Krump that was also my immediate response but maybe Johnny means something deeper

"LAws" in a particular pursuit may not even be valid in other arenas. Your "Law of Identity" makes no sense to Physics or chemistry, biology, etc etc.

Yes, dale:)
Is it that "carbon" is to be considered a set of all elements that contain and only contain C atoms.
Or it refers to C atom(s).
If it is the first one, then, yes, diamond is carbon and coal is also carbon and there is no problem.
But if it refers to C atom(s), there is a problem.

To better understand, is sand dune sand? Or is it misleading to call it so? Is a bucket made of plastic, plastic? Is it a plastic, with a qualifier? Or is it something else, just that it contains only plastic? Because you won't call a group of ice cubes, ice cube (especially, if it is not arranged in cube form), neither a group of balls, ball.

I think you were replying me.
Laws do not make sense only in a way that our knowing or not knowing does not affect the way things works.
But it helps us to discern things. I tagged it under "Philosophy", not "Science". What we define, should be applicable in all areas, unless there is a reason for it not to work somewhere.

You need to research the philosophical problems associated with the word 'is'. In particular , you should find the 'e prime' movement of interest.

My own leanings are towards Pragmatism, in which 'is-ness' amounts to 'functional equivalence ' in specific contexts. Note that an emphasis on 'context' is required to avoid the paradox that without it any two 'things' are logically both 'similar' and 'different'.(i.e. simiar because the are both the objects of a particular comparison and 'different' because there are two of them.)And since 'context' is relative to the needs of an observer, I suggest your 'problem' is pseudo one insofar as you are looking for generalities which are observer independent. (.....technically a problem of 'naive realism). I should add that from thagt p.o.v. 'properties' amount to ' contextual functional expectancies' and are not 'possessed' by objects 'in ther own right'.

I think you are overlooking structural difference. If there is structural difference, then a difference is there, just that it might not be relevant in a context.
But that has nothing to do with reality. For you can put almost any 2 things on the same side of functionality.

A naive realist would think of 'structure' as being independent of an observer. Obviously there can be what we call 'universal agreement' about structure (amongst other concepts) but the pragmatist would say that agreement is related to common human needs and common perceptual apparatus. In the extreme, not even the 'structure of atoms' is epistemologically above 'working hypothesis' level.

...your use of the word IS as in 'is there' being the key point you are missing.. therein lies the underlying issue of the grey relationship between ontology and epistemology.

Why, thank you Johnny, what a fine BoY

Just kiddin' Joh, I liketa annoy TAT so they get mad

But Boy, again, really, thank you for the response. The TAT would misunderstand that it was that I simply misunderstood...and...God help us...


I'd respond to your OP 'cept above probly a lot more smarter guys. Tho in general I'd say C is just carbon and it might confuse the Bleary and Dumb Bunny (me) to refer to coal as 'C' without some sorta adj

Sortfa -- Wow!!!! They recog'd it as a missp for 'Sorta.' They myust be readin' somne of my recent postings

Oh mgrs, please do restore them with same or similar tgitlesd, if for no other reason than to reveal my total idiocy. Oh and that's 'titles,' so please do work on that '2-wrong' thing that plagues fast typist

I'm saying your objection of coal and diamonds being different but both are carbon is missing the data set undefined within "carbon".

No where does carbon define a specific arrangement order of its atoms. This is the key point you are missing!

Its the arrangement of the carbon atoms that give the appearance characteristics. Its NOT the atoms themselves that appear black or clear. Its the bond arrangement that causes this.

Hence why height and weight is not a property of comparative, all women are female.

You are assuming appearance is a property of carbon. No.

Correct !....my point in part.

But nor is 'carbon' a "thing-in-itself'. The word is used as a 'marker' within that set of human experiences and expectancies we agree to call 'knowledge of chemistry'. Its status (thinghood) is based on communucative agreement between human observers.

(Those who have a problem with this should consider (a) the shift in the term 'element' over the centries (b) the speculative nature of the term 'atom' until its complete acceptance in the 20th century. (c) the controversial status for some of terms like 'global warming')

NB
On reflection, the crux of your 'identity theory problem' depends on whether you take the meaning of term 'reality' to be relative or absolute. A Pragmatist would argue for the former, whereas a Realist would claim the latter.
This issue is also reflected by the move in later 20th century philosophy away from 'language as representational of reality', to 'language as construction of reality'. Note too that 'Identity Theory' is dependent on static classical (binary logic) which has to some extent yielded to dynamic non-binary logics which take contextual shifting of observer states into account.