From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!torn!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!decwrl!decwrl!atha!aupair.cs.athabascau.ca!burt Tue Nov 24 10:51:02 EST 1992
Article 7556 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: burt@aupair.cs.athabascau.ca (Burt Voorhees)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Simulated Brain
Message-ID: <burt.721365558@aupair.cs.athabascau.ca>
Date: 10 Nov 92 03:19:18 GMT
References: <m94oTB1w165w@CODEWKS.nacj <burt.720913842@aupair.cs.athabascau.ca>
 <BxBBnw.CEK@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu> <1992Nov7.213838.15600@constellation.ecn.u
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>In article <BxBBnw.CEK@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu> lcarr@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (l
incoln carr) writes:
>>In article <burt.720913842@aupair.cs.athabascau.ca> burt@aupair.cs.athabascau
.ca (Burt Voorhees) writes:

>>>It is logical only in that it is an identity, and the question of identity
>>>is at the core of the metaphysical foundations of logic.  It's a mistake
>>>to put logic as prior to identity.  Logic is the tool that we use in order
>>>to be precise about our thinking about identity, but it did not create
>>>identity.  Cat's existed, for example, before there was ever a word for
>>>cat.


>>I would argue that you don't know that as surely as you think you do.
>>Certainty is a very nebulous thing.  You perceive the phenomena, not
>>noumena, that you associate with the word "cat" and, because of
>>certain a priori assumptions that human beings make, you assume that
>>it must have existed prior to your perception of it and your
>>assignment of the word "cat" to it.

If I can trust my memories, I knew that cats existed long before I knew
words for them, or for that matter, long before I knew many words at all.
But this diverges from the point I was trying to make which is that 
metaphysics and identity are prior to logic.  Logic is a tool for cutting
the world up into catagories.  We then assign these catagories names and
hope that they match up with some accuracy to the actual world.  But
things have an identity before we have done any logical classification
or analysis.  To see that logic does not give immediate access to identity
we only need to consider that it is static.  The law of contradiction
says that A is not B, so in particular, A cannot change into B because
that would violate contradiction.  But in the world A's do change into
B's all the time.  Some adolescents become adult, seeds grow, and so on.

>Suppose there was a world that was inhabited by only human beings (in all
>their variety) and various types of dogs.  If a cat were suddenly introduced
>to this world, would the humans ...

>a) Recognizing the very distinct differences between the "cat" and themselves
>   and simply refer to the "cat" as a dog?

>or

>b) recognize the distinct differences between the various types
>   of dogs and this new "cat" and be compelled to name the new
>   intruder as a "cat"?


In either case the "cat" would have an identity before the people of
this world got around to assigning it a logical designation.  An excellent
statement of this state of affairs is given on page 1 of G. Spencer-Brown's
book _Laws of Form_

The question of metaphysics is: what _is_ identity, and how can we think
about it?  But the menu is not the meal, it only indicates what the meal
might be.
bv


