Identity Principle ?

[IronMan79]

Identity Principle ?

 

I have issues with the Identity Principle, and it should be called Principle and not Law since it is The First Principle from which all else derives. It is just plain Wrong. That's all. I said it. And why ? Well any entity, in order to be identical to some other entity must be exactly the same, that is it must have the same spatial, temporal coordinates and all else. But how can anything even be the same to itself if even time is always flowing and changing ? the same entity that was a moment ago is already different from the same entity at this very moment because they now occupy two different time coordinates. And no matter how small you make the time interval, it is always different, at least in that measurent. Even at 10 ^ -1000 picoseconds which is way past anything we can measure, it still represents a different number, a difference, no matter what. And at the same time all other entities are also in different time slots, and the very act of perceiving and seeing and measuring any entity implies that the signal from the entity was generated a small time ago (the entity may not even be there when you receive the signal anymore ? or may just disappear and appear and fool you if even for a very small time interval ?), so the entire deal of calling something Identical to something else, even itself, implies a rough approximation, a rough guess, just a good enough measurement, a logical measurement, good enough "for us and our uses". Don't get too anal, you know, just accept that it is good enough.

 

But that is the whole point: if the Identity Principle was declared and established exactly because the Man Brain became "too anal" on the whole deal, started to want greater precision, started to want something more solid and absolute, and wanted to create a precise logic, then why did it stop halfway and just decide, oh, it is good enough now, now we can say two things are Identical ? Because it wanted to lie to itself and fool itslef, it wanted to state the falsest Principle of all time and namely two entities must be different from each other to be distinguishable and each entity must be identical to only itself, etc. But this is not possible, all entities are constantly different from themselves if only for the flow of time, and then start putting in the small movements in space and already two of the coordinates of the same entity have changed instantly, time and space, let alone all the other trillions of measurements against that entity that can be performed from all the other entities in the Universe, all of them also changing position, time slots and even properties and all.

 

So the real Principle should state: No Entity is Ever Identical to Any Other Entity or Even Itself, there is Absolutely no Basis for Any Logic at all, there is No Basis to Enforce the Principles of Non Contradiction, in fact Existence and all Entities are Total Absolute and Complete Contradiction of All with Itself and with All.

 

We only use these Principles of Identity and Non Contradiction because they are simple gadgets that just kind of work for us, that are just comfortable approximating tools for an approximating Man Brain that just decides the truth is anything that is comfortable to itself, not really wanting to achieve absolute truth.

 

Just like when Einstein became too anal trying to understand time and gravity and space and discovered how "relative" it all is, I became "too anal" with the Principle of Identity and discovered that it is false, a hoax and a joke.

 

All Contradictions are Welcome, I thrive in being Wrong, and who said I wanted to solve any problems ? I want ever more problems impossible to resolve, I want to fail ever more in my quest to resolve problems, I want ever more problems...

Edited February 7, 2012 by IronMan79

[John Cuthber]

One of the rules of QM is that if you swap two electrons over you can't tell the difference because they are identical.

Identical entities are quite common.

[DrRocket]

 

All Contradictions are Welcome, I thrive in being Wrong, and who said I wanted to solve any problems ? I want ever more problems impossible to resolve, I want to fail ever more in my quest to resolve problems, I want ever more problems...

 

Maybe you first ought to understand one thing well. Then you can take on ever more problems.

 

Pick something simple. You seem to be thriving in the extreme.

[IronMan79]

Unless we are on the Outside looking In: we are outside of the Universe looking inside of it from Nowhere, or from a Platonic, Logical World or from a pure Information Relationship world: We are a momentary lapse of dependency on Matter, we are momentarily independent from Matter and details and are justified in Gross approximations and translations of all into pure mathematical entities...

[DrRocket]

Unless we are on the Outside looking In: we are outside of the Universe looking inside of it from Nowhere, or from a Platonic, Logical World or from a pure Information Relationship world: We are a momentary lapse of dependency on Matter, we are momentarily independent from Matter and details and are justified in Gross approximations and translations of all into pure mathematical entities...

 

Does this make sense to you ?

 

I was rather afraid of that.

[IronMan79]

From: http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=178111

 

"OP no two things can be in the same place at the same time,"

 

Not exactly: Nothing at all (no ONE thing) can be in the same place and at the same time because time is always flowing and the thing is always changing position.

 

"THERE ARE NOT TWO OBJECTS INVOLVED."

 

There is not even ONE object involved since you cannot pinpoint it down in time and space to infinite precision.

 

But, the very fact that we can use these approximate principles means that we somehow "format" reality, we "translate it" we "decode it" into something else, we "Digitize it" into some kinds of ONEs and ZEROS and act upon it. How can we, when if we are made up of matter and matter itself doesn't even contain ONE entity that can possible exist and is the same to itself ?

 

We are some gadget looking at the world from Outside of it, we are in some abstract world, we are outside of the universe looking in and formatting it according to our Man Brain. And it works for us and it is ok, and all is well, we don't need precision.

 

But the real properties of the world and universe, by denying the very possibility of the Identity Principle deny the possibility of any possible logic and non contradiction, hence the Universe is totally contradictory and totally incomprehensible, is totally disjoint from us, a total absolute unknown, has nothing at all to do with us, zero relationship with us, we are aliens here...

 

Of course, we will keep on using logic and mathematics and physics and such because it works and it is "good enough" for our uses, etc. But something is deeply wrong with our Man Brain, hence design a new one, create a new Man brain that operates on pure contradiction and kills all logic and Identity Principles and Non Contradiction...(granted, not an easy task... maybe an impossible task ?).

 

 

[IronMan79]

From:

 

http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=174921&start=25

 

A = not A. That is the question. That is a "contradictory universe". Where does this exist, how does this exist ? It does exist, but it doesn't "do" anything. That is the point, it is in a metaphysical dimension of no activity, no further actions, no further relationships, it needs no other relationships, there are no further elaborations, no other interactions of this state of "existence" or "being" than itself. You are not going to use it to reach other new relationships, you can't use it in any sense at all, because using it means plugging it in some kind of language, logic, some kind of "progression" towards something else, but it already contains, within itself, all that it needs since it doesn't need anything else, it is total, totalizing and finished.

 

It especially has no relationship with "us", with our mind, there is nothing we can do with it, there is no kinds of "Intentionality of Use" that we can apply to it. This is real metaphysics, real philosophy, that for which there is no further use, no further relationship, except these words or similar that describe vaguely how it relates to what we already know. All of our science, language, thoughts and memory are relationships defined according to what we already know, are new elaborations in an already given solution space, and these new elaborations and calculations bring on further new ones or apparently new ones, expanding the solution space as in the "progress of science and knowledge and the insertion of new bits in memory as a result", that are "used" to generate others, in a "process", a cycle.

 

But metaphysics is still, static, is frozen, doesn't progress. Like when we stop to think about time, it is a constant present moment that divides that past from the future, but it isn't the past or the future and the moment is fleeting, is intractable. These kinds of problems have no solution, these problems are absolutely new every time you look at them, there is no possible solution to this equation, there is no possible "progress" as is understood in terms of logic and science that can be applied to this, it will be always the same whether we look at it at 5 years old or after a trillion times, at 100 years old. There is nothing we can "do" with this problem, no further possible "understanding" by meditating upon it. And indeed metaphysics and philosophy at this level also has no social use, no one can help you on this one, you are alone with this, your mind is alone with this thought and no amount of social interaction, of "communication" will change this. And in fact real philosophy has no need to be communicated, has no use, has no social meaning, has no logical use whatsoever, it is simply the mind looking at impossible problems, taking a glimpse in a new universe of metaphysical platonic monolithic slabs of crashed mental "computer programs".

 

Most problems in philosophy are completely new every time you look at them, no matter how many times you already looked at them, this is because the nature of these problems and the way our mind reacts to them is always like the first time, we repeat forever the same awe and feel the same distance from these problems, there is no possible progress in philosophy, it is always repeated the same and often, even the more you look at these problems "the newer they become", the further you get from solutions, the worse it gets. All of our normal everyday logic goes out of the window when thinking about a "contradictory universe", "time", "existence" and other similars, the difference with everyday concepts, with science or even mathematics and physics is astounding, the problem of "existence" is so general and abstract, that all other problems become puny, irrelevant, for little boys.

 

Like the concept of "existence". This is also a monolithic slab, for anything to "exist", "existence" itself must already exist, but exactly where, in what way is something real, does something exist, is something true ? No solution, the further you think about it, the worst it gets, reverse progress, another characteristic of philosophy is that the more you "work" on problems the further you get away from any solutions, a concept or problem must simply be perceived, stated, and left alone, and your mind can simply wander, don't use logic, it is useless, counterproductive.

 

One last thing, instead of "A = not A", write, "= A not =". What is = ? How can this be ? It is, but it is another monolithic slab. Write others, invent other concepts they are all real, what is the square root of the square root without applying it to numbers ? That is metaphysics, that is where things really exist.

 

The structure of existence, if something is true it must exist in all time and in all points in space simultaneously, otherwise there is a place where it isn't. So if we are alive and what we see is true, then we must be alive in all time and for all points in space otherwise (but we were dead, and will be dead, and we are not walking on mars)... and we must be concentrating on the same information the same Information Relationship, Reciprocal Information Interactions and Reciprocal Mass - Energy - Matter Interactions, but if there are other Reciprocal Information Relationships, what makes the previous one still exist ? Memory ? But if you think of the previous one you lose the present one, so what gives ? We are contradiction, we are without any solution.

 

In theoretical physics, the most abstract theory of new universes has the same distance in our mind to the most concrete theory, they are all denotations, just Reciprocal Information Relationships, some are associated to measurements that somehow confirm the "reality" of the theory, but in all truth, they are all real, only some can be translated into some other language where instrumental manipulations can be used. But this begs the question, since we always essentially just talk to ourselves, we probably can invent a new instrumental relationship, and lie to ourselves and make any theory truth.

 

Reality couldn't have been based but on Quantum Theory, it couldn't have been any different, there is no way that an electron circling an atom could have been a rigid ball with an infinitely precise size, a monolithic slab, otherwise the world would have been completely deterministic and completely tractable and predictable, the three body problem exactly solvable (but there is an abstract universe where this is true, that abstract universe exists and is real just as much as ours given the nature of "existence").

 

But reality exists exactly because the laws of physics don't exist in some points of space, the probabilistic, quantum nature of reality reflects this, it is the non existence of any patterns and laws that make the existence of the patterns and laws of physics real. Just like philosophy states that something exists only because it exists in the background of its opposite.

 

Reality is the subtle string of the lack of the laws of physics that gives the laws of physics their reality.

[FrankQuietly]

I think I agree with you entirely in principle Ironman. No two things can be identical to each other due to spatio temporal relations, and nothing holds an identical identity with itself through its changes.

 

This leads us to that awkward point that you describe where we realise that our knowledge and reason is on shaky foundations.

 

But does it really matter? We can still build pragmatic and useful arguments and theories despite the lack of strict identity. We can still identify objects with themselves for practical purposes, some things like solar systems and people have such a strong long lasting identity that it is not really a concern.

 

So I agree with you I think, but I dont find many problems with it. And it doesnt seem to inhibit rationality and science. It is for sure a worrying point for those philosophers that would wish they can have that wonder theory that describes it all!

[PeterJ]

Logically, to be distinct two phenomena must share (at some level) an identity, while to share an identity they must (at some level) be distinct.

 

If two things are distinct then they must share an identity that allows them to be distinguished. (E.g they would have to share an identity with all our other concepts).

 

If two things are not distinct then they are not two things and cannot be identical.

 

So two things cannot be entirely distinct in the sense that they have no category in common, and it would be logically impossible for them to be entirely identical.

 

Or so it seems to me this morning.