Identity

John Clark (jonkc@worldnet.att.net)
Sun, 22 Nov 1998 23:48:20 -0500

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<daniel.fabulich@yale.edu> wrote::

>The difference between two objects and one object IS discernable,

Yes, but the difference between two objects and two examples of the same object is not discernable so I don't care which is really true.

>It certainly does matter HOW MANY you have, though not WHICH you have.

You're talking about objects so that's obviously true.

>Where is this one "green" of which you speak? Where is the "two?"
>Can you show it to me? Can you point at it?

No I can not, adjectives don't exist in a particular point in space or a particular instance in time.

>Joviality aside, we could define the One True Green to be the
>set of all green things.

I'm not big on definitions, few are needed and even fewer are any good, your definition of green is no exception. Even if all green things were destroyed green might not be because that subjective experience might exist in the future. And you can have green without green things or even green light, as in hallucinations. Before you ask let me say that I have no definition of green, only examples.

>But is your consciousness actually correlated with the set of
>all things Johnclarkian?

First of all I don't have consciousness I am consciousness. Emotions, sensations, and thoughts are the part of me I value, not protoplasm. Second, things are made of atoms and atoms have no individuality, if they can't even give this interesting property to themselves how can they give it to me?

>If I've got two green cubes, and smash one, what happens
>to the second cube's greenness?

If I have two printers printing out the same novel and I smash one is the book destroyed ? If I have two phonographs playing the same symphony and I smash one machine what happens to the music?

>there is a little less Green in the world.

I've never seen that make the slightest difference in anything. The number of green things in the universe constantly fluctuates, but it wouldn't matter if it dropped to zero. After a billion years without green and a green thing finally evolved again it would be just as green as it was before.

>I happen to think that there is no such thing as a Green; that's
>what I meant by the non-existence of Plato's heaven.

Then you should use nothing but nouns and pronouns when you speak or write, all other words are just gibberish. Me Tarzan you Jane.

John K Clark jonkc@att.net

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