Re: Identity

Randall Randall (wolfkin@phonetech.com)
Mon, 23 Nov 1998 01:34:58 -0500 (EST)

John Clark wrote:
> <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.

An example *is* an object. You can only have more than one example (or object) of a kind or sort of object, not of the object itself. This is true even of atoms; you may have more than one copper atom, but they are not the *same* atom, *because* you have more than one.`

> 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?

In the same way that they can give greenness, or consciousness, though atoms have neither property themselves.

> >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
?

Well, the one you stopped certainly is.

> If I have two phonographs playing the same symphony and I smash
> one machine what happens to the music?

There certainly is *less* music than before, no?

Wolfkin.
wolfkin@phonetech.com