Individual Things - The Way We Divide

@Didymos Thomas,

A great example of the strangeness of modern categorization is that tomato is a fruit...
I'd love to see a different brand of categorization thus different thinking...
I'm feeling that the words 'good', 'bad' and 'evil' should be omitted from the dictionary next time its published, that way people wouldn't fall into the trap of using such words.

@Didymos Thomas,

I just have to wonder, if the distinctions we draw are possible (in that they are objective), yet an infinite number of equally accurate possibilities exist for distinction, then are any of them not merely possible, but actual?

@Didymos Thomas,

Didymos Thomas wrote:

I just have to wonder, if the distinctions we draw are possible (in that they are objective), yet an infinite number of equally accurate possibilities exist for distinction, then are any of them not merely possible, but actual?

How are possibilities actual?

What diference does it make anyway? We make distinctions about things wecause its usefull to us, the distinctions don't really change the things. Classifications also are only for our service. Changing the classifications could change how we think about things but any way you look at it they are for us to organize related things.

So what if we are all made of atoms, how usefull would it be to call averything "atom"? Distinctions (diferences) and classifications (liknesses) are only determinations that people make. If you want to call a cat a mog because it is like a dog then just do it. When your idea catches on and everyone agrees to call cats mogs then a cat is then a mog. In either case a cat has similarities and diferences from a dog and from averything else in the universe.

@ogden,

Quote:

How are possibilities actual?

In this context, I'm wondering about the various possible ways of enumerating objective differences and similarities, and whether or not these objective similarities and differences are products of convenience, or if they are inherent similarities and differences. It seems we both agree they are convenience.

Quote:

What diference does it make anyway? We make distinctions about things wecause its usefull to us, the distinctions don't really change the things. Classifications also are only for our service. Changing the classifications could change how we think about things but any way you look at it they are for us to organize related things.

Exactly. So, how can various ways of classifications change the way we think about something? Especially with regards to metaphysics.

Like you Ogden, I don't think issues like whether or not we should call the animal a cat or a mog a particularly significant here. But in a field such as metaphysics, where elaborate systems are built from classifications and distinctions, there might be some worth to this pursuit.

@Didymos Thomas,

Ah ha, thank you Didymos, now I think I see what you are getting at.

Let me see if I understand the question better now. You are wondering if the constructs in our mind, I mean the metaphysical ideas, are shaped from something real and so formed in a particular fashion or if they have formed from an arbitrary array of possibilities, the latter pointing out that other possibilities may be as equally valid as the ones we hold now.

This is a struggle between idealism and materialism (the mind body problem). The great thing about metaphysics is that it is free from the bonds of the physical where the possibilities seem boundless. But we are material in a material world and so are bound to our physicality.

The instant you label/name (objectify?) a metaphysical idea you have made it physical and bound it with the constructs of the term. I like how the Tao-Te-Ching says that if you can name it then that's not it. So there is this delicate balance between physical reality and imagination or perceived reality.

I think of a swinging pendulum with one apex that of physical and the other that of metaphysical. Either extreme is important and useful but not one without the other and neither without the balancing point of neutrality (pragmatism). Dogmatic empiricism, in and of itself, has no room for intangibles like emotions, spirit, or imagination and would be quite useless. Dogmatic idealism moves away from the physical and again becomes useless by itself. The two extremes are perhaps equally valid but become less useful as they move from center. Paradoxically, it is precisely the two extremes that create the balancing center. This quest for equilibrium is the crux of the universe, but once equilibrium is achieved there is stagnation. Likewise is the struggle with the subject object relationship and the seemingly never ending argument of science and religion.

A true philosopher takes in everything but keeps nothing. This statement has meaning because you have a concept of what everything and nothing are (and all the other words). It is precisely the language and symbolisms that contain meanings and to deconstruct them (words and concepts) is useful only to a point. So some things (like God) are wide open to possibilities and other things (like cat) are not served well by vast arrays of possibility.

I personally don't think there is any possibility to disconnect the spirit from the body. I mean that I believe that the "me" that I am, is a function of my brain and when my brain stops I will cease to exist. I think that the things that are metaphysical are ultimately illusory, but to deny them would be to deny a very profound swing of the pendulum of my current state of existence and no one really knows so anything is possible. I also believe that certain concepts of the mind are antecedents of the physical constructs of the brain.

Sorry for going on and on and branching off topic. Surprised

@Didymos Thomas,

Didymos Thomas wrote:

In this context, I'm wondering about the various possible ways of enumerating objective differences and similarities, and whether or not these objective similarities and differences are products of convenience, or if they are inherent similarities and differences.

These two do not contradict each other. Our classifications both derive from objective differences, and are conveniences. Most categories are really based on the particular relevant consequential aspects of things rather than the things themselves.

We are not concerned with every detail of any given thing at every given time. Linguistic categories serve to separate the irrelevant aspects of from the relevant ones, as pertains to any given statement. They are a sort of shorthand of the mind, but are build from our perceptions of real things.

@Didymos Thomas,

Quote:

These two do not contradict each other. Our classifications both derive from objective differences, and are conveniences. Most categories are really based on the particular relevant consequential aspects of things rather than the things themselves.

No, they do not necessarily contradict one another. However, we have established (though you may disagree) that objective similarities and differences can be found among any number of things. Given any two things, we can find objective similarities and differences. I could note a million similarities between a rock and a cat, and I can note a million differences between two cats. So, out of convenience, it seems, we select particular objective similarities and differences to focus on, while we could have just as easily, and with as much 'truthiness' in our description, focused on different objective similarities/differences.

Quote:

We are not concerned with every detail of any given thing at every given time. Linguistic categories serve to separate the irrelevant aspects of from the relevant ones, as pertains to any given statement.

Right, but when did you decide to call X a cat and Y a rock? Maybe it was a good decision originally, but the point is that you, and I, probably have not spent much time considering whether it should be cat or rock. The point of the thread is to consider how, if at all, this way we come to name and describe has influenced our thought and philosophical considerations.

@Didymos Thomas,

Didymos Thomas wrote:

No, they do not necessarily contradict one another. However, we have established (though you may disagree) that objective similarities and differences can be found among any number of things. Given any two things, we can find objective similarities and differences. I could note a million similarities between a rock and a cat, and I can note a million differences between two cats. So, out of convenience, it seems, we select particular objective similarities and differences to focus on, while we could have just as easily, and with as much 'truthiness' in our description, focused on different objective similarities/differences.

Right, but when did you decide to call X a cat and Y a rock? Maybe it was a good decision originally, but the point is that you, and I, probably have not spent much time considering whether it should be cat or rock. The point of the thread is to consider how, if at all, this way we come to name and describe has influenced our thought and philosophical considerations.

I guess I wasn't clear, my speculation is thus: It is the consequences, and "behaviors" we are trying to isolate with terminology, not the things!

We choose to separate animal from rock, because the behavior of rocks and animals, their nutritive value and other consequential aspects of these groups are what we are "after."

If there was a rock chasing me I'd think in animal terms, not rock terms about the situation. I'd say later "Man! did you see that crazy critter, it looked just like a rock! But it wanted to eat me, the sneaky bastard!"

@ogden,

ogden wrote:

How are possibilities actual?

What diference does it make anyway? We make distinctions about things wecause its usefull to us, the distinctions don't really change the things. Classifications also are only for our service. Changing the classifications could change how we think about things but any way you look at it they are for us to organize related things.

So what if we are all made of atoms, how usefull would it be to call averything "atom"? Distinctions (diferences) and classifications (liknesses) are only determinations that people make. If you want to call a cat a mog because it is like a dog then just do it. When your idea catches on and everyone agrees to call cats mogs then a cat is then a mog. In either case a cat has similarities and diferences from a dog and from averything else in the universe.

Similarite's in the variable's, that compile the chararistic's of the function's that the object dose or dose not do, with it's self or another object, mainly has led to the distinction's between them and the classification's of them due to there liknesses.

Also man has categorized object's and thing's by there variable's, chararistic's, or function's into a system of dualism duality of perception of those chararistic's, function's, and variable's.

So, if a female has a chararistic that is distinctly a opposite chararistic of the male sex, it's very likly that the "fe"male" sex would not be categorized by the same lable as "male"

So if all thing's are made of atom's, shall all thing's be categorized as atom's. No, even tho we are all made from atom's, they have ditinct chararistic's and function's depending on the order that they are in with one another, which has led to the categorization of thing's by that order that they are in, hence a cat is not a dog, due to the fact that the atom's are observed to have distinct chararistic's that are not shared by the dog, therefore ant form of cat's that share the same chararistic's wont be put into a category of a dog, due to the fact it dosnt share those common similarite's.

Also there is no white, black, brown, yellow, ect, and race of human's, there could be said to be diffrent breed's, yet everyone is classified as human's due to the fact that there are an overwhelming amount of similarite's of people's function's and variable's that compose them.
It would be arrogant to make sub-classification's for single chararistic's of human's, it would allso be very unproductive for a developing intelectualy based world. Cat's have breed's, but i think they should not, a cat should just be a cat.. The same should go for human's...
(such sub-classification's are deemed to be raceist!!!)

This to can be appied to none living object's, by categorizing them by there fuction's and deveating variable's.

Well no they shouldnt call everything atom due to the fact(we cant share the mental image's of what atom we are talking about so that's why we shouldnt lable everything the same thing)

( This subject is closly related to Infinit Opposite Dualism Of Realality, since they are both way's of classafie o fobject's for the mean's of communication to one another.)

I only say that because I.O.D.R. Is a new concept that I've been working on, with great haste to work out all the bug's and to present it in an absolute form.

@No0ne,

No0ne wrote:

So, if a female has a chararistic that is distinctly a opposite chararistic of the male sex, it's very likly that the "fe"male" sex would not be categorized by the same lable as "male"

Yet females and males tend to be categorized as a specific organism (cat or hydrangea); it is possible for dna to be exchanged between plant and animal (consumption/digestion), and also possible for reproduction to occur between different categories of organism (?). If this is so then why categorize individual organisms via characterization? We could end the endless categories in language and communicate with emotional responses to stimuli conveyed by language irrelevant to obvious objective differences.

One could say "liquid motion through penetrable tunnels in cooperative places" in place of "walking along a road". Poetic explanations communicating the emotion which an individual perceives. It is clear that the easier option is to use the simplest vocabulary in an explanation thus the audience can imagine and understand the fundamental parts of the idea communicated, but surely we miss the creative, intuitive and emotional expression when communicating with obviously objective sentences - the audience oblivious to relevant perceptions/feelings of the 'expressor'. It takes conceivable metaphor to express the somewhat ineffable notion of emotional relevance, yet I am sure that all language - objective and subjective - is simply a system of conceivable metaphors; thus the poetic is justified in place of the obvious, in that both fulfill identical premises in the composition of linguistic expression.

@Doobah47,

Quote:

A great example of the strangeness of modern categorization is that tomato is a fruit...
I'd love to see a different brand of categorization thus different thinking...

Sorry, but this is diving into linguistics, for which i have an abiding love. So here is an interesting example of semantic domain classification, which I ran across while working with an endangered language in the Sierra Nevadas of Eastern California.

In most western society and languages we divide the realm of the word cat into its various subcategories big cats, house cats, wild cats, and what have you. We can prototypically categorize a cat species which we have never seen before by certain catlike characteristics set out by the linguistic prototype [cat] (note) for iteresting research on semantic domains and categorization read Derek Bickerton or George Lakoff.

The Eastern Mono have a morpheme that is used in the creation of 5 words.
-bichi
Pahabichi - Bear
Wihabichi - Lynx
Tu:kabichi - bobcat
u:nu:'bichi - Whiteman
uinuibichi - tiny cute furry thing

Yet their word for house cat is borrowed from English Kidi' (kitty) and their word for Mountain Lion is Ehoka. The question there lies, why do the two wildcat species and bear share the same morphology while Mountain lion doesn't? To the old Mono generation that never went to school, it is laughable to group a mountain lion and a bobcat in the same domain. But a Bear and a bobcat are grouped together. The introduction of the house cat explanation is simple. They didn't have house cats before white people showed up.

The reason for the categorization as it is in Eastern Mono is the course fur and the stocky build of bears, bobcats, lynxes, and cute little furry things. Mountain lions are long lean and graceful with short sleek fur. As for whitemen, the morpheme U:nu:'u means scary, and the -bichi part came from thick beards that the miners and frontiersmen sported.

What I'm getting at with this example is, simply that the process of categorization is natural, the categorization itself is arbitrary. Of course having only 3 species of "cat" in a language population's given area is influential on the imminent catness of anything. The environment in which a language evolves is paramount to the parameters in which categorization can be applied, but within those parameters the categorization may be left to the caprice of the cultural conscious

@Didymos Thomas,

Didymos Thomas wrote:

Are there different things, or differences in the way we divide some thing?

No matter how apparently similar, we can find differences between two things, and no matter how apparently different, we can find similarities between any two things.
Even though we might identify objective similarities and differences, they do not justify making any particular distinction between kinds of things. For every category or name, we could just as easily had some other way to categorize and name things and still be as consistent and explanatory.

Didymos Thomas, Smile

What is it about the qualities that these catagories represent that troubles you, the process itself is something that cannot be done without. What criteria do you fancy for say the catagory of animal species? I am unsure of your intent here, what would be the motivation behind recatagorizing the things of this world?

@boagie,

boagie wrote:

Didymos Thomas,

What is it about the qualities that these categories represent that troubles you, the process itself is something that cannot be done without. What criteria do you fancy for say the catagory of animal species? I am unsure of your intent here, what would be the motivation behind recatagorizing the things of this world?

Time to time thing's should be updated, to be more effective in the function that they carry out.

I have a dog, it's breed is a toy poodle, it's white.

I have a human friend, he's Asian, he's yellow...

See how some thing's in the categorization of a person or thing seems needless?

Anyways, it seems like the only motivation that there could be, is to create a new communication system that is more effective and more efficient, and less time consuming in the act of relaying information to another person, without the chance of the other person mis-perceiving what you had said.

It seems humanity hasn't upgraded the speed or effectiveness on a hole language scale for a long time, just like a network for computer's there is always room for a new "patch" to increase the speed of communication.

So if one word, was made from 1,000 word's, you wouldn't need to say 1,000 word's you would only have to say that one word, as long as everyone knew those 1,000 word's, so when you speak it, they see it how you and every one els See's it.

So if you if you call something, by another name that people don't known, it would cause great mis-perception, and that's the main reason why English should not be remade, but just modified for advanced user's such as philosopher's:rolleyes:

A great example is a episode of South Park, where Starven Marven go's to the planet Marklar, where everyone speaks using only the word marklar to communicate with one another.
(also opposites are portrayed in the same episode, Cathy lee Giffard has all the food in a house and is "super" fat, and the Ethiopians have no food, no house, and are super skinny, and opposite color:whistling: clothing)

__________________________________________________
Well in my opinion, thing's should be categorized, with great simplicity in mind...

@No0ne,

Quote:

Anyways, it seems like the only motivation that there could be, is to create a new communication system that is more effective and more efficient, and less time consuming in the act of relaying information to another person, without the chance of the other person mis-perceiving what you had said.

There have been countless attempts to do this either by creating an artificial language in its communicatory ideal of perfection such as Esperanto, or from necessity when two trade groups meet somewhat more naturally (pidgeons). The same thing happens every time the artificial and normally very concise language is taught to a generation as their primary or birth language. That generation grammaticizes it, adds descriptive and divergent vocabulary, uses slang, creates full prosodic and pragmatic systems, in essence they jump starts a more natural language. It seems that human communication as it is genetically wired within us, is sloppy, context dependent, and somewhat arbitrary.

@Didymos Thomas,

Didymos Thomas;10316 wrote:

For every category or name, we could just as easily had some other way to categorize and name things and still be as consistent and explanatory.

Not 'could' but 'are', not 'had' but 'have'.
I think thats called 'having' (being) different and unique Perspectives, all of us.

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