You think it is "subjective" that beheading will cause death? That means you only think it will. You really don't know that it will? I wonder why?

Ok, I feel that i know for a fact that beheading will cause physical death. It may be the best example so far for establishing cause and effect. I just dont know(at least not now anyways) how to prove that it is true cause and effect and test it against mere correlation to establish the difference.

Maybe you know how to do this?

Now, the concept of the frog that we have is not necessarily complete, because the concept of the frog can only approximate the reality of the frog. This seems to be an inversion of the logic applied above; but it is in fact not. When we try to take a triangle, a geometric object, and try to make one out of some material, we are in fact, doing the reverse of what we do when we take a real object, say a frog, and try to make a purely logical/linguistic representation or mental ideal out of it. Our definition can only approximate what a frog really is. This is why a description can be interpreted different ways by different people, it is an approximation and we fill in the details with our past experience.

I think that any physiologist could easily explain why death is caused when the head is separated from the body. Don't you..

Ok. Lets assume the physiologist can give us the "exact cause" of death in the beheading. Lets call it X2, and call the "questionable cause" X1(event 1), followed by Y(event 2).

So:

X1 = event 1
X2 = An exact circumstance within X1 that can be determined as the cause of Y.
Y = event 2

Y must follow X1 contigously in time and space.
Y must always follow X1
Y must follow X1 more than once or it may be just a coincidence(unless X2 exists)

Now:

for any X1 and Y we first see if X2 can be determined.
if not, we call it a correlation, otherwise its cause and effect.

Does this work for you?

No, I'm still confused, nevertheless I appreciate the painstaking efforts.

You wrote two paragraphs.

I agree with the content of the first one. If I had to pick something to argue about (and I do), then I'd disagree with usage of words like "pure" and "perfect". When we consider nicely shaped triangles in the course of learning trigonometry, we don't dwell on the molecular crooks and crannies. Our conceptions or calculations are either perfect or imperfect? Or that real triangles are different from imagined triangles in some philosophically important way? Mathematics is about measuring and measuring is about being precise or imprecise. I think the science of math can handle rounding numbers off and I don't find significant digits particularly challenging philosophically.

I do not understand. That is not completely true; I understand that you are comparing the abstraction of an idea of frogs with the concretization of a triangle from an idea of triangles. I'll agree that the two processes are different, but it doesn't convince me there is a difference between the logicical possibilities of either triangles or frogs morphing into a Chevron-with-Techron commerecial.

It gets silly(-ier) after this, so feel free to skip to the bottom.

Consider the cup of coffee and the donut. I can make a donut, a geometric object, out of an idea of the donut shape and the proper materials. I can also form linguistic representations from cups of coffee, which are real objects. Or I can do the reverse. I can make a cup of coffee, which has it's own unique geometry, out of some clay and beans and form ideas about donuts while I dunk them in aforementioned geometry.

I don't think I can make a frog. Maybe a puppet of a frog.

So you see, our definition of a frog in no way determines what a frog could do, but rather, what a frog does, determines our definition of it. Get it?

No, since no where do you mention an explanation which shows why the correlation is not accidental. It is necessary to trace the chain physiological events which occur when the head leaves the body.

If I were to say, "a Russian Nuclear Submarine is a frog", in the context of this discussion, I'm wondering if this is a true statement or a false statement.

How is a submarine different than a frog? Where do we draw the distinction? At what scale? With what criteria? What sort of grounds would justify a distinction between a submarine and a frog? This is not a joke. I think someone needs to ask these questions, and I've got some time to burn.

You can do very different things with them...

Exactly. Categorical distinction is a convention, meaning it is made for practical purposes. Would the practices of cultures throughout history and pre-history influence how they design their categories and their languages? Is philosophy - an essentially impractical field - cursed by the convention of language? Is philosophy merely attempting to revise language use?

Well, arguing over what a frog "is", is pointless. If I say "bring me a frog" and you bring me a baseball then I'll say "no that's not a frog, that's a baseball, that's a frog". There's no real sense in which I was right and you were wrong, however. We could call frogs "polliwogs" and it wouldn't matter. Either we communicate successfully or we don't. As long as what I want to do gets accomplished, it's successful and that's what matters. If I can grunt and point at the salt so you hand it to me, that's the same as saying "please pass the salt", other than manners.

You think there is no difference between a frog and a baseball? Or you think that it doesn't matter what we call the object, "frog" or, "baseball". Both of those views are obviously wrong.

What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2)

There are other languages besides English and they seem to manage just fine with different words.

Or you think that it doesn't matter what we call the object, "frog" or, "baseball".

This is what I was responding to:



I have just shown this to be the case and you seem to agree. Suddenly you're talking about "classification". Moving goal posts?

As I pointed out, I agree it doesn't matter to the object what you call it. And that is what Juliet is saying. But that doesn't mean that when you call a rose a stinkweed, it is not an error, since a rose is not a stinkweed. And here you are not talking just about the rose and its properties, but its relations to other things in the world, and you have made a mistake when you did that. So there are two things at issue here, not just one. And I have not moved any goal posts. You recognized only one of the goal posts. A rose is a rose (absolutely true, as Gertrude Stein put it). But it is also a pretty and fragrant flower, and it is not a stinkweed. Right?