I think that when Heraclitis said, "You can't step into the same river twice," he was not speaking about a thing/object called river, and a person/object (ego me) stepping into that objective river. He was saying that both that river and that person were two different processes, and because they continually moved and change, they could never come together at the exact same point, ever again. (He might have even likened the river to time. That is my guess.)


S9

Ken,

Whenever we read anyone, what we believe they said is translated through our own subjective understanding of what they meant. This is the natural order of things.

S9

---------- Post added 10-31-2009 at 06:15 PM ----------

Ken,

If I say that I am going into the kitchen to eat a ham sandwich today, and tomorrow I say that I am going into the kitchen to have a have sandwich, again, everyone can make a great leap of faith that I probably won't be that same ham sandwich both days, even though they share the same name "ham sandwich."

Thus it is with a river. Call it anything you want, naming it does not capture it. A river is a living process, not a name. A river is subject to changes as are you. Every day the river is a new river. So although you may call a river, yesterday and today, by the very same name, the river is by no means identical both times and manifests differently.

We humans have some funny ideas about objectification and our power to make things into objects. Just because we think something is a material object doesn't limit that thing to that definition.

S9

Of course the Hudson is the very same river on Tuesday, and on Wednesday. It is in the same place on the map. It is the same river Henry Hudson sailed on. Of course, the waters are very different. But so what? Don't you think that Henry Hudson sailed on the Henry Hudson River?

You can't step in the same river once!

You've stated this above, and I concur, absolutely! Change is a constant process ... not made up of abstract moments or points of time.

Here's an excerpt from Bergson's Introduction to Metaphysics (I've quoted from this work in a separate thread). This is from, the Editor's Introduction to the work:

"Once we have grasped the inner nature of becoming, it is possible for us to understand that form of it which appears as movement in space. Consider the insoluble paradoxes which arise when the intellect endeavors to explain motion in terms of "points" and "instants." An illustration from the ancient philosopher, Zeno of Elea, will disclose the difficulty. Take the phenomenon of a flying arrow. It is easy to show, says Zeno, that it does not really move. For at each instant of its flgiht it occupies one and only one point of space. This means that at each instant the arrow must be at rest, since otherwise it would not occupy a given point at that instant. But its whole course is composed of such points. Therefore, the arrow does not acually move at all. Berson agrees that the argument as stated is irrefutable. What he denies is Zeno's assumption that the arrow can literally be at a point. But strictly speaking, the points in its trajectory are not real positions. They are "suppositions" of the intellect. Thus the moral to be drawn from Zeno's paradoxes is not that motion is impossible, but rather that it is impossible for the intellect to comprehend motion. Just as duration can never be "constructed" in terms of instants, so movement can never be "constructed" in terms of points. Both time and motion have to be apprehended intuitively."

Isn't it the same with our thinking we can step into the same river even once? We sometimes fail to grasp that change and movement is a constant.

Your map must be very wet. "The map is not the terrritory" (Korzybski)

Did you know that the Hudson River at Albany is at sea level and that it has tides? The water at Poughkeepsie flows backwards at high tide. So the Hudson River is not a river, but rather an estuary, at least to the Troy Locks.

Henry Hudson never sailed on the Henry Hudson River nor on the Hudson River. The Mohecans called it Muheconneok, which means "from the waters that are never still."

You can't step in the same river once!

Thanks! I wasn't aware of that passage. I'm glad that Bergson, or is it the editor, agrees with me.:bigsmile:

Isn't it the same with our thinking we can step into the same river even once? We sometimes fail to grasp that change and movement is a constant.

Ken,

The reason that you would remain the same person, if you lost 1 pound, is because, you believe that your definition of you, is you. You believe that your word picture of Ken, his history, and the many adjectives ARE what you are.

This makes me think of a Hindu story that questions what part of a chariot is the actual chariot? Is it the wheels? If you take away the wheels, is it still a chariot. After removing one piece after another, it goes on to question at what point by removing piece by piece you would still have that same chariot?

If you did this same exercise with Ken, when would he too be lost in a pile of parts?

Now take a river, and remove the water from it cup full by cup full. How many cups are equal to that river?

Is it just the motion you say? Then keep those same cups in constant motion. Now are they the river?

What is a river if you cannot capture its water and/or its motion and simply reproduce it in your back yard?


S9

Yes, things change, but why should that mean that the thing cannot persist (remain the same) through change? I don't see that Bergson denies this since I cannot make out what he is exactly saying, but, in case he does, he is wrong. If I were to lose one pound on a diet, I would clearly remain the same person I was before I lost that pound.

But you would have added experiences to yourself as you move through time and change, however minimal ... and in this, wouldn't your identity have been affected by these experiences? As we age, we also grow in kowledge (hopefully), and we experience more and are affected by more. This is why the metaphor of the River with its constant flow, the Idea may be the same in our mind, but the Reality is constant flow, with different molecules of water, etc. But yes, you are the same person throughout life ... but you can undergo changes in your character, hence, your identity. Let's say, even by hearing for the first time, a piece of music you had never heard before, and even though the change may be minimal. In some cases, the changes may be shattering (say a divorce or the death of a loved one) and destructive (walking across the street and getting run over by a bus), or creative and Identity enhancing.

and in this, wouldn't your identity have been affected by these experiences?

Quote:

I know that people say things like, after his divorce he is a changed man. But that is not literally true. He is the very same person after the divorce and before the divorce. What is meant is that the divorce affected him in different ways. But that does not mean that A before the divorce and A after the divorce are not one and the same person.[/[/QUOTE]

I think I am the same person all along, from one moment to the next. But how do we account for what we learn. Say, someone goes through a learning experience under the guidance of teachers, and afterwards like Beethoven has learned to master musical composition ... has his identity not changed? This does not mean the person would be a new person, or a new identity, it means just that their identity has undergone a transition, from a before (not knowing how to compose) to an after (knowing how to compose) ... and so it would be with whatever we come to know throughout life, including whatever experiences have gone to forming our identity. These transformations we undergo however do not eradicate the fact that we are still the same person we were from birth. I see identity as not fixed, but something undergoing a transformation ... and we become what we make of ourselves, for better or worse. Or am I then confusing terms like identity and character. Are they the same?

kennethamy;101116 wrote:

and in this, wouldn't your identity have been affected by these experiences?



I think I am the same person all along, from one moment to the next. But how do we account for what we learn. Say, someone goes through a learning experience under the guidance of teachers, and afterwards like Beethoven has learned to master musical composition ... has his identity not changed? This does not mean the person would be a new person, or a new identity, it means just that their identity has undergone a transition, from a before (not knowing how to compose) to an after (knowing how to compose) ... and so it would be with whatever we come to know throughout life, including whatever experiences have gone to forming that identity. These transformations we undergo however do not eradicate the fact that we are still the same person we were from birth. I see identity as not fixed, but something undergoing a transformation ... and we become what we make of ourselves, for better or worse. Or am I then confusing terms like identity and character. Are they the same?

The issue is persistence through change. How does something remain numerically the same, although qualitatively different. And what does this mean? Character, of course develops from childhood through adulthood.

Shostakovich;101125 wrote:

The issue is persistence through change. How does something remain numerically the same, although qualitatively different. And what does this mean? Character, of course develops from childhood through adulthood.

Peristence through change is an intelligible concept to me. What we can then say is the identity remains the very same (constant throughout life). if we equate it with that which persists within us. The only thing (if it be a thing) that I can see as persisting, is life. To equate identity with unchanging persistence I would have to then say identity is synonymous with that thing that gives, or that is life. Is this thing that gives life, spirit? Or is it something physical? Whichever it is, it would then be identitical to identity, if we look at identity as being persistent, and unchanging. So we remain the same identity, but our character is not the same.

I suppose then it is a question of semantics or linguistics. What do we really mean by identity? Life? Character?

The subject can become confusing if we jumble our definitions.

But I can agree with the idea of Identity persisting ... remaining the same; and allow for the character that goes with this identity as that which undergoes change. But we still haven't gotten to the root of what Identity is, have we? This is why it always arises as a subject of controversy and debate in philosophy.