Re: BHA: Re: starting up DPF readings again.

[Louis Irwin <lirwin1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Colin and Tobin,

>I have to agree with Colin: your thinking of pi is not one of pi's
>properties and does not change it (i.e., it does not change the ratio of a
>circle's diameter to its circumference).  [Tobin]

>I'm having serious trouble getting my head round this, what has changed is
>your thinking, not the propeties of pi. Pi doesn't have a property that it
>did not have an hour ago, only your thinking about it does. If you want to
>argue that pi changes with your thinking then it would seem to me to be a
>paradigmatic case of the epistemic fallacy [Colin]

You say that my thinking about pi does not change it. I agree that my
thought does not change its essential properties, which are mathematical.
It does not follow that pi does not change, unless you are using "change" to
mean essential change.  Maybe this comes down to semantics, but I think it
wise to maintain a distinction between change and essential change.  You
both probably agree with that statement, however I suspect you resist the
idea that a thing's external relations can constitute inessential change.
To say the same thing: it appears that you privilege certain kinds of
properties as being suitable for describing an object as changing in an
inessential way.  If Nixon's nose grew slightly, we would probably all say
that Nixon changed inessentially, but you apparently want to deny he changes
inessentially due to external relations.

Consider a rock which is transported from one place to another; it does not
undergo essential change, but its location changes.  Better yet, consider a
rock which remains in the same location while its environment changes.  It
is the same rock (essential properties unchanged), but its environmental
and/or geological properties have changed by virtue of its external
relations.  Perhaps it was in one formation at the start and is now a part
of another, even though its essential nature has not changed.  My view (or
way of speaking) is that the rock underwent change, if only inessential.

>Also your argument seems to say
>that human minds are necessary to the universe: without human minds, then
>under your argument pi would remain unchanged.  But the ratio that pi
>represents would remain the same whether or not any mind (human or
>otherwise) knew or thought of it.  Likewise for the chemical structure of
>water, etc. [Tobin]

No, human minds were part of my specific example, but I can give others.
Suppose that Pinocchio's nose was initially pi inches long and grew after
telling lies.  Then pi initially had an empirical property that it later
lost,
namely the property of being the measure in inches of Pinocchio's nose.  Any
spatial measure that changes will have a relation to pi that changes.  The
chemical structure of water was causally efficacious in extinguishing a fire
in my house yesterday but it was prevented from doing so today.  So the
chemical structure of water underwent a change in the property of being
causally efficacious in dousing a fire in my house.  (Note I am assuming
ubiquity determinism and the transfactual nature of the chemical structure
of water.)

Louis Irwin




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