Random Philosophy

[lorimt]

I juts ran across this while reading Avicenna.

"Moreover, if any thing is composed of two things, if one of the two things cam be found without the other, the other can be found without the first. An example of this is oxymel, which is composed of vinegar and honey: if vinegar can be found without honey, honey can be found without vinegar. Another example is the formed statue composed of bronze and the human form: if bronze can be found without the human form, the human form can be found without the bronze. This can be found by induction and has many examples."

I'm not buying into the induction bit without an actual proof, since I've seen too many 'proofs' of this sort by ancient philosophers. The concept, however, strikes me as very interesting, particularly the form/material bit. Does anyone have any counterexamples, or particularly interesting examples? My brain is wavering between "I've got it, it all makes sense, look how obvious this idea is," and "What about this case? This isn't true at all."

Of all the Avicenna I've worked through tonight, this was the bit that most caught my eye. It sort of sums up the rest however. I've found a tendency to alternate between "how interesting," and "you make no sense," though usually in regards to different arguments.

Comments

[kitty-tape.livejournal.com]

I don't think this works because it is saying if there exists an A without a B then there exists a B without an A. Now, if you said if for all A, A exists without B then, if B exists, there exists B without A. An example as to why the quantifier must be treated this way is as follows: if water can be found without a duck, then a duck can be found without water. This is clearly false if we consider that a duck is composed of water and therefore cannot be found without it. (Clearly, we can find water without a duck; it is what I prefer to drink.)

[lorimt]

I don't think it is quite so general. I think the only case being specified is where one item is made of two things.

Now, your example could be rewritten to say that a duck is composed of water and duck bits that aren't water, and that water exists independantly, where duck bits without water don't. (Even if you dehydrate duck, but I don't think that context is supposed to exist.) Even so, I don't think this is necessarily what the author is intending by this. Actually, I retract my parenthectical comment above. Perhaps Avicenna did mean the equivalent of dehydrated duck bits. I *think* the thing he is trying to get at with that is that if you can concieve of a thing A as being made up of two separate things B and C, then B and C must exist independantly. (The separate bit means that B and C can't secretly be the same thing.)

The part I'm having difficulty with most is if you have some substance that can only be found in combination with other substances, and I can't think of any such example. Perhaps oxygen and fire. Oxygen can exist independant of fire, but only the concept of fire can exist without oxygen. Grr, but that doesn't fit the having one object made up of two parts thing. I've almost got my brain wrapped around this, really.

[telso.livejournal.com]

Although I can't find it anywhere on google, I remember my chemistry textbook stating that ammonium ions have never been separated from water, that they always coexist with hydroxide ions and water and ammonia, the last two making up about 99% of the mixture. If you try to take away water or ammonia, the reaction just shifts to produce more water and ammonia. And since the ratio of equilibrium is around 99 to 1, if you take away all the water or all the ammonia, all the ammonium ions will react and so there will be none left (and if you try to collect the ammonium, the ammonium you take will just react with hydroxide and change into water and ammonia). Although you can have compounds not in water with ammonium, they aren't ammonium ions.

So in this case ammonium has to exist with water, ammonia and hydroxide ions while each of those substances can exist without ammonium ions. However I'd check this information before you go to argue with your teacher.

[ztbb.livejournal.com]

How about this: a house is composed of a ground floor and an upper floor. A ground floor may be found without an upper floor, but an upper floor may not be found without a ground floor. (Or, a variant: the CN Tower is composed of a tall structure and an observation deck. Tall structures may be found without observation decks, but not vice-versa.)

[lorimt]

Perfect. This example works well. I will see what Kassam has to say about it.

[sithjawa.livejournal.com]

What about philosophy and wanking? Wanking can be found without philosophy, for example on Schmack...

::runs away very very fast::

[easwaran.livejournal.com]

I think his statement has good methodological appeal (it doesn't make sense to say that something is made of two parts unless you can show that these parts actually exist independently of one another), but isn't the sort of statement that can - or should - be justified by evidence or induction.

The counterexample that came to my mind immediately on reading the statement was that a proton is made up of three quarks, but quarks can't exist separately. In my few minutes of thought, I decided this was actually a strong argument against the quark theory, and in favor of a theory that discusses various attributes of protons and neutrons without explaining them in terms of new, more fundamental particles. Although on second thought, the fact that quarks can exist in both hadrons and mesons does show that each type of quark can exist independently of each other, though not of all of them.

I think this principle is more on the lines of Occam's Razor. Ockham says "don't postulate an entity unless you absolutely need it to explain the world"; Avicenna says "don't postulate an entity if it always exists only in one particular combination" though he may not have phrased it this way. If you want to analyze a magnet as a combination of iron atoms aligned in a certain way, plus the "magnet ghost", you're not adding any explanatory power to your theory. The "magnet ghost" never appears anywhere except in a magnet, so anything that it's presence supposedly explains could have been attributed to the particular form of the iron, and not the magnet ghost.

I think Dave's example may be fixable by saying that you don't really have a "ground floor" and an "upper floor" but rather just several floors, any of which can exist independently of the others. None of them is essentially an upper floor. Thus, an "upper floor" isn't a new entity we postulate to explain the combination of a two-story house.

What I don't understand is why he didn't apply this to all combinations of things, but only combinations in which at least one component appears without the others. It sounds like he's allowing the possibility that "iron" is really made of two things: "iro" and "ron", neither of which occurs separate from the other, each of which is taken to explain different properties of iron. That sounds ridiculous to me.

[theojf.livejournal.com]

I also thought of quarks, although I might have arrived at them from slightly differently...

I don't quite understand the statement, though. If any thing is composed of two things, if one of the two things can be found without the other, the other can be found without the first. I find it hard to imagine defining "thing" without allowing it to "be found without the other". And so if it is "composed of two things", I would immediately assume that those things can each exist without the other. Else what justifies them being called "things"? But then quarks can't exist independantly, so I came to the same conclusion: maybe they don't deserve to exist. Or maybe they just shouldn't be called "things". 'Cause I guess there are lots of objects which have as part of their definition their relation to something else, so they shouldn't exist without other stuff.

E.g. I claim that part of the definition of "Theo" is my relation to society. In particular, that I am a social being. And I don't think I would exist without society. However, society can exist without me. So am I a "thing"? I guess. So maybe things can be such that they require other things to exist. I dunno.

[easwaran.livejournal.com]

If you mean that "you" wouldn't exist at all without society, or in a different society, and you still want to postulate this idea of yourself as an existent object, then you're contradicting Avicenna. However, just because you always require a context, even if it might be different contexts, that doesn't mean that you don't exist independently of any particular context.

[squirrelloid.livejournal.com]

I will note that quarks don't qualify, because while they cannot exist without each other, this implies that you can't find one without the other (a requirement of the statement to be true), its just the second part has to only occur with the first.

[squirrelloid.livejournal.com]

It's you!

To construct a counter-example, you'll need to look in the set of thought constructs because for any real world things this will hold.

And i think they mean philosophical induction, which isn't as sound as mathematical induction, but is true 99.9% of the time. (The sun has risen every day of my life, therefore the sun will rise tomorrow).