From: J. R. Molloy (jr@shasta.com)
Date: Fri Dec 22 2000 - 19:23:13 MST
From: "zeb haradon" <zebharadon@hotmail.com>
> Thesius's ship should be preserved, since it is a peice of Greek
> history. They keep it docked, but it starts to decay. Every time a peice
of
> wood decays even a bit, it is replaced with a freh board. Eventually,
every
> board has been replaced. Is it still Thesius's ship? If no, at what point
> was it no longer that ship? When did it lose it's "Thesius's ship"-ness?
It is still Thesius' ship. If you want to know how, observe the workers
replacing the decayed boards with fresh boards. If you want to know when and
where, pay attention to these details. If you want to know whose ship it is,
find Thesius' descendents and heirs. If you want to know why, you're a
philosopher, and Thesius probably wouldn't want you on the ship.
> Furthermore, a scrap dealer stumbles upon all the semi-rotting wood which
> has been removed from Thesius's ship. He takes it, and, since it's not
> completely rotten, he actually assembles a ship from it, he has
re-assmbled
> Thesius's original ship. He docks it next to the first ship. Which one is
> really Thesius's ship?
If you were paying attention to the how, and where, and when, and whose
relating to Thesius' ship, then you'd know that Thesius (or his
preservationist descendents, if he's dead) still has his reconstructed ship,
and that the scrap dealer has the rotten original ship. No mystery there.
None of this requires philosophy. It just needs observation, direct
experience to verify facts, and empirical evidence to ascertain correct
identities.
> Someone came to give a philosophy talk at the college I went to and argued
> that they both are, and that this teaches us something about objects and
> space. His hypothesis was that this proves that an object can be in two
> places at the same time. Amazing! Thesius's ship was in two places at the
> same time, docked right next to eachother.
That helps to explain why some people call it "fool-osophy."
> The reason this peice of philosophy is valuable is because it takes
"common
> sense" hidden assumptions about the nature of objects and applies it to a
> problem, which leads to a nonsensical result and shows that the common
sense
> assumptions about objects, the premises by which most people think about
> objects, are false. If you're a good philosopher, you're going to figure
out
> why these wrong questions are the wrong questions.
Nice try, but no kewpie doll. This piece of sh... excuse me, this piece of
philosophy is worthless because it pretends to offer solutions, but
(un)common sense reveals more valuable information. The advantage of
(un)common sense (sense is really not that common) is that it doesn't lead
to nonsensical results. When you come to your senses (stop philosophizing),
things look much more clear. If you're a good philosopher, you'll keep
asking the wrong questions to insure that you don't run out of work.
To me, science is the most uncommon kind of sense. Especially 21st century
science, because it requires the greatest precision and accuracy in
empirical experiments that humans have ever attempted. I mean, super
colliders and space telescopes are fairly uncommon. You need hardware to do
science.
This reminds me of an Edelman story. Apparently the science department was
in trouble because it had such a huge expense account. The math department
bragged that it only needed chalk, paper, and a few waste paper baskets. But
the philosophy department did even better. They didn't even need waste
baskets. Get it? The philosophers didn't throw out their wrong questions.
Stay hungry,
--J. R.
3M TA3
=====================
Useless hypotheses: consciousness, phlogiston, vitalism, mind, free will
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