Heidegger

Googlers of Joseph Polanik, you’ll really want to take a look at this
post - it’s the best illustration of all of what everyone on every
Google discussion group to which he’s posted says about him. (Test that
out by doing a search of them.)

Joseph Polanik wrote:

> >Joseph, why did you separate my premise that identity is a necessary
> >condition of self-existence, from the further argument that I gave for
> >that premise … when you separate my premises from the reasons I give
> >for them, then yes, they’ll look pretty weak.
>
> I haven’t separated two claims:
>
> 1. the claim that your premise ‘I remain self-identical throughout all
> my perceptions’ is true (ie provable thru evidence based logical
> deduction).
>
> 2. the further (and stronger) claim that this premise is a necessary
> condition of self-existence.
>
> [if you would like to discuss claim 2, look for the post of 2008-04-21
> with a subject line of ‘Re: Exposing the Crifasi Maneuver’ and the title
> ‘Self-Indentity Over Time — A Necessary Condition of Existence?’. once
> you find it, *respond to it*. I asked you to explain how your position
> could be consistent with the passage I quoted from Heidegger.]
>
> I’m addressing claim 1 here; because, if your premise isn’t true at all;
> then, you don’t have much chance of proving it is a necessary condition
> of self-existence.

I challenge Joseph Polanik to point out ANY passage in which I’ve ever
claimed to prove that “I remain self-identical throughout all my
perceptions” is TRUE, as opposed to simply that it is a necessary
condition of self-existence. I have only claimed #2 above, never #1.
Joseph Polanik has now resorted to lying on top of obfuscation.

This is a big step for him, and shows just how true what the members of
other Google discussion groups have said about him. Take BIG notes on
this one.

> >>>>So my argument explicitly appealed to the IDENTITY of the first
> >>>>person pronoun - i.e., that you have yet to produce any reason
> >>>>whatsoever for the continued identity of the first person pronoun if
> >>>>its referent were to lack a continued identity.
>
> it is an empirical fact that the english language first-person singular
> pronoun, ‘I’, has been unchanged for centuries.
>
> using the process of evidence based logical deduction, what do you
> deduce from this fact?
>
> are you suggesting that the only possible explanation for this empirical
> fact is that the referent of ‘I’ remains unchanged?

First, FIREWORKS PLEASE - JOSEPH POLANIK HAS FINALLY ADDRESSED THE
ARGUMENT I GAVE FOR MY PREMISE! After a full 8 or 9 posts in which he
tap danced, did handstands, and tried the most tortured intellectual
maneuvers to avoid addressing the above argument, he’s FINALLY decided
to actually address it. I must say, this almost makes up for your lie
above. Now FINALLY we can progress one step.

> you seem to be puzzled by the way language users use the same word time
> and again even though the referent changes (however slightly) over time.
>
> take the word ‘chair’. I use this word to denote my chair day after day
> even though the changes constantly. The fabric is getting worn, the
> frame creaks more and more, there’s a coffee stain on it that wasn’t
> there before, yada, yada, yada. but I still call it a chair.
>
> most words are like this.
>
> is it just the word ‘I’ that bothers you in this regard; and, if so,
> why do you suppose that is?

Nope, it’s not the only case that bothers me, and here’s why:

(from Hume’s A Treatise of Human Nature, Book I, Part IV, section 6: “Of
Personal Identity”):

What then gives us so great a propensity to ascribe an identity to these
successive perceptions, and to suppose ourselves possessed of an
invariable and uninterrupted existence through the whole course of our
lives?…
…
…suppose any mass of matter … to be placed before us; it is plain we
must attribute a perfect identity to this mass, provided all the parts
continue uninterruptedly and invariably the same…. But supposing some
very small or inconsiderable part to be added to the mass, or subtracted
from it; though this absolutely destroys the identity of the whole,
strictly speaking; yet … we … pronounce a mass of matter the same, where
we find so trivial an alteration. The passage of the thought from the
object before the change to the object after it, is so smooth and easy,
that we scarce perceive the transition, and are apt to imagine that it
is … the same object.
…
This may be confirmed by another phenomenon. A change in any
considerable part of a body destroys its identity; but … where the
change is produced gradually … we are less apt to ascribe to it the same
effect. The reason can plainly be no other, than that the mind, in
following the successive changes of the body, feels an easy passage from
… its condition in one moment to … another, and at no particular time
perceives any interruption…. From which continued perception, it
ascribes a continued existence and identity to the object.

… A ship, of which a considerable part has been changed by frequent
reparations, is still considered as the same; nor does the difference of
the materials hinder us from ascribing an identity to it. The common end
… is the same under all their variations, and affords an easy transition
of the imagination from one situation of the body to another.

But this is still more remarkable … with all animals and vegetables;
where not only the several parts have a reference to some general
purpose, but also a … connection with each other … so strong … that in a
very few years both vegetables and animals endure a total change, yet we
still attribute identity to them, while their form, size, and substance
are entirely altered. An oak, that grows from a small plant to a large
tree, is still the same oak; though there be not one particle of matter,
or figure of its parts the same. An infant becomes a man-, and is
sometimes fat, sometimes lean, without any change in his identity.

… In like manner … a church, which was formerly of brick, fell to ruin,
and that the parish rebuilt the same church of free-stone, and according
to modern architecture. Here neither the form nor materials are the
same, nor is there any thing common to the two objects, but their
relation to the inhabitants of the parish; and yet this alone is
sufficient to make us denominate them the same….
…
We now proceed to explain the nature of personal identity, which has
become so great a question…. And here it is evident, the same method of
reasoning must be continued which has so successfully explained the
identity of plants, and animals, and ships, and houses, and of all the …
productions either of art or nature. The identity, which we ascribe to
the mind of man, is only a fictitious one, and of a like kind with that
which we ascribe to vegetables and animal bodies….

Posted on Thursday, April 24th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
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