Do Composite Objects Exist? | Dr. Eric Olson

Dr. Eric Olson joins me to discuss various puzzles of material constitution and composition. Do birds exist? Do tables? Do you?

OUTLINE

00:00 A note
1:01 Intro and overview
2:01 Defining terms
8:34 Statue and clay
24:11 Sorites
31:00 Problem of the Many
37:30 Causal redundancy
41:50 Conclusion

LINKS

THE USUAL...

[joelturnbull]

When I studied philosophy, problems like these struck me as deeply troubling, but most people don’t think they’re even worth thinking about. Thanks for putting this together.

[not_enough_space]

I'm not really a philosopher myself, but it seems to me there's a non-metaphysical and non-fundamental sense in which we say objects exist. That is, as we live our lives in the world we do some common-sense human categorizing of the contents of our experience. A lump of clay and a bust made of that clay both seem more appropriately captured by that non-metaphysical activity of categorizing. I'd wonder how appropriate it is to demand that metaphysics capture the same distinctions and come to the same results.

[bronsonvann]

Wouldn’t a functional view of objects take care of most of these problems?

The clay Socrates statue would get destroyed when it is squished because that clump of clay no longer functions as an image of Socrates. You could apply this the same way with the question “when does joe become a child vs an adult?” It would be when he takes on the function of an adult in his society (including the privileges and responsibilities).

This could even apply to the question of “what constitutes our body” when we are constantly changing cells and atoms, the atoms that constitute our body are those which allow us to move, shape the world, and act as our apparatus in the physical world. Granted, with that last point there could still be issues like in organ transplants of “when does the donor’s kidney become the recipient’s kidney, if ever” but for the most part a functional view of object constitution seems to check off most of the boxes and seems intuitively plausible.

(And if the question arises as to whether these functions are real or meaningful in any sense, I’m pretty sure either Aristotle or Aquinas held the view that the telos of objects are extensions of the telos of humans and that objects have no nature in and of themselves)

[TheWTFcakes]

This is irrelevant, but I recently discovered that my partner also regularly watches your videos. I think I found the one, lol. thanks for all the brain food, and hi babe if you see this 😂

[ParkersPensees]

Man, I really love Olson!! A great metaphysician!

[gabri]

LOL the first recomended video for me is the Vsauce video " Do chairs exist?"

[nathanroush]

I think what these dilemmas point to is that we need more than 2 fundamental principles in order to account for change. You have to come to recognize that you just cannot account for change with only two variables at play (matter and form). You need a third in order to have enough degrees of freedom to even find a solution.

We need at least a third principle, which Aristotle calls privation in order to account for change/composition and we can know this just by recognizing what is required to even begin to account for change.
If you think change is real you need 3 principles. Whether you accept Aristotle’s concept of privation or not we should all be able to agree that 3 principles are needed.

[bengreen]

when I listen to these sorts of discussions, my mind invariably turns to the brilliant song by the Super Furry Animals - 'Rocks are slow life'.
I find it's always a satisfying answer.

[jamescantrell]

I'm mostly attracted to the dialethia of it being the case that there are only simples and there is only one universal.

[pesilaratnayake]

A systems-based approach can give useful insight into this I think. A system can be considered as any combination of objects, fundamental or otherwise, and we can study those things which affect it external to itself (inputs), its inner properties, that may change in response to each other or its inputs (states), and how it affects other things (outputs). Much of this seems to be about conceptualising things, such as how much is a heap, which subsets comprise a dog, etc. But this has to do with how our brains identify that which is from that which is not, and not necessarily an ontological problem. We train our brains through concept attainment on what is a dog, and that provides our more visceral sense of what it means for something to be a dog. But that gets challenged when we see one with 3 legs due to an amputation. I know dogs have four legs but this one used to, so it still counts. But what if we changed it gradually to have two stomachs, or to no longer have mammary glands? Well then it might still look like a dog, but it doesn't have the properties that we would expect of a dog. Is the mouse with a human ear considered a mouse? It seemed to be living.

These are questions about how things output their properties to be inputs to other things (e.g., dogs physical appearance to be received by human eyes), and how that interacts with our brain states concept of what it means for something to be a dog.

From a materialist perspective, these things follow that systems can be made of smaller systems, producing systems of larger order and complexity. This complexity can be approximated using lumped parameter models instead of distributed parameter models, and that's what we do in our brains. We don't see every hair on a dog as a separate objects, or every cell or atom if we could see that level of detail. Our brains couldn't process that or make calculations quickly enough to function like that. We use simplified models and heuristics that allow us to treat this group of pieces that seem to move or not move in a coordinated manner as one thing with a few properties rather than 10^26 or so things that interact with each other in probabilistic ways. And when we need to, we can study that one thing as, for example sections of skin which may or may not have a malignant growth in it. We create models based on what we are observing and what we are looking for.
We see a bust because we have associations of what makes something look human. An octopus on the sea floor that stumbles upon the bust would not see it as a sculpture. It may be an odd shaped lump of clay compared to others it has experienced. Oddly bilaterally symmetric, but not a sculpture. It's only meaningful if there is a concept to which it refers. But a dolphin who has seen humans may recognise it as being human-like in appearance, despite not knowing how that came to be.

Every lump of clay that kind of looks like something else had a sculptor!

[christopherp.]

Is there an infinite chain of composition? When I look at an "object" is it infinitely nuanced? and therefore is that the reason as to why composite objects don't exist? Sounds like a very deterministic point of view. Or is there something fundamental/underlying...does it just stop at atoms? Does that imply quantum mechanics?

Do concrete objects exist? is there cause and effect with concrete objects or just causal power?

[CMVMic]

It seems there are composite objects in a linguistic sense but they are all of the same object/substance. They are the forms/ways of being as a result of motion.

Now, it seems Nominalism must be true and 'abstract objects' are simply labels for functions. There may not even be a hierarchy/structure to reality. In this view, there is no objective difference between life and non-life. It is merely distinguished by the motion of a particular form of substance. There is no interaction problem if substance monism holds true. Thus, it seems there are three fundamental aspects of reality/existence. Substance, Space, Motion. All three must exist as brute facts and they all encompass reality. Without these aspects, logical/linguistics relations would not exist and, thus existence becomes a meaningless concept equivalent to nonexistence.

These three aspects should be discussed further.

1. Space is the container in which existence is. It cannot have a boundary (it begs the question 'what is the boundary of the boundary'/Why should there be a boundary?) nor is it infinite (it cannot gain what does not exist i.e. it cannot keep growing, it must have an actual size). Therefore, space must be loop back in on itself, which leads me to believe if you go any direction long enough you will come back from the other side. e.g. if you go left long enough you will come back from the right.

2. Substance is that which existence consists/is made of. Forms are the result of motion. Motion allows the substance to stretch in concentration/distribution giving the appearance of separation. Without space, there can be no distinctions/appearances of separation nor volume of an object. There obviously could not be energy without space but could there be space without energy? It seems space intrinsic to substance, for space would be meaningless if it was not a thing.

3. Motion seems to be where the true paradox lies. Without motion, there can be no meaningful definition of time nor conscious experience. Endurantism seems to hold to an A theory of time i.e. to say substance(s) persists. Whereas, Perdurantism seems to arbitrarily assume distinctions between events. If there are no objectively real distinctions, it would be one static long node highlighting merely the illusion of change. Where, change would be the illusionary events organized in a cyclical pattern. The Poincare Recurrence Theorem seem to provide goods reason in support of this view.

If everything was static, there would be no way to determine how long a thing/object was static for or if it was static to begin with, however, this would not necessarily mean a thing can not be static, we simply would not be able to determine if a thing absolutely was. If a B theory of time is assumed, then what accounts for the illusion of motion. This may lead one to view motion as an intrinsic property of substance Now, there seems to be no account for the emergence of motion because for motion to emerge from non-motion, there must be change. But how does change emerge from an unchanging thing? It can be said that something is changeable and can transition between states of change/non-change but what accounts for such a mechanism. It must be that energy is always in motion otherwise we can ask for an explanation leading to an infinite regress of explanations. How does change emerge spontaneously with no explanation? Without an explanation, the existence of change would a mere brute fact.

Now, Change implies distinctions between states or the gain/loss of a property but then this begs the question 'how does existence gain a property that isn't already part of existence'. If being static was a property, how does existence lost this property? The property of being static would transition to a state of non-existence but non-existence is not a state. It seems there can be no explanation for this and thus, it must be either due to brute necessity or it is metaphysically impossibility. So whilst it would not necessarily follow that for existence to be eternal, it must be changeless, it does seem plausible to hold that change is an illusion despite how counter-intuitive it seems. Hence, a Parmenidean view of reality would seem tenable in such regard.

This is supported by the principle of ex nihilo nihil fit. Since nothing cannot be a state, substance or a thing in the broadest sense, it would be logically impossible for the existence of a thing to transition to it. It is hard to define emergence in such a case as such a term would be incoherent.

[markbirmingham]

By my lights, hylomorphism’s substance first ontology makes the most sense by allowing the retention of the everyday world of physical objects, while still accounting for the reductive aspects of physical reality. It takes seriously the resulting changes in physical elements due to chemistry & biology.

Generally speaking, substantial change can be tracked by the emergence and loss of causal powers and essential properties. A Living cat is a substance-capable manifesting all sorts of catlike behavior & capacities. A cat thrown through a wood chipper has undergone substantial change into something akin to dead or dying cat parts (cat blood, cat liver parts, cat fur, )-even if every cell/atom is accounted for there are new substances after (heaven forbid) the wood chipper. There’s no purring or hunting of mice following the wood-chipper.

Conversely, when hydrogen and oxygen combine to create water (H2O) a new substance is created that has new essential features, properties, & powers different from the underlying elements. (New boiling point, freezing point, molecular make up, liquid).

I also like the example of making an axe. Which would be classified as a man made artifact made up of 2 distinct substances that when arranged in a certain accidental (non essential) manner can be used to cut things. Suppose The handle is wood (substance 1). It exhibits certain essential characteristics & properties. When the blade is attached to the axe handle that’s just an accidental (non essential) arrangement between the 2 substances, wood & iron. The axe is just an artifact-not a new substance onto itself. There’s a wooden handle and an iron blade. The wood and iron retain their essential properties.

This substance vs artifact distinction I think helps clarify the statue vs clay discussion. The stature is just an artifact composed of the underlying clay substance. The stature is an accidental arrangement of clay.

Admittedly, there are mysterious scientific questions as to how exactly all the subatomic parts work together to support the atoms that comprise the cells that make up the organs, bones, & fur that make up my living dog. But my experience, intuition, and biology all tell me there’s a unity there that exhibits certain causal powers & capacities. Both the unity & causal powers go away following the death of my dog. Additionally, that unity is substantially different than the creation of a pencil, an artifact. Again, by my lights

[MiladTabasy]

I think if we balance things even in philosophy we will find God. For example we can say that if we analytically search the smallest components of things we will find non-existence but on the other hand if we synthetically consider a thing we will find existence. This means that our epistemic focus determines what we think about things. But how to balance it?
1) If we search components of things we find nothing
2) if we consider a thing as a whole we will find something
3) the thing must have another explanation for its existence than its components.
4) That explanation is God.

[tonybanks]

Hi Joe, do you plan on answering McNabb? Will it be a video, article or another book? Just joking ^^ I started reading your book, it is very well put together, a delight for the brain that enjoys rigouros analytic thinking. I think the value in a philosophical essay/work lies more in its form than in its content.

[drugin]

Joe, can you do a video with Michael Heumer talking about his argument for reincarnation and a soul. He is an atheist to my knowledge. Id want to see your objections to his arguments.

[macdougdoug]

The new thing (that arises from composition) is consciousness (or conscious experience)? In abiogenesis the new thing was the new property that arose fom the composition eg. self replication.

[roqsteady]

Categories are created by us to be useful to us, they are not a part of some underlying reality or platonic archetype. After all, who wants to give every molecule that we consider to be a constituent part of ourselves a different name? What would be the purpose of that?

[gabbiewolf]

15:53 My response to the consciousness multiplicity problem if I were a universalist or a restrictivist would be that both I and the lump of flesh using the same matter as me are conscious, but that the consciousness of both of them is either the same part or that it's the identically same function of both of them. So there would be one consciousness and there would be a person and a lump of flesh that share that one consciousness

[quakers]

Seems like a discussion about the inadequacies of language to provide unambiguous meaning to the world we experience. The other part of the problem is how we or any other thinking beings know out perceptions are valid. Enter better languages with better grammar vocabulary and so on. Science is providing better means of knowing the material world.