Re: [jboske] Re: Counting Nick

[John Cowan <cowan@ccil.org>]

And Rosta scripsit:

> > Well, consider those Amazonian lunatics who think every new day is
> > announced by the rising of a new Sun individual. If we can get them to
> > believe that all these Suns are merely avatars of Apollo Helios, then
> > why cannot they retort that (by the same token) we will next tell them
> > that the fish they eat every day are merely avatars of Amazonus Piscus 
> 
> They can retort that. I'm not sure if I see what you were getting at.

The issue is that there really is only one Sun in fact (it's not a new
Sun-object daily), but the fish are separate fish. If we are telling them
the first, why shouldn't they expect to hear the second as well.

IOW, is there any real difference between "All daily suns are one sun"
and "All daily fish (as in, give us this day our daily fish) are one fish"?

> Each of those kinds has an avatar (what I called Instance elsewhere)
> that we might call 'Fido', yes. But we (IMO) cannot recognize Fido
> except as something that is an instance of Mr Fido or of a subkind
> thereof.

Because today's avatar of Mr. Dog consists in all those dogs that are
extant today, and therefore the avatar is not a dog?

-- 
"Do I contradict myself? John Cowan
Very well then, I contradict myself. jcowan@reutershealth.com
I am large, I contain multitudes. http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
--Walt Whitman, _Leaves of Grass_ http://www.reutershealth.com