Completeness within a world and completeness across worlds: Trans-word identity
Much of the resistance to the trans-world identity of individuals has, in my view, much to do with the common conception of completeness within a world and completeness across worlds. That is to say, when we speak of a world, we tend to think that this world is,in some sense, a closed system: it has its own internalized space and time reations. These relations allow individuals to be traced through these coordinates. For example, we say that an individual person can be indexed to time and space coordinates, i.e. Leibniz @ t1 = Leibniz @ t50 without fear that this is incomplete. Adams and others think that so far as Leibniz feels at liberty to index individuals to times he should have no difficulty indexing them to worlds. While I agree with this intuition, I think an investigation into why time indexicals would seem so intuitive to Leibniz is in order before Leibniz's mistake in indexing them is pointed out.
Luke's Worries
Here is my reply to the worries Luke raised about Leibniz's time indexicals in the comments section. He says:"Yes, why is it so intuitive? We do seem to have a special day to day relation with time, or our concept of it."
Luke
I suspect the intuitive nature of Adams' rejection of Leibniz's time indexicals has to do with shifting the burden of proof. Adams wants to know why individuals should be indexed to times and not to worlds. That is, why should we say X @ t2 = X @t5, and view this move as legitimate without allowing there to be world indexicals, and thereby enable trans-world identity. It seems to me, in any event, that Leibniz would have done so because he thought that a world has its own temporal structures, and that these structures obviously do not extend out into other worlds. Whether or not this notion can be defended is what I think needs to be investigated. I am inclined to think that times are more like worlds than Leibniz would have thought and thus are complete in themselves; there is no unifying principle. Thus, when we time index we are engaging in a sort of trans-world indentification of individuals even though these individuals have clearly have different properties.
Luke's Worries
Here is my reply to the worries Luke raised about Leibniz's time indexicals in the comments section. He says:"Yes, why is it so intuitive? We do seem to have a special day to day relation with time, or our concept of it."
Luke
I suspect the intuitive nature of Adams' rejection of Leibniz's time indexicals has to do with shifting the burden of proof. Adams wants to know why individuals should be indexed to times and not to worlds. That is, why should we say X @ t2 = X @t5, and view this move as legitimate without allowing there to be world indexicals, and thereby enable trans-world identity. It seems to me, in any event, that Leibniz would have done so because he thought that a world has its own temporal structures, and that these structures obviously do not extend out into other worlds. Whether or not this notion can be defended is what I think needs to be investigated. I am inclined to think that times are more like worlds than Leibniz would have thought and thus are complete in themselves; there is no unifying principle. Thus, when we time index we are engaging in a sort of trans-world indentification of individuals even though these individuals have clearly have different properties.
1 Comments:
I suspect the intuitive nature of Adams' rejection of Leibniz's time indexicals has to do with shifting the burden of proof. Adams wants to know why individuals should be indexed to times and not to worlds. That is, why should we say X @ t2 = X @t5, and view this move as legitimate without allowing there to be world indexicals, and thereby enable trans-world identity. It seems to me, in any event, that Leibniz would have done so because he thought that a world has its own temporal structures, and that these structures obviously do not extend out into other worlds. Whether or not this notion can be defended is what I think needs to be investigated. I am inclined to think that times are more like worlds than Leibniz would have thought and thus are complete in themselves; there is no unifying principle. Thus, when we time index we are engaging in a sort of trans-world indentification of individuals even though these individuals have clearly have different properties.
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