Craig, in your [Jorge, reconstructed] above you have
me saying:
"patterns and things are identical" . Something
important missing there. It should say: following the
meaning Craig ascribes to patterns, (and inserting
various assumptions) I arrived to the conclusion that
"patterns and things are identical". I don't want
people to think I am claiming that patterns and things
are identical; bad for my reputation (whatever is left
of it).
That said, you are perfectly right in stating that
only the need for the word 'pattern' has disappeared
Sorry! careless of me.
When you say "You've come to the right place" I
guess you are saying you are good in spotting flaws in
logical reasoning. If so, I'd feel more at ease
because I often feel unsure when making long logical
strings such as this. I'm always afraid of falling
into Circularity, that fiend that lurks in a corner
ready to come out when least expected.
In this particular case I have the feeling that we
are about to fall into the circularity trap, as
illustrated by the dialogue below:
Suppose a third person (or fiend) comes into this
exchange; someone who's not aware of our previous
reasoning. Let's call this third person N. This N
catches me contemplating 'a thing' like this:
[
abcabcabcabcabcabcabcabcabcabcabcabcabcabcabcabcabcabcabcabcabcabcabcabc
abcabcabcabcabcabcabcabcabcabcabcabc]
N: What are you looking at?
J: I am observing a thing.
N: I see now; quite interesting, isn't it?
J: Yes, that's why I was pondering on it.
N: do you know other things like this one?
J: Yes, many; this one for instance:
[^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^] but longer.
N: Ah! Now I see the similarity. Curious things,
aren't they? Have you got any other examples?
J: I've got thousands of examples. But some other
time... don't you see I am busy?
(N continues unperturbed with his silly questioning)
N: If there are so many examples, these things of
yours must be very common in our world.
J. Yes, they are quite common and very important as
well.
N. If so, why don't you have a name for them, instead
of just calling them "things"?
J: Because they are things like any other things!!!
N. But you implied they weren't. You said you had many
examples of things 'like these' which must mean that
you know as many examples of things which' are 'not
like these'. So
J. So what?
N. So, why don't you give them a name?
J. If I give them a name will you leave me in peace?
N. I promise.
J: OK then
let's call them Pretzels! And things
which 'are not like these' we'll call non-pretzels.
Are you happy now?
Finally N leaves, smiling to himself; smiling,
because he knows that he made me fall into the trap.
The trap of Circularity.
We made the word 'pattern' disappear, only to
discover that we need another word for the set of
things that share some common property, which
distinguishes the set from another which do not show
that property. (or at least not show it in a way that
can be directly experienced). I think it was old
Aristo that first marketed that idea.
With Pretzels in hand we go to the beginning of our
reasoning, follow it, we make the word Pretzel
disappear, only to find out that we must invent
another word.
Can you find out a way of leaving the ever recurring
loop?
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