Aristotle was an idiot (part one)
He was probably an idiot in his own time
When compared to real thinkers such as Socrates
And it is certainly idiotic to follow his lead 2300 years after his death.
Lets look at the three laws of thought:
#1: THE LAW OF IDENTITY:
OR:
A = A
Everything is itself and the same as itself.
That sentence does have meaning, although in today’s world, full of scientific knowledge, we know that the only thing that is itself and only itself is whatever you are able to stand and point to / at.
And this is problematical.
But that thing is only itself for as long as it is there and not changed. A tree may outlive us for a thousand years but someday it too will be gone. And it will, in all likely hood not be the same tree after a thousand years. It will have grown taller, fatter, may have been trough a fire and lost twenty per cent of its foliage or half of its limbs. It may have been topped for a Christmas tree.
Hey, lets propagate that tree, which means the new tree will in effect be the same tree — but let’s do some science. How about we inject a little human DNA to the new growth.
Not sure how that could be done but I’m willing to bet there will come a time when someone does it.
Wait a minute, humans already share what, 50%, 70% of their DNA with trees — and a company called Biopresence will put YOUR DNA into a tree as a memorial.
Come to think of it eating a banana is cannibalism.
Using that criteria one must wonder just how much difference there is between a vegetarian and a carnivore or an omnivore?
How would you feel if the tree created using your DNA was used someday to build a house? Would it matter which house was built? Would it matter if it were used in a housing project or a funeral home or an orphanage?
There would appear serious evidence exists that meteorites carry the basic building blocks of DNA with them trough space.
So you can think of meteorites as space sperm looking for a fertile female planet to impregnate.
The next time you skip a rock across a lake think of the idea you may be drowning a distant cousin.
There is a tiny bit more to the law of identity.
A final point of absurdity:
“A statement cannot remain the same and change its truth value.”
WTBDTM? ™
For Aristotle it meant a lot. He believed in an absolute, independent, truth.
For a Map Thinker this makes no sense.
A map thinker knows truth is an accurate statement of a specific event at a specific place that lasts a specific length of time. Last Tuesday at ten a.m. The stop light was green.
The big dipper will be recognizable in its present form for the next thousand years.
Okay, the point of all this:
We need to rewrite the Law of Identity for use today.
A thing is distinguishable as itself to the extent it is different from everything else.
We are going to abolish the whole thing about truth value.
For example Aristotle believed the human species was the unquestionably superior creature of all creation.
This, to him, was an absolute truth.
Most people today would have at least a degree of doubt that humans are in fact the perfect species.
The biggest problem with the Law of Identity, as Aristotle promulgates it, is that it separates things completely from all other things they relate too and from time. That is a thing in Aristotle’s world has no connections to any thing else, has no past and no future.
Such a thing cannot exist in our reality.
Lets apply this to you as a person.
Your identity depends on those things that distinguish you from all other people in the world.
Part of that is genetics.
Part of that is your past.
Part of that is how you see yourself today.
Part of that is what you wish, or believe, you will, or may become in the future.
You don’t have to strive to do any of this. All you have to do is strive to be yourself and strive to create yourself into the future person you would wish to become.
Nice to meet you. 🙂
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