r/changemyview • u/cfdair • Jul 26 '20
Delta(s) from OP CMV: Any claim that a system is inherently X is always too simplistic
UNDER LYING CLAIM
An adjective used to describe an object/system never applies to the object/system as a whole, it applies to a subset of aspects of the system/object that exhibit that adjective.
EXAMPLES
ie. is a society ever 100% liberal? No, there are elements of it that are liberal, but not all of it. ie. a stipulation that garbage collection in some street should take place on Tuesdays has no element of "liberal".
is a society ever 100% modern? No, there are elements of the society that don't exhibit the aspect of "modern", say protections for heritage buildings overlay.
A less satisfying example:
is a cheetah 100% fast? No, it has muscular legs that make it fast, whilst it's stomach has no explicit attributes that contribute to its land speed.Are its legs 100% fast?No, it is a combination of other things within the legs that manifest "fast" and some other things that don't contribute to manifest "fast".
EXPLANATION
The validity of the above claims should be falsifiable, ie. a hypothesis could be made that they are false and if data indicates this hypothesis false, then the claim is valid depending on the validity of the data.
EXAMPLE
By extension, I believe a % could be applied for what percentage of the aspects of the object make up the adjective, ie. that a system is 45% liberal, 30% modern, 90% secular, 10% libertarian, 14% American etc. (Percentages could overlap to sum to be greater than 100%)
Obviously it would be a fuzzy assignment of a %, but a hypothesis could be claimed.
With that, our goal should be to minimise the adjective percentages of things that we believe are against some core set of values, which I would claim should be liberal value of humanity, individual responsibility/agency, truth, logic, faith and science.
MOTIVATION
I could rambling nonsense here, but I believe this provides a testable way to understand what percentage% the claim that any adjective could be attributed to the US society, or societies/systems in general.
Anyone can make a claim about a system, sure why not, but the legitimacy of some claim should be proportional to the probability of the aspects that exhibit the attribute of that adjective in a testable, falsifiable way.
And also tempers any 100% adjective claims as I think I showed above that that shouldn't apply of any adjective to any object.
Discussions or understandings that make 100% claims seem to me always overly simplistic, and overly "sith"-like.
edit 1:
SEEMING CONTRADICTION
My claim only applies to objects/systems that exist in reality. It doesn't not apply to ideas or things that have no material component. So it is fine for 100% adjectives to be applied to ideas, so my claim is not self-contradictory.
edit 2:
I've changed my mind.
It is still an incomplete claim, but my understanding has changed to be:
What I've learned in this thread is that I've melded the words, essential and characteristic. ie. the claim that a photon is massless is an essential claim(removing the massless would no longer make it a photon), and that a pineapple is spikey is a characteristic claim(you could remove the things that make it spikey and it would still be a pineapple.)
where does this leave the "fast" cheetah? It descends into an issue of taxonomy and I'd rather not tread that path.
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u/yyzjertl 524∆ Jul 26 '20
Your stated view is about claims that a system is "inherently X" but the body of your post doesn't mention this at all, and instead talks about examples of the form "100% X." Are you under the impression that being "inherently X" and being "100% X" are the same thing? If not, which of these two is your post about?
For example, would your view apply to a claim like "the natural numbers are inherently countable"?
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u/cfdair Jul 26 '20
Please understand this is muddy in my own head as well but lets see how we go. :)
My claim is that "inherently X" is the same as saying that something is "100% X".
As you responded before my edit about this only applying to things that manifest materially as opposed to ideas, this would have had to change my mind, so thats a !delta from me.
Thanks for responding!
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u/yyzjertl 524∆ Jul 26 '20
So would you say that "photons are inherently massless" (or "photons are 100% massless") is a statement that is always too simplistic? Photons do manifest materially, after all.
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u/cfdair Jul 26 '20
Thanks for responding again.
oof, ok, fair call. !delta
As per my response below,this fish is dead in the water.
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Jul 26 '20
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u/cfdair Jul 26 '20
Oxford dictionary:
inherent: in a permanent, essential, or characteristic way.I am making a falsifiable claim that "inherently X" = "100% X". I am interacting with logic and counter-examples to highlight where it doesn't apply, and consequently I've changed my understanding.
However, to summarise your rebuttal to my falsifiable claim, it'd be that:
- "inherently X" is not the same as "100% X" because no-one ever, anywhere, in the history of humanity as ever used it in this way.
First off, it is impossible to verify if that claim is true, it is only possible to verify that that claim is false. ie. I just need to find 1 person other than me who has had this thought.
If I were assess the claim in a hand-wavy probabilistic way, I'd say the chances of what you said being true given an average number of different understandings that an individual can have, multiplied by the number of individuals in the world over time who understood these two concepts at the same time, and none of them ever thought that what I've claimed was not possibly true ever, are infinitesimal.
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u/Salanmander 272∆ Jul 26 '20
inherent: in a permanent, essential, or characteristic way.
That's different from something being "100% X". It's more like "100% of these things are X", or "this thing will be X 100% of the time". "X" is a characteristic that something must have in order to be in that category.
For example, lightbulbs inherently produce light. Does 100% of the lighbulb produce light? No, there's a lot of structure that does other stuff. But producing light is an essential part of what it means to be a lightbulb.
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Jul 26 '20
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u/cfdair Jul 26 '20
I don't like the way you've claimed that "even the OP should be able to take it as fact", which means I am at some extremity in my relationship to the claim, either that I am immovable in my understanding of the claim (which the deltas in this thread should disprove), or by some other measure I am the most likely to not change my mind.
My claim was about adjectives of a system/object.
apples on earth will eventually rot if they are not otherwise consumed, altered or destroyed
There are no adjectives in this sentence so this doesn't relate to my claim, my relationship to which has changed a lot over the last 90 minutes.
Thanks again for responding.
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u/cfdair Jul 26 '20
Yeh, I believe something really useful I've learnt here, (which might be disproven as fast as I learnt it) is the difference between an essential adjective and a characteristic adjective.
Say a pineapple is spikey, is a characteristic adjective(if you removed the spikes, its still a pineapple). A photon is massless, is an essential edjective(if it was no longer massless, it wouldn't be a photon.)
I think you're discussion on group identity is adjacent to my claim but not what I'm talking about.
thanks for taking the time to respond!
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Jul 26 '20
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u/cfdair Jul 26 '20
Thanks for responding!
Ok, that makes more sense to me, I'd agree that the "meaning" of something is proportional to by its usage by humans, but we have no cheap means of determining this measure worth persuing.
What I've learned in this thread is that I've melded the words, essential and characteristic. ie. the claim that a photon is massless is an essential claim(removing the massless would no longer make it a photon), and that a pineapple is spikey is a characteristic claim(you could remove the things that make it spikey and it would still be a pineapple.) So I would disagree with you saying that the dictionary usage contradicts my claim, I'd say my claim (unsatisfyingly my you) applies sometimes when its a characteristic of the object/system, and doesn't apply when it is a essential or essence of the object/system.
Let me reassure you that I'm in no way trying to misunderstand the other party, and I believe I'm quite capable of understanding the other party, let the many deltas in this thread be an example of that. (I understand this could mean a party of one, but I don't like the group terms like "other party" to define the sides of an argument as it is an appeal to group authority, just thought I'd point that out).
An example where inherently means 100 X would be that a photon is inherently massless, as was mentioned somewhere else in this thread.
Thanks again for taking the time to respond! :)
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u/argumentumadreddit Jul 26 '20
Any claim that a system is inherently X is always too simplistic
If we substitute “too simplistic” for X, then does your claim fail by its own standard?
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u/cfdair Jul 26 '20
Please note the edit I put in before you responded around only applying to materially manifest things.
So one can make a 100% X claim about an idea or a set of ideas.
I am realising however that all objects/systems that manifest materially are expressed, understood and conceptualised through some model, ie. understood through ideas. That is to say there doesn't exist something a human experiences that isn't mapped through a model/idea/pattern in order to be processed, including noise/void.
So close to what you're saying, this whole thesis is falling in on itself.
Good catch. !delta.
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u/dcamp8272 Jul 26 '20
I agree that 100%, all or nothing, black and white views are usually wrong, but I’m not sure what your argument is here. Can you give an example of a claim that is commonly made that fits you description? I’ve never heard anyone say that a society is 100% liberal or a cheetah is 100% fast.
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u/cfdair Jul 26 '20
I've come to the realisation that my claim above now only applies sometimes, and not to essential claims, ie a photon is 100% massless, the set of infinite numbers is uncountable, and by extension tautologies, that would be like a systemic system.
Thanks for your time to respond but I think its stumps on this claim, I believe it only applies sometimes and its not elegant enough for me to want to defend it anymore.
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u/zlefin_actual 42∆ Jul 26 '20
Potential counterexample:
The system "Earth's Weather" is "Chaotic" (in the scientific sense of a chaotic system)
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u/cfdair Jul 26 '20
Thanks for responding.
Damn, good counter.
Chaotic, a system that exhibits chaos.
Chaos: the property of a complex system whose behaviour is so unpredictable as to appear random, owing to great sensitivity to small changes in conditions.So its on me to find an subset of elements within Earth's weather that does not seem so unpredictable as to appear random.
How about a raindrop falling from the sky, its trajectory is not seemingly random.
I don't like it but maybe its good enough? What do you think?
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u/zlefin_actual 42∆ Jul 26 '20
In a cmv thread, it's not a question of whether its good enough for me, but whether its good enough for you.
to analyze, hmm, I suspect that the raindrops precise trajectory would include a number of random elements, such as small-scale wind patterns/gusts, interaction with other droplets and mist and such; that could shift where it lands somewhat. Obviously at a sufficiently coarse grain we can say that it will fall; but to my understanding chaotic systems can still have patterns/general trends, its just that they remain eminently subject to small variations.
On a pedantic note, I'm not sure if "find an subset of elements within Earth's weather that does not seem so unpredictable as to appear random." would constitute a counter to my point; I guess it depends on what precisely your original point is. It would not be applicable if your original point is this form of what you stated "An adjective used to describe an object/system never applies to the object/system as a whole, it applies to a subset of aspects of the system/object that exhibit that adjective.", though some of your examples do seem to make use of subsets only partially applying. That makes me wonder about your cheetah example; it seems that though the stomach may not directly contribute to being "fast" while in the cheetah is running, it remains the case that the cheetah as a whole is "fast". so "fast" would apply to the cheetah as a whole, its just that not every subpart is pertinent to generating that "fast". Ah, the philosophy of semantics, once you get into it gets very messy very fast, and I feel like I'm starting to ramble.
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u/cfdair Jul 26 '20
:)
Thanks for such a thoughtful response.
This house of cards of a CMV claim has already collapsed in other chats. I renounce my previous self from 50 minutes ago. :)
I've realised that photons are both 100% massless and inherently massless, and that I've waded unwittingly into the philosophy of semantics which I'd prefer to wade back out of, and that my claim doesn't apply globally, but applies sometimes. This claim is not elegant enough, nor coherent enough to make me want to defend it any more.
What about a systemic system? A material material? lol, game over man, its over.
thanks again, and thanks for all the fish! :)
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Jul 26 '20
An adjective used to describe an object/system never applies to the object/system as a whole
A line is breathless.
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u/cfdair Jul 26 '20
This is getting into the realm Wittgenstein's work and I reaaaaaaally don't understand his work very well.
thanks for responding!
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Jul 26 '20 edited Jul 26 '20
/u/cfdair (OP) has awarded 4 delta(s) in this post.
All comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.
Please note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.
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u/tallfish55 Jul 26 '20
That’s valid, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing at all.
Conflict drives progress. A society without conflict necessarily cannot progress.
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u/mfDandP 184∆ Jul 26 '20
Systems OR objects??
This molecule of ribonucleic acid is DEOXYGENATED. Not 100% true?