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Rin Otori's avatar

Great breakdown of a classic. The core idea that 'meanings ain't in the head' is a powerful challenge to the notion that we are isolated minds defining our own reality.

This suggests a parallel in personal identity: the difference between a 'Defined Identity' and an 'Anchored Identity.' A 'Defined Identity' is what we construct in our heads ('I am a philosopher'). An 'Anchored Identity' is determined by our causal links to the world (the writing, the arguments, the readers).

Just as 'water' on Earth is anchored to H₂O, our identities are anchored to our actions.

We don't just decide who we are in a vacuum; we discover it through contact with the world.

This concept of an 'anchored self' is a foundational piece of the practical philosophy I've been exploring.

meika loofs samorzewski's avatar

I guess the social learning aspects of twin-Oscar's humanity of the twin-earth is the same too? Is that 'world' explored in these twinnie discourses, i.e. convergent social evolution only with a Ship of Theseus level of granularity.

I suspect the internal-/externalism would collapse into a blur of impracticality if social learning is included, at least as a focus instead of each individual Oscars experience (or Ockers as we call them in Australia) in which case the hypothesis is a restricted language-game and is as useful and as entertaining as minecraft.

In one infinite-worlds scenario not only would there be a twin earth, but other infinite-earths where everything is the same except for the term twin-earth where some other term is used instead. There is an infinite variety of these twin-earths which vary by one term for twin, as well as any other term, let alone chemistries.

I mean why stop at one, how does that parsimony help exactly? I do not think intuition can help, we need to experiment on these leads.

Daniel Muñoz's avatar

Where does Putnam’s argument rely on the assumption that Oscar and his Twin use the same word?