As someone who was home-schooled until the age of 11, my first introduction into the “real-world” was when I started public school. I began to socialize, adapt, and understand who I was in the context of my peers. Interestingly, I did not have bad experiences in public school, I was not bullied, I always had a reasonable group of misfit friends, and I scraped by my classes with the lazy effort so characteristic of kids of those ages; yet I’ve recently been reflecting on some “traumas” (I do not like to use that word) that I experienced during those times.

Today I’ve been thinking of my time in Grade 12. The later years of public school are the most interesting to me because I do not remember myself as a different person. If I’m to think of my time in Grade seven, eight, or even nine, all I can recall is looking through the eyes of a different person: a young boy with no mind who wanted to be cool, waste time, and, above all else, fit in. When I began grade 10, however, I began to start playing music. Shortly after, I began composing it. Eventually, I began producing. Somewhere in there I became who I am today, though I wouldn’t say my musical endeavors describe who I am today, they somehow catalyzed my transformation. I developed a sort of self-confidence. I cared less what others thought and became funnier, I became slightly less awkward around girls; I had interests, ideas, convictions, and values – Some of those, I hold today; others, I feel shame for once having held them so close to my Self.

But in so many ways, today I am only an older, somewhat wiser, version of the boy I was in Grade 12. That is why today, I feel it prudent to make sense of some of the events that happened back then.

I started the school year with an easy schedule. I began the mornings with Physics and Chemistry in the same classroom with the same teacher and the same friends. After that was lunch. Then, the lonesome walk home afterwards. Granted, some days I had to stay for a later class in Auto Mechanics, but most of what I remember are those short days and those long, cold walks. I had picked up a strange, disgusting habit of trying my best to get high every single day. Sometimes, it was bottles of cough syrup, or benadryl tablets; other times, it was cups of nutmeg or cigarette butts off the street. Occasionally, through similarly angsty friends, I had scored plastic bottles of god-awful Canadian vodkas. I had odd problems I don’t fully understand to this day, perhaps it had to do with my genetics, perhaps it was the long-burning discomfort of having transitioned from a life of home-schooling to public school; probably, it was a little bit of both.

I remember one particular day when I procured a handle of vodka early in the school morning. I drank it throughout the morning, reveling stupidly in the comforting numbness as it slid into my stomach. By the time I had walked home, I had achieved an incredible level of drunkenness and I stay shut up in my room with the bottle, a redbull, and a bowl of noodles, working on some music. But I became very sick, left the bowl of noodles to cool, and puked in my backpack. My dad came home and found out. I had to wash the backpack and surrender the remaining vodka.

The next day, I arrived at school feeling ill and with a slightly wet, still puke-smelling backpack. But I had something else I wanted to try, something I’d been saving for a few days, something for a special, selfish occasion.

Earlier in the week, my dad had given me an envelope that arrived in the mail. I remember how I would walk outside every day to check the mail for it. My face warmed when he’d given it to me and I realized that my efforts were well-spent. It was ten tabs of LSD. After a considerable amount of money for a seventeen year-old, and hours learning about bitcoin, encryption, and online drug markets, I finally had what I so desperately wanted.

As always, psychedelic drugs evade description. My first trip was characterized by anxious exploration. I remember I took it on my lonesome walk home from school early in the afternoon. I trudged through hard snow walking through the barren golf course on my way home to the elevated suburbs of the town. It was freeing. But when I arrived home, I did not go out again, and I fell into an anxious state-of-mind, worrying about when my parents would come home.

Sitting in my room and worrying about my parents inevitable arrival was not something exclusive to my use of psychedelics, or even any drugs. No, it was a feeling I had every day for as long as I’ve been old enough to be left alone. For reasons I can’t explain or understand, it felt as if I did not like my parents. I have only recently began to enjoy my father’s company now that I am an adult who visits him on more-or-less my own terms. My mother, on the other hand, I do not see because she has never offered to visit without my father by her side. Now that they are finally divorced, perhaps she will reach out. But I won’t.

I sat in front of my computer and tried to play games but realized I was hopelessly, stupidly high. I listened to music, played instruments, and practiced saying hello and being normal for when my parents came home. When they did return, we had a short dinner of frozen pizza and I returned to my bedroom without arising any suspicions.

For some reason, I found this experience to be amazing and told my friend, Griffin, the next day and gave him two tabs to try for himself. Griffin lived on a large property about twenty minutes outside of town. His father, an ex-cop from the nearby city, had received his pension and retired here where he built a large house and two big garages in what felt like the middle of the forest. Surely, Griffin had a much better set for an acid trip than I did, even though his relationship with his parents was similarly strained.

On the night that Griffin decided to embark on his trip, I had an appointment with some lady who worked at my mom’s spa, at the time. I don’t remember the purpose of this visit but she told me that I had the lowest level of Vitamin D that she’d ever seen, even showing me a chart with my dot to the furthest left of it. She gave me a bottle from which to take teaspoons every day and I left to walk home. Like my school, the spa was inside the town and below the hill on which I lived. On my nightly walk up the hill, I decided to once again take a trip. Everything seemed like a painting, but when I returned home things went downhill. My parents were asleep and I was shut up in my room unable to make a sound. The lights were off and I began to lose my mind. I thought at one point that I had walked downstairs to get water and saw my mom in the office who lambasted me about being obviously high. But then I regained consciousness laying on my bed, not sure at the time if that was an out-of-body hallucination.

At one point I believed that I was trying to kill my Self against my better judgement. I didn’t want to, but some part of me was gaining control and was trying to shove pens down my throat in order to choke me. It was trying to shove my fingers down my throat to choke me. I was moving in and out of consciousness worrying that the lapses of memory were when my suicidal part was taking over. I kept looking at my pens to make sure all of them were accounted for. Occasionally, I would realize this was all bullshit and would calm down, only for the cycle to start again.

Eventually I texted my friend, Mr. Parker, that I was on acid and thought I was killing myself. He came and picked me up and we drove to the hospital in town, only to find it was closed. I started feeling more normal at this time and didn’t think I needed to go, but eventually he had called an ambulance to take me to the hospital in the city.

In the ambulance the responders were asking me questions. At some point I believed they were the hallucinations trying to know who I was and where I lived so that they could do terrible things. I believed if I didn’t tell them my information, that I would wake up in bed and be alright; if I did tell them, I would never return. Nevertheless, I ended up telling them information. When I arrived at the hospital, they pretty much sat me down and kept me company while they called my parents.

My parents arrived and we waited in the hospital waiting room until it seemed I was sober enough to leave. I remember thinking at this time that I actually did try to kill myself, though, of course, I never did. I remember during a moment of lucidity and recognition of my stupid waste of hospital resources, I turned to one of the responders and asked “How often does this kind of stuff happen?” She answered “More often than you think.”

When we returned home, I went to bed. My parents did not want me to go to school the next day, though I protested. Instead, my mom took me to our family doctor to get me put on antidepressants. That’s all I remember about the events of the day. Even though I had come down from the acid, I believed that Griffin had gone through the exact same scenario that I had, except he had access to guns in his house and had actually gone through with it and killed himself. I believed that with absolute certainty until he texted me later in the day.

I had asked him simply “are you alright?” It took him a while to respond, which I thought proved my suspicions, but eventually he responded something like, “Yeah, where are you?” because, of course, I wasn’t in school. I don’t remember if I told any of my other friends what had happened. Of course, Mr. Parker knew, but at this time we didn’t hang around the same people in school.

I think I’ll leave it at that for now. Though I’ve pretty much told that whole story, I wanted to write in more detail about my time at that particular period in my life, but I find that reliving that experience was rather mentally draining in a sense. And I’ve got to study for school now.

Putnam’s multiple-realizability argument against the identity theory is unsound by the fact that the mental states that arise from separate physical phenomena are just as distinct as the physical phenomena themselves; that is, the relationship of mental states to brain states is a bijection. Anything that can be in a mental state must be in a unique corresponding brain state; therefore, the first premise of Putnam’s argument is false.

Putnam’s reasoning for arriving at his multiple-realizability argument follows from his consideration of the question “is pain a brain state?” Putnam doesn’t think so, and uses the octopus as a counterexample. Because the octopus has a very different brain from people, and because the octopus can feel pain, it must follow that the property of pain is not reducible to a human brain state: something can be in pain without being in a human brain state. This works for the human brain as well as it can feel pain without being in the brain state of an octopus. So, Putnam argues, something can be in the state of pain without being in an arbitrary physical state of pain.

If something can be in one state without being in another state, Putnam reasons, then it must follow that the two states are distinct. Since pain is an arbitrary mental state, it follows that mental states cannot be reducible to brain states, as the counterexample of the octopus shows. So mental states are not brain states, hence, physicalism is flawed.

However, this argument is unsound as it assumes a universalisable mental state.

While it is true that if something can be in one state without being in another state then the states are distinct, it is not true that something can be in a mental state without being in some brain state. The relationship of mental states to brain states is a bijection. This is best illustrated through analogy.

Instead of humans and octopi, let’s consider a butterfly can-opener and a church key can-opener. Just as the human and octopus brain can realize pain, so too can the butterfly and church key open a can; just as the human and octopus brain realize pain in different ways, the butterfly and church key open cans in different ways. The butterfly can-opener will clamp onto the sides of the can and the sharp wheel will be turned around the circumference of the can until the top can be popped off. The church key, on the other hand, will be used to apply enough pressure to the top of the can until it punctures right through. Observe that in both cases, we have the same end result: an opened can. In the case of the human and octopus brain, the end result is pain. But notice that the opened cans in the cases of the butterfly and church key are different. In fact, you could point to the differences and tell which can was opened by which can-opener. While the can opened with the butterfly has no lid, the can opened with the church key has a lid with large holes poked through it.

Observing these cans being opened by different can-openers could prompt us to note that something can be a can-opener without being in the state of a butterfly can-opener, namely, the church key. Note that this holds for any can-opener. The butterfly can be a can-opener without being a church key can-opener. Then, we can say something can be a can-opener without being in a physical state of a can-opener. We might then also note that, if something can be in one state without being in another state, then the two states are different. Then, following Putnam’s reasoning, the state of being a can-opener is different from being a physical can-opener. But this seems absurd. Why?

The can-openers in this example both realize different states of being a can-opener. The butterfly can-opener realizes the state of being a butterfly can-opener while the church key can-opener realizes the state of a church key can-opener. Just as the human brain realizes the mental state of human pain and the octopus brain realizes the mental state of octopus pain. So, the state of being a can opener is not a state but a set of states where each set corresponds to exactly one kind of can opener that opens cans in it’s own unique way. For the nature of mental states, this means that the state of being in pain is a set of states each of which corresponds to exactly one kind of brain that realizes pain in a unique way. Therefore, something cannot be in a mental state without being in the unique corresponding brain state.

Putnam might disagree here and say that, if this were true, then it would necessitate that not only pain but every mental state is distinct, even between people or organisms with the same evolved brain structures and how could that be? This seems like a very unlikely ad hoc explanation for an identity theorist grasping at straws as he’s backed into a corner. But I disagree. As complicated as the corollaries to this theory might seem to be, it’s actually the simplest, most reasonable explanation for mental states there is.

To return to the can-opener analogy. What if we have two of the same butterfly can-openers? If we let each butterfly open a can, the cans are still opened in different ways. No matter how similarly the butterfly can-openers are manufactured, there will still be small differences in them and, therefore, how the can is opened. One of them, for example, may have a slightly duller wheel resulting in a jagged opening which can be examined under a microscope if need be. This holds true for every type of can-opener: the manufacturing can only be so precise. In fact, this works in exactly the same way as the evolution of the human brain. Evolution, like the manufacturing of can-openers, can have remarkably similar results, but it is imperfect. The result in the case of the human brain is that every person has a very similar, but unique experience of pain and there’s no reason not to assume the same is true for any other organism or being that can feel pain.

The evidence of differing pain tolerances seems to support this theory. The range of responses people have to getting pinched implies that the same stimulus puts them in slightly different brain states. Probabalistically, these states are single-realizable. If the firing of nerve fibers is sufficient to give rise to the mental state of pain, we must ask who’s nerve fibers and what is the exact strength of the electrical impulses fired by each axon? In the case of other beings, even cockroaches have hundreds of thousands of neurons: it doesn’t seem that there is a simple enough biological basis for the realization of pain such that multiple beings can be in the exact same mental state.

But what if we simplify this argument. Is something as simple as experiencing the colour orange really a unique, single-realizable state? If we take the set of all the organisms or beings that can be in the state of experiencing orange, will the state of their physical phenomena really necessitate different mental states? I think so.

Consider if every being capable of being in the physical state of experiencing the colour orange could occupy the same very large room where the colour orange is projected onto a space on one of the walls. Let’s also assume that every being could be told to sit and look at the projection through some universal language. Would they be in the same mental state of experiencing orange? It seems very unlikely. First, the fact that the beings cannot occupy the same spatial-temporal region means they are all experiencing the colour differently in that the projection occupies a different part of their perspective. Perspective is unavoidable and the state of any brain will certainly be aware of it in any case. Even if we somehow were able to wave the issue of perspective and beam the colour directly into their perceptual senses, what of the beings whose favourite colour is orange – Would they not have a different experience of it? And even further, if orange is their favourite colour, which hue, saturation, and brightness is their exact preferred orange? What is their brain or related phenomena doing at the time that it is viewing the colour? With all of these variables, it seems to be a serious kind of empirical reduction to assume that the mental state of experiencing orange is the same state between all of these beings. Even though we can define what experiencing orange entails, and we can talk about it as if it were the same for all beings, the smaller details simply cannot be ignored or willed away in favour of a simpler explanation. Hence, the mental state of being in pain, or experiencing a colour, or any “multiple-realizable” mental state is actually a set of mental states; and every individual brain, or related physical phenomena capable of being somewhere in that set, is in it’s own distinct mental state strongly related to, but not equivalent to, the others within that set.

Putnam might say, couldn’t we take that which is the same between the brains and run the argument again? If there are so many differences in the brain states of the same species, then we can take that which remains the same and re-apply the argument. But then we must ask – by which criteria? This would necessitate drawing an arbitrary line over what is and isn’t necessary for pain which seems like an empirical reduction in favour of a simpler explanation.

Descartes certainty argument for dualism is invalid by the fact that the property of certain existence is not a property of the thing itself, but only a property of the observer. Hence, the indiscernibility of identicals does not apply to certain existence and therefore does not necessitate discernibility.

Descartes reasoning for arriving at his certainty argument follows from a series of mental exercises he deemed “meditations”. The exercises begin epistemologically, with Descartes seeking the foundations of true knowledge through a method of rigourous doubt. He calls into question everything he has ever believed to be true only to later discover he had somehow been deceived. From this, Descartes wonders how he can be certain of anything and fashions a thought experiment that he purports to be a solid litmus test for absolute certainty.

It is not impossible, he reasons, that he could be possessed by an evil demon dedicated to deceiving him. This demon could construct his entire reality. This is a serious problem for Descartes as it illustrates a possible situation in which almost everything he thinks he knows could be a mere illusion. He cannot be sure that he isn’t possessed by an evil demon, and so he cannot be certain of almost anything at all. Descartes perceptual understanding, he reasons, is uncertain since the demon could be in control of his percepts. He may not have a body but only be led into believing he does. Similarily, Descartes cannot be sure that the physical world exists either; however, would that not also imply that he doesn’t exist?

Descartes arrives at the position that in order to be deceived by an evil demon, he must be. If Descartes did not exist, then the evil demon would have nothing to be deceiving. This is where Descartes arrives at the conclusion that he is absolutely certain of his existence as a thinking thing (for it passes the rigorous test of absolute certainty), but not certain of his existence as a bodily thing (as it does not pass the test).

Here, Descartes reasons there is a property that differentiates his mind from his body, namely, certainty of existence. Since Descartes is certain that his mind exists, but not certain that his body exists, it follows, by the indiscernibility of identicals, that the mind is completely distinct from the body.

However, this reasoning is invalid.

The first premise is convincing. I am certain that I am thinking or experiencing. Whether what I think is true or not is besides the point because I am at least certain that I am thinking or experiencing something, illusion or not. To think or experience presupposes a mind to do as such; hence, my mind must exist. This cannot be escaped. One might attempt an argument that I am simply seeing the world through the mind of another as a trapped observer but, Descartes would agree, I would still be the receptacle to some experience: I would still be a thinking thing. Hence the first premise is sound.

The second premise can be granted for the sake of argument. I’ll concede that it is within the realm of possibility that I could be possessed by an “evil demon” of sorts. After all, my perceptual understanding of the world is surely flawed so I can’t rely on my senses for absolute certainty. One could argue that illusionary thinking, such as that which occurs in dreams or out of the corner of one’s eye is a transitory and ultimately inconsequential state that has no serious bearing on my understanding of reality. Further, it seems that there is always a sufficient explanation for the illusions of the senses. When I see what looks like a figure out of the corner of my eye and turn to see only a tree in the wind, it seems most likely that my mind is on high alert for predators and turns my head instinctively out of self-protection. My understanding of the world, in fact, mostly relies on concepts that I have formed from my perceptual experiences. To throw away the entirety of perceptual knowledge and the world on the basis of a couple insignificant errors of the mind and a thought experiment for which there is no argument for it’s existence is a serious departure from the faculties of reason for the sake of radically doubting knowledge itself. I would be more inclined to agree with this type of argument against Descartes’s second premise than any against the first, but it illustrates a smaller error in Descartes reasoning and so, for the sake of finding Descartes major error, I will consider this argument outside of this scope and grant Descartes his second premise as a sound one.

The leap from premises to the conclusion of this argument is where Descartes makes his major mistake. Though Descartes can claim certainty over his mind and not over his body, that does not show that his mind is distinct from his body. The exact issue is that certainty of existence is not a property describing an object but only a property of the observer. Descartes can be certain that his mind exists and uncertain that his body exists, but that is a function of his mind and not a description of his attributes. It is still plausible that his body exists and encompasses his mind and his certainty would not make a difference.

One might argue that it cannot be the case that one is both certain and uncertain of something’s existence as that is a contradiction. If someone is certain of something’s existence and uncertain of another thing’s existence, that seems to imply that these are different things providing the agent is rational enough not to purposefully contradict himself.

This line of thinking is the same reasonable process that motivated Descartes and it is likely usually the case that one cannot be both certain and uncertain about something’s existence. The condition in which this would not be the case, however, is when one thing has multiple names.

I might have a paintbrush. I am certain that this is my paintbrush as I use it all the time after buying it from a man at the old paintbrush store. Since this man took my cash and did not chase after me when I left with the paintbrush, Let’s say that this is my paintbrush. However, unbeknownst to me and the old man, this paintbrush is actually the same one used by Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. I might have a friend inspect the paintbrush and exclaim that this is the case, but I might not be convinced that Michelangelo was a real historical figure. I might say that he is a popular mythological figure and that there isn’t any convincing evidence that he ever existed. After all, I have never seen him or a photograph of him. The Sistine Chapel may as well have been painted by some talented priest, and the statue of David was just a piece stolen from Donatello. My friend might ask, bewildered, how I can know that this isn’t the paintbrush used by Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. While I could claim that I am certain of my paintbrush and uncertain of Michelangelo’s paintbrush hence they are not identical, I am clearly mistaken in this case that my certainty has any bearing on what is identical. Why? Because my certainty of the existence of Michelangelo’s paintbrush does not describe Michelangelo’s paintbrush. If it did, I would certainly have a case on the basis of the indiscernibilty of identicals, but the property of my certainty applies only to my beliefs. As it turns out, the thing which I am certain of and the thing which I am not certain of have exactly the same properties which would lead to the opposite conclusion in Descartes case.

One with an inclination towards post-modernist philosophy might push back on this claim and ask what isn’t assigned to an object as the property of our minds? Can we claim anything to be a property of a thing itself and not simply the product of our minds? If this is true, then certainty of existence is just as valid a property of an object as the concept of divisible by two. Why then should the indiscernibility of identicals allow for fractional equivalence and allow for that which differs by certainty?

These lines of thinking are perhaps the product of the failure of philosophers to define the strict relationship between exact language and reality. It is also the failure of the post-modernist philosophy to realize that the claim that we cannot make an objective claim about reality is, in fact, an objective claim about reality. Nevertheless, to answer what isn’t assigned to an object as the property of our minds, we must have some foundation for epistemology, which the post-modernist skeptic likely intentionally lacks: We must be able to define things as they are in reality beyond some agreeable threshold.

The post-modernist type of thinker might declare that the non-existence of flat surfaces illustrates that our designation of “flat” is socially construed and therefore has no bearing on reality. While the first part is true to a certain extent, it does in fact make a metaphysical claim about reality. Some surfaces are very close to being flat. These surfaces that are “sufficiently close to being flat” are near enough to being flat to warrant a description as such in order to approach a model of reality. If I were to point to two stones: one smooth, and one very sharp, and ask the post-modernist to pick the flat stone, he will very well know what I am talking about and understand that my language has some connection to reality and that the “flat” stone is not a pure social construction. This connection to reality, in fact, only grows stronger the simpler our object is. Mathematical objects, like flat surfaces, might not exist in the way that you can point to the numbers that are divisible by two, but you will have no issue seeing how six oranges are divided evenly enough among three friends, how a building is erected at a ninety degree angle for structural integrity, or how x and y are identical if and only if every predicate possessed by x is also possessed by y and vice versa. So, the social construction theory of our assignment of properties onto reality can only be defended for qualitative properties and, even then, the post-modernist philosopher’s understanding betrays his mystical ideas.

Descartes might still disagree and argue that his assignment of certainty is an objective property that applies to his mind and not his body. I have accepted his premises as maximally true so, if I were to begin describing my body in absolute truth, at some point, I will claim that it is something of which I am uncertain of it’s existence. The same goes for the mind, albeit, much more concise: I will say that it is a thinking thing and that I am certain of it’s existence. These statements are all truths and so how can we accurately describe these things with two distinct and maximally true properties and claim they are one in the same?

This counterargument is much more well-formulated; however, it can be dealt with by a strict and effective definition of what exactly is meant by the properties of an object and differentiating between what I will call positive properties and neutral properties. This will all be reasoned through the constraints of Descartes demon thought experiment. As we will see, neutral properties like Descartes claims about uncertainty, are not properties at all.

In Descartes demon thought experiment, a positive property is that which can known only by the prefix “I experience”. For example, If Descartes were in my living room he would ultimately agree with the claim that he experiences my cat as being orange. Of course, my cat might actually be purple or non-existent and he is actually being deceived by the demon; nevertheless, the experience of my orange cat is still a part of his perceptual understanding and he can still claim certainty of it strictly as a part of experience.

Contrast this with the putative neutral properties. Neutral properties describe truths without describing the object. These can be thought of as a binary choice of which the observer is uncertain. Descartes can look at my cat and experience orange (positive property) but he will also notice that my cat is either a cat or not a cat (negative property). That is certainly a true statement about my cat, but notice that it doesn’t actually claim anything about my cat but only about the nature of reality, namely, the law of the excluded middle. In fact, these neutral properties are a statement that “either something has a property or does not have a property” but that is not a property in itself. Descartes is claiming “either my body exists or it does not exist, I cannot be certain”. These statements are about properties but they do not collapse the binary choice into an actual property. To make a claim about property either requires a positive claim (I experience an orange cat) or a negative claim (I do not experience a purple cat) a neutral claim only states that such properties exist but certainty is required to assign a property; therefore, Descartes certainty of his mind and uncertainty about his body, even as sound premises, do not logically entail the disjunct between body and mind.

School has started up again.

I am technically in my third year of university, though I have been here for four years. I have taken four classes every semester and am pursuing a degree in computer science and a minor in philosophy.

I work in a restaurant and play in two bands. I’ve lived with my girlfriend for the past year; In late July to early August this year, we went to Russia together.

I live in Canada and have for my whole life. I haven’t even moved except for when I was born and my parents moved us to a small town, but I don’t even remember my first house. I only ever moved out of that small town three years ago in order to go to university about a two hour drive away.

I’m in a bunch of classes that are irrelevant to my degree. Since I only need two more computer science courses, I am taking all of my electives this year. The closest class I’m in that relates to my degree is “Philosophy of Mind”; After this semester, I will need one more philosophy class to finish my minor. One more philosophy class, two more computer science classes, and a handful of electives.

I don’t understand the electives courses. I am in Sociology, Political Science, and Cinema Studies this semester. Cinema Studies is okay but takes more time than I anticipated. I don’t understand why the Sociology professor and Political Science professor keep talking about Marx. I tell myself that it’s for the same reasons that the Psychology professors kept talking about Freud, but I’m not so sure.

On June 25th earlier this summer, shortly before my trip to Russia, I decided to visit my grandma about five hours north. My reasoning was that I didn’t have much going on during the weeks of summer, and I ought to see my grandmother in case I never will again. I also felt like giving Possum the night to herself as we had been spending plenty of time together during the summer. It had been about nine or ten years since I had seen my grandmother last.

I texted my dad about my plans a few days in advance and he confirmed that it was alright. We decided that I would stop by the old house and change oil in my car before I left. I had never changed oil in this car before, and I’m glad that my dad helped me with it. The odd thing about this car was that the oil filter was under the hood instead of below the car. I liked the placement; my dad remarked that it was unusual and very much “like a motorbike”. We changed the oil quickly and I was about to head out on the trip to see my grandma, but my dad invited me in to make a sandwich for the road as well as to have some water.

I made myself a turkey sandwich and drank a glass of water. My father sat down on the couch as I turned outside and remarked something about the flowers in the backyard.

“Are those lilies?” I wondered. Possum had gotten me acquainted to lilies over the past year. They are her second favourite flower and, perhaps, my favourite… I never used to notice flowers.

But none of that mattered when my dad said to me:

“So, your mom and I are separating.”

I tried to best to act natural as he went on about how they had known each other for so long and grown into different people; mom liked to go to Broadway shows on vacation and dad liked to go to different countries; mom wanted to work more and they hardly saw each other; marriage is, according to my dad “more difficult for a woman. Your mom had to give up her career; and maybe two people aren’t meant to be together for fifty years.” My dad paused at the last point and added “maybe some people”.

I did not like the concept that my mother considered raising me and my brother and marrying my father as a sort of “sacrifice” on her career as a late 90’s web designer. If a sacrifice is the exchange of one value for a lesser one, then it seems like my mother would have been wrong to marry my father and have me as a child. She should have perhaps just continued being a “girl boss” never marrying, never having kids, and continuing to be a shoddy web designer for shit websites for her real boss so she could create meaning that way.

My father then asked if I was surprised and laughed when I, in response to his question, confirmed that I was. He said my brother was as well when he was told a few weeks ago. He said he found it strange that we hadn’t noticed them growing apart the past couple of years. That didn’t make sense to me. I had not been home for the past couple years. I suspect I wouldn’t notice my parents, nor family at large, to grow apart for I have never known them as being together. I have never known them to love each other or even enjoy each others company.

To me, the rare family gatherings seemed like an event created and attended out of necessity or as an act. Like a struggling actor takes a role he doesn’t enjoy, so too did my families take to family gatherings. I only remember one family gathering on my mom’s side for my great grandmother’s birthday. My father’s side never really seemed to all be in the same place at once. I’m not going to be like them, I decided.

I ended up going on my way to my grandmothers shortly after that. I had the weight of my world on my shoulders and the model of my life breaking as the road unwound before me. But more about that later.

I had a friend in middle school called Mr. Parker. I still talk with him occasionally. In middle school we were weird, nerdy misfits. We had exactly two real friends at that time, London and Ryan. The four of us would always leave school during lunch and go to the arena across the parking lot. There, we would buy vending machine coffee or sodas. At least one of us was always in a class with the other.

London and Ryan were part of a cult called Mormonism. At that age, it didn’t matter much, and I don’t remember if it meant anything to me. They would still laugh at Mr. Parker and my edgy jokes because they, like all of us, just wanted to fit in. Eventually though, and at his dismay, London moved to Utah. No surprise there. That was at the end of Grade 8.

I was later told about this incident by another distant friend of ours, Andrew. Andrew had apparently asked if they were moving to Utah because of his religion to which London replied, “shut up”. That didn’t sound like him to me.

In Grade 9, Mr. Parker, Ryan, and I went about the same lunch routine, but we weren’t in many classes together anymore. At some point, Ryan started always saying “I’m going home for lunch” as he lived just about a block from the school. Though Mr. Parker and I were best friends at this time, something felt sad about leaving to go to the arena every lunch just the two of us. Especially since the high-school, unlike the middle school, had a real cafeteria to sit down.

I remember one week Mr. Parker left on a short vacation. He was prone to doing this every year. His parents and him went to Arizona in Grade 8, and they went to Mexico in Grade 9. That left just me and Ryan during lunch time for about a week, and I would dread when Ryan would tell me that he was “going home”. That meant I was alone. On one of the last days alone at lunch, I stole two beers from my dad before I went to school. When Ryan told me he was “going home”, it didn’t hurt as much. I walked to the arena, went to the washroom, closed the stall door, opened the two beers, and poured them into a giant thermos I had taken from home. I drank that until I felt good and went back to school finishing it throughout the lunch break.

Throughout these years, Mr. Parker, Ryan and I had an extended group of friends that weren’t very close, but we’d be glad when we shared a class with them. Among them was one guy who would later become a rather disturbed best friend. His name was Griffin, and he’s part of the reason I set out to write today.

After downing about half of my thermos of beer, I went to the cafeteria and sat with Griffin and a few other guys who were a part of our loosely connected group of friends since Grade 7.

I remember my first day in Grade 7 (and my first day in public school) the teacher assigned Griffin to sit next to me. He introduced himself:

“Hi, I’m Griffin, what’s your name.”

I drawled out my name in a hilarious fashion, at least according to how Griffin told the story. When he asked which school I came from, I similarly drawled,

“Home school”.

And there I was in our first year of high-school with the first person I talked to in public school. And I would sit with him just about every school lunch for the next four years.

Mr. Parker sat with us for a little more than a year. Eventually, he grew tired of us and started to sit with another group of friends closely connected to us, but different. I would eventually do the same for the last couple months of Grade 12, but not for the same admirable reasons.

You see, Mr. Parker had a reason for leaving us back then. We had never spoken about it, but I don’t think we needed to:

Griffin was not a good friend and, by most metrics, not a very good person either.

It’s difficult to recollect everything, to put it into words, to give honesty to the complexities of a person; however, I need to try my best to see if it can bring me some sort of understanding of who I was, who I became, and why.

The metaphysical maturation experienced throughout childhood has a profound impact on adulthood. When children become into this world, they grasp nothing but their perceptual levels of awareness. They touch, smell, see, and taste things. Eventually, through their percepts, children begin to form a conceptual understanding of the world. For example, a child may touch soft things and sharp things, begin to differentiate between the two, and collapse the soft and sharp things into their own concepts. In doing so, he has successfully bridged the levels of his perceptual understanding of the world and his conceptual understanding.

Further on in his development of his metaphysics, he will begin to differentiate things from each category into a hierarchy of composition. For example, he will have a hierarchy of “what makes things sharp”. Somewhere near the top of that sharpness hierarchy is the concept of a flashing warning sign that tells him to exercise caution; somewhere near the top of the softness hierarchy is the concept of the feeling of complete relaxation. Going further down on the sharpness hierarchy is the concept of a well tapered edge; going lower on the softness hierarchy is the concept of malleability.

So, children form concepts from their percepts and form hierarchies of composition from those concepts. In these hierarchies of composition is a vast network of concepts with many repetitions. Where this gets especially interesting is the metaphysical maturation of children with regards to their socialization. It’s easy to imagine how a child forms concepts such as sharp and soft. Some of that will even be due to socialization. Their mother might tell them to be careful of the cactus because it is sharp, and the child will form his understanding accordingly; but what about when it comes to concepts such as “authority?”

With complicated concepts such as “authority”, most of the child’s understanding is necessarily developed in part due to his socialization. This can be primarily attributed to two agents of socialization: his parents and his school.

His parents represent a few models for a child’s metaphysical understanding. First and foremost, they represent parents. Whether the child knows it or not, his parents create a normative picture of what parenthood is. Second, his parents are a model of relationships. Whether the child knows it or not, his parents’ behaviours will tell him either what a relationship ought to be or will have some influence on his relationships in the future. If his father drinks and beats his mother, the child will either accept that standard, be prone to the same mental issues, or he will vow never to drink or get physical himself; regardless, his upbringing has had an affect on his future relationships. Third, his parents represent a model of authority. In the modelling of authority, the parents show the child how an authority figure is to behave, and what happens to those that disobey the authority figure. If the child constantly feels that he is being punished too harshly for minor misdeeds, he will be more disposed to be weary of authority in the future.

Parents are moreso a model of parenthood and relationships than a model of authority, however. Although the parents’ proclivities regarding their authority will be more capable of affecting the child’s adulthood, the greater model of authority is the child’s teachers. This is because of the relationship between parent-child and teacher-child. Whereas the child knows his parents as more than just an authority figure, the child sees the teacher only as an authority figure, so plenty of his modelling for normative judgements about authority figures comes directly from his interactions with his teachers (or coaches).

The reason I bring this up is because I have always had a weary suspicion of most authority for as long as I can remember. I figured the responsibility of most authority figures is too high; people are too flawed and too biased to be able to objectively mentor a child. Though I do believe this to be true for essentially any subject besides the hard sciences (and maybe sports to an extent) it does not make any claim about what ought to be done. Children still need teachers, and teachers need to be human.

The other more pertinent reason I bring this up is because Griffin had the same issue with authority that I had. In fact, we were very similar in many ways. I had never met anyone that was so similar to me. That is why I feel it useful, and easier, to examine myself through examining what I remember about Griffin:

Griffin lived on a large acreage outside of the town. His father built the place. His father was, frankly, a scary guy. He was a retired police officer for the city, a mechanic, and an avid hunter. Griffin took after him a lot and seemed to hold him in some high regards. One day he called me and complained about how his father once insinuated that he was an accidental birth. He needed reassurance. Long phone calls of this nature with Griffin were something of a usual occurrence.

Griffin acted out of what I could only presume to be narcissism. He constantly put others down, especially his closest friends, and always under the guise of a joke. There was a long time I didn’t want to hang around him but did because I didn’t really have any other close friends, and he was willing and able to steal his parents and families pain medications, alcohol, and cigarettes. Most of us that hung around him had put up some sort of wall between us and everyone else so as to protect ourselves. Everything was a joke not to be taken seriously, but to be met with a better insult.

I understand taking the piss; I understand the dark/edgy humour; I understand the need to keep lofty idealists such as myself grounded in reality, but this was all very different. Perhaps I didn’t see the difference at the time. It was as if there was no friendship but only the need to surround oneself with people so as not to feel lonely. From us that put up with it, there was the fear or inability to make other friends. We so desperately wanted to fit in that we would put up with anything. We never knew what real friends were. I know that all those other guys never remained friends with Griffin after high-school; some of them had been friends with him since early elementary school: I think that says everything that needs to be said.

With all of that, Griffin was the only musician I’d ever known who seemed to have the same values and sense of life that I had with regards to art. It’s a mind-boggling tragedy that people go through their entire lives without knowing what art is; it is stranger still that art students seem to be the least likely to either know what art is, be able to objectively evaluate it, or declare whether or not something is art.

“Everything” they say, as if it were profound, “can be art”.

When you look into the arts section of the universities today or walk through the public art galleries and exhibitions, when you take the classes taught, read the contemporary literature, or listen to the modernist music, then you will feel the culmination of generations of people who refused to think and refused to define what they felt within themselves. To them, art was strictly the means to make them feel something and, tragically, that feeling was more often than not escapism. Modern films and music exemplify this perfectly.

Art is also not a process through which one blindly adheres to strict traditions. Though the churches of classicism claim to have founded the arbitrary (yet concretely detailed) rules that represent the final and absolute criteria of esthetic value, the value of classic literature and music is in spite of this doctrine of superficiality and not because of it.

The classical play act structure weighing on the playwright’s mind does little to bolster the value of his work in exactly the same way as the classical form in music has forced many an artist to sacrifice his vision to the purpose of perversely amputating or distending it for the sake of counting measures evenly. That is a discussion for another time, however.

I was friends with Griffin shortly after high-school. At the end of our public school education, I no longer sat with him at lunch, but I hung out with him or Mr. Parker outside of school just as much if not more than the other few friends I had. Later on in that year, I was sitting with a different group at lunch time with some friends that I had made and who would prove to be similarly poor friends in an even worse way than Griffin was.

Part of the reason I spent my time in school with the other group was to get closer to one of the women in the group. I would be inclined to say that woman was the most tragic case of humanity I have ever met; however, a tragedy presupposes some value having been lost so she was incapable of being a tragedy but fit more into the revolting dredges of nature that never could have been anything else.

What can be drawn from this is that I never actually had any friends there except perhaps for Mr. Parker. Though I have some sympathy for Griffin for having experienced life similar to the way in which I did, I recognize still that he wasn’t a very good friend.

Shortly after high-school, I texted Griffin to do something out on the town that involved booting me a bottle of vodka. He declined and said that liquor had not been his friend…

 I never heard from him again.

It was wildly out of character for him. Still today, I wonder exactly what happened and, in the same vein, why it took me five additional years to come to that same conclusion.

It didn’t bother me at the time, like I said, I didn’t like him that much. His musical comprehension and ability to get drugs was the prime motivator for my spending time with him. Without him, I only had a few months before I would be old enough to buy myself alcohol. That’s most of what mattered to me at this time.

I started working full-time just after high-school. My issues and experiences with the woman I was about to start seeing has all been detailed already; my experiences with the other friends I had, however, has not. I should talk about Reece and the others next time if I am to remain on this theme of serious reflection on the past and understanding myself through the people I chose to spend my time with. Until then, school is keeping me busy.

The curious case regarding the concept of identity is rooted in it’s subtle, pervasive, and complex nature. Whenever I speak, or try to convey information about something, whether that be a person, an animal, or an object, I am implying it’s identity through speaking of it, but I am not directly addressing it. I am waving away the concept of identity as something universally understood to the point that it doesn’t require any thought or explanation. I seem to act as if identity exists solely for the purpose of conveying information about the world – but does it? Examining the nature of identity might seem like a fool’s errand, or a quixotic undertaking; but the importance that the concept has in our speech and our day-to-day lives warrants a serious, and likely difficult, discussion regarding exactly what it is. Dismissing the necessity of defining identity while continuing to refer to it, will leave us unable to solve the many problems and puzzles regarding identity; it will lead us into contradictions and, ultimately, an incomplete or seriously flawed understanding of our world. To understand how this can happen, we will examine a series of puzzles relating to identity and how E.J. Lowe responds to them.

With regards to the puzzle of The Ship of Theseus put forward by Thomas Hobbes, Lowe begins with the approach that a ship can change all of it’s parts provided that the change is done in a “gradual and piecemeal fashion”(25). This approach, Lowe thinks, appeals to common sense. The alternate view would be that a ship could only change some proportion of it’s parts while being identical to the ship it was beforehand; however, this raises a few issues. First, the limit on how many parts of the ship could be replaced would seem to be arbitrary. Second, if we allow a change of some proportion of parts while maintaining identity, then we risk contradicting the transitivity of identity. Lowe imagines that we allow “up to 5 percent of a ship’s parts”(26) to be replaced while maintaining the identity of that ship. However, if that ship then undergoes a change of completely different parts, then we might have three ships at three different times that differ in parts by more than 5 percent. And so, our initial limit on the change of parts has led us to a contradiction where the initial ship is identical to the ship after the second reconstruction because of the transitivity of identity, but it is also not identical because the limit is exceeded. So, Lowe thinks that a ship can change all of it’s parts over time because the alternate view that it cannot leads to a contradiction.

This argument regarding the proportion of parts seems to supersede a more pressing matter, that is, the purpose of the parts of The Ship of Theseus. To show where Lowe goes wrong here, I will create a more dramatic example. Imagine that there exists some technology where I would be able to replace any part of my body with another newer part. These new parts are distinct from my old parts in the same way that the new boards on The Ship of Theseus are distinct from the old boards, but they look roughly the same and function the same. Now, by Lowe’s argument, if I am to be able to replace my parts while maintaining my identity, I should be able to replace all of my parts in a “gradual and piecemeal fashion”(25). There seems to be an issue here that is not quite as obvious in the example of The Ship of Theseus. It’s easy to see that if I were to replace my arm, my leg, or the hairs on my head with these new body parts, that I would still be numerically equivalent to who I was before. The only difference is that I have a new arm, leg, or hairs on my head. But does this imply that I could undergo a complete change of parts? There is, as Lowe put it, “hierarchies of composition”(24) involved here. It is not as easy to say, as it is with the case of my arms or my legs, that I would be numerically equivalent with a different brain. That is because when we consider identity, we have to consider the purpose that it serves. It must mean something to be a human being just as it must mean something to be a ship. My identity as a person is not tied to my ability to lift things with my arms, or to run with my legs. Clearly, many human beings live without these abilities. But to be a person is to be an agent and to be an agent is to have the capacity for rational thought and reason as a means of survival. So, the essence of personhood seems to reside somewhere in the brain. To be a distinct person, however, is a different matter from simply being a person. Just as being The Ship of Theseus is distinct from being any other ship. There should then exist something somewhere within my brain that differentiates me from any other person. A first inclination would be the history of thoughts that my brain has had. Past experiences, as the psychologists know, have a serious effect on how the brain thinks, and the unique way that our brains think seems to be what differentiates us from each other.

How does this extend to Theseus’s Ship? In order to discuss the identity of the ship, we ought to understand the purpose of a unique ship and how it is differentiated from any other ship. First, the parts of The Ship of Theseus can be arranged in a hierarchical structure. Just in the same way that my brain has more to do with my identity than the hairs on my head, so too will there be parts of The Ship of Theseus that carry more numerical weight than other parts. A ship is manned by a captain to travel across large bodies of water; it has a wheel, a rudder, a mast, a stem, risings, knees, cappings, and sails. It seems reasonable to say that the mast has more importance to the identity of the ship than the knees. The mast holds the sails which allow the ship to float across the water; the knees, on the other hand, serve to hold the railing which helps the crew from falling off and water from splashing in, but the ship would be a functional ship without it’s knees. In the same way, parts of my brain help me to think in the way that only I do. My knees might help me to walk, but my identity as a person, and as myself, does not depend on my ability to walk.

The planks of the ship are a more challenging matter. Most of the outside of the ship is composed of planks, and they are crucial to the ship’s ability to float. Most of the parts that will be replaced in the puzzle of Theseus’s Ship are planks, but are they necessary for the identity of Theseus’s Ship? My inclination is to say that none of the planks on any wooden ship have any effect on the identity of that ship. My case for the planks is that wooden planks submerged in water are not, or should not be, expected to last as long as the ship. The submerged planks are temporal parts that are important for any ship to float, but not individually notable in any specific ship, such as that of Theseus’s. For clarification, the planks seem to serve the same purpose as the crew on any voyage. Without the crew, the ship will not serve it’s purpose of floating and travelling across the seas; without the crew, it would hardly be a working ship. But the crew is not expected to remain the same on any ship. If The Ship of Theseus embarked on a voyage with set of crew members disjoint from the set of crew members on the previous voyage, we would not say it is a different ship. Such ought to be the case with the planks and any part of the ship that is not expected to last, that is, the parts of the ship that are regularly exposed to water.

So, in the matters of identity, a change of parts is allowed and in fact, should be expected, but that does not imply a complete change of parts should be allowed. In fact, in any unique object, there exists something that differentiates it from the class of objects it is a part of, that is those parts that exist at the top of the hierarchy of composition, which make the unique object numerically the same after a change of parts. So, there does not need to be a limit on the proportion of parts changed, or even a limit on the changing of parts being done gradually. The identity of the object does not exist in the temporal parts that are expected to be replaced, but in the parts that both serve the purpose of the object and subsist throughout. To entertain my own conclusion to this problem, what would I say about The Ship of Theseus? Which parts of the ship are at the top of the hierarchy of composition? When, during it’s replacement of parts, is the ship no longer that of Theseus’s? It seems to me that we need to redefine The Ship of Theseus. The ship no longer belongs to Theseus as he, in the puzzle, is already dead. So, The Ship of Theseus should more aptly be named “The Ship on which Theseus Sailed”. The important part here is that the ship sailed and moved throughout the water. There is then some way of tracing this ships journey through time on the water as it is commandeered by Theseus. I would say the essence of the ship exists in a few irreplaceable parts that exist the way that they do by their history. The mechanisms relating to the wheel of the ship, the rudder, and the mast might tentatively be these parts which make the ship of Theseus. As Theseus gripped the wheel that moved the ship throughout the water while the mast held the sails that caught the wind. Surely, you can replace the rudder, the mast, the inner mechanisms, or even the wheel of the ship while still having that ship on which Theseus sailed, but these seem to be some of the elements at the top of hierarchy that were responsible for subsisting and for serving the strong purpose that the ship truly had, which is to take Theseus throughout the water. If everything that moved Theseus throughout the water is no longer a part of the ship, then you do not have The Ship on which Theseus Sailed. If you replace the wheel of the ship, you have less of Theseus’s ship. You would then have The Ship on which Theseus Sailed, but you do not have that which directed Theseus on his voyages. The same may be said about the rudder, but I would argue that the rudder belongs to the class of objects that is not expected to subsist throughout the lifespan of the ship as it is almost always expected to be underwater. In fact, the rudder is only expected to be out of water during expected repairs of the elements that are exposed to water, the process by which, lends some more credence to the fact that these parts are expected to be replaced and so do not hold value in the identity. The mast hold the sails. Without the mast then, you can have The Ship on which Theseus Sailed, but without that which held the sails. The sails may be different. I am tempted to call them a class of parts that are not expected to subsist, but they seem to hold some importance to the sailing of the ship. I would say this depends on whether or not Theseus ever had replaced the sails or had ever expected to have them replaced. Though I cannot reach much more of a verdict than this, I have shown that the essence of the ship exists in a variety of parts that hold weight with the purpose of the ship. I would then conclude that there are a few parts without which, you would not have The Ship on which Theseus Sailed. And so, Lowe is incorrect that “if we want to allow a change of parts at all, it seems that we must allow a complete change of parts”(26).

The puzzle of The Ship of Theseus is only one puzzle that arises out of the complex and pervasive nature of identity. It is one through which a serious discussion is warranted about the composite parts of an object through time, about hierarchies of composition, and about the effect that the past has on the future – but those are only a few of the many facets of identity. And only a few of the facets on which Lowe makes an error… Let’s talk about Tibbles.

The premises of Lowe’s argument are straightforward. First, “once a hair has definitely become separated from Tibbles, it is no longer a part of him”(37). It is easy to see that when we talk about the identity of Tibbles, this will necessarily include all parts that belong to him. For a part to belong to Tibbles, however, it seems that it must both be his own part and it must be, to some degree, attached to him. Practically speaking, if I were to ask someone to throw a rambunctious Tibbles into another room, he would not pick up the hairs left on the carpet and toss them in another room. So it seems to be common-sense that the hairs that have left Tibbles body are no longer a part of Tibbles. Further, whoever throws Tibbles into the other room is necessarily throwing all of the hairs attached to him into the room as well. We might, if we were cruelly inclined, talk about shaving all of the hairs off of Tibbles body, but even so we are only talking about removing a property off of Tibbles, a property that is a part of him. But what of the hairs on Tibbles that are “neither definitely separated from Tibbles nor definitely not separated from Tibbles”(37)? Lowe says that, for the hypothetical thousand of hairs that meet this criteria, there are at least a thousand good candidates for the true Tibbles the cat. Which one is the real Tibbles? Lowe and I would agree that we do not have to decide. The relation of part to whole, after all, Lowe says is “to a degree vague or indeterminate”(38). This is, however, where our agreement in this scenario ends. For Lowe says that “this does not commit me to saying that there is any vagueness in the relation of identity… since the relation of part to whole and the relation of identity are quite different relations”(39). Lowe defends this position on the basis of the persistence conditions of cat parts and cats. Cat parts, Lowe argues, are able to survive “the mutual separation of all of its members, but a cat cannot likewise survive if all of its parts are separated from one another”(39). Is this true? Obviously, a cat cannot survive the separation of all of it’s parts, but there seems to be two different definitions of survive in this context that Lowe is using in the same way. After all, cat parts are not alive, so talking about the survival of cat parts is necessarily different from talking about the survival of cats which require food and water. What Lowe is talking about is the persistence of identity here, but he gets it wrong.

Let me paint a somewhat gruesome picture. I might return home one day to find my cat somehow dismembered on my living room floor. I would not say, in this situation, that my cat is entirely gone, or that the identity of my cat has somehow been reduced into nothing. My cat is still my cat, it just so happens that he is dead and his parts are separated. But I might point to my cat there on the floor and cry “What happened to my cat?” The same would go for if I found my cat dismembered with each of his parts in a different room. I would still be able to refer to my cat as having been somehow dismembered and killed, but my cat still exists as my dead cat. It’s properties have changed, and rather substantially, but it’s identity survives. So how can there be “different kinds of changes that cats and collections of cat parts can and cannot survive”(39)? It seems superfluous to talk about cat parts as entirely distinct from cats. There are, after all, no cat parts without a unique cat from which they came. So it is not as easy as Lowe wants it to be to defend the notion that a collection of cat parts composing a cat is not a cat. So the same goes for Tibbles. We may be able to talk about a thousand potential candidates for Tibbles each with different cat parts; we may be able to form different sets of cat parts, but this does not lead to the conclusion that “they will have to compose different cats, since they are different collections”(39). Here is where Lowe gets hung up on his desire to keep some formal structure to the concept of an identity relation. Formally, we can talk about an identity relation as every element in a set being related to itself and itself only, or more formally R = {(a,a) | ∀a ∈ A} but this is mathematical set theory, which is based on the premise that we have formally defined identities in our world which, if we did, I would not be writing this paper. Here, it seems that Lowe is begging the question: He is invoking the formal definition of a mathematical identity relation to come to conclusions about identity. Obviously, there is great theoretical and practical applications to set theory, but it is a tool that uses a priori knowledge about identity which we simply do not have. So, I argue that there is, in the real world, a serious degree of vagueness in the relation of identity.

To conclude, let us return to Lowe’s formulation that, regarding the collections of cat parts on the mat, “why don’t they all compose cats? – in which case, they will have to compose different cats, since they are different collections”(39). The answer might not adhere to the strict definitions of mathematical set theory, but it doesn’t have to. For each of these collections of cat parts all compose the same unique cat, Tibbles. When I point to Tibbles shedding on the mat and say “look at that rambunctious cat, Tibbles”, everyone who has heard me knows very well to what I am referring. It might be the case that John considers the set of cat parts and hairs t₁ to be the set that composes Tibbles, Jane might consider t₂to be the set that composes Tibbles, and Lorba might consider the set t₃to be that which composes Tibbles; nevertheless, t₁ ,t₂ , and t₃ will all share the same elements at the top of Tibbles hierarchy of composition. So t₁ = t₂ = t₃, and therein do we see the vagueness in the relation of identity, for when it comes to Tibbles, or The Ship of Theseus, or even ourselves, identity can only be so precise, but it can still be reasoned through to create a better understanding of our world.

It is difficult to take people as they are when you have been subject to liars before. I was a part of a cult. I did not believe, but that did not matter. The facts remained: People acted as if I were their family and put up that charade but, in the end, I truly meant nothing to them. That leads me to the question, what does family or friends mean to people in a cult? I don’t think it means anything. I think, if you are in a cult, then the people you consider to be your friends or family do not have any real value. The value you might impose on them is that they share the same ill-founded belief that you do, and that belief is the only value you know. But that belief isn’t real or, if it is, it is not well-founded and will not serve the same purpose that real convictions hold.

Values are difficult to talk about and difficult to define. To take a shortcut, I think values can be exemplified in behaviours. Someone might exhibit a behaviour you find praiseworthy, and that is an example of a value. Hard work is a good example of this. I find it difficult to imagine a hard-working individual who is not owed at least some praise. Even if their intentions are despicable, the courage it takes to form values and to act on them is worth something. Because most people do not have the courage to create value. To work hard is better than the alternative, no matter the intentions. You can criticize the intentions of a hard-working individual, but that is besides the point. Their hard-work ought to be evaluated in itself and praised for the determination alone. Leave the intentions separate when making this evaluation, that is a separate matter.

There is another choice distinct from creating value, and that is giving up. Believing that you cannot create value and taking up the values that someone else created (without reason) is no different from hating your Self. You can reason about values that some one has told you about. For example, our parents probably taught us about the value of hard work, but we ought not to take that on faith. Someone in a real position of authority can tell us about something we ought to value and sometimes, we should reason that they do have the authority to do so, but that requires actual thought. It is weak-willed and self-hating to decide based on word alone what values some one ought to take to heart.

Think for example of someone you admire. This person is probably skillful in at least one area of human faculties, and you will probably listen to them when they speak about those areas, but you don’t rely solely on their word, your reason is involved in that decision. Say for example, you are a guitarist and you are listening to a guitarist you admire give a speech on playing solos or something to that effect. He might say that “you need to play with feel, forget about the scales” or something like that. Since you admire him, you want to take him at his word, but you don’t. You, being a guitarist, evaluate a couple things before you decide on what he said. First, you acknowledge his perceived authority and realize that he might know something that you do not. Second, you draw on your own experience. You might think “Gee, I do play better when I think about ‘feels’ than when I rely on scales.” And after that point, you reason that what he said is sensible and you adopt it into your own guitar playing. That is what reasoning about values from someone else looks like.

What it does NOT look like is when someone you do not know, have never met, and have no reason to believe in says something like “Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s” and you decide “Gee, for some impossible reason I feel like I should believe this guy because it’s easy to do so.” And so you believe that you ought to “Render unto Caesar that which is Casesar’s”. But where is the reasoning in this belief? You are reasoning with your weak will because you are afraid to decide for your Self in this case. You do not know, from experience, whether this guy knows shit; therefore, you have no reason to take him at his word alone. You want, in this case, the benefits of reason without the hard work involved.

If a chemist tells you that water is composed of two Hydrogen atoms and one Oxygen atom, and you do not know whether this is true, you can decide, based on his authority, whether to believe him or not. Is he planning to gain something by misleading you? Or is he honest with his experience? The decision is yours to make, but in this case, it is obviously correct to believe the chemist, but you don’t really have any obligation to do so. You would not be making a moral error in neglecting to listen to the chemist as you do not have any convincing reason to believe him aside from that he is a chemist. You are essentially taking his word on faith.

Faith is a way that we reason about the world when we do not have any other means of doing so. If you were to choose between reason and faith, you ought to choose reason. But it’s not always the case that we are able to do so. With the example of the chemist, we are not equipped with the technology to examine water ourselves, to make the distinction between Hydrogen and Oxygen, and to reason that water is composed that way. We are forced to take the chemist at his word or reject his statement altogether. Faith in the religious sense takes this too far. Religious faith is predicated on too many premises and most of those premises can be reasoned against. The refusal to think is, I believe, the vilest evil there is.

Back to values. If you accept that you have some capacity to decide between good and evil, or useful and useless, then you accept that values are real. Values are that which serve your life in one way or another. The problem with talking about values is curious because we order the world in terms of values. It’s difficult to talk about how we order the world because it is so ingrained in us that it requires a great deal of human self-awareness to actually understand what we mean, even when we think like this all the time.

I think a lot about ethics. I think more people should because I’m not convinced that ethics dictates how most people live their lives. It certainly doesn’t dictate mine a lot of the time, but it should. When I act outside of ethics, I am doing something wrong. Ethics are, necessarily, something that you decide upon. Nobody but your Self can tell you how to act ethically. They might try to tell you how to do it, and they might be right, but ultimately, it’s up to you to draw your own conclusions and, if you reason correctly, then you can arrive at the right conclusion.

Ernest Hemingway allegedly said that writing is like taking water from a well.

You may take a bucket or two at a time and come back shortly after to find the well as full as it was before; however, if you take many buckets at once, it will take a while before that well is full again.

I do not write a lot and have decided only to write when I feel it to be necessary. It is necessary for my brain health. I don’t go to therapy, perhaps I should, but I can only go to so many sessions before I have to pay out of my own pocket. I am covered by the insurance policy with the university I go to. They cover about 50% of dental work and 500$ worth of therapy. I have already used about 300$ this year, and haven’t found it to be a long-term solution considering my limited funds. Yes, I’m sure if I continued regular therapy that I would see improvements, but it’s simply not in the cards at the moment.

So I decided in class one day to turn to writing. It must have been a boring class because I thought about a lot of things. For one, this is necessary for my health. Two, I want to be able to have something vulnerable that can teach me about myself so that I may feel better in my life. Three, I want to continue this long enough as a sort of story to tell about my life that I might pass on to my children or theirs far down the line. Maybe even create it as a sort of website where others can do the same.

I don’t like social media. I do use Twitter, however, but only as a source of news for less than 10 minutes a day. I have an Instagram account that I never go on, but have kept for the sake of friends that I do not talk to. Besides those 10 minutes a day, and the data that Facebook inevitably harvests from my inactive Instagram account, I avoid social media altogether. Social media, I think, includes Reddit. Because people on Reddit like to attempt to make strange distinctions between their drug of choice and other social media outlets, I feel it important to note that it is the same.

I used to use Reddit a lot when I was younger. Mentally, I regard this the same of how I used to drink excessively when I was the same age. Both behaviors serve as little more than a distraction from your daily life, and they necessarily drain your time that you could be using for other more worthwhile activities. Yes, social media can help to keep you informed of current events, in the way that I use it today, but I still don’t think that’s a good excuse. I mean that I am not using my time wisely when I go on Twitter. Why should I care that Joe Biden gave the state of the union address the other day? Why do I care that the premiere of my province is giving a tax exemption to breweries?

On the other hand, I learned from Twitter on Saturday that the next day would be daylight-savings time. That saved me a morning hassle as I worked at 7:00AM the next day. But still, I wonder if there was a way to keep up to date on all of these things happening in the world without using social media.

“But what about friends?” And this is where I might differ from most other people. Because I think a lot of people recognize that social media is a force for evil, but they don’t care that much. They might justify it in this way, that they are keeping up to date with their friends. But that is hardly the majority of the time that people use these things for. It’s a false justification. It is the same as if an alcoholic said “But what about social lubricant?”

I think you should try to meet your friends face to face. That belief might leave me more isolated than most, but it is so difficult and trivial to text each other as a main form of communication.

A friend of mine recently gave me a call. I knew him since I was eleven years old and just starting real, non-homeschooled, school. It was truly good to hear from him, to talk to him, and to realize that people that I used to be friends with can still be friends.

But I don’t think social media works that way. Not for the most part, anyways: that’s the function of calling or texting.

Something that I have come to realize is that social media companies are politically biased. Everyone is, but those in charge of social media companies have a lot of power over what people see. Even search engines, such as Google, have manipulated search results in favour of political biases. This, in combination with the algorithms that dictate what users see (in order to keep them engaged for longer) means that avid social media users often become political radicalists. And “avid social media users” encompasses a large percentage of the population. Which is why I am weary of what the present has brought, and what the future will bring.

The terminology has seeped into the vocabulary of people. People talk about “content” with regards to time-wasting online videos and other forms of media. They talk about their “feed” or “for you page”. And I think about the algorithms that control that and the impact that it might have on people.

I have seen a poster on the university campus that said something along the lines of “you should follow queer creators [on social media]” and I thought “why?” Look, I think that it is clear by my writing that I am not prejudiced towards the sexual proclivities that different people have. As far as I am aware, they don’t have a choice in those matters, and that is of no concern to me. And it shouldn’t be. When it comes to sexual things the only thing that matters is that the two people involved consent and find enjoyment. And that’s a tricky matter as people can often persuade themselves into believing that they consent, but that’s irrelevant to what I’m talking about. The point is, why should I follow ANYONE on social media? Why is anyone moralizing about these things? The correct answer, I think, is that you really shouldn’t spend time on social media. That might make you more isolated, but does that really matter? Is connecting online at all comparable to connecting in person?

You ought to seek real human connection. Social media is a substitute for that in the same way that drugs are a substitute for achievement (and human connection as well). You ought to seek human connection because it will help you to learn about yourself and where you fit in the world. It will teach you what your values are and it will keep you from becoming insane. Social media does not keep you from going insane and, I think, it rewards insanity.

The point of what I’m talking about, and I will talk more about it in the future, is that I think it would be beneficial to a lot of people to sit down and write. And a funny idea I had was that this website I’m using to write for my Self could be a database for others to do the same. They would be able to connect with their ideas, values, emotions, and perhaps realize things within themselves that they didn’t know; they would be able to have something to pass on to future generations for the future to say “This is who he was”; they could have novels of their ideas and their beliefs written down in the same way that we have the great classics in literature passed down through generations.

Of course, this would be separated from social media. It would be anonymous and only something people could read if they happened upon it or you deliberately shown it to them. Essentially a personal blog without the algorithms that addict people and the likes and reactions that keep them engaged. Like a way to easily write journals that you could keep and pass down and use to your advantage, as opposed to the advantage of some shady corporation in China.

This is not fleshed out, but it is perhaps worth consideration in the distant future, I think. The thing is that it would not make a lot of money and it would only engage those who see the benefit. Many people have no inclination towards writing, and plenty of people prefer the short term benefit of mindless social media use.

I like to think of my Self as having strong principles. Generally, strong principles go against practical common knowledge. I may be wrong in some of my principles, but I am human and I will do all that I can to change to become my ideal Self. That is, funnily enough, one of my principles.

You ought not to rely on God, at least not in the traditional sense. Rationality is Man’s means of survival. I’ve said it before. Man does not have sharp claws nor fangs, but he has a mind that he relies on for his survival. I love to use bears as an example. Bears are huge. They have large muscle mass, sharp claws, and wicked canines. They do not need to rely on their mind for survival, so you will never see a bear build a civilization with other fellow bears: they have no need. Man, on the other hand, has some size, some teeth, and some muscles, but is comparatively futile in combat with other predators. But Man has a powerful mind that he uses to his advantage.

What advantage? Survival. That is the highest value and one which is shared with all other forms of life. When you look out onto the world, you regard everything in terms of value or utility. A piece of dog shit on the sidewalk has potentially negative utility to you, so you are disgusted. A crisp hundred dollar bill, however, provides you a great deal of utility, so you pick it up. Every value you have can be distilled into your survival, and this is true no matter what species you belong to. Man wants to survive, and so he uses His mind. There are plenty of degrees of complexity to this, but it holds no matter what.

Why get married? So that you can become a better version of your Self. After all, two heads are better than one. Why become a better version of your Self? You are more resilient, more knowledgable, and better equipped to deal with the difficulties that the world has to offer. And why do you want that for your Self? Well, it’s so that you can survive. You can conquer all that which the world has to throw at you and you aren’t so dissatisfied or lost in life that you succumb to your own depression, which I think has become a motivator in life.

I believe that it used to be the case that Man did not often have to deal with suicide. His priorities involved not starving and not being eaten by a bear. But those threats have been diminishing since at least the Industrial Revolution. So what does he do with his time? The biological drive is still there. He still has a deep desire to be more resilient and capable of feeding himself and avoiding bears, but he also has a deep desire to feel pleasure and avoid pain. So he is at a cross-roads. Some choose to optimize their being for pleasure or happiness. That can involve addiction, social avoidance, isolation, short-term momentary happiness and, ultimately, their demise. But that is all in accordance with their biological drive to eat and not be eaten. Alternatively, they can choose to dedicate themself to be the best possible them that they could feasibly be because, of course, they wish to eat and not to be eaten. Most people are a mix of the two. But a greater threat these days than days before is dissatisfaction and it’s consequences, namely, suicide.

So we can distill marriage into the desire, the instinct, to survive. And I think this is the case for every goal or ambition that people have.

The reason that I do not think people ought to dedicate themselves to God, in the traditional sense, is that God takes the responsibility away from them for their own survival, among other things. As I’ve said, Man uses his mind to survive. He is responsible for doing so and he dictates what is good and what is evil. He should not rely on others, generally, to tell him which is which. That is an insult to his intelligence and therefore an insult to his ability to survive.

I am hard on religion, but as I’ve said before, I don’t think that the atheist necessarily has a leg up on the devotedly religious. The atheist rejects God, correctly so, but is often still prone to falling for a similar trap. I am speaking mostly about that which is worse even worse than subjecting your Self to God, which is losing your Self in hedonism or nihilism.

Both have a insidiously evil nature to them. The hedonist believes that pleasure is all that matters; the nihilist believes that nothing matters. The consequences of these beliefs are not something I will talk too much about as I feel they speak for themselves.

Just as social media provides an alternative to social connection; religion provides an alternative to meaning. If one were to stop using social media, he would need to find a way to connect with others. Similarily, if one were to lose their faith in God, he would need to find meaning. Many atheists have not found meaning and so they fall for the aforementioned traps. But just as man is capable of ascribing values to the world in which he lives, so too is he able to ascribe meaning. Before meaning can be reached, however, he must come to terms with his values, his principles.

To take a shortcut from this journey of self-discovery, I believe anyone who searches for this meaning honestly will come to the same conclusion.

He wishes for life after death.

For most, this involves bearing and raising moderately successful children. And that is a real ambition, a real goal, and it has real meaning that I am ill-equipped to even describe. For others, this involves some sort of creative ambition of creating something that can outlast you. Again, most people are a mix of both, and they should be a mix of both. Regardless, Man wishes to leave his mark on the world in which he lives. Like a dog pissing on a fire hydrant, but Man hopes to subsist through the water and cleaning chemicals used on the fire hydrant. He wishes for his children to have children, for his artistic merit to continue to be realized hundreds of years after his death. This seems to me to follow directly from man’s will to survive. If he wishes to live, then he wishes to live even after his death, and so he finds ways of doing that even if he doesn’t realize it.

There are plenty of traps along the way, however.

Back to what I consider my strong principles. I might tell this story and let that be the end of today. I moved to this city two hours south of my home town. I have been here for nearly three years which is by far the longest I’ve ever lived in a place besides my parents house. Previous to moving here, I was a rather serious alcoholic. And the consequence of that involved a relationship that I did not care for. Of course, as an alcoholic, I yearned for connection for connection’s sake. So I was in a relationship with someone I did not love for over three years.

We moved here together to go to school. I might talk more in depth about this in the future as it might be worth organizing in my head, but ultimately, it doesn’t bother me, so it’s not a priority. Still, it would probably be worth writing some things down for my sake of understanding my Self.

Anyways, We lived here where I live now. We used to be on the other side of the city where the homeless crack addicts would break into our apartment complex and pass out in the hallway. We lived there for about eight months before moving here for six months. At the end of that six months of daily drinking I decided it was the end of the relationship. I acted a little bit wrong about it too. I was sitting and fiddling on the piano as I told her probably without looking at her too much, but it had been a long time coming of that. Perhaps she didn’t realize it until she called me about a week later about how it was for the best (though not necessarily in those words). She said I was cold about it and that it hurt. I probably was. Anyways, that day that I ended it, I had to go to work from five to close. She called her mom who helped her move out during that time. She left almost nothing in the apartment but her piano, (what used to be) our cat, another cat we were temporarily caring for, and our photo album.

Months went by and I was alone. Just weeks after she left, I stopped drinking. I don’t know how that worked. I was focusing on school and writing music and doing lonesome things that are good to do alone. She eventually texted my parents asking them to bring her piano back. I did not like that. Had she came down and gotten her piano, I would’ve been happy to move it into her car; had she sent her parents down and gotten her piano, I would’ve been happy to move it into theirs. But she wanted me and my parents to do the work for her. I did not like the idea. So, when my mother came down to take me out to lunch I told her that I would not move the piano on account of her (having disrespected me multiple times) asking me to do her a favour. It went against my principles. My mother hated that decision of mine. I stand by it today but somewhat unsure. The piano belonged to her, but she abandoned it and asked a favour from me. I did not want to do her a favour as I do not want to do favours for people I do not respect or do not respect me. I do not believe I am obligated either. But my mother tried to make me feel bad about it. I felt bad that she did that. My mother has these outbursts which affect me and which are delicately crafted to affect me, I think. The piano is still here.

My principles could be wrong. But I can admit that. If I reason that my principles are wrong, then I think that I would change them accordingly. Sometimes, principles go against practicality. I think a lot of people sacrifice that. It’s easy to do. But I think that it is wrong to do so. That’s it for today.