keskiviikko 28. lokakuuta 2015

I am a scattered object

As I said in my previous post, I am a region of spacetime. This follows from accepting supersubstantivalism (there is only spacetime) and giving a reductive analysis of physical objects (they are regions of spacetime). If spacetime is continuous, does this mean that I am also continuous and not scattered? No, because I am not just any old region of spacetime. Actually, I am not even a region, I am a fusion of many regions. I am a mereological sum of a bunch of point-sized pieces of spacetime, each of which instantiates the kinds of physical properties that ground me being a biological organism. And between these pieces of spacetime there are empty subregions (empty in the sense that they don't instantiate the properties needed to ground there being a biological organism), which are not part of me.

If I wasn't a supersubstantivalist, if I believed in physical objects distinct from spacetime, then I wouldn't believe in mereological sums of spatiotemporally separated simples, even if they were carefully arranged in dense bundles. I would be a mereological nihilist and deny the existence of ordinary objects. Why? Because, intuitively, there wouldn't be any deep togetherness in the bundles.

The fact that the properties of my scattered parts are pinned down directly to a spacetime manifold that is itself a connected, continuous entity gives my parts the kind of togetherness that they would otherwise lack. This togetherness is what metaphysically explains there being composite wholes. The togetherness of the subregions of spacetime (which make up me) flows directly from the togetherness of the entire spacetime. So here we have another reason to be a supersubstantivalist!

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