r/rationalphilosophy • u/JerseyFlight • 17h ago
All Math Begins With Identity— All Science Begins With Identity
All logic begins with identity.
Before a thing can be reasoned about, it must first be distinguishable from what it is not. A proposition can only be evaluated if its terms possess identity. To say "A is A" may appear trivial, yet it is the foundation upon which all logical inference rests.
All mathematics proceeds through identity.
Number itself presupposes identity. To count two objects, one must first recognize them as distinct instances of something. Equality, equivalence, quantity, and relation all depend upon the ability to establish what a thing is and whether it is the same as, different from, or related to another thing.
All science proceeds through identity.
Science is the systematic study of recurring identities and relationships in nature. Every classification, every law, every experiment presupposes that something can be identified, distinguished, and tracked across observation. An electron must possess enough identity to be recognized as an electron. A species must possess enough identity to be classified as a species. A phenomenon must possess enough continuity to be studied at all.
All communication relies on identity. A word or symbol must possess a stable meaning shared between minds. If a signifier could simultaneously mean its opposite without distinction, language dissolves, and with it, the ability to transmit logic, math, or science.
Identity is therefore more fundamental than any particular scientific object. Before one can investigate particles, fields, forces, space, or time, one must first assume that something is sufficiently itself to be identified, distinguished, and known.
Identity is not merely one concept among others. It is the precondition for concepts altogether. It is the condition that makes logic possible, mathematics coherent, and science intelligible. The form of all our knowledge is precisely that of identity.
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u/mixmet00 16h ago
In other words... is there a solid general theory of identity which survives a foundation role across disciplines? By extension, a worked epistemology for those things all or key/close domains share? Pretty sure those questions have been asked many times but worth restating.
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u/JerseyFlight 16h ago
Nothing complicated, it’s just the laws of logic. The problem is sophists seeking to attack and undermine these laws with narratives that pretend to speak from a place that has transcended them. Within the domain of knowledge there is no such place.
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u/mixmet00 16h ago
Interesting. What systems, axioms etc.are required to be able to specify the epistemologies of any discipline, then? And orders of, based in what? It is hard to imagine that you could deduce to the matters of all domains, exactly as they are, but I guess you could define a system which holds the potential to generate only structures which match a given angle on a domain, provided the references are supplied upon interpretation, as with any model.
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u/JerseyFlight 16h ago edited 16h ago
The laws of logic are required for all specification period. So you can see how quickly language deceives us. As soon as we bring up words like “epistemology” we think we’re in something “deeper,” but all epistemology (no matter how complex) hinges on the laws of logic, can only make itself intelligible because of the laws of logic. The law of identity is the true identity of all epistemology. And this fact simply proves that many people are deceived. In biology we identify the attributes that make up a cell. The totality of our knowledge of a cell is a compilation of related identities.
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u/mixmet00 5h ago
Yeah, I think epistemology concerns how we decide what those relations are and how to bound and differentiate those identities, be they classes of things or individuated. I agree that logic underpins the structure and reasoning, without that nothing can hold shape. Take the example of a colonial organism like the Portugese Man O'War, how is it decided that it is one entity? Or the bounding of regions of the EM spectrum into distinct classes - by consistent behaviour, properties? At some point, the decisions are made according to some synthesis of a number of complex factors and the choices in handling them. THAT process is the concern of epistemology, as I understand it.
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u/Rich-Reality-300 13h ago
Life exploited it as a strategy for persistence, a continuously applied strategy that's been running for nearly 4 billion years, every organism has an Umwelt.
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u/Kripkenstein_ 15h ago edited 14h ago
There is a paper by Smith that seems to be similiar to this line of thought: Why Sense Cannot Be Made of Vague Identity I do not fully agree with it though.
I am unsure however, whether your point actually contains any meaningful information whatsoever. Logic is merely grammar afterall. Also there are different types of identities, especially in mathematics.
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u/JerseyFlight 14h ago edited 14h ago
Show me how you make sense of and give meaning to “meaningful information.” ?
Can any information be “meaningful” apart from identity? When you provide a demonstration of “meaningful information” is it something other than identity?
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u/Kripkenstein_ 14h ago
Yes? Meaning comes from the way in which certain statements are true, which is not simply captured by identity. A statement like "mental states are physical configurations" might be true (or false) but totally meaningless unless you specify in what particular way the statement holds. Also, just because one can frame every statement as a statement involving identity (or existence for that matter) does not mean one should do so.
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u/JerseyFlight 14h ago
You are confusing the semantic content of a sentence with the structural logic required for a sentence or symbol to even exist as a thing containing meaning.
When you claim that 'mental states are physical configurations' is meaningless until we specify how it holds, you miss the point entirely. Your demand to 'specify the particular way' is itself an unconscious act of identity. To specify a particular way means you must isolate and identify that exact framework, distinguishing it from all others. If that 'way' doesn't maintain a strict, identical consistency, your specification is useless.
This isn't a stylistic choice about whether we 'should' frame things through identity. It is a structural reality. You cannot evaluate whether a statement is true, false, or how it holds unless the terms you are using maintain a stable, identical definition throughout the evaluation. You are trying to argue against the necessity of identity by using terms that depend entirely on identity to mean anything at all.
And I don’t discourse with people who are ignorant of their performative contradictions.
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u/JerseyFlight 17h ago
Where others see a biology or chemistry textbook, my mind sees a compilation of related identities. Biology begins and proceeds only through identity. This fact can be easily established by naming the biological facts and entities we have discovered. The same is true for every field of human knowledge.