As I noted above, this is incorrect. For one thing, you've misidentified the problem. "Orange" covers a lot more than monochromatic orange. Second, this just shifts the definition problem from the human eye to the detecting device. What about something at 620.1 nm?
It's red. There is no definition issue. You don't see astronomers or astrophysicists or paint mixers arguing over what color something is once it's measured. That's a problem unique to philosophers.
Simply because the definition is clear does not mean the threshold clear. You have baldly ignored the problem here. No real measuring system for a real forest is going to yield absolute answers. Also, areas of forest obviously give way to areas of non-forest. Suppose you analyze a region between an area of forest and an area of non-forest, overlapping them. it is strange that the region will have a different classification, despite having the same trees.
Dude, it's done all the time. Go look at a USGS map. All those green blobs with forest markings are forest. All the bits that aren't, aren't. The USGS definition specifies density, canopy cover, root density, tree size, and distance between trees. It also includes bits about whether or not an area denuded or thinned is still a forest or not and if two areas separated by such an area are a single forest, or two forests.[/quote]
Please explain your process, that we may finally have the answer to a question that has eluded philosophy since the beginning.
That's because philosphers get paid to argue over questions, not answer them.
My nickname on this board is Krensky, my real name is X. I was born on [Month] [Day], [Year] by the United States Civil Calender, at HH:MM Eastern Standard Civil Time to [Mother] and [Father]. I grew up in [town], and attended [Elementary, Junior High, High School, and College]. I truthfully identify myself as such, and I have official, legitimate documentation that demonstrates it.
That in itself identifies me uniquely. Unless you want to claim that there is another human being in the history of the species that shares those quantities.
Add in the elements of my DNA, my facial structure, my dental records, my distinguishing scars, my fingerprints, etc you get a pile of features that narrow me down to being 1 in several billion. Heck, from the ones I listed I'm fairly confident it's 1 in more then all the humans who ever lived.
The reason I am returning to this is because the problem of identity is NOT a settled one, and the difference between a measured or identified thing and the ideal of that thing was an issue explored in depth by Plato.
Because the people working on the problem have a vested interest in not solving it. Like consultants.
The reason it is important is because introducing your fallacies to this argument is unhelpful. You are making it harder, rather than easier, for people to arrive at a consensus, or several of them, because your criteria for truth are unworkable.
There is no consensus to be reached. You're (not you specifically) arguing over an inherently subjective topic while steadfastly refusing to develop an objective, working definition. In fact, I doubt you could even do that since not everyone involved is rational (not that anyone is crazy or inferior, that's not the meaning of rational being used here) and is operating using different criteria and with different priors. Truth in any sense other then not false is meaningless construct. My sole criteria for truth is the boolean one.
If one person wants to say all RPGs are D&D and another wants to say that only OD&D is D&D and I want to say that 4e (while objectively D&D) doesn't feel like D&D are any of us wrong? No. In fact we're all correct because we're all (assumedly) honestly relating the results of our purely subjective classification systems.
