When you hear “necessity” and “sufficiency”, what comes to mind?
I can’t make up my mind on this. Sometimes, something that’s necessary is a part of what’s sufficient. For example, X needs A, B, and C. A is necessary, but not sufficient, for X.
Other times, something that’s sufficient is a part of what’s necessary. For example, A, B, and C necessarily follow X, but for our goal, A, B, or C is sufficient enough.
Ugh…
Some would argue that reality itself, every part of it, was necessary.
But is it sufficient?
To meet the requirement of being reality? Yes.
Dak, those are words that philosophers use when they’re sorting out definitions. It’s a bunch of technical stuff. There’s really not much about it that’s controversial at all.
Sufficient to meet that requirement, perhaps.
But sufficient to meet whatever the entire universe was necessary for…that’s a different issue.
Not really. All you do is decide what it’s “necessary for” whatever that means. Then you’re just right back to the definitional stuff when it comes to answering the question. I mean, of course reductionism is a problem. We all have to deal with it. Everything is just a collection of smaller things, or can be explained in a simplified way be reference to another thing. But that doesn’t mean that the things are necessarily different from one another, in spite of their similarities, and sufficiently so for us to recognize it and categorize things in front of us accordingly. We’re all just little robots drawing digital pictures and calling ourselves creators man. That’s just how shit is.
If you become clear about the context, it will become clearer to you how it works. In this sentence, first the context of ‘sufficient/necessary’ was in relation to X, and then you changed it to be in relation to your goal. Of course things shift around when you change context.
True, essentially, what is categorically necessary, is not always fundamentally sufficient, and what was undeniably necessary, is sometimes more than is doubtlessly sufficient. All that seems particularly unproblematic.
Even if every part was necessary for sufficiency, it doesn’t necessarily mean every part is still sufficiently necessary for sufficiency. But, the universe never necessarily had the necessary sufficiency to suffice for necessity, nor did it ever necessarily have the sufficient necessity to necessitate sufficiency.
Stu there might be some things that are necessary, period. Like in the sense that dan was describing. They may be things purely constructed by the nature and limitations of our empirical senses. I mean, because perception is what it is, it makes sense that it’s not what it’s not, so there’s something that it’s not, and so on and you get the picture. We end up dealing in things that aren’t solids liquids and gasses. Things like a concept of identity for at the very least, the purpose of understanding language and being able to communicate or reason or interpret what’s in front of you at all. So then you might notice that no matter what it is that you’re doing, or what state of being that you are in, that it’s impossible to not make identifications between objects that are apparently distinct in some observable way. That’s just you noticing that identity is at the base of “reality”, so long as we can reasonably define “reality” as “all that will ever be accessible to you and interpretable by your mental faculties.”
This is a very good point. When I see someone doing this stuff, I always assume they’re doing it on purpose because it’s so obviously wrong headed to shift around like that and brazenly equivocate between the two contexts.
Generally true, but not necessarily. But, when they do shift around, they don’t necessarily do so sufficiently; Daktoria’s difficulties is sufficient proof of that.
Context is necessary for clear thought, but it’s not sufficient.
Context? Or language? Thought? Or communication?
At a certain point, to think about thinking in and of itself, or to get as close to that as you can, you need a solid language that you can communicate with, that way you can study the abstract thing of the thing without a context, which might be some kind of thing in itself. You gotta get all transcendental about it or something. Maybe like, transcendentally deduce some categories. It’s important to think about thinking so that we make sure not so slip into sloppy thinking.
I’m not sure if you guys understand.
I was trying to come up with a common way of expressing those two original ideas such that necessity and sufficiency would have regular definitions.
Right now, it looks like they ought to be subdivided into different words in order to remain clear. For example, if you communicate with another that something necessary or sufficient needs to get done, the vagueness of language inhibits you two from automatically having mutual understanding.
That leads to conflict from people interpreting the words to represent the context of their own self-interests instead of relating through common sense.
I mean I guess if you’re some sort of fascist who believes that certain cultures just pragmatically imply how words ought to be interpreted, then I guess you might see context as coming before relationships, but I’m hoping you’re not, so you instead understand the value of universal pragmatics…
…so say for example you lived in a commune, and there was some task that involved something necessary or sufficient. I would hope you would understand the value of clear communication in order to mutually understand and universally practice the task instead of people becoming particularly selfish.
Ok regular definitions?
Again, pretty easy…
Necessity means, “it must be the case”.
Sufficient means, “enough”.
Do you mean something must be the case before or after something happens?
The same goes for enough. Are enough things happening, or does enough exist to make things happen?
If you say both, then again, language isn’t clear.
It looks to me that both these terms are in the same direction yet differ in degree. This to say that difference is only quantitative, not qualitative. And, both are the measurements for survival.
Necessity comes prior to sufficiency.
Necessity is what it should be for survival in the very present moment. It is essential, must and cannot be compromised with. And, it is required right now, not in future.
Sufficiency provides some scope for the future survival too.
That is why necessity can be measured perfectly, but sufficiency cannot.
Actually, sufficiency can be measured too if one knows how long will the survival last.
Blame it to my English (not me in person) if i got it wrong.
with love,
sanjay
That can’t be the case. Things can be necessary but not sufficient to survival, or sufficient but not necessary. Or necessary and sufficient, or neither. This doesn’t seem like a degree of quantity.
I’m still not entirely sure where Daktoria’s confusion lies, I must admit; they’re different concepts, which is why there are different words for them.
Zinnat, yesterday I recall thinking something along the same lines. Necessity seems to be that which is present, sufficiency seems to be that which is projected towards the future. Whenever sufficiency is met, the fact of it being met may soon be forgotten to be replaced by a new necessity for future sufficiency. In other words; we perpetually live in necessity and never in sufficiency.