I’d like to ask what makes a thing a specific thing such as an elm tree or book. Basically I‘d say we can divide it all into two stages. One is where we “first” identify a thing “to be” a particular thing where it’s own set of rules apply and then another set of rules apply in the second stage where we are trying to specify things as being part of categories we’ve already created such as book.
So let’s take a look at these different stages.
Will start with the first. Will call this the “newthing stage”
(1) Newthing stage.: So how does something become a thing to begin with. What is a thing? What is the common pattern between all things that make them things? When something becomes a thing we must realize it is a thing over other things. That by making it a thing we have divided it from other things. And does this pattern have to be inside the thing, the thing itself, or is it a relationship between things that makes them things. But for the latter to be the case they must be things for them to have such a relationship to begin with so a relationship cannot be what creates things. Unless there is something we could say close to it. That we see a relationship between stuff that are not exactly things yet but become things through that relationship. So what makes things things is it a pattern inside them all or a relationship between “stuff”. When we look at the visual world everything is composed of shape of lines. Our sight, our mind naturally separates things by lines. A specific type of flower will say is made of many parts defined by joining lines. However we have something else going on, called distance. We notice that the flower parts tend to go together with a particular average distance that tends to repeat between them. This whole pattern of the same parts “coming together in the same way” repeats itself in nature. We see many same type of flowers and notice a pattern between them, the pattern of a “specific coming togetherness of parts”. We are also only able to recognize this pattern which is “the thing” the flower because the space around is always changing from one rose say to the next. If it wasn’t we might say the space that doesn’t change is part of the rose if all we’v seen of the rose is it with this space. But there is another factor involved, movement. A rose may move in the wind as whole thing and so we differentiate it from the environment around it. So a thing, a rose say can be defined by it’s specific coming together of parts (parts being defined as connected lines which may repeat in different spaces) and the movement of those parts “together” rather then other parts.
However what w e may realize is movement as a “factor” is of a different category as the factor of coming togetherness of parts as defining a thing as a thing. Why is it different because say you saw an elm tree for the fist time? You would notice a pattern of a certain coming together of parts in a changing environment between elm trees. The tree as a “whole” does not always be seen to move so does that mean that it’s not a specific thing in itself, an elm tree. No that is why movement is a different factor in defining a thing as a thing. Movement can “help” define a thing as a thing but “essentially” what defines a thing as a thing “for the first time” is a pattern of coming together of parts.
But what we realize from this is a thing only becomes a specific thing when we’ve seen it twice. Before that we just see “parts” but the idea of a specific “thing” is not present yet. We see the parts of an elm tree because our sight and mind can see the lines of the elm tree but it only becomes a specific thing, an elm tree once we’ve seen it’s coming together of parts repeat in a changing environment. That is there are two different environments with two elms trees. We see the coming together of these parts, the elms but the “different” environment their in helps us define the elms trees as elms tress.
So this is how we first form our notion of a thing as a specific thing. Through the repetition in nature of coming together of certain parts in different environments. What we can say is repetition is needed before we can form a thing as a “specific” thing. So when I asked is the pattern that defines a thing in the thing or a relationship between things. It is actually indeed both. It is the parts in the elm tree and the repetition of those coming together of parts (a relationship) in different environments.
Now let’s look at the second stage.
(2) Evolution of definition stage: This is where we encounter different books say but we categorize them all as books. The question is not what then at this stage makes a book a book as that would be specific to the book but rather what is the process that is the evolution of the definition of book. And is this evolution the same for all things. Or if not does it repeat at all.
Let’s look at it this way we see a common pattern between two books say. Then we see a third book we assume the third is a book either because it shares a set of patterns with the first or second or at least one of them. (Though it lacks some of their patterns). But what if say you find a fourth book and the only pattern that exits there is one that only exists in the third book and not the first or second. Could we call that a book. Because the pattern it shares is so far from anything which we originally called books. Is it that we can we go further and say there are different rules that apply to different things when trying to see if something falls within that category of a thing. But for this to be the case we would have to identify it as a particular thing to begin with. But this is possible as how we come to define another thing to what it is, is determined by what we first see as that thing and that process of rules does not apply to the first thing because it is the first thing. Which I have already said in talking about the first stage. Wittgenstein proposed the family idea when talking about games. That there is different repeating sets of patterns that games share but no common essence between them. But the question I ask here is how does this process come about after all we cant talk about there being different sets of patterns that repeat themselves “in games” until we know what “games” are, that is the “process” that makes them games. It is the process that is essential. Perhaps in this process even if a “repetition”( set of characteristics as a part) only is in common with the third book say it is considered to be a part of “a book” as it repeats later in a fourth or fifth book that shares a repetition with either the first or second. However if the fifth books only part contained a repetition of the third and not the first and second. Then it wouldn’t be considered a book. Though its other part might be a repetition of the fourth book that was with the first and second book part it’s not a book as it fundamentally has nothing of the first and second book. So what I am saying is for a book to be a book it must have at least one part that is a repetition with either the first and second book. And this is a pattern in the process of evolution if the definition of all things. That this pattern repeats itself in all evolutions of definitions. That we can apply it to all things. This would be slightly contrary to what Wittgenstein says as it would imply an essence, that though the all the parts as a whole in things change from one book to the next say to be a book at least one of the parts must be of the first or second book.
That there is an essence within the flux.
