Friday, February 12, 2021

Against Extended Simples

Here is a little argument against the possibility of extended simples:

1. Suppose there can be an extended simple.
2. Then there can be an extended simple of any shape and size, including an extended simple S that looks just like a teeter totter.
3. It is possible to put enough weigh on a side of S to cause S to tip.
4. If S has no proper parts, then it is not possible put enough weigh on a side of S to cause S to tip (as S would have no sides).
5. Therefore, S has proper parts, which contradicts the stipulation that S is an extended simple.

The weakest link seems to me to be (4). However, it is difficult to see how S could be caused to tip one way rather than another unless the cause acts on *part* of S, rather than on S as a whole.

Thoughts?

6 comments:

  1. Can't some of the usual strategies for variation in extended simples be applied here? For example, the cause acts on the left-side matter of S, but not the right side. Or the cause causes S to have the property of being unevenly weighted left-ly.

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    1. Yes, that's basically the strategy Peter van Inwagen took when I pressed examples like these years ago...

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  2. Are simples mereological atoms? If so, how could a sum of unextended things ever yield an extended thing?

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    1. Can a mereological atom be extended? Perhaps it's like top-down causation, except top-down extension: the extension is not in virtue of more basic parts.

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  3. Very much thinking out loud here:
    perhaps 3 is false because the only extended simples there can be are "ghostly" extended simples: penetrable, massless (and so weightless) particles, like a giant photon

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