| | I said that the predominant religious view recognizes the soul as one's spirit or consciousness. Jay replied, "But I don't think that is quite the religious view. I think you have inferred it because of your leanings toward logic." Well, what is it that is supposed to survive death and experience the afterlife, if not one's spirit or consciousness? Recognizing that no such survival is possible would refute the possibility of an afterlife. When one's physical body dies, one's capacity for experiencing reality dies along with it.
Teresa, thanks for the definitions of "unicorn." I had no idea that the term could refer to so many different things. I was alluding to Definition 1: "A mythical creature resembling a horse, with a single horn in the center of its forehead." The point I was making is only that one can't be sure that a horse-like creature resembling a unicorn -- resembling a mythical creature -- doesn't actually exist somewhere else in the universe. It is your view, I take it, that, based on the definition of a unicorn as a mythical creature, one can be sure that no such creature exists in reality, because mythical creatures, by definition, don't exist in the real world. If that is your argument, then I would certainly agree that a creature that is only mythical (and, therefore, not real) does not exist in the real world. But I wasn't saying that a mythical creature, qua mythical creature, might exist in the real world. I was saying that a creature resembling a mythical unicorn might exist in the real world (e.g., on a distant planet).
Thanks also for the citation from Kelley's book on Logic, an excellent text, which I highly recommend. Referring to Kelley's discussion of definitions, you wrote, Is a single horn sufficient for definition? No. The differentia is massive between single horned entities. A single horn, in my opinion, is misplacing the genus of a unicorn. The genus of a unicorn lies in fiction, and I think it's a mistake to smuggle it into the realm of reality, and an even bigger mistake to claim I just don't know something. I do know, Bill.
"A definition should include a genus and a differentia."
There's a reason scientists give different names to similar entities. They don't call all single horned entities "unicorns." A single horn is an attribute, not a definition. The sum is more than it's parts, in other words.
What is the genus and differentia of a unicorn? Define it, conceptually, and then tell me I don't know. I agree that single horn does not define a unicorn. As Robert Malcom pointed out, there exists a single-horned rhino, which is certainly not a unicorn. And I agree that, defined as a mythical creature, the genus of a unicorn lies in fiction. So, in that sense of the term, one definition of a unicorn is, as I acknowledged above, "a mythical creature resembling a horse, with a single horn in the center of its forehead." Given this definition, I take it that the genus is "a mythical creature," and the differentia, "a horse-like creature with a single horn in the center of its forehead."
But, again, my point was not that a unicorn qua mythical creature might exist in reality, but that a creature resembling a unicorn might exist in reality. Would you still say you are certain that even that is not true?
- Bill
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