[mkirkpatrick]

Originally Posted by <<>>

One of the most famous thought experiments in contemporary philosophy is the twin earth thought experiment. Hilary Putnam proposed it in his famous article: The meaning of 'meaning'. He proposed the following scenario:

There are exactly identical Earth planets. Everything inside them is equal and so is everything surrounding them. Every single person in one earth exists also in the other earth (we will call it twin earth but the inhabitants of it would obviously call it earth) with every single atoms equal. The only unique difference between the two earths is that what is called water in earth is H2O, and what is called water in twin earth is a different chemical called XYZ. Both substances are exactly equal in appearance and abundance (quality and quantity).

What Putnam questions now is weather, say, a person called Oscar in Earth refers to water is the same as what the parallel Oscar (twin-Oscar) refers to as water in twin-earth. Imagine also that these two people leave at a stage in their earths where the content of water is not known, for they don’t’ have any chemistry. Any solution to this question fights strong arguments that lead to a conclusion, which Putnam defends: That the meaning of something is not dependent on its content in the brain of its reference. The important thing—Argues Putnam—is that the history of the content of the word ‘water’ is different in both worlds, for Oscar learned water in an earth where there was H2O and twin-Oscar learned water in a twin-earth were there was XYZ.

What I want to comment from this though experiment is:

First, that time is a much more relevant concept in the discussion about the meaning of words and it’s relationship to the object and the brain, than it is generally thought when studying the philosophy of mind.

Second, that as it is a thought experiment it is not always viable, and it refers to a world, which has nothing to do with our reality, and— as, many philosophers argue—a thought not about the world may lead to conclusions not about the world.

Third, that the analytic philosophy of the second half of the twentieth century differs primarily upon that of the first half in that it does not reduce everything to the thing-in-itself, and that it takes in account how the external property which is time can change the identity and meaning of concepts.

What do you think about this thought experiment? What do you think about my conclusions? Any other comment is also welcomed.

For information about the thought experiment go to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_Ea...ght_experiment

As our great bard, sir William SH- once said a rose by anyother name,will smell as sweet.
kind regards michael.