This is from the intro:
Any attempt to reduce the dialetheic properties of objects—they are both themselves and not-themselves at one and the same time—is doomed to failure. These attempts to smooth out the terrain of things are rife in metaphysics: objects are made of atoms; or they are substances decorated with accidents; or they are components of a machine; or they are instantiations of a process; and so on. Such smoothing-out also occurs in physics. Nonlocality, for instance, and quantum coherence (the way particles seem to be blurred into one another or occupying several places at once) seem to refute the law of noncontradiction at a basic level of material reality. So theories such as the many worlds explanation get rid of the inconsistency. The trouble is, such theories maintain noncontradiction at the cost of a potentially infinite number of parallel universes that open up to accommodate the inconsistent positions of a quantum. It's a bit like sweeping dust under the rug. It doesn't really go anywhere.
2 comments:
Well, as long as I can still live "anywhere"... I don't even mind if someone comes and pulls the rug out from under...
Do you view process metaphysics as claiming that things are the "instantiations of process" or was the comment unrelated? If so, why?
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