thread: 2009-07-26 : Very Briefly about Authority
On 2009-07-27, Ben Lehman wrote:
I think in terms of what Callan and Christian are arguing about, you're asking the wrong question. A more productive frame might be:
"Bobnar walks over to the table and picks up the can of peaches."
"Okay, Bobnar has the peaches."
And then
"Oh, so Bobnar has the peaches from last time."
Followed by: "Oh, right" -or- "No, wait, he shouldn't have been able to pick up the peaches."
or the opposite case, where he doesn't pick up the peaches but then we might decide, retroactively, that he does. Or that, no, he really didn't.
Because your chamberlain thing is an example that necessarily has a time component, you have to examine the basic actions with a time dimension too.
yrs—
—Ben
