Events constitutive properties

I will illustrate this with Kim s (1973, 1976) property exemplification account of events. On that account, a (monadic) event is an object s having a property at a time (or throughout an interval of time). (Alternatively, an event is the exemplification of a property in a space-time region.) It is useful here to use notation developed by Kim. Let x, P, i be read as rhe event (or state) of x s having P at t. The brackets [ ] are rhus understood as functioning like the iota operator. Property P is the constitutive property of the event [x, P, t] it is the property of which [x, P, t] is an exemplification X is the event s constitutive object, and t is its constitutive time. The nonduplication principle for (monadic) events is this no two events can have exactly the same constitutive object, constitutive property, and... 

Thus, even on a property exemplification conception of events, type role-functionalism can be combined with token physicalism (for events). Type role-functionalism, you will recall, is the view that a mental event type M is the event type of undergoing an event of some type or other tokens of which would play a certain role R. It is open to a type role-functionalist to maintain that every instance of an Af type event is a physical event. The property of being an M type event (an event tokens of which would play R) would be a characterizing property of an event rather than a constitutive property. A physical event (an event with a constitutive physical property) would be an instance of M in virtue of the fact that it plays role R. This combination of type role-functionalism and token physicalism is compatible with mental events being causes even given physical closure and the physical effects principle, for it entails that every mental event is a physical event. 

Although incompatible with Kim s denial that there are second-order properties, this combined view is compatible with his position that every mental event is either a physical event or an epiphenomenon. For it entails his position. This view, moreover, is compatible with Kim s position that events have causal effects only in virtue of being exemplifications of physical properties. For the property in virtue of which an event has causal effects is, arguably, its constitutive property, and on this view, the constitutive properties of events are physical properties. If the properties in virtue of which events have casual effects are constitutive properties, then, on this view, although instances of mental properties have causal effects, they do not have them in virtue of being instances of mental event types rather, they have causal effects in virtue of being instances of physical event types. 

I won t pursue these matters here. The reason is that NRP theorists must reject this combination of type role-functionalism and token physicalism, for they deny that mental event tokens are identical with physical event tokens. Mental event tokens, they hold, are exemplifications of functional properties and are not identical with exemplifications of physical properties that realize the functional properties. Let us see how to spell out their idea using Kim s theory of events. The idea is that functional properties will be constitutive properties of events rather than characterizing properties of events. Thus, let T be a functional property and P be one of its physical realizers. An exemplification of T by x at t will be the event [x, F, t] the property of which the event is an exemplification will be functional property F. If property T is realized on the occasion in question by P, then X will have Fat t in virtue of having Pat t. It follows that x, P, t] occurs and has role R, and indeed x, P, t will realize x, F, t by virtue of [x, P, t] having R But although [x, P, t R, it is nevertheless the case that x, P, t + x, F, t]. The reason is that P F. Thus, if there are functional properties and they are constitutive properties of events, then exemplifications of functional properties are not identical with exemplifications of their physical realizers. 

I will speak of NRP theorists as taking functional properties to be constitutive properties of events. Alternatively, we could say that they take functional properties to be essential properties of events in either Lewis s or Yablo s (1992b) sense of essential properties of events, for Yablo s property exemplification account of events also allows for events with functional essences. By a functional event token, I will henceforth mean a second-order (or higher-order) event token, an event with a functional property as a constitutive property (or an event with a functional essence). Notice that although this role-functionalist view of event tokens does not treat quantification as an object-forming operation, it treats it as a particularforming operation, for events are particulars. 

The NRP theorists in question hold that functional properties can be constitutive properties of events. Indeed, on their view, it is because functional properties can be constitutive properties of events (or event essences) that no functional event token is identical with its physical realization. If this view is correct, then token physicalism is false. This event dualism, however, is compatible with the thesis of supervenience on the physical. Proponents of the view can hold that any minimal physical duplicate of... 

If we embrace an abundant conception of properties, then there is a substantive question of which properties are such that they are constitutive properties of events. For example, if disjunction is a property-forming operation, and so there are disjunctive properties, it by no means follows that disjunctive properties can be constitutive properties of events. Also, even if complementation is a property-forming operation, and so there are negative properties, it is a nontrivial question whether negative properties can be constitutive properties of events — whether, that is, omissions are events. 1 will recur to these matters later. The point to note for now is that on an abundant conception of properties, no extant property exemplification account of events counts literally every property as such that it can be a constitutive (or essential) property of an event. One might embrace quantification as a property-forming operation but reject it as an eventforming operation and so reject the claim that functional properties can be constitutive properties of events. Whether functional properties can be constitutive properties of events, and so whether there are functional events in the sense in question, is a controversial issue. The issue, moreover, as I see, is inseparable from the issue of whether such entities would be causes. 

It is, of course, open to an NRP theorist to respond by claiming that we should broaden Lewis s notion of distinctness beyond the idea of events that enter into implication relations, figure in part-whole relations, and share parts and that we should count functional events and their realizers as nondistinct events, as well, and so the counterfactual dependence between them as noncausal. But NRP theorists are under a dialectical obligation to make a non-question-be ing case that such complications to the theory are needed. They must make a case that there are functional events — events with functional properties as their constitutive properties or essences. 

Even if there are disjunctive properties, there seems good reason to deny that they are constitutive properties of events. It should be noted that functional properties will be nomologically coextensive with the disjunction of their (actual world) realizing properties. In defending the view that events can have functional properties as constitutive properties yet lack disjunctive properties as constitutive properties, NRP theorists would be committed to the view that two properties can be nomologically coextensive yet the one be a constitutive property of an event and the other not. 

This is in fact the view Jaegwon Kim has advanced in several places about instances of second-order properties and instances of their first-order realizers.As Kim has noted, such an identification requires a revision of his property-exemplification account of events assuming that mental properties are second-order properties, it requires the exclusion of mental properties as constitutive properties of events. This instance-identity thesis is supposed to support reductionism about the mental. But there is a tension between this thesis and Kim s formulation in several places of his causal inheritance principle, which says that the causal powers of an instance of a higher-order property are identical with or are a subset of [emphasis mine] the causal powers of the instance of its realizer. Clearly, if the causal powers of the realized property instance were... 

Another response here in the general spirit of Davidson is to say that my pressing the button at f is my launching the rocket at f, even though the relationship is not one of strict identity. The former event constitutes the latter and constitution does not require possession of all the same modal properties. This is my preferred view of the relationship between token visual experience v and the relevant neural event. 

Investigations in the field of shoek eompression of solid materials were originally performed for military purposes. Speeimens sueh as armor were subjected to either projectile impact or explosive detonation, and the severity and character of the resulting damage constituted the experimental data (see, e.g., Helie, 1840). Investigations of this type continue today, and although they certainly have their place, they are now considered more as engineering experiments than scientific research, inasmuch as they do little to illuminate the basic physics and material properties which determine the results of shock-compression events. 

Increased computational resources allow the widespread application of fundamental kinetic models. Relumped single-event microkinetics constitute a subtle methodology matching present day s analytical techniques with the computational resources. The singleevent kinetic parameters are feedstock invariant. Current efforts are aimed at mapping catal) t properties such as acidity and shape selectivity. The use of fundamental kinetic models increases the reliability of extrapolations from laboratory or pilot plant data to industrial reactor simulation. 

The field of carbon nanostructure research is vast and novel, and it experienced a major breakthrough after the discovery of fullerenes in 1985 [1], and their subsequent bulk synthesis in 1990 [2]. This event opened the minds of various scientists towards discovering novel carbon allotropes. Promptly, yet another allotrop of carbon was observed by Iijima [3], although it had previously been produced by M. Endo et al. in the 1970s by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) [4]. The most recent important advance in the quest for novel forms of carbon constitutes the isolation of graphene layers [5], which exhibit unique and exceptional electrical properties [6]. In addition, graphene nanoribbons have recently been synthesized and produced using diverse methods [7]. 

Exercise. Suppose the arrivals of photons in a counter constitute a random set with known stochastic properties. Each photon has a probability a to be counted. Express the fn for the counting events in those for the arrivals. 

The following problem is in a certain sense the inverse of the one treated in the two preceding sections. Consider a photoconductor in which the electrons are excited into the conduction band by a beam of incoming photons. The arrival times of the incident photons constitute a set of random events, described by distribution functions/ or correlation functions gm. If they are independent (Poisson process or shot noise) they merely give rise to a constant probability per unit time for an electron to be excited, and (VI.9.1) applies. For any other stochastic distribution of the arrival events, however, successive excitations are no longer independent and therefore the number of excited electrons is not a Markov process and does not obey an M-equation. The problem is then to find how the statistics of the number of charge carriers is affected by the statistics of the incident photon beam. Their statistical properties are supposed to be known and furthermore it is supposed that they have the cluster property, i.e., their correlation functions gm obey (II.5.8). The problem was solved by Ubbink ) in the form of a... 

When we apply this model to clairvoyance, we begin with some physical object or event, which is the target about which we wish to acquire information. Any object has a certain set of physical properties that define it and constitute its uniqueness. The book on your lap has a set of properties such as a certain mass, the ability to reflect certain wavelengths of light (its color), a certain surface texture, and a specific collection of printed words within it that make it not only a book but one specific book. 

The development of the types of skeletons that characterize Tommotian faunas constituted a major evolutionary event. Although skeletons are known to support soft tissue and to facilitate locomotion, such adaptive functions cannot explain why so many different kinds of skeletons developed suddenly in the early part of Tommotian time. It has been suggested that a chemical change within the oceans triggered the production of these skeletons, but this hypothesis does not explain why some skeletons were composed of calcium carbonate and others of calcium phosphate, two compounds with quite different chemical properties. The rapid evolution of various kinds of external skeletons is probably in part attributable to the fact that animals... 

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