Steve_Bamlett_blog

Was today typical?

There is a distinction in the philosophy of mind between type and token identity. Whereas it was once thought there must be events in the brain the brain that are exactly the same, if expressed in different media, as an event in the mind, like a thought, modern identity theory claims that the likeness is not between two types of the same thing, but that their is a relationship between the events in which each has a token identity with the other. The distinction often baffles both philosophy and neuroscience students.

A type is an abstract thing, a conception or generalisation we are told, whilst a token is a specific instance occurrence that is defined in terms of the properties of any other thing that might exist in a particular domain, in this case things internal to the mind and the real world respectively. To say there is a token identity between a phenomenon in the mind and in the real world is not to claim sameness or identity. Each thing is distinct and defined only in its own terms.

So how to ask if my day is typical. Certainly it is of the type of other days I have passed, although because I am out in Durham shopping for the Booker long list published this morning it is not like my usual Tuesday, not a typical Tuesday though it is like my Sundays. And I ask myself, is any day or weekday typical of another? My thought is that it only is if we wish to think it is. And often the thought is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

For instance, a certain portion of gay male Twitter seems to have its special.name for each weekday or some of them. I get these wrong regularly and, being retired, confuse days. I could not tell you which weekday is Humpday, but gay male Twitter characterises the day with shapely male buttocks, sometimes in the confident or aspirant thereto in the form of selfies, It is as if a day can be typed and behaviour and decoration will follow according to type. But not everyone follows that typology of days. It is a way of claiming the day for the group.

Of course, days have a kind of typicality because in truth many people do not vary their schedule for at least part of it. But that is to ignore the fact that diversity of people and circumstances also leads to diversity of days. There is a token identity in days but each one may be defined by properties that are not of a normative cycle or schedule. Sunday is not now a day of rest for most..

My days are each to be determined and it is sometimes useful if I have a typical.plan for each to save me from a kind of existential angst about what to do today. Such is retirement. But I hope no plan really types the day. Each day has gone Identity to other days or their aggregated type but it does not need to be, feel or Lok the same. Here is my token. Use it to vary something. In such things alone perhaps does our limited freedom as individuals lie.

What do you think?

All my love, Steven.