The day the fallacy of composition went wrong.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Can you assemble a hundred yellow bricks together and end up with a blue wall?
Does the wall have to be yellow?

[Nearly Sane]

"The square on the hypotenuse equals the sum of the square on the other two sides. Why is a mouse when it spins?"

[Walt Zingmatilder]

"The square on the hypotenuse equals the sum of the square on the other two sides. Why is a mouse when it spins?"

Don’t get me started on the Baker/Douglas Adams years.
The fact that you are quoting from the Tom Baker years is itself testament to their malign and ruinous influence.

[SteveH]

What the bloody blue bollocking blazes are you wittering on about now?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

What the bloody blue bollocking blazes are you wittering on about now?

Just answer the questions will you....for Pete's sake.

[SteveH]

Yes, of course the wall has to be yellow, if the bricks are, unless you later paint it blue.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Yes, of course the wall has to be yellow, if the bricks are, unless you later paint it blue.

Thank you. I think that shows that the fallacy of composition isn't universally applicable.
I agree with you.

[Sebastian Toe]

Can you assemble a hundred yellow bricks together and end up with a blue wall?
Does the wall have to be yellow?

Not if the wall identifies as blue.

Not if the wall is sad, then it will be blue.

I'm here all week!

[SteveH]

I don't think that the f. of c. says that the whole must be different from the parts; only that it may be.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

I don't think that the f. of c. says that the whole must be different from the parts; only that it may be.

So it may be a different colour?

[Outrider]

Can you assemble a hundred yellow bricks together and end up with a blue wall?

Sort of, yes. Assuming that the colour of the wall means our interpretation of the wavelength(s) of light that hit our eyes from the direction of the wall, then if the bricks are small enough and spaced correctly you'll get a diffraction grating that can make it any colour you'd like depending on where you stand.

Or, conversely, you could place the wall of yellow bricks an extremely long way away, and expansion of space-time would cause a red-shift that would change the wavelength of the light hitting the eye coming from the wall.

Or you could place the wall such the light from the wall is being bent around a massive object, which could also (depending on the geometry) shift the wavelength.

Yellow bricks will only reflect yellow light (in the visible spectrum), but the colour of the wall isn't (solely) dependent upon the wavelength at the point of reflection, it's the wavelength at the eye that matters - we don't 'see' the wall, we see light from the direction of the wall.

Which isn't actually the main point, the main point is that you're misunderstanding or misrepresenting the fallacy of composition. The fallacy of composition says that something can't exhibit a property that its component parts don't have, and that's palpable nonsense. Denying the fallacy of composition isn't saying that everything has properties that its component part doesn't have, it says that SOME things do.

O.

[jeremyp]

Thank you. I think that shows that the fallacy of composition isn't universally applicable.
I agree with you.

Oh dear, oh dear. You've failed basic logic.

The fallacy of composition merely says that you cannot infer a property of an object from the fact that its component parts have the property in the general case.

You can't infer that the wall is yellow from the fact that the bricks are yellow without some extra information e.g. the way colour works. You know as a general fact that things made up of components all of one colour generally have that same colour.

Here's another one for you. If you have cubic bricks, does that mean the wall you build will be a cube?

[Nearly Sane]

Moderator Please note that if this thread becomes a side discussion of what's on SfG in terms of necessary/contingent discussion, those posts will be removed from here and placed there.

[Nearly Sane]

Moderator Since discussion continued iff topic but on topic for SfG those posts have been removed and placed on that thread. Please keep to the direct topic of the fallacy of composition.

[SteveH]

Thank you. I think that shows that the fallacy of composition isn't universally applicable.
I agree with you.

But, though the bricks are (say) 4"x4"x8", the wall doesn't have to have those proportions, and indeed almost certainly won't have, so the f. of c. wins again.