Yet another fact. Obviously, people do not look at other people's hands (or ears, or noses) as primary sources of identification. But that wasn't what I said. I said that hands could be used to distinguish among people. (Do you understand the difference between "identify" and "distinguish"?) In this case, it would be strong evidence that Clark and Superman are the same entity.
Really? This is your great rejoinder? Before I quit wasting any more of my time, let me just say the following:
▶I never saw anything distinctive about Reeves's hands that would make it easy to say that Kent was also Superman. His hands probably resembled Inspector Henderson's and a zillion other middle-aged males' hands.
▶It is highly doubtful that Lane would be able to memorize every single detailed feature of Kent's hands that would be necessary to distinguish them from anyone else's hands (or, conversely, that would allow her to say Kent's and Superman's hands were
absolutely identical rather than simply highly similar). And she obviously never sees Kent's and Superman's pairs of hands side by side for comparison purposes.
▶Also, to your strange, word-mincing comment about "distinguishing" vs. "identifying": If Lane cannot distinguish Kent's and Superman's hands--although never seeing them side-by-side for an accurate comparison--you're implying that she should automatically conclude they are the same person. That's ridiculous, because a negative (not being able to say conclusively that they're different, based on imperfect memory) doesn't prove they are identical.
▶And, ironically, when you try to say that "distinguish" and "identify" are completely different things in this context, you fail to realize that you are also implying that if she cannot
distinguish Kent's and Superman's hands, then she is
identifying Kent as Superman. I.e., saying they they cannot be distinguished is saying they are identical. So she is using their memorially recalled lack of distinguishing features as identifying proof that they are identical--which I have already shown to be logically flawed.
▶I suppose that if we put pictures of the pairs of hands of identical twins side by side, and they had no distinguishing properties, you'd say they were pictures of the same person's hands (even though they are not). So you yourself would be
identifying them as identical precisely because they cannot be
distinguished. And they would be "identical" only in the sense that identical twins are identical; but they would not be the
same hands. To take this one step farther, couldn't Lane just suppose that Kent and Superman are identical twins? Why do they have to be the same person?
I doubt that you will admit to the flaws in your logic that I have pointed out. But I'm done trying to set you straight. Just talk to the hand:
✋
A person's a person, no matter how small. -- Dr. Seuss
reply
share