You think that’s a worse fit than: If I replace parts of a thing with SOMETHING ELSE is it still the same thing? The ship of theseus is more well known, but you would need to eat sand to think it’s a good fit IMO.
As an aside, the structure of the heap has nothing to do with it. The point is simply “when does a heap stop being a heap if I remove one grain at a time?” That is the same is the same as when does food stop being food if you make it poop one bit at a time. If you don’t like “heap” you can call it a pile WLOG.
If I spread a million grain heap of sand out evenly over a plane such that the grains are still touching it’s no longer a heap. Therefore the heap is a structure not a numeric quantity.
You think that’s a worse fit than: If I replace parts of a thing with SOMETHING ELSE is it still the same thing? The ship of theseus is more well known, but you would need to eat sand to think it’s a good fit IMO.
As an aside, the structure of the heap has nothing to do with it. The point is simply “when does a heap stop being a heap if I remove one grain at a time?” That is the same is the same as when does food stop being food if you make it poop one bit at a time. If you don’t like “heap” you can call it a pile WLOG.
If I spread a million grain heap of sand out evenly over a plane such that the grains are still touching it’s no longer a heap. Therefore the heap is a structure not a numeric quantity.
I said no such thing.