Is there a name for this kind of error?

[KnowtheSilence]

I need help from the more philosophically experienced.

Is there a name for when someone will ignore the differences between certain things because they are the same on some more basic level? For instance, if someone said that it's not possible to build a shelf out of ice since both ice and liquid water are made up of the same kind of molecules. You can't build with water, so you can't build with ice since they are made of the same stuff.

I think there's a name for this sort of thing, some fallacy or another, but I can't think of it. It's been bugging me.

 

[variant]

I need help from the more philosophically experienced.

Is there a name for when someone will ignore the differences between certain things because they are the same on some more basic level? For instance, if someone said that it's not possible to build a shelf out of ice since both ice and liquid water are made up of the same kind of molecules. You can't build with water, so you can't build with ice since they are made of the same stuff.

I think there's a name for this sort of thing, some fallacy or another, but I can't think of it. It's been bugging me.

That would be the fallacy of composition.

 

[KnowtheSilence]

That would be the fallacy of composition.

Thank you!

Now I'll be able to sleep tonight.

 

[variant]

Thank you!

Now I'll be able to sleep tonight.

Happy to help.

 

[Ana the Ist]

The IKEA fallacy. The logical mistake that you think you can build a shelf.

 

[Eight Foot Manchild]

It would behoove you to be familiar with the 'sister fallacy' to composition, the fallacy of division. They are inverses of one another,

Fallacy of composition - attributing to the whole some character of the parts
(atoms are colorless, my cat is made of atoms, therefor my cat is colorless)
Fallacy of division - attributing to the parts some character of the whole
(my cat is black, therefor the atoms that make up my cat are also black)