If determinism is true, the cause has to guarantee the effect. We often use the word "cause" to refer to things that influence,
but do not guarantee the effect, If determinism is true there are causes going back before you were born
that guarantee what you do now.
60 comments:
"If determinism is true, The cause has to guarantee the effect. We often use the work "cause" to refer to things that influenced, but do not guarantee the effect, If determinism is true there are causes going back before you were born that guarantee what you do now."
Interesting topic, was there a link, Victor? Just wondering, my browser went a little goofy on this one, the text did not wrap for some reason, so I used copy and paste to capture what I think is your whole post here, wait, duh, I can click "Show Original Post" and that gives me the plain text.
To be continued...
Perhaps "the" definitive working this subject
https://www.hist-analytic.com/Russellcause.pdf
On The Notion Of Cause, With Applications To The Free-Will Problem
Does anybody have something more modern in mind?
Now, pointing out into the distance and saying "go read X book" is a rather lame rhetorical device commonly employed on blogs, so, I am not going to leave it a just that, but I have found it can be useful to have a reference or a couple references as an anchor to a discussion.
You may recall, Victor, some years ago you posted a link to David Haines, who had used the work of Francisco J. Romero Carrasquillo, a post that went on for thousands of comments.
But to the point of the OP, yes, people use the term "cause" in various colloquial senses. Conflating those common language notions of cause with the narrow assertion of fundamental determinism is likely to be mere equivocation.
Ok, I see a link now, if it was there previously my browser did not show it.
But, clicking the link results in a "blocked" message...hmmm.
Well, here is what I get when I copy the hyperlink
chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://iweb.langara.ca/rjohns/files/2016/09/anscombe_causality.pdf
Chrome has an annoying habit of adding junk when you copy from the address bar.
So, stripping off the junk, this URL works.
https://iweb.langara.ca/rjohns/files/2016/09/anscombe_causality.pdf
OP,
"I conclude that we have no ground for calling the path of the ball
determined –"
Thus the core error of Anscombe. Not surprising.
Causation occurs in the present moment and can perhaps be best described with differential expressions, or differential transfer functions. Russell expressed this in On the Notion of Cause".
A differential expression can be transformed, ideally, into integral form, so that the effect of these differential causal processes can be summed over time.
The path of the ball is determined by initial conditions and the sum of all the infinitesimal (using that word somewhat colloquially) differential transformations.
The path of the ball is necessary at any moment.
After meandering about Anscombe eventually ends with " Even a philosopher
acute enough to be conscious of this, such as Davidson, will say,
without offering any reason at all for saying it, that a singular
causal statement implies that there is such a true universal
proposition – though perhaps we can never have knowledge of it.
Such a thesis needs some reason for believing it! ‘Regularities in
nature’: that is not a reason. … "
Anscombe, like all others who are skeptics of determinism I have yet encountered, offers no intelligible alternative to determinism, just a vague and vacuous expression of doubt.
The alternative to determinism is randomness.
Being good Thomists, those of you who are, surely you hold to the principle of sufficient reason. Crudely put, stuff happens for reasons sufficient to account for the way that stuff happened.
Determinism satisfies the principle of sufficient reason.
Randomness is the notion that stuff just pops off any old which way for no reason at all, much less a sufficient reason. Thus, randomness violates the principle of sufficient reasons.
Those are your 2 choices, no philosopher I have encountered has offered a third alternative, Anscombe clearly did not.
Conclude determinism is the case thus retain the principle of sufficient reason.
or
Conclude randomness is the case thus abandon and deny the principle of sufficient reason.
Which is it then?
You really are dumb
"You really are dumb"
Thank you for your enlightening evaluation.
I suppose that implies that you consider yourself to be not dumb, or at least less dumb, although, of course, you could potentially consider us both to be equally dumb.
Maybe you can figure out what Anscombe is even driving at? It seems like more of a brief survey of opinions with no actual argument presented. Or was there an argument? If so, can you point it out?
https://iweb.langara.ca/rjohns/files/2016/09/anscombe_causality.pdf
Did Anscombe provide an alternative to the determinism/randomness dichotomy?
Did Anscombe provide an argument against determinism?
Did Anscombe provide an argument for randomness?
Anscombe would have done better to include Russell in her survey list, a person who actually studied causation in detail, argued in detail, and came to definite positions via his arguments. The work of Russell was decades old and well known at that time. Perhaps Anscombe found it preferable to merely mention the low hanging fruit of Kant and others from centuries past.
Russell used the example of gravity, which he pointed out can be described with differential expressions. He pointed out in great detail many of the misconceptions and irrationalities of past and present accounts of causality.
His proposal was to get rid of the word "cause" altogether, since in his view it had become so polluted with nonsense notions that it was hopelessly damaged as a term.
I prefer a more modest proposal, to use the term "causation", understanding that all causation is mutual and multilateral, in the present moment (in the limit of t as t approaches zero), best described with differential expressions, and deterministic.
If you read On The Notion Of Cause with that description in mind you will find that is what Russell was driving at, notwithstanding our modest difference of opinion as to the most suitable terminology to employ.
Aristotle and Aquinas had some ideas of cause and effect, very wrong ideas that seem superficially reasonable. Many wrong ideas seem reasonable, until they are demonstrated to have been wrong all along.
"The second way is from the nature of the efficient cause. In the world of sense we find there is an order of efficient causes."
https://iteadthomam.blogspot.com/2011/03/second-way-in-syllogistic-format.html
"Agency or Efficiency: an efficient cause consists of things apart from the thing being changed, which interact so as to be an agency of the change."
https://www.mun.ca/biology/scarr/4270_Aristotelian_Causes.html#:~:text=Agency%20or%20Efficiency%3A%20an%20efficient,a%20child%20is%20a%20father.
A core error of A-T is the notion of a hierarchical, or linearly ordered series of causes, the notion that an efficient cause is a causal thing outside from the affected thing that causes the affected thing to be changed by the external causal thing.
"There is no case known (neither is it, indeed, possible) in which a thing is found to be the efficient cause of itself" - Aquinas
Untrue. A rocket, a star, and you, each, considered as a whole single system, changes itself.
Further, as I described above, this A-T assertion neglects a clear additional case, that of mutual causality. Suppose you are on skates at arms length from another skater, and you pull each other toward each other, who changed who?
Did you change the other? Did the other change you? Did you change yourself? Did the other change herself? The distinction between changer and changed or self changed is arbitrary and therefore meaningless, there is only the mutuality of change.
Hence the famous quote from On the Notion of Cause:
"In the motions of mutually gravitating bodies, there is nothing that can be called a cause,
and nothing that can be called an effect; there is merely a formula."
Did the moving car damage the brick wall or did the brick wall damage the moving car?
It's all so arbitrary and meaningless.
This is how dumb people talk.
Go work for an insurance company or a law firm and see if you can get anyone to agree that the owner of the brick wall should pay for the damage to the car.
"It's all so arbitrary and meaningless."
Indeed, now you are starting to get it.
The cosmos does not care about what we call the brick wall or what we call the car. You and I assign value arbitrarily relative to the cosmos as a whole.
Relative to our subjectively defined objective standards of value there is value in what we call a car having nearly the same shape as it had when manufactured.
"Go work for an insurance company or a law firm and see if you can get anyone to agree that the owner of the brick wall should pay for the damage to the car."
There are no cosmic insurance companies or lawyers. If a flood washes away your home it just does, that's all, there is no payment due to you by the storm clouds or the river or anything else.
In particular, which is mover and which is moved, a molecule in the brick or a molecule in the car? Perhaps you say the car is moving and the brick is stationary, but is that true? In what frame of reference?
Supposing the car seems to be driving West when it hits the wall. From a cosmic perspective the car is simply traveling East a little more slowly than the wall is traveling East, and it is the wall that slams into the car, thus making the wall at "fault".
Dumb people? Really? Try expanding your mind beyond your little local tunnel vision view of existence, or are you too dumb to do that?
Meanwhile, here on planet Earth, no sane person would attempt to argue that the owner of the brick wall is equally at fault for the damage. There isn't a PhD physicist anywhere that would sit as an expert witness in court and say the things you are saying. Only dumb 'educated' people on the internet do that - namely you.
What if the builder of the brick wall built it in a vehicle lane? Eh?
My experience, which is derived mostly from Saturday morning documentaries, is that the builder of the wall in vehicle lanes always loses to the Road Runner
*beep* *beep*
"Meanwhile, here on planet Earth"
That is why you presently have no demonstrated ability to comprehend the subject of the OP.
Your perception is limited to here on this planet, among human beings, at your intermediate level of perception. That is why you have demonstrated such an inability to grasp the subject of the OP.
The human society on the surface of this planet constitutes an extremely small portion of the cosmos as a whole. The vastness of reality extends in the other direction by vast orders of magnitude as well, to the submicroscopic.
Reality is composed of an enormous collection of the submicroscopic so vast as to account for the entire cosmos that dwarfs our little planetary biosphere.
You, and I, and we all, inhabit that thinnest of slivers along the vast spectrum of scale and expanse from the very smallest to the very largest.
A manifest difference between us is that you revel in your tunnel vision, while I, and millions of like minded thinkers, have an expanded view of existence you seem to think is somehow insane.
Do you have any capacity at all to analyze causality, the 2nd way of Aquinas, On the Notion of Cause, the linked article by Anscombe, the difference between determinism and randomness, or any of the related aspects of the OP?
"Supposing the car seems to be driving West when it hits the wall. From a cosmic perspective the car is simply traveling East a little more slowly than the wall is traveling East, and it is the wall that slams into the car, thus making the wall at "fault".
Whatever this cosmic perspective is, it isn't the correct one. From the perspective of the bullet leaving a shooters gun, the sleeping man lying in bed moved toward it rapidy but no expert, no PhD physicist, no sane person on Earth, will testify in court that the sleeping man took part in causing his own death by bullet. Why is that?
But go ahead and be the first person to hire an expert to argue in court from the cosmic perspective the next time your car crashes into a stationary object and see where that gets you. Laughed at and ridiculed, most likely.
>Untrue. A rocket, a star, and you, each, considered as a whole single system, changes itself.
It amazes me how someone can claim to be read up on A-T philosophy and then not seem to understand it whatsoever.
In the cases you cited, each thing is changed by a part of itself. For example, the rocket body is propelled by the thruster. This is not a case of a thing changing itself; it's a case of one thing (body) being propelled by another thing (thruster).
Same goes for your body: your torso being propelled by your legs. Your legs are being propelled by muscles. Muscles propelled by motoneurons. Your torso is not your legs. Your torso cannot move itself; another thing has to move your torso.
This is what is meant in A-T philosophy. A thing cannot change itself because to be changed means being in a state of potentiality, whereas a thing causes change only insofar as it is actual. But a thing cannot at once be both potential and actual in the same way and in the same respect: you can't have a glass that is simultaneously potentially cold and actually cold.
Martin
SP has some very strange views about reality and a complete inability to understand AT philosophy. In one notable exchange with bmiller, SP said that deceased people are instrumental in causing sticks to move. See link below and enjoy.
https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2017/07/taking-aquinas-seriously.html?showComment=1500473660068#c1982227893018669639
Martin,
"In the cases you cited, each thing is changed by a part of itself."
Indeed, but Aquinas used examples such as hand, staff, and fire in his arguments. He argued that such things do not move themselves, that the staff is only moved by the hand.
He was wrong. Objects at that level of organization do move themselves.
"This is what is meant in A-T philosophy."
False, as Aquinas told us directly in the First Way, by using examples of macro scale objects such as wood, fire, and a body part. Examples of objects at that scale that move themselves abound, making Aquinas immediately wrong by false premise.
"A thing cannot change itself because to be changed means being in a state of potentiality, whereas a thing causes change only insofar as it is actual."
Those are pointless gibberish words that are unrelated to how causality progresses in the cosmos.
" you can't have a glass that is simultaneously potentially cold and actually cold."
That is more pointless crude gibberish. That which we perceive of as cold can be even colder, or that which is hot can be even hotter.
There is no such thing as "cold" or "hot" as real existent features of the cosmos. What we perceive as heat is a sensation related to molecular motion. At the molecular, or atomic, or subatomic level all change in mutual wherein the distinction between mover, moved, moving the other, or self moving is arbitrary and therefore meaningless.
If you wish to account for the self moving of macro objects by regressing to motions of its parts then that regression analysis terminates finitely with mutual causation, again showing that Aquinas got it wrong.
Martin,
To understand causality you would do well to first flush out of your thoughts the nonsense terminology employed by Aquinas.
As I noted above, probably the best known classical work on this subject is over 100 years old.
https://www.hist-analytic.com/Russellcause.pdf
The very notion of a hierarchical causal series, and old notions such as a supposed difference between an accidental series versus an essential series, the supposed act-pot analysis, linear causation, one way causation...all those ancient attempts to understand causality turn out to break down and be useless upon closer examination.
You are on the right path when you say that a macro scale object moves itself due to its parts. Yes.
You move yourself because at base submicroscopic objects move each other.
That is the key to understand, the terminus of a realistic casual regress analysis is fundamentally mutual causal processes.
All causality is mutual at base.
There is no such thing as a one-way cause and effect at base.
All causality is in the present moment.
The language of describing the present moment can vary, perhaps you think of infinitesimal time in the present, or the limit of t as t approaches zero.
All causality is multilateral.
This is in connection with the mutuality of causation. In an ideal case we can consider a 2 body problem, but in reality there are no 2 body problems, really, there are always vast numbers of entities all interacting mutually in the present moment.
Our most insightful descriptions of causality are differential expressions or differential equations.
You might be familiar with an expression such as "the integral of f(t) dt". The portion "f(t) dt" expresses the function with respect to time in the present moment, the present moment being represented by "dt".
"the rocket body is propelled by the thruster. This is not a case of a thing changing itself; it's a case of one thing (body) being propelled by another thing (thruster)."
No, the rocket acceleration is a case of mutual causation at base, as all acceleration is.
The rocket body changes the exhaust gas just as much as the exhaust gas changes the rocket body. Newton explained this in the Principia, wherein he pointed out that when a horse drags a rock by a rope the rock impedes the horse equally to the horse moving the rock. The rock changes the horse just as much as the horse changes the rock.
”All causality is mutual at base”
Translation: “The sleeping man mutually caused his death when he collided with the bullet”
New Atheism strikes again lol
” a horse drags a rock by a rope”
How is this different than what Martin said about a thruster propelling a rocket? Nobody is denying the opposing reaction but you said Martin’s statement was wrong. It’s not wrong just like Newton’s statement isn’t wrong.
Note that Newton’s statement is one-way: the horse drags the rock. Newton’s next statement is also one-way: the rock impedes the horse. Cause -> Effect.
Shouting “mutual causation at base” doesn’t change the fact that both statements are true.
>Objects at that level of organization do move themselves.
No, they do not. A staff only moves if it's moved by something else. You are incorrect.
>Those are pointless gibberish words
No, they are not gibberish words. "Potential" means "has the ability to be" and "actual" means "is." If you've ever planned lunch with friends, you were potentially but not yet eating. Then, later, you were actually eating. You make use of these concepts all the time without even thinking about them, even if you don't use the technical A-T terms for them.
>That which we perceive of as cold can be even colder
You see what I mean? "..can be" is another word for the A-T term "potentiality." You implicitly use these concepts all the time, thus affirming their truth.
>What we perceive as heat is a sensation related to molecular motion.
Which is what we call "hot" and "cold," which you affirm here are real features of the universe.
>the distinction between mover, moved, moving the other, or self moving is arbitrary
No, the distinction is not even slightly arbitrary. If an electron is attracted to an atom, the atom is the cause and the electron's motion is the effect. It's not arbitrary.
>difference between an accidental series versus an essential series, the supposed act-pot analysis, linear causation, one way causation...all those ancient attempts to understand causality turn out to break down and be useless upon closer examination.
No, they do not break down and in fact have become part of your very conception of the world that you unconsciously make use of without realizing it. If you really did not believe in essentially ordered series then you would be just fine plugging a lamp in to an outlet that is a dead end and expecting it to light up. But of course, you don't expect that because you know very well that the lamp depends on a power source in order to light up. That's an essentially ordered series, even if you never use the technical term for it.
>fundamentally mutual causal processes.
Sure, mutual causation is perfectly fine and expected in A-T thought.
>All causality is mutual at base.
Incorrect.
>There is no such thing as a one-way cause and effect at base.
Of course there is. It's idiotic to say something like this. Atom causes electron to attach to it. The quantum vacuum causes virtual particles.
>All causality is in the present moment.
Incorrect.
>All causality is multilateral.
No problem on A-T.
>the rocket acceleration is a case of mutual causation at base
Nope. The rocket body does not propel the thruster. The thruster does propel the rocket body.
>The rocket body changes the exhaust gas just as much as the exhaust gas changes the rocket body.
Of course the body changes the thruster and A-T would not only NOT say otherwise, but would in fact predict something like this!
You see how little you understand something you claim to have studied. You have created this fictious version of A-T in your own fevered imagination and are "refuting" the strawman, then patting yourself on the back about how smart you are.
I'm not a Thomist and don't really care about A-T philosophy one way or another, but I'm curious how "mutual causation" is supposed to be a defeater. Do Thomists deny Newton's Third Law?
It’s not a defeater Kevin. AT doesn’t disagree with Newton. In SPs imagination it’s a knockout punch, which is why she keeps saying it.
>Do Thomists deny Newton's Third Law?
Of course not. In A-T there are principles like "in order for A to cause B, A must have the ability to cause B."
But the only place where the principle "if A causes B then B cannot in any sense affect A" exists is in SDP's imagination, not in A-T philosophy.
That's what even my simplistic understanding of A-T philosophy made me think, that mutual causation did absolutely nothing to disprove Aquinas on even a superficial level. But I didn't want to assert it myself.
"No, they do not. A staff only moves if it's moved by something else. You are incorrect."
I didn't say a staff moves itself, I said objects at that level can and do move themselves.
Rockets, animals, and smaller natural self moving objects the size and mass of a staff do in fact move themselves.
Aquinas is immediately wrong when he cites examples of macro scale objects and claims they do not move themselves.
Objects with many parts, even many fewer parts than the examples Aquinas used, do in fact move themselves.
Aquinas was a failure almost immediately, and very obviously.
"No, the distinction is not even slightly arbitrary. If an electron is attracted to an atom, the atom is the cause and the electron's motion is the effect. It's not arbitrary."
The electron changes the atom just as much as the atom changes the electron.
The distinction between mover, moved, self moving, and moving the other is entirely arbitrary and therefore meaningless.
There is only the mutual interaction between the electron and the atom.
Kevin,
"I'm not a Thomist and don't really care about A-T philosophy one way or another, but I'm curious how "mutual causation" is supposed to be a defeater."
There are many fatal errors in Aristotelian physics and the arguments made by Aquinas.
Mutual causality shows that the First Way suffers from false dichotomy, that of posing either and infinite linear causal regress, or a finite linear causal regress.
Mutual causation terminates the regress finitely, and is a missing third case, thus showing that Aquinas used invalid logic.
Scotus sought to patch up this glaring invalid logic of Aquinas. Scotus attempted to show that circular causation is impossible. Thus, Scotus realized the defect of the First Way in that it very obviously neglected the third case. However, Scotus used a one-way causal analysis to show that a circle of one-way causes is impossible.
It would be like claiming to move yourself off your spot by reaching around an pushing on your own back, it doesn't work. Real causation is not like that either, however.
Real causation is always mutual, once could use the metaphor of a circle, but a bi-directional circle in the idealized 2 body case.
Real causation is multilateral and mutual at base, as Newton showed. That is the underlying message of the Principia that was so revolutionary, as it completely debunked and made invalid the previous arguments of Aristotle and Aquinas.
The first mover, or first cause, argument asks
What moved Z? Y.
What moved Y? X.
What moved X? W.
Ok, but this cannot go to infinity.
Therefore there must be an unmoved mover, G.
G is declared ad hoc to simply not require a mover.
G is said to terminate this linear, unidirectional, causal regress analysis.
Modern physics answers differently, and quite simply.
What moved Z? Y.
What moved Y? X.
What moved X? Y.
Done.
X and Y move each other mutually.
To call either X or Y the mover, or the moved, or self moving, or moving the other is just a matter of arbitrary labeling.
There is only the mutuality of X and Y moving each other.
Y by itself cannot move itself.
X by itself cannot move itself.
X and Y together can each both move themselves and move each other.
X cannot change Y without changing itself, or being equally changed by Y, the distinction being arbitrary and therefore meaningless.
X and Y change each other mutually, that is all there is, that is the core causal process at the base of all apparent causality.
Whatever apparent causality we observe at our macro level, if we apply a realistic causal regress analysis we will always terminate our causal regress finitely with mutual causation at base.
Mutual causation makes a first mover, an unmoved mover, that case of special pleading for an imaginary being with fantastic super powers, unnecessary.
We don't need a first mover, an unmoved mover, at base because at base everything moves everything else.
Traditional human level analysis considers a linear, unidirectional, causal regress.
Real causation is, in some metaphorical sense, circular, as well as clearly multilateral and multidirectional, making a first unmoved mover unnecessary.
"X and Y move each other mutually."
Nonsense. Force vectors that are equal and opposite result in no motion, no change. Unequal force vectors result in motion. The answer to the question, "what caused the inequality of forces to appear?" cannot be both X and Y at the same time.
What made the rock move? The horse. The rock impeded the horse, yes, but only because the horse created the inequality of force to appear.
SteveK,
Don't get too frustrated trying to explain physics to someone who doesn't have the tools or inclination to try to understand on top of telling you that she thinks she is hallucinating anyway.
I think this person has bored everyone into silence in real life and can only get a rise out of strangers on the internet.
>Aquinas is immediately wrong when he cites examples of macro scale objects and claims they do not move themselves.
Aquinas is immediately correct, because no macro or micro objects move themselves. Very obviously correct.
>The electron changes the atom just as much as the atom changes the electron.
And there is no principle in A-T philosophy that says "if object A affects object B, B cannot affect object A." That is a principle you made up and attributed to A-T.
>Mutual causation terminates the regress finitely
No, it doesn't do that.
>defect of the First Way in that it very obviously neglected the third case.
It very obviously doesn't do this and Aquinas even addresses this point.
>Modern physics answers differently, and quite simply.
>What moved Z? Y.
>What moved Y? X.
W>hat moved X? Y.
Modern physics does not in any sense say that a mountain is composed of molecules which are composed of atoms which are composed of quarks which are composed of mountains.
>We don't need a first mover
You do need a first mover and materialists even have one: matter. Matter is the fundamental bottom of nature.
Bmiller, good to see you again. Your advice is appreciated. I often wonder if SP is pranking everyone, but I think she is just protecting her turf at any cost. Her big tell is that she never - and I mean never- says she might be wrong or adjusted her position when corrected. She just doubles down, repeating the same statements that have been shown to be false.
“Ignore the troll” is good advice.
Martin,
"Aquinas is immediately correct, because no macro or micro objects move themselves."
You are a macro object. You move yourself.
A rocket is a macro object. A rocket moves itself.
Taking the word "move" in the more general sense of change, then yes, then macro objects change themselves.
A rock, just floating in space all by itself, can cool, and thus change itself.
Oh, look, I have an interesting rock, it is getting hotter, all on its own, not absorbing energy from the environment at all, just changing itself by getting itself hotter. (extra bonus points if you know what kind of rock that is)
Self moving of a macro object is due to mutual causation at base. You cannot name a counterexample.
Martin,
"You do need a first mover and materialists even have one: matter. Matter is the fundamental bottom of nature."
In that case there is no need for god to explain motion.
>You are a macro object. You move yourself.
As I explained above, I do not move myself. My legs move my torso. Muscles move my legs. Motoneurons move my muscles. At no point are any of these things self-movers. Each of these things are moved by something else.
>A rock, just floating in space all by itself, can cool, and thus change itself.
A rock in space is being cooled by space. It isn't cooling itself.
>In that case there is no need for god to explain motion.
Notice the flip flop. So, now you reverse your position that there is no need for a first mover? You now agree that the argument is sound and there is a need for one, you just think it's matter? Or...wait...no, I'm sure you'll flip flop again in three, two, one...
Some general thoughts on causality and the strange beliefs that some people hold onto.
Some people believe only accidental causal series exist. Essential causal series don't exist they say. What does that mean? Well, it means your birth is one cause, among many, that explains why you are moving a stick in the present moment. Your birth also explains, in the causal sense of explaining activity, why you are playing a perfectly timed Beethoven symphony on the cello right now. Your birth also explains, in part, why your grandchild is kicking a soccer ball right now - and when you die, your birth also explains, in part, that same activity.
Honestly, this is a very weird belief. In physics we draw free body diagrams to help us identify the proximal cause of some motion. Never do the force equations include a term that represents a birth. How much does a birth force contribute to the overall force? Maybe nothing, maybe everything. How can we test that idea? Science has done the work.
We can compare a non-human event with a human event of the same kind and see how much the birth force contributes to the F=mA equation. Have a human rapidly lifts a weight vs. a machine doing the same thing and measure the forces. As you would expect, there's no difference in the two forces. The birth force component is zero or so small it cannot be detected. In other words, it's irrelevant to the physics question of why the weight is in motion right now.
It's a pity that some people choose to believe what science has proven otherwise.
"Honestly, this is a very weird belief. In physics we draw free body diagrams to help us identify the proximal cause of some motion"
No, in physics we draw free body diagrams to describe the mutual interaction wherein the distinction between mover, moved, self moving, and moving the other is arbitrary and therefore meaningless.
There is only the mutual interaction.
Martin,
" I do not move myself."
Of course you do, to the extent that you are an object. The reason you move yourself is that at base parts of you move each other mutually, see the sliding filament theory, which at base is accounted for with mutual electrostatic forces.
"At no point are any of these things self-movers. Each of these things are moved by something else."
You are a self mover to the extent that you are a singular object.
At base there is no case of a unidirectional movement of X by Y. At base X and Y move each other mutually with the distinction of mover or moved being arbitrary and therefore meaningless.
It is that base of mutual interaction that disproves the necessity of an unmoved first mover to account for observed motion.
"A rock in space is being cooled by space. It isn't cooling itself."
Space, ideally, is a perfect insulator by conduction. Space does not add or subtract energy from an object.
If you hold a rock in your bare hand, then if you could transfer that rock to totally black space, space with no contact to the rock and no radiation irradiating the rock, then the rock will cool itself.
The mechanism for this sort of self change is radiation. The rock will radiate energy away by itself and cool itself and thus change itself.
"Notice the flip flop. So, now you reverse your position that there is no need for a first mover?"
It's a matter of semantics. If you want to call everything that exists "first", you can say that. In that case there is no need for god to account for "first" if you choose to use "first" in that sense.
At base everything moves everything else, so in that sense everything is "first", or you can say there is no "first" because "first" implies a second, and there is no second because everything is "first".
Call it what you wish. In popular language a First Mover is typically expressed as an unmoved mover at the terminus of a causal regress. Using "first" in that sense means there is no need for such a first.
Martin,
"My legs move my torso. Muscles move my legs. Motoneurons move my muscles"
Ok, that is a good start, but why stop so soon?
What makes your muscles move? What makes your neurons fire?
How far can you apply this regress of movers? Is it a finite number? How many atoms are in your body? How many subatomic particles? Is that infinite or finite?
What do we arrive at when we keep going, not merely a few steps like you did, but on and on and on?
The First Unmoved Mover assertion depends on stopping the regress, much as you did, after just a few iterations. Is that a sound analytical technique?
I invite you continue your regress, ideally, a trillion trillion trillion times. What do you find in that case, ideally?
You will find that at the base of such a thorough regress analysis is mutual causality.
At the based, at the bottom, after regressing again and again and again you will find that you get to entities that only interact with each other mutually, wherein the distinction between mover and moved is arbitrary and therefore meaningless.
The First Unmoved Mover assertion depends on stopping the regress, much as you did, after just a few iterations.
This is contrary to everything I have seen from Thomists. All they say is it can't be an infinite series of causes, not that the chain itself has to be small or can't include fundamental forces, subatomic particles, quantum mechanics, etc.
Kevin,
"This is contrary to everything I have seen from Thomists."
Every regress analysis performed by every Thomist always stops prematurely, typically after about 3 iterations.
"All they say is it can't be an infinite series of causes"
False, they use shallow examples that come nowhere close to regressing to infinity.
"not that the chain itself has to be small or can't include fundamental forces, subatomic particles, quantum mechanics, etc."
No actual Thomist actually presents an argument that regresses to subatomic particles, because the notion of a one-way linear regress of causes clearly breaks down under the formulation of interacting particles.
Consider, for example, 2 interacting electrons, say, eX and eY.
Is eX the mover of eY and eY therefore is the moved?
Or is eY the mover of eX and therefore eX is the moved?
Or did eY move itself from eX?
Or did eX move itself from eY?
The distinction of mover or moved or self moving or moving the other is arbitrary and therefore meaningless.
There is only the fact that eY and eX interact mutually such that they move away from each other mutually.
That mutuality terminates the causal regress analysis finitely without any need to further consider an infinite regress. There is no need to consider an unmoved mover to terminate an otherwise infinite regress because mutual causation terminates such a regress finitely without an unmoved mover.
To revisit your claim " All they say is it can't be an infinite series of causes"
No, they say a great deal more than that.
They claim there are only 2 choices
1.Infinite regress.
2.Finite termination of the regress by an unmoved mover.
Thus, Thomists claim a causal dichotomy.
Since that claimed dichotomy is false their arguments are logically invalid, suffering from the fallacy of false dichotomy.
In fact, all the formulations we have for causal processes at the subatomic level are formulated as the third case Thomists fail to address.
3.Finite termination of the regress by mutual movers.
From Ed Feser:
But pointing out that an E-series must have a first member, and illustrating the idea with the stick example, is by no means the whole of a First Cause argument for God’s existence. It is only part of a much larger line of argument. For one thing, while a person who moves a stone with a stick is a first cause relative to that particular series, it does not follow that he is a first cause absolutely, full stop. Indeed, relative to other E-series, he will himself be an effect. For example, his existence at any moment depends upon the existence and proper configuration of his micro-level material parts. And in a metaphysically more fundamental way, it depends on his substantial form being conjoined with prime matter, and his essence being conjoined with an act of existence. The regress this entails will be vicious unless it terminates in a cause which is purely actual and thus need not be actualized by anything else.
That was from a brief Google search. I've seen numerous Thomists say similar things. You seem to mistake illustrative examples with comprehensive depictions.
For the rest of what you wrote, I would let others chime in, as I'm not a Thomist. I suspect they would disagree.
Most people who know how to replace batteries in flashlight understand this but I'll point it out anyway:
Electrons move in an electric circuit from the anode side of the battery to the cathode side through the wires and load of the circuit. They don't "mutually" move each other. This has been known for centuries. Atheism must cause brain damage.
Kevin,
It's not the first time Stardusty has been shown he/she is misconstruing Thomist claims, so it won't change things by pointing it out again. Similarly, he/she has been shown they are misconstruing physics concepts multiple times and they just pause, wait, and repeat the claims again. It must give them some sort of strange satisfaction to spout nonsense and see who bites. It may just encourage them when they see someone is responding seriously.
Still, it is probably a service to new readers to see their hallucinations meet a dose of reality from time to time.
>You are a self mover to the extent that you are a singular object.
I'm not a self-mover at all, as I illustrated. Since you are obtuse, I'll illustrate again: my torso is moved by my legs, my legs are moved by my muscles, my muscles are moved by motoneurons, etc.
>It is that base of mutual interaction that disproves the necessity of an unmoved first mover to account for observed motion.
But there is a necessity for an unmoved mover, as you yourself agreed. You just believe that it's matter. As long as it's matter, then the argument works. But if it could be anything else, then the argument is invalid or doesn't work. Your examination of the argument is disingenuous.
>At base X and Y move each other mutually
There is no principle in Aristotelian philosophy that says "if A affects B then B cannot affect A." That is a principle you invented and then attributed, falsely, to Aristotle.
>The mechanism for this sort of self change is radiation.
Your misunderstanding of Aristotelian philosophy is not just lacking, it's actually negative. You invent things in your own head and attribute them to Aristotelian philosophy, and then "refute" your imaginary principles.
Aristotelian concepts include energeia, which means "being-at-work," which includes things performing activities natural to them, such as a tree taking in nutrients and growing new leaves, as well as entelechia, which means "being-at-rest", which means resting in stability as the type of thing it is. A rock in space is a being-at-rest: it's doing the things characteristic of a rock in that environment, which includes radiating heat energy. This is not an example of being-at-work, which is change. For a change to occur in what the rock naturally does in a specific environment, such as heating up, an external force is required.
Anyway, this is all irrelevant because you agree the argument works as long as it leads to matter as the unmoved mover.
> If you want to call everything that exists "first",
I don't want to call everything that exists "first." I want to call the most fundamental base, which is either what everything is composed of AND/OR what everything ultimately depends on. If there is some phenomenon that results from an arrangement of matter but is not itself matter (perhaps thoughts, for example, or pictures), then matter is still the base, or ontological first.
> In popular language a First Mover is typically expressed as an unmoved mover at the terminus of a causal regress.
Yes, and the terminus of the causal regress for materialists is matter. It's the base or cause of any other phenomena.
>The First Unmoved Mover assertion depends on stopping the regress, much as you did, after just a few iterations.
Such as at matter, yes.
> mutual causality
There is no principle in Aristotelian philosophy that says "if A affects B then B cannot affect A."
>At the based, at the bottom, after regressing again and again and again you will find that you get to entities that only interact with each other mutually
Oh, so matter, your base, interacts with...what?
>Every regress analysis performed by every Thomist always stops prematurely, typically after about 3 iterations.
No, no Thomist has any such principle. Another strawman. Examples using three elements are just used as intuition pumps to illustrate principles such as "for any effect, there must be a cause capable of producing it."
>No actual Thomist actually presents an argument that regresses to subatomic particles
Of course they do. All the time.
>That mutuality terminates the causal regress analysis finitely
So, again, your unmoved mover is matter. You're saying that matter does not terminate your explanations? And that matter interacts with something that is not matter? So you are a dualist?
"And in a metaphysically more fundamental way, it depends on his substantial form being conjoined with prime matter, and his essence being conjoined with an act of existence. The regress this entails will be vicious unless it terminates in a cause which is purely actual and thus need not be actualized by anything else"
Kevin's quote from Feser illustrates how SPs misunderstandings fail to address AT philosophy. AT philosophy would say that all of SPs examples haven't gone far enough. See bolded statements above. SP wants to terminate at "mutual causation" but that isn't the end of the regression according to AT philosophy.
You don't have to agree with AT philosophy, but you need to understand it correctly if you want to talk about it.
Science cannot address the fundamental metaphysical issues that AT philosophy argues for. SP thinks that science can address matters of non-science - ultimately showing that AT philosophy is not correct. SP is a lousy thinker, which is why I often say she is dumb.
Martin,
"I'm not a self-mover at all, as I illustrated. Since you are obtuse, I'll illustrate again: my torso is moved by my legs, my legs are moved by my muscles, my muscles are moved by motoneurons, etc."
All of which are part of you and result in you moving yourself.
Of course you stop at "etc", because if you continued your regression you would inevitably find yourself as a finite system.
If you do not accept that you are you, that is, if you deny the self in principle, fine, but that is why I said to the extent you are an object then you are an object that moves itself.
You don't hold yourself together in the form that is you and prevent you from ceasing to exist. That is done by something other than you. AT is arguing for a finite system just not the one you're advocating for.
>All of which are part of you and result in you moving yourself.
I'm not moving myself, though. My legs are moving my torso, my muscles are moving my legs, my motoneurons are moving my muscles. No thing is self-moving.
>because if you continued your regression you would inevitably find yourself as a finite system.
Such as at your first mover, which is matter? You seem to agree with the argument as long as it concludes in matter, but if it doesn't, then you pretend like the argument is invalid. Which of course demonstrates that you are an evangelical creationist Christian, but in reverse. You hold dogmatically to a worldview that you have no evidence for, and then you work backwards into it, supporting any arguments you think get you to it, and rejecting ones that don't.
"New" atheists are mirror images of fundamentalists.
Martin,
"I'm not moving myself, though. My legs are moving my torso, my muscles are moving my legs, my motoneurons are moving my muscles. No thing is self-moving."
To the extent that you are a thing then you are a thing that moves itself from, say, from X to Y.
Suppose thing you is sitting in chair position X, then thing you gets up, walks to the next room, and sits down in chair position Y. To the extent that you are a thing then thing you moved from X to Y. What moved thing you from X to Y? Answer, thing you moved thing you from X to Y. Your legs and your torso and your muscles are indeed mechanisms in you moving you.
To the extent that macro objects are objects they can and do change and move themselves, as you do.
"Such as at your first mover, which is matter?"
Matter is not an UNMOVED mover.
"You seem to agree with the argument as long as it concludes in matter, but if it doesn't, then you pretend like the argument is invalid."
The invalid argument of A-T is not invalid because it fails to terminate in matter, it is invalid because it presents a false dichotomy.
The dichotomy presented in the the A-T argument for an first mover is
1.An infinite regress of one-way movers.
2.A finite termination of the regress with an unmoved mover.
That false dichotomy neglects the third case
3.A regress of movers that terminates finitely with mutual movers.
"No thing is self-moving."
At base that is true. Macro objects, such as a rocket or an animal, or a star, seem to be self moving, and to the extent a macro object can be soundly considered to be an object it can move itself.
However, at base, you are correct that there are no self movers.
For example, a single electron floating alone in space (ideally) cannot move itself. However, 2 electrons can move each other. Both electrons are both mover and moved, the distinction being arbitrary, and therefore meaningless.
Macro objects seem to move themselves because at base all causation is mutual, not unmoved.
The traditional First Mover is an Unmoved First Mover.
If there are maybe 10^90 particles in the cosmos then all of them are first, if you wish to put a label on them. Designating 10^90 particles as all first seems a bit trivial, sort of like when every kid gets a trophy and they are all the winner. Well, fine, if you want to call it that, I don't really care.
Call them what you wish, all first or all last or all just present, it doesn't much matter, but none of them are unmoved, that is the key point that invalidates the A-T notion of an Unmoved First Mover.
An UNMOVED first mover is unnecessary because at base all movers are also moved.
On the topic of the OP
On determinism free will is impossible because you are not the author of your apparent will, the great cosmic clockwork mechanism is the author of your actions.
On randomness free will is impossible because you are not the author of your apparent will, the great cosmic random event generator is the author of your actions.
The determinism/randomness dichotomy is a true dichotomy, therefore free will is necessarily impossible.
SteveK,
""And in a metaphysically more fundamental way, it depends on his substantial form being conjoined with prime matter, and his essence being conjoined with an act of existence. The regress this entails will be vicious unless it terminates in a cause which is purely actual and thus need not be actualized by anything else""
Feser is well noted for his gibberish non-arguments.
In this case he is asserting "act of existence", and "purely actual", which is also known as
"existence itself". Such terms as "pure act" and "existence itself" are incoherent gibberish that I am very well familiar with.
This particular regression Feser is prattling on incoherently about is with respect to existence, not motion. Feser has written acknowledging that in the First Way Aquinas is addressing motion, which Feser generalizes as change, as Feser commits the same fallacious arguments as Aristotle and Aquinas. Feser then tries to construct an argument for a source of existence in a manner similar to which Aquinas argued for a First Unmoved Mover.
It doesn't work.
The whining refrain of Thomists is typically that others somehow do not understand the A-T arguments. Just the opposite is the case. It is incoherent babblers like Feser who do not understand the arguments. I understand A-T vastly better than either Aristotle or Aquinas understood their own arguments, not because I am a genius, but because I have the advantage of being able to stand on the shoulders of giants.
Feser voluntarily refuses to take advantage of centuries of learning that have exposed A-T as nonsense. Feser is one of many who remain willfully ignorant.
But if you wish to change the discussion from the fallacious argument for an Unmoved First Mover to the fallacious argument for a First Sustainer, fine, I can easily show you how absurd those arguments are as well.
Very simply, to use the clunky obsolete vernacular of A-T, there is no call for a First Sustainer to actualize material in its moment to moment existence, because material is already fully actualized in its existence and thus does not require any further actualization to sustain its existence.
Changing from existing to not existing would call for a changer.
Continued existence is no change in the existential aspect of material and therefore does not call for a first changer, or first sustainer.
Feser is so dull witted or willfully ignorant that he fails to understand that simple and obvious fact.
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