" The FW argument doesn’t require a specific list. Any list of physical objects that cannot move themselves will do." -- You example of an "essential" series is the train. Ok a list is Piston Connecting rod Crankshaft Generator Motor Wheel Car1 Car2 Carn Caboose
Done. No consideration of going on to infinity, thus no first mover called for.
In the freeze frame I see the start with the piston and the end with the caboose. That's it. Nothing else needed or called for.
Or do you want to ask what moved the piston? Hot CO2 molecules. What moved the hot CO2 molecules? The reaction betwee O2 molecules and hydrocarbon molecules. What moved the O2 molecules? Collisions with other O2 and N2 molecules. What moved those molecules? Collisions with other molecules. How far back does this goe? No further than the total number of molecules on Earth, a finite number.
Still a finite series. No first mover called for. What items in the series have I omitted? What are they named?
"In the freeze frame I see the start with the piston and the end with the caboose. That's it. Nothing else needed or called for.
Or do you want to ask what moved the piston? Hot CO2 molecules. What moved the hot CO2 molecules? The reaction betwee O2 molecules and hydrocarbon molecules. What moved the O2 molecules? Collisions with other O2 and N2 molecules. What moved those molecules? Collisions with other molecules. How far back does this goe? No further than the total number of molecules on Earth, a finite number."
The freeze frame picture shows all of the elements of the essentially ordered series that are presently causing motion or being moved.
The question is what is moving the piston, not what moved the piston. The question is what is moving the CO2 molecules, not what moved the CO2 molecules.
It is the collection of molecules that were set in motion by the reation that are moving the piston. Once in motion, the molecules remain in motion (being existing objects that are a combination of form and matter) tend to remain in motion unless they encounter something to alter that motion (per Newton's first law of motion), the piston in this case.
So, in that freeze frame, we see some molecules applying force to the piston to move it due to their vis inertiae, an inherent property of those molecules being in existence as the particular composition of form and matter that they are.
Still a finite series. No first mover called for. What items in the series have I omitted? What are they named?
This seems to be a point of confusion. It is possible that an infinite series would have no first mover. Finite series do have a first member, second member and so on. So in a finite series of movers, there has to be a first as well as a last. The First Way argues against an infinite series, not a finite series, the finite series having a first mover.
The FW argument doesn’t require a specific list. Any list of physical objects that cannot move themselves will do. The logic goes through on that basis.
Right. The FW argument does not try to be an exhaustive examination of all possible members of all possible essentially ordered series, but only what must be true of all essentially ordered series.
If something can't move itself and is moving, then something else must be moving it.
@bmiller After all this discussion, I’m not sure why it’s so difficult. If you read Cal’s last comment you’ll see how lost he is. He cannot even correctly state what the FW is about. Dumber than a box of rocks.
bmiller: "The question is what is moving the piston, not what moved the piston. / The question is what is moving the CO2 molecules, not what moved the CO2 molecules."
There is no movement in a freeze frame; there are only the elements in the freeze frame. There is only movement revealed in a freeze frame if one looks at a prior frame.
Repeat after me: no freeze frame can reveal motion.
Only two or more reference frames can reveal motion.
So long as you continue to fail to acknowledge this fact (which has been acknowledged and considered since the ancient Greeks, prior to Aristotle), you will continue to appear as profoundly stupid as you have throughout these threads.
bmiller: "It is the collection of molecules that were set in motion by the reation that are moving the piston."
Yes. PRIOR events preceded current ones. Yes.
Apparently you need to make a greater mental effort and see if you can truly consider this fact, and where it inevitably leads. For reasons I have given (poor moral character and ignorance, which lead to a great stupidity) your mind cannot grasp how the ramifications of what you concede destroy the silly concepts inherent in the First Way.
bmiller: "So, in that freeze frame, we see some molecules applying force...."
No.
Repeat after me: no freeze frame can reveal motion.
Only two or more reference frames can reveal motion.
So long as you continue to fail to acknowledge this fact (which has been acknowledged and considered since the ancient Greeks, prior to Aristotle), you will continue to appear as profoundly stupid as you have throughout these threads.
Cal: >> "There is no movement in a freeze frame; there are only the elements in the freeze frame."
There is the EFFECT in the freeze frame too. When a cause is present, there is a simultaneous cause/effect present. The effect produces motion over time. We've been over this.
If you missed it, see my comments here: October 07, 2017 9:55 AM October 07, 2017 10:45 AM
Dusty's agreement is here: October 07, 2017 12:28 PM
Me: "Cause and effect happen at the moment of simultaneity" Dusty: "That being agreed upon, then what is a causal series?"
Are you gonna disagree with Dusty?? It could end your bromance.
>> "Repeat after me: no freeze frame can reveal motion"
Repeat after me: cause/effect occur in a moment of simultaneity.
Given the simultaneous nature of cause/effect, some philosophical questions a person might ask are:
a) "What is an effect if it is not a motion - how are they different?" b) "If at every instant there is an effect but not a motion, then how can a motion occur over a series of instances?"
I'm not going to get sucked into discussing these questions because Cal is way over his head right now as it is.
Cal: >> "There is no movement in a freeze frame; there are only the elements in the freeze frame." --Correct, because the freeze freeze frame is an abstraction of 0 time. 0 movement occurs in 0 time.
Me: "Cause and effect happen at the moment of simultaneity" Dusty: "That being agreed upon, then what is a causal series?"
" Are you gonna disagree with Dusty?? It could end your bromance." --Apparently we agreed on the words but not the meaning of those words.
"Moment of simultaneity" is not the same as "0 time".
If "moment of simultaneity" was the same as "0 time" Newton would not have introduced his fluxions, nor would later mathematicians have defined the differential in terms of a limit. Instead, we would just use 0 as the differential, but then calculus would be useless and provide only 0 results.
" Repeat after me: cause/effect occur in a moment of simultaneity." --Right, which is not a 0 time freeze frame.
Where is the causal regress in the freeze frame exactly? Zero motion occurs in zero time. No change is occurring in the freeze frame.
In what sense is the piston in some sort of regress? What is the next object in the regress? What is the next object before that? What is the next object before that? What are the names of these objects in the regress you see in the freeze frame starting with the piston and regressing from there?
>> "Moment of simultaneity" is not the same as "0 time".
How do you know this? I'll let you explain the difference if you care to. I'll ignore any actual difference until you do.
It's a philosophical discussion to be had. You and Cal appear to think this distinction has been settled by science and math. It hasn't, and it never will be.
I don't think time is synonymous with the mathematical model that describes it. What is time? Does zero exist? If not, then how can "0 time" exist? Do numbers exist?
You both are asserting your philosophical musings and you think that undermines the FW argument. It doesn't work that way.
You both claim PHYSICS proves the FW is wrong. Well, that is a 100% FALSE claim as noted here and elsewhere.
Me: "cause/effect occur in a moment of simultaneity." Dusty: "Right, which is not a 0 time freeze frame"
What you're saying is a cause doesn't occur in a 0 time freeze frame. What you're saying then is the FW argument doesn't apply to 0 time.
You have a very bad habit of pointing out things that end up have nothing do with the FW argument. At one time it was 'grandfathers and sticks' and here it's 'cause and 0 time'.
Whatever label you want to put on it, the freeze frame I'm referring to is the freeze frame when a cause/effect occur in a moment of simultaneity.
" Whatever label you want to put on it, the freeze frame I'm referring to is the freeze frame when a cause/effect occur in a moment of simultaneity." --So you have a special sort of freeze frame, not a 0 time freeze frame, rather, some pictorial representation of the limit as t goes to zero.
Where is the causal regress in the freeze frame exactly?
In what sense is the piston in some sort of regress? What is the next object in the regress? What is the next object causally prior to that? What is the next object causally prior to that and so on? What are the names of these objects in the causal regress you see in the freeze frame starting with the piston and regressing from there?
I say “0 time” doesn’t exist. It’s the same as “no thing”. Both terms describe an absence of existence. You want to treat it as real? I’m not playing along with your game.
I say “0 time” doesn’t exist. It’s the same as “no thing”. Both terms describe an absence of existence. You want to treat it as real? I’m not playing along with your game.
--OK, so you have a special sort of freeze frame, not a 0 time freeze frame, rather, some pictorial representation of the limit as t goes to zero.
Where is the causal regress in the freeze frame exactly?
In what sense is the piston in some sort of regress? What is the next object in the regress? What is the next object causally prior to that? What is the next object causally prior to that and so on? What are the names of these objects in the causal regress you see in the freeze frame starting with the piston and regressing from there?
Dusty, >> "OK, so you have a special sort of freeze frame"
Yes, it's the kind of freeze frame that exists within space/time. Your "0 time" frame is a frame that exists in the absence of time - which is nowhere to be found in this space/time universe.
>> "Where is the causal regress in the freeze frame exactly?"
The FW references the members of the essential series and the cause/effect relationship between them. What is this regress you're talking about and how is it relevant to the FW argument?
In what sense is the piston in some sort of regress?
Is the piston moving? If yes, then what is moving it? If you say moving molecules, then what is moving them? This is the line of questions posed by the FW. No matter how many elements there are in the series of moving movers, and no matter how physics analyzes the series, there must ultimately be a first, Unmoved Mover.
In what sense is the piston in some sort of regress?
" Is the piston moving? If yes, then what is moving it? If you say moving molecules, " --Ok, at least you named 1 more thing in your asserted series. That will be enough for me to work with.
Even in a compressed gas the distance between molecules is large compared to the size of the molecules. At any particular moment relatively few atoms of the molecules are in direct contact with the atoms of the piston. Nearly all of the gas is in the space of the combustion chamber and not in direct contact with the piston at any given moment.
In between those molecules in the freeze frame that conceptually represents the moment of simultaneity as t goes to zero perhaps some small number of atoms as constituents of gas molecules are in direct contact with the piston.
"then what is moving them?" --Outside of themselves? Nothing. That is where the series of direct contact in the moment ends. Beyond the molecules with atoms directly in contact with the atoms of the piston there is no more matter in the series, only space.
So, there simply is no call for any further members of this series, certainly no need to bring up the notion of going on to infinity. The series of direct object contact in the moment has ended, no further movers of any sort are called for.
" So the gas molecules just accelerated for no reason whatsoever? Surely you jest." --Now you are discussing a past temporal process, which is just what any reasonable person would consider.
However, Thomism is not reasonable in that respect.
By raising the issue of prior acceleration of the molecules you have left the realm of the freeze frame and are now engaged in a temporal regress analysis, which is both entirely reasonable and entirely anti-Thomistic.
"then what is moving them?" --Outside of themselves? Nothing.
OK, then your position is that inanimate things move themselves. This certainly is not scientific, but you could have saved us all a lot of time by just stating that inanimate objects move themselves.
If inanimate objects move themselves, then why don't they stop themselves or start to move themselves, or even change directions by themselves?
bmiller: "then what is moving them?" Stadusty: "--Outside of themselves? Nothing." bmiller: "OK, then your position is that inanimate things move themselves."
Ha.
No, that's not the position. The position is that everything that is moving (and everything is moving) is tied to a prior series of events that goes back in time all the way back to the big bang.
Your dishonesty makes you even stupider. With the regularity of a metronome. I am starting to think it must be one of the most predictable outcomes in all of psychology.
"then what is moving them?" --Outside of themselves? Nothing.
" OK, then your position is that inanimate things move themselves. " --My position is conservation of energy and conservation of momentum and the concept of inertia.
Once a thing is moving it continues to move without any outside contribution to its motion.
"This certainly is not scientific," --If you think conservation is not scientific you have never studied science.
" If inanimate objects move themselves, then why don't they stop themselves" --That is a change to mass/energy and so calls for a changer outside the object.
" or start to move themselves," --That is a change to mass/energy and so calls for a changer outside the object.
" or even change directions by themselves?" --That is a change to mass/energy (in the case of a free body) and so calls for a changer outside the object.
There is a fundamental difference between uniform motion as opposed to acceleration. If you do not understand this basic scientific fact you do not understand the very rudiments of science.
" In the freeze frame where cause/effect occur, there’s a net force imbalance in the direction of the piston motion." --No, the molecules in contact with the piston at the moment of the freeze frame are in a process of transferring kinetic energy to the piston.
Nothing is gained or lost on balance. Conservation holds.
Cal Your statement about the past has nothing to do with present causality. There was (past) a change when the gas molecules were ignited and there is (present) a change at the moment of impact. Energy (objects) are being moved/converted/transferred and that change requires a cause. What object is causing the motion of energy conversion to occur? Gravity, perhaps?
There is a fundamental difference between uniform motion as opposed to acceleration. If you do not understand this basic scientific fact you do not understand the very rudiments of science.
The molecules *are* accelerating in moving the piston. If you do not understand this basic scientific fact you do not understand the very rudiments of science.
" In the freeze frame where cause/effect occur, there’s a net force imbalance in the direction of the piston motion." --No, the molecules in contact with the piston at the moment of the freeze frame are in a process of transferring kinetic energy to the piston.
If there was no net force imbalance there would be no movement. Meaning no work would be done and nothing would move.
It's funny to see someone whose only exposure to physics is what he has recently googled make such bold claims.
bmiller: "It's funny to see someone whose only exposure to physics is what he has recently googled make such bold claims."
Project much?
I truly wonder what it's like being a liar.
SteveK blurted out, "I'm a mechanical engineer." and has yet to admit that he lied. Predictably, his shabby moral character (pride) prevents him from admitting his mistake and resetting. Without honesty and humility, knowledge becomes far more elusive, and stupid seems as inevitable as the sun rising each day.
You (bmiller) understand that you don't actually have a basic science education (the kind one gets at a good high school, or college, including lab work), that you regularly google scientific concepts, then come back here with some dilettantish understanding -- which gestures toward measurement and terms and concepts, but fails to take hold in your mind because you haven't taken the time and work that fundamental and basic science understanding requires.
And your poor moral character prevents you from acknowledging this fact and remedying it. Hence, you write things as stupid as, "It's funny to see someone whose only exposure to physics is what he has recently googled make such bold claims," which is as laughably stupid to those who understand basic science as stevek's silly lie that he is actually a mechanical engineer.
A new theory of mine is that shabby people (apologists) can only imagine people as stupid as they are, and that is why their lies are so obvious and pathetic.
I point out that stevek has clearly lied, and that this dishonesty is what contributes to his evident stupidity. Furthermore, stevek presently lives with the knowledge that he has lied -- that he is not a mechanical engineer, and he has yet to correct the fact that he blurted out a lie. I go on to wonder aloud what it's like to live with oneself with that knowledge, to be reminded of it, and to lack the moral character to correct an obvious lie.
Apparently, the situation makes stevek so uncomfortable that he thinks that childish taunts can divert from his sad predicament, and his moral turpitude, and his great stupidity.
Let us know when you have a valid argument, Cal. You haven't come up with any yet so I'm not expecting it.
In the meantime, bmiller and I will be here - waiting - and reminding you that cause/effect occur in a moment simultaneity, that past events don't cause current motions, that grandfathers don't contribute some particular amount to the motion of their grandchildren and that the physics of motion involves a net force imbalance.
In other words, bmiller and I will be here to teach you about the physics of causality.
You claimed that you understood causality, but every word you speak reveals that you were bluffing. You don't really know anything about it.
I have scant hope that rational argument could cure your moral defects, the ones that contribute to your great stupidity.
My hope has been to constantly expose you for what you are -- dishonest people, cowardly, and incapable of applying diligence and rigor to your thinking.
I am pleased to see that your comments continue to serve as a warning sign to others who fear looking stupid and appearing shabby, and that the path of the apologist (the ones you embody to the utmost) is indeed a pathetic one.
stevek: "When you have a valid argument, we'll be here." bmiller: "We've been waiting for that since January. I'm not holding my breath.😀 Guess you can't get blood from a rock."
I'll be clear (again).
Dishonest people have exempted themselves from conversations about arguments. Their opinions don't matter. Only arguments matter.
The fact that you think you have somehow defended the First Way in these threads is a demonstration of your dishonesty and stupidity, and how the two are conjoined in a mix that makes each worse. Just as you two are joined.
So, try to clear yourselves from the delusion that we should care about what you think.
How it is that your poor moral character makes you stupider is, however, endlessly fascinating (and cautionary). And that is what your comments provide.
Do you think that stevek is really a mechanical engineer?
If you do, you are as stupid as I have said you are, as he speaks in ways that are incompatible with anyone who has a basic science education, let alone technical expertise based on scientific knowledge.
If you don't, you acknowledge that the person with whom you have chosen to ally is a straightforward liar.
And by insinuating that that I have been dishonest here (rather than the other way around) you make yourself appear more dishonest. And hence, stupid.
Sic.
One of us is lying here. Stevek (stevek: "I'm a mechanical engineer." or me: "No, you're not.")
I've seen nothing but projection in any of your posts. Since I'm not interested in psychology I find your posts pretty boring. Like SteveK said, let us know when you think you have a topical argument.
I'm pretty sure that most people who follow this blog do not have a rigorous scientific background as Victor is a philosopher and discusses things particular to Christian philosophy. Perhaps that may be why people with no scientific background are attracted and think they can regurgitate what they think *scientists* are saying without being challenged.
They end up looking pretty stupid when they end up denying accepted scientific facts such as the location of an object is a property of that object. But hey, mistaken people are still people.
bmiller: "I've seen nothing but projection in any of your posts."
Huh.
How is, for example, my recent question to you, "projection"?
My question: "Do you think that stevek is really a mechanical engineer?"
is, well, a question.
You attempt to dodge it by, apparently, declaring that my pointing out stevek's lie could somehow be .... dishonest?
You and stevek demonstrate that dishonesty and stupidity go hand in hand.
Your comments are the best evidence we have that your dishonesty makes you both more stupid.
Only one of us can be right about this.
I know who I am, and your comments show who you are. I gather that you are not so stupid that you actually think stevek is a mechanical engineer (but maybe your dishonesty does make that you stupid -- it's little questions like that which still keep me here).
Stevek has manifestly lied, and you both remain stupid and dishonest throughout your comments above.
What a putrid stink you make, and how well you reflect all apologetics. No wonder you guys are so reviled.
Cal said he understood the physics of causality. Most people are not so stupid as to actually think Cal knows this for this simple reason: there's no evidence that he does.
The question everyone is asking is: why did Cal lie about this? We may never know why.
Cal, If you can show us that you actually understand the physics of causality as it applies to the FW argument, I'll *consider* showing you a photo of my ME license. If I decide to do it, it will come with a handwritten note next to it so you know it's mine and not someone else's.
I'm making this offer so that you can redeem yourself, if you want to do that. It's your decision.
stevek: "If you can show us that you actually understand the physics of causality as it applies to the FW argument, I'll *consider* showing you a photo of my ME license."
Ohymgod you're so stupid and dishonest you think that mechanical engineer's get a license instead of earning a degree.
You're so stupid that you think that other's are as stupid and ignorant as you are.
@stevek, you're obviously not a mechanical engineer. You're obviously not even employed at something like a full-time job.
Just as you are obviously stupid, and obviously dishonest.
And you are so stupid and dishonest that you think that you can hide these things from others, because you can only imagine people as stupid and dishonest as you.
By the way, if you want to tell us where you supposedly earned your Mechanical Engineering Degree, and when, in such a way that we can fact check what you say, then knock yourself out. If that's the bluff you want to make, then, sure, I'll call it.
I am certain that you won't, because virtually everything you have written here is incompatible with a basic understanding in science, let alone one that applies that knowledge in constructive ways.
Here's my prediction. You will NEVER present us with a checkable way of verifying that you have earned a mechanical engineering degree (guffaw), because you can't. And you can't, because you lied. And you lied, because you are dishonest, and so stupid that you think that others are as stupid and credulous and easy to fool as you obviously are.
You lie. And your dishonesty makes you stupider. Which is saying something.
Until you fix those things, the only purpose you can serve here is as a cautionary example of how dishonesty and ignorance are inevitably exposed, and subject those so afflicted to the ridicule and scorn they deserve. Your aura infects everything you support.
I'd advise against sharing personal information on the internet, especially with deranged people of ill intent.
The topic is the FW and Cal has shown he can't follow that argument or even any of the points raised by the other 3 people. He is desperate to change the topic, so he has become Triumph the Insult Dog.
Let him spout irrelevant nonsense. I wouldn't want someone like him to know where I work or live.
But I do have to admit I made a mistake wrt Cal and Triumph the Insult Comic Dog.
Triumph the Insult Comic Dog is actually funny when he is delivering insults. Cal the Insult Comic Troll is only funny when he is simulating making sensible arguments.
stevek: "If you can show us that you actually understand the physics of causality as it applies to the FW argument, I'll *consider* showing you a photo of my ME license." stevek: "I’ll show you both the degree and the license, Cal. I’m calling your bluff. Your move."
Me: "By the way, if you want to tell us where you supposedly earned your Mechanical Engineering Degree, and when, in such a way that we can fact check what you say, then knock yourself out. If that's the bluff you want to make, then, sure, I'll call it."
stevek: "I don't intend to share my personal information."
So, your promise above was just another lie.
Quelle surprise.
I should submit a paper on this or something, as clearly dishonesty makes one as reliably stupid as very low IQ.
@bmiller, do you really think that stevek is a mechanical engineer?
Are you so stupid and credulous that you think that stevek has actually earned a degree in Mechanical Engineering, and is employed as a mechanical engineer?
Or are you so proud and dishonest that you'd rather defend the words of a liar than accept that your position and beliefs are supported by the kind of ugly, shabby, and stupid comments that are the reliable product of apologetics?
stevek: "Dishonest people exempt themselves from conversations about arguments."
Agreed.
That's why I moved past trying to argue with you a long time ago -- you are obviously just a liar. And I don't expect a liar to honestly confront the fact that he's a liar, nor to acknowledge its effects. But that doesn't require me to pretend with you -- to pretend that the opinion of an obviously dishonest person pertains to an argument in which he feels compelled to lie. I am not that stupid, nor that dishonest.
As I have mentioned before, I don't think of you (and other apologists) as intersubjective equals in a discussion with me, but more as subjects. By testing and observing how your dishonesty makes you stupider, I believe others can learn about how their own minds work (at a level that doesn't cross the threshold of pathology, but probably has bias effects), while also gaining insights into ways to thwart and mitigate the problems that ensue from your pathologically damaging character.
Your dishonesty and stupidity are a growing problem in a world like ours, and the most responsible thing I can think of doing is trying to better understand how to isolate and mitigate the deleterious effects you bring into our environment.
Sadly, you know what a liar you are. And the fact that you don't care is beyond my powers to fix, but that doesn't mean that I can't expose and ridicule you for the shabby little creature you are.
To do otherwise would be a kind of dishonesty on my part.
" stevek: "I don't intend to share my personal information." --You said you would, but how?
I mean, above you said you would show the BSME and the PE (or whatever) but I don't see a way to upload a picture to this blog. What did you have in mind to actually show these items?
bmiller: "I have no reason to think that SteveK is lying. But I do have reasons to think that you have lied."
Then you have declared yourself obviously stupid and credulous -- which is what you would need to be in order to think that stevek did not, in fact, like when he blurted out the laughable, "I'm a mechanical engineer."
bmiller: "Neither of those facts are relevant to the topic of the FW and what makes it a valid argument."
Any discussion over arguments depends on honesty; if apologists can't be held to basic standards of honesty, then that fact is entirely relevant to their being incapable of contributing to a discussion over an argument.
Honesty is a requirement of discussion. Without it there can be no discussion.
Which is why apologists are incapable of real discussion on those topic in which they pretend to argue.
This should be obvious. But your dishonesty makes you so stupid you have to pretend that what is obvious is somehow hidden from you.
Hence, your dishonesty propels you to even further depths of stupidity.
For the rational people who want to logically discuss the merits/problems of the FW argument, please stay here and offer logically valid comments relevant to the argument itself.
For the others, like Cal, who have an strong affinity for logical fallacies such as the ad hominem fallacy and the genetic fallacy - please go to this forum to discuss that. This isn't the forum for you.
stevek: "For the rational people who want to logically discuss the merits/problems of the FW argument, please stay here and offer logically valid comments relevant to the argument itself."
You don't run this blog, and your a liar. Why would anyone want to discuss anything with you?
stevek: "For the others, like Cal, who have an strong affinity for logical fallacies such as the ad hominem fallacy and the genetic fallacy - please go to this forum to discuss that. This isn't the forum for you."
No forum is the forum for you, because forums are for people who want to discuss ideas honestly.
Then you have declared yourself obviously stupid and credulous
I've posted the reasons I consider both you and Strawdusty dishonest. So I am not credulous.
My assessment is that you did not pass physics in high school if you even took it, and I'm sure that Strawdusty's story is similar. Both of you want to appear to know what you are talking about wrt science, but it is obvious that you do not. That is dishonesty.
That neither of you are competent in the area of science or philosophy, which is the gist of the FW, is obvious. Otherwise you would argue on those principles and provide evidence rather than ad hominem (which you would know is a logical fallacy if you understood logic, but I digress).
So to summarize: 1) Neither of you are honest interlocutors 2) Neither of you are competent in the area of science 3) Neither of you are competent in the area of logic or philosophy 4) Neither of you provide any relevant evidence for any of your claims.
So when I hear these people make even more unsubstantiated claims I simply don't believe them.
The topic is the First Way. Do either of you have anything to say relevant to the topic?
If you go back to when Cal wasn't obsessed with logical fallacies, here is what you find. As you can see, there's nothing there.
Me: "The FW argument doesn’t require a specific list." Cal: “If the First Way doesn't describe a specific list of real events then the First Way fails on soundness.”
Invalid criticism. Nowhere does the soundness of the argument depend on this. Asserted without argument.
Cal: “The "logic" of the First Way fail on because it is circular (an endless regression is impossible because an endless regression is impossible). “
Invalid criticism. Circular arguments start by assuming the conclusion. The FW does not do this.
Cal: “But it also fails in that the argument actually does to purport to describe reality”
Invalid criticism. Asserted without argument or evidence.
Cal: “Repeat after me: no freeze frame can reveal motion. “
Invalid criticism. If no motion has occurred then the FW doesn’t apply. The point of the freeze frame idea was to get Dusty to focus on essential objects rather than time.
Cal: “The position is that everything that is moving (and everything is moving) is tied to a prior series of events that goes back in time all the way back to the big bang.”
Invalid criticism. Causality involves existing objects. Non-existing objects do not cause existing object to move.
bmiller: "My assessment is that you did not pass physics in high school if you even took it, and I'm sure that Strawdusty's story is similar."
Along with your assessment that stevek is actually a mechanical engineer (guffaw), your assessment above lends more credence to my theory about how stupid your dishonesty makes you.
You are literally blinded by your poor moral character. Your stupidity would be pitiable were it derived from ignorance or neglect, but in your case you only deserve scorn, because your stupidity is a product of your loathsome character.
stevek knows that he is not a mechanical engineer, and yet he persists in lying about it.
You know that you haven't taken a real science class (at a good high school, or university, with lab work) -- my guess is that you were probably home-schooled at some point. And yet you continue to dishonestly pretend that you have this basic science background that you so clearly lack.
Instead of realizing how deficient your educations have made you, you persist in lying and failing to take the steps to rise from your stupidity.
Instead of realizing that your lies are obvious to those of us who are better educated and not made stupid by a blinding dishonesty, you make yourself seem even more transparently shabby by declaring what is so obviously false.
What's strangest to me is that even though you both know the truth about yourselves (that you are dishonest here), I wonder why you haven't realized that the other with whom you have allied is telling the same kind of whoppers about themselves.
And what does it say about how stupid your dishonesty has made you both that you're the only ones who can't see what's so obvious to the rest of us -- those of us who are smarter than you, better educated than you, and not steeped in moral failings can so easily identify your lies?
stevek: "If you go back... cause existing object to move."
Blah blah.
Dishonest people forfeit the civility in which discussions are held.
And you persist in lying above (misrepresenting arguments and positions, etc.), and most glaringly refusing to acknowledge and correct the obvious lie you told when you somehow felt compelled to blurt out, "I'm a mechanical engineer."
If you lack the moral strength to discuss topics without resorting to lying, then no one else is obligated to treat your comments with anything more than ridicule.
stevek is a liar.
stevek is a liar because he blurted out, "I'm a mechanical engineer," when so many of his comments betray the fact that he lacks a basic understanding of science and physics, let alone the rigorous applied training required to become a mechanical engineer.
stevek: "The logical fallacies continue to flow from the defeated irrational mind of Cal Metzger / Ad hominem fallacy Genetic fallacy / The FW argument remains unscathed."
Fallacies relate to arguments.
My comments relate to your poor moral character and your (related) stupidity, and how your dishonesty prevents you from contributing to a discussion on a topic.
What's strangest to me is that even though you both know the truth about yourselves (that you are dishonest here),
I forgot to inlcude pathological projection in my assessment of Little Cal. This is a perfect example from the trove he presented us with.
I always figured he was merely trolling, but he's given up all pretense now. I think he finally lost all touch with reality. I highly recommend you do not let people like this know any of your personal details.
bmiller: "I forgot to inlcude pathological projection in my assessment of Little Cal."
stevek said he is a mechanical engineer, and I called him on it.
Only one of us can be right.
You have asserted that you have a better grasp of science and physics that Stardusty and myself (guffaw), and I have offered as best explanation for your stupidity here that you don't seem to have even taken a real science class (at a good high school, or university, with lab work) -- my guess is that you were probably home-schooled at some point.
Only one of us can be right.
You mimic my earlier observation that both of you evidenced psychological projection in your accusations here, but my observations above would only be projection were I the one who falsely claimed to be formally educated in ways that I am not.
stevek knows that he is not a mechanical engineer. He lies, and you are so stupid that you have expressed belief in his ludicrous claim.
You know that you haven't completed a real science class (at a good high school, or university, with lab work), or that you were probably home-schooled at some point, and yet you believe that that your comments here indicate otherwise.
You are both intellectual jokes, literally made more stupid by your dishonesty.
You both are a caution to all who want to someday contribute to discussions about ideas, and reality; be humble, check your pride, apply consistency to your thinking, and above all, swear off dishonesty in all its forms.
Without that, the outcome is a kind of obvious stupidity.
In summary: There is no evidence that Cal or Dusty have successfully shown the FW argument to be an unsound or invalid argument.
There is no evidence that modern science has shown that the FW argument is false. To the contrary, modern science is consistent with the FW argument at every step.
The many logical fallacies and assertions that have been offered by Cal and Dusty do nothing to undermine the argument.
@bmiller I went back and read through several of Cal’s criticisms and there’s nothing there that is valid. Most are asserted to be valid without argument or evidence. Anyone can do that. I might post a few of them just for giggles.
Cal is unaware that reading comprehension is a prerequisite requirement to understanding the FW argument.
Cal: “Objection: If god had been motionless and then moved then god moved itself, which is irrational, and a violation per Aquinas. The violation can maybe be seen more clearly in: “(2) f. It is therefore impossible that, in the same way and same sense, a thing is moving and is moved, or in other words, that it moves itself.”
Objection: If god has always been in motion then that is the very infinite regress Aquinas denies, owing to the irrationality of an infinite regress of motion. The violation: “(4) But this [chain of movers and moved] cannot proceed to infinity:
The premises are clear: something cannot move itself, and an infinite regress is impossible. Thus, the conclusion of the First Mover has to violate one of the premises presented in the argument itself. All that the "argument" does is present an ancient existential riddle and "solve" it by violating one its premises and stating the mystery has somehow been resolved by irrationality? Seriously?
How many times and in how many ways does the same objection need to be stated in order for you to see it?
You have been shown to be dishonest as you try to inflict your opinion on this discussion.
If you cannot approach a topic honestly not only is your opinion meaningless, but as I have shown it is also reliably more stupid. Your comment that begins and ends with the portions I quoted is another example of this stupidity.
Dishonesty = Greater Stupidity.
In your case, this establishes (per your comments) an unusually low floor.
You claimed that you are a mechanical engineer (guffaw). You are clearly not a mechanical engineer. You fail to admit to your lie, and as I have explained, your moral failings (dishonesty, and pride) make you as reliably stupid as your recent comments demonstrate.
You are a caution to all who would consider apologetics, and a demonstration that choosing this path (which requires dishonesty) makes one more obviously stupid.
stevek: "I went back and read through several of Cal’s criticisms and there’s nothing there that is valid." stevek: "I'm a mechanical engineer."
Why should anyone care about your (mistaken) opinion when you obviously lie?
stevek: "Most are asserted to be valid without argument or evidence. Anyone can do that. I might post a few of them just for giggles." stevek: "I'm a mechanical engineer."
Why should anyone care about your (mistaken) opinion when you obviously lie?
I went back and read through several of Cal’s criticisms and there’s nothing there that is valid. Most are asserted to be valid without argument or evidence. Anyone can do that. I might post a few of them just for giggles.
How about when he actually tried to back up one of those assertions and ended up denying Science™. Location is not a property of an object....hee hee!
It's going to be fun reliving the past 10 months. There's so much good material there.
In this comment from January 25, we see Cal continuing to embrace his ignorance of the FW argument. Ahh, good times!
---------------- Cal: grod: "But more importantly, how do you go from "All things change" to "all things that cause change must themselves be changed"? These are two distinct claims, so enlighten me, please."
Since you seem to object to the linked article's interpretation of Aquinas's words I will use a different translation of the argument.
Aquinas: "For motion is nothing else than the reduction of something from potentiality to actuality."
Motion is a kind of change.
Aquinas: "But nothing can be reduced from potentiality to actuality, except by something in a state of actuality."
And nothing can change except by something that is moving.
Aquinas: "Thus that which is actually hot, as fire, makes wood, which is potentially hot, to be actually hot, and thereby moves and changes it."
A moving thing (which is a kind of change) is what moves (changes) another thing.
Aquinas; "Now it is not possible that the same thing should be at once in actuality and potentiality in the same respect, but only in different respects."
Not moving (not changing) and moving (changing) are incompatible. Therefore, the only way that a mover can move something is if it is moving (changing) itself.
Seems like a pretty straightforward reading to me. I hope that you are now enlightened.
bmiller: "Thanks for that. How many months did the clown duo insist they *knew* the meaning of the terms Aquinas used better than Aquinas. / What a hoot!"
Yet another example of your dishonesty making you stupider.
Nowhere have we claimed to know the meaning of terms used better than Aquinas. In fact, it is the apologists here who routinely pose as supreme and unquestioned diviners of Aquinas's intent. (As if.)
No, we have shown that the terms used in the First Way are so muddled as to be constraining or useless (only real things move real things), and that applying strict definitions to the terms renders the argument incoherent, unsound, and/or contradictory.
The above summation is obvious from perusing the comments preceding.
Yet another example of your dishonesty making you stupider.
@Stevek, thanks for re-publishing my comments. I wish that you were smart enough and honest enough to understand them, but anyone can see that you are not.
Just as anyone can see that you are not a mechanical engineer, despite your laughable prior claim that you are one.
Here's today's 'LOL moment' taken from January 26. Per usual, Cal projects HIS ignorance onto everyone when he finishes with "I don't think anyone knows what Aristole means".
------------------- Cal: Me: “”And nothing can change except by something that is moving."" Grod: "Aristotle never asserted that (the First Way is taken by St. Thomas from Aristotle). St. Thomas never asserted that, neither it follows from anything that Aristotle or St. Thomas asserted. "
More nonsense. I already showed how it follows from Aquinas’s silly argument.
Aquinas: "For motion is nothing else than the reduction of something from potentiality to actuality."
As Aquinas indicates, he defined motion as a kind of change. It is, to use the awkward terminology of the argument, a reduction FROM potentiality TO actuality.
Aquinas: "But nothing can be reduced from potentiality to actuality, except by something in a state of actuality."
So, only an actual (as opposed to potential) thing can make something move (change). I am using the term “move” in both senses — the one that Aquinas uses (a reduction FROM potentiality TO actuality, or change), of being actual, but also in the more modern, physical sense as well; if something CHANGES its position, for instance, then Aquinas and I would be using the term in near identical ways about the something’s motion (ugh — is it any wonder that we have abandoned these fuzzy terms?).
So, more nonsense from you — it not only DOES follow that Aquinas argues that nothing can change except by something that is in motion (is moving, as I describe above), but I don’t see any other way to read the premises that he sets up.
———
Grod: “But from "it is not possible to be in potency and act, in the same respect and at the same time" and the principle of causality, it does not follow that "the only way that a mover can move something is if it is moving". Not here, not in China, not anywhere where reason and logic are used in a sound manner.”
Well, if something hasn’t undergone a change, isn’t actual, or hasn’t changed position, then I don’t think anyone knows what Aristotle means when he sets out: “But nothing can be reduced from potentiality to actuality [be in motion], except by something in a state of actuality.”
Thanks again for republishing more of my comments. I mean that sincerely -- it's actually surprising to see a fuller representation of what I've written, instead of the much more typical few-word blurb, without context, followed by a typically stupid conclusion.
In these discussions, stevek blurted out, "I'm a mechanical engineer," apparently because he thought it would lend weight to what he thought. But as I have pointed out, and the comments from apologists make clear, dishonesty inevitably makes one stupider.
And just as bmiller excises 9 words from my longer quote directly above, in context, as if those 9 words represent my criticism (directly above). The failure of bmiller to see how easily his misrepresentation (dishonesty) is revealed (by reading my fuller argument just directly above) is yet another example of how dishonesty makes one evens stupider. Dishonesty, apparently, is as stultifying as a head injury, heavy drink, or indiscipline.
There is no understanding without honesty. And that is why stevek and bmiller fail to recognize the obvious ways in which the First Way violates the rules of good argument, and that is why they fail to see the ways in which my comments elucidate around those violations.
The laughs continue. Cal doesn't know how ignorant he is and grodrigues is helping him to see this so that he might make valid criticisms. Approx 10 months later, little has changed as Cal continues to rely on invalid criticisms. This is from January 27
--------
grodrigues: "@Cal Metzger:
"To some extent I agree with you here; the First Way doesn’t seem to understand that motion in the present is inextricably linked to motion in the past, and to beginnings in the very distant past — in fact, he seems to be ignorant of what we understand today about the origins of our universe. I wonder if that could be related to the fact that he was playing with an ancient argument, in a time when he didn’t even have access to Newtonian physics."
And this is why you are a moron. I have just said that you are egregiously misunderstanding the First Way and yet here you repeat your misunderstanding, and present it as some deep "wondering". Pause for a chuckle at your expense. Whether motion in the present is inextricably linked to the past, and thus to the origins, is a very plausible notion held by a number of philosophers way before Newton formulated his theories. It is also totally and completely irrelevant to the First Way.
Newton of course, thought there had to be a First Mover that set things in motion, but whether he was right or not, the fact is that Newton's First Mover has nothing to do with how St. Thomas, after Aristotle, understands the First Mover. Nothing at all. Simply because St. Thomas is not concerned with who or what set things in motion but with the causes of motion as such."
@stevek, you are so stupid (made more stupid by your dishonesty, which has compelled you to lie about being a mechanical engineer, and now compels you to search about for things you still don't understand and that you somehow (stupidly) imagine recover your lost pride) that you think the quote below represents a coherent rebuttal to the the simple, irrefutable fact that ALL series are accidental (sequenced over time):
grod: "Simply because St. Thomas is not concerned with who or WHAT set things in motion but with the CAUSES of motion as such."
Ha.
You are so stupid that you don't understand the rules of argument (that arguments must be sound), and that because all series occur over time (no sequence is simultaneous), then a First Way that imagines an essential series (as Grod does above) fails to abide by the rules of good argument and MUST be considered a bad (failed) argument.
Your dishonesty has formed a tiny, tiny little wall that your even smaller mind cannot see over.
It's as obvious to the rest of us as watching a rodent repeat its course back and forth though a maze.
SteveK:Cal continues to rely on invalid criticisms.
As we can tell from his responses to this day, nothing has changed. 90% of his posts are projections of his own disorders and the other 10% indicate his lack of understanding.
I really get a good laugh when he both projects and indicates his dimness at the same time, such as here: You are so stupid that you don't understand the rules of argument
Using a fallacious ad hominem attack in which he projects his stupidity onto others in the course of maintaining he understands the "rules of argument". It's kind of a irony 3-fer 🙃
Like I said: It's not only funny to recall the clueless comments, but also to see that the cluelessness is still in full swing.
You are so dishonest that your assessment is laughable.
bmiller: "I really get a good laugh when he both projects and indicates his dimness at the same time, such as here: You are so stupid that you don't understand the rules of argument"
1. The rules of argument are readily available through a number of sources -- online, in books, through discussion, etc. 2. The rules of argument are relatively simple and easy to apply -- they are things like use sound premises and the rules of logic, remain consistent, avoid contradiction, circular reasoning, and the known fallacies, etc.
The First Way obviously violates the rules of good argument in a number of ways, as explicated here (seemingly endlessly) by Stardusty and myself.
The only way that someone could consider the First Way a good argument is if they remained stupid -- and as I have suggested, there is the kind of dullness of mind which makes one stupid, and there are also apparently moral failings (chiefly dishonesty, hypocrisy, narcissism, and pride) that can make anyone stupider.
While it seems that intelligence is largely an endowment of genetics (albeit partly offset by access to a good education), moral failings should be easier to fix.
The problem with you and stevek isn't so much the extent that you may be inherently stupid (and poorly educated, as you both obviously are with regard to science, etc).
The problem with you and stevek is that you both obviously present poor moral character -- you are both reliably dishonest, hypocritical, proud, and narcissistic -- and that these moral failings make you both more stupid and predictable. For instance, I predict that neither of you will be able to recognize the obvious failings explicated here with regard to the First Way -- not because these problems are not obvious (they are so obvious that enlightened thinkers have esteemed it such for centuries, and no one who contributes to meaningful intellectual progress today refers to or bases their endeavors on the First Way or AT physics).
Shabby people (you and Stevek are both shabby people) are predictable bores, and burdens on the rest of us. Your assessment of arguments are meaningless because you are both reliably dishonest, hypocritical, proud and narcissistic, and these moral failings confine you like rodents trapped in a maze whose layout is visible to the rest of us but hidden from you.
Why you prefer being trapped in a maze over fixing your moral failings is a question that only you can answer. To the rest of us, your choices just seem stupid.
1. The rules of argument are readily available through a number of sources -- online, in books, through discussion, etc. 2. The rules of argument are relatively simple and easy to apply -- they are things like use sound premises and the rules of logic, remain consistent, avoid contradiction, circular reasoning, and the known fallacies, etc.
Then why don't you read them, understand them and practice them. It's clear that you either didn't read them, didn't understand them or if did those 2 things that you are not inclined to practice them by the remainder of your little rant. Not a thing relevant to the topic.
Since it's obvious that you feel a constant urge to project, you must have deep anxiety that others think you are stupid, uneducated and a liar. Such inward myopic focus on oneself and one's failings is characteristic of narcissism so it's no wonder that you project that on others also.
It's also very interesting, now that it is clear you are projecting, that you use the analogy of a mouse in a maze. This must be how you see yourself trying to follow the conversation as topics such as physics, math, metaphysics and philosophy are being discussed. It's all beyond your grasp and you can't find your way. It must be very frustrating for you.
@bmiller Dusty is now widely known to be a troll over at Feser’s blog. See the first comments and then scroll down to see Dusty wave his arms around trying to get noticed. Everyone ignores him, LOL
Yes, I always check out Feser's blog. One of the best on the web. It attracts a pretty philosophically educated crowd, so they lose patience quickly when it becomes obvious that someone is interested only in slinging assertions and not in understanding and interacting with counter arguments.
Only newbies engage with him over there and then quickly find out why the others warned against it.
Is this blog and Feser's the only ones that haven't banned him? It's kind of funny that even atheists can't put up with him while 2 Christian philosophy sites allow him to post.
bmiller: "Then why don't you read [the rules of argument], understand them and practice them. It's clear that you either didn't read them, didn't understand them or if did those 2 things that you are not inclined to practice them by the remainder of your little rant. Not a thing relevant to the topic."
The rules of good argument excludes begging the question -- assuming what the argument sets out to demonstrate.
How does the First Way demonstrate that an infinite regress of movers is impossible -- without begging the question, what is the actual argument for an infinite regress of movers being impossible?
The fact that you don't have a good answer to the simple question above is the most obvious example that:
1. You don't understand the rules of argument (that they apply, without exception, to good arguments), and 2. You don't understand the First Way (which begs the question about the necessity for a First Mover).
The above is entirely obvious. There is no complexity or subtlety to it.
It is so obvious that only one who is profoundly stupid, profoundly dishonest, or both (as I have explained) could deny it.
That is why you are so obviously stupid, in a way that is pathetic, to the rest of us. That is why your assessment of an argument, and our replies to it, is meaningless to the rest of us.
Dishonest people have nothing to add to an argument.
stevek: "Dusty’s reputation as an ignorant troll looks to have been cemented here."
Thanks for the link!
Your link demonstrates, yet again, how your dishonesty makes you profoundly stupid, and how your dishonesty puts you at odds with reality in a way that is reliable and predictable.
bmiller: "Yes, I always check out Feser's blog. One of the best on the web."
You are so dishonest that your ability to assess reality is reliably stupid, which explains the comment above.
bmiller: "It attracts a pretty philosophically educated crowd, so they lose patience quickly when it becomes obvious that someone is interested only in slinging assertions and not in understanding and interacting with counter arguments."
You are so dishonest that your ability to assess reality is reliably stupid, which explains the comment above.
bmiller: "Only newbies engage with him over there and then quickly find out why the others warned against it."
You are so dishonest that your ability to assess reality is reliably stupid, which explains the comment above.
bmiller: "Is this blog and Feser's the only ones that haven't banned him? It's kind of funny that even atheists can't put up with him while 2 Christian philosophy sites allow him to post."
You are so dishonest that your ability to assess reality is reliably stupid, which explains the comment above.
Not only do dishonest people have nothing to add to an argument, but the value they could offer (intersubjective assessments) appears equally valueless.
bmiller: "Since it's obvious that you feel a constant urge to project, you must have deep anxiety that others think you are stupid, uneducated and a liar. Such inward myopic focus on oneself and one's failings is characteristic of narcissism so it's no wonder that you project that on others also."
Stevek said he is a mechanical engineer, and he obviously is not. Stevek is a liar.
How is it projection for me to point out that stevek lies, when stevek lies? (You don't understand projection.)
You said you have no reason to not believe that stevek lied about being a mechanical engineer, when only a stupid person could be fooled into believing that stevek's writing is compatible with someone who has the scientific understanding required of a mechanical engineer.
How is it projection for me to point out that it's stupid of you to be fooled by stevek? (You don't understand projection._
bmiller: "It's also very interesting, now that it is clear you are projecting..."
You are dishonest and you don't understand projection (see above).
bmiller: "This must be how you see yourself trying to follow the conversation as topics such as physics, math, metaphysics and philosophy are being discussed. It's all beyond your grasp and you can't find your way. It must be very frustrating for you."
You know that you don't have a basic science education, as I have explained before. Just as stevek knows that he is not actually a mechanical engineer.
The theory of projection explains that you will feel discomfort over this dissonance (you will know that you are being dishonest, and that dishonesty is a moral failing), and you will project this dishonesty onto another (me) rather than acknowledge your dishonesty and amend it.
It is impossible for me to project stevek's lie about himself (that he is a mechanical engineer) from me onto him, because he is the one who told the lie.
It is impossible for me to project your stupidity about stevek's lie about himself (that he is a mechanical engineer) from me onto you, because you are the one who is being stupid.
And that is yet another example of how dishonesty makes you even stupider than already are, and why apologists are such an obvious embarrassment to the rest of us.
"Stevek said he is a mechanical engineer, and he obviously is not. Stevek is a liar"
We've got another one: http://dangerousidea.blogspot.com/2017/10/why-modern-physics-does-not-refute.html October 29, 2017 9:38 AM
Interesting that bmiller gave you the Feser link to the Prager show. Of course, A-T says a first changer is needed to account for continued material existence. Without this first changer material would just blink out into nothingness.
So, under A-T continued existence, which is no change, requires a changer. Annihilation of existence, which is a change, would happen absent any changer.
I am finding that the level of shrill personal attack, diversions, willful blindness, and lies coming from theists has reached something of a crescendo as I illuminate this incontrovertibly false A-t concept.
As long as there are enough variables and long winded arguments available to play an endless game of verbal whack-a-mole the attacks simmer, but faced with a simple and inescapable exposition of the falsity of their cherished worldview their heads either explode or get buried in the sand.
Stardusty: "I am finding that the level of shrill personal attack...coming from theists"
Personal attacks are always fine when one's own side is engaged in them, or so it seems. Sometimes the entirety of a poster's contributions consists of nothing but personal attacks, and they do not get called out by their ideological allies. Interesting, is it not?
Does A-T hold that matter and energy would vanish per the First Mover argument if said First Mover was not actively sustaining them? This is a question for bmiller and SteveK.
Legion: "Personal attacks are always fine when one's own side is engaged in them, or so it seems."
I agree it sometimes seems this way.
Legion: "Sometimes the entirety of a poster's contributions consists of nothing but personal attacks, and they do not get called out by their ideological allies. Interesting, is it not?"
Why should anyone be called out for recognizing a lie?
Stevek lied about being a mechanical engineer. Is it a personal attack to point this out, and to observe other instances of dishonesty that best explain comments?
Do you think that pointing out dishonesty is a personal attack?
If you catch someone stealing from you and announce what has happened, have you personally attacked them?
Cal: "Do you think that pointing out dishonesty is a personal attack?"
I have no idea how the mechanical engineer thing originated, nor the points supporting the contention that he lied about it, so I can't make a judgment call on it. If SteveK lied, then there is nothing wrong with pointing out that he lied. I do question the usefulness of "SteveK lied about being a mechanical engineer" as a response to everything, but if your goal is to prompt some sort of either admission of lying or proof that he wasn't lying, then I suppose yours is perhaps the only viable path. I don't think online discussions really lend themselves to the latter, since SteveK would have to give out personal information to vindicate himself, and most sane people are leery of doing this.
I also suspect that, regardless of whether he lied or not, he probably doesn't care about your opinion of him as a person, which further adds to the futility.
While an accusation of dishonesty in the face of perceived dishonesty is not a personal attack per se, we might be able to agree that calling someone stupid repeatedly, well it kind of is.
Legion Rational people know that a persons education and character are irrelevant to the logic of the FW argument. As far as the argument is concerned, I don’t care what Cal’s opinion is of me. I only care that Cal hasn’t shown the FW argument to be unsound or invalid or in opposition to modern science.
If Cal actually did that it would be obvious, and he could show us - but it’s not obvious, and he cannot show us. That’s all anyone needs to know.
Cal: "Do you think that pointing out dishonesty is a personal attack?" Legion: "I have no idea how the mechanical engineer thing originated, nor the points supporting the contention that he lied about it, so I can't make a judgment call on it."
I didn't ask you to make a judgment call on it. I asked if you think that pointing out dishonesty is a personal attack. Do you?
Legion: "I do question the usefulness of "SteveK lied about being a mechanical engineer" as a response to everything, but if your goal is to prompt some sort of either admission of lying or proof that he wasn't lying, then I suppose yours is perhaps the only viable path."
As I have pointed out upthread, honesty is sine qua non of discussion. When a participant in a discussion resorts to dishonesty in that discussion, their participation becomes meaningless. Do you disagree?
Legion: "I don't think online discussions really lend themselves to the latter, since SteveK would have to give out personal information to vindicate himself, and most sane people are leery of doing this."
stevek is the one who (disingenuously) offered to provide some sort of proof that he is actually a mechanical engineer. This after he lied about being a mechanical engineer. I think stevek's sanity may be questionable, but the fact that he is dishonest in this discussion is not. And, as I have pointed out, dishonesty destroys one's ability to participate in a discussion (which depends on intersubjectivity, which demands honesty).
Legion: "I also suspect that, regardless of whether he lied or not, he probably doesn't care about your opinion of him as a person, which further adds to the futility."
You're wrong about that. Stevek is an apologists. Apologists are primarily concerned with being considered smart, and if it can be shown that an apologist has made a stupid determination (that a lie, told to assert his authority in a matter in which he had little actual knowledge, would not be unexposed as a lie), then stevek is revealed to be a dishonest person -- and this dishonesty will reveal that so much of what he has also argued for is also a sham.
Stevek fears being exposed -- he cares deeply, in fact more than almost anything, that he be considered smart -- and so he will continue to evade the issue that he lied, in order to attempt to assert his authority, in a matter in which he had little actual knowledge.
What is most sad is that stevek knows the truth. Stevek knows that he is not actually a mechanical engineer, and that he unequivocally lied when he said he was one.
What is ironic is that in the process of telling such an obvious lie, stevek has revealed himself to be the one thing that he most fears being described as -- stupid.
And what is cautionary is that the only way to be considered smart is to honestly acknowledge all the ways in which we have been and continue to be stupid, and correct them.
And it is stevek's poor moral character that thus prevents him from being what most wants to be.
Legion: "While an accusation of dishonesty in the face of perceived dishonesty is not a personal attack per se, we might be able to agree that calling someone stupid repeatedly, well it kind of is."
If being dishonest makes one stupid, is it a personal attack to point out that one's stupidity is directly related to one's inability to be honest?
If dishonesty were laudable, then pointing out dishonesty would be a compliment. But it's not. So, hands are kind of tied here.
stevek: "Rational people know that a persons education and character are irrelevant to the logic of the FW argument."
Agreed. Which is why you're lying about being a mechanical engineer, in a pathetic attempt to gain authority for your argument, was such an obviously stupid thing to do.
stevek: "As far as the argument is concerned, I don’t care what Cal’s opinion is of me."
Sure you don't. My opinion of you is written here, and my opinion influences what others think of you.
And you sure do care what others here think of you. And I have pointed out that you are a liar, which means you are a sham.
stevek: "I only care that Cal hasn’t shown the FW argument to be unsound or invalid or in opposition to modern science. If Cal actually did that it would be obvious, and he could show us - but it’s not obvious, and he cannot show us. That’s all anyone needs to know."
As I have pointed out so many times, you are dishonest, and your dishonesty alone makes your assessment in a discussion meaningless. Discussions depend completely on honesty, because discussions are necessarily intersubjective.
Why don't you admit what you know, and is so obvious to the rest of us who have just a basic background in science? That you lied about being a mechanical engineer, in a pathetic attempt to gain authority for your argument.
Blogger Legion of Logic said.. October 29, 2017 12:14 PM.
" Does A-T hold that matter and energy would vanish per the First Mover argument if said First Mover was not actively sustaining them? This is a question for bmiller and SteveK."
--This seems to have gotten lost in the "stupid is as stupid does" debate. But, being the helpful guy I am I will provide an entertaining video of the good Dr. Edward Feser that addresses this question clearly. You're welcome :-) (timestamps) 12:10 19:20 Can You Prove God Exists? —Dr. Edward Feser https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hi9cQHHyjg
Does A-T hold that matter and energy would vanish per the First Mover argument if said First Mover was not actively sustaining them? This is a question for bmiller and SteveK.
The short answer is yes.
The longer answer is that all materially existent things are a combination of form and matter. Things come to be when form is instantiated in matter and cease to be when when form and matter separate. In between the termini of coming to be and ceasing to be, the material existing thing remains in existence by virtue of what keeps form and matter together.
So when Ed Feser explains that *poof* water would cease to exist if God were not ultimately holding it in existence, that is the bottom line metaphysical conclusion that he could summarize in a short clip. No matter what keeps an existing material thing in existence is, it cannot be it's own agent of it's own existence so there must be something else sustaining it. Just like the argument from motion, there can't be an infinite regress of these things, so ultimately there must be an existent thing that does not require something else to keep it in existence.
This has to be true not only of all existing material things, but even immaterial things. If an immaterial thing actually exists, it still exists as a combination of essence and an act of existence and so the combination must be held together by something else.
If you want to know a more detailed background behind it all you'd have to actually read Aquinas or something similar to start with.
" The longer answer is that all materially existent things are a combination of form and matter." --If by "form" you mean arrangement, OK. A macro object, say a crystal, is an arrangement of molecules, which are in turn an arrangement of atoms, which are in turn an arrangement of standard model particles.
Human beings have abstracted this hierarchy of structural arrangements for analytical reasons. This hierarchy of models provides relative explanations at one level in terms of constituents at the next lower level.
These abstractions are largely static approximations of dynamic systems. The molecules, atoms, and subatomic particles are in fact always in motion. The crystal appears static on the table but is actually a dynamic system of vast complexity.
Aristotle knew none of this. He used naked eye observations to attempt to make sense of the world, and he was a genius in his day, but ultimately he failed.
It is a great mistake to set one's thinking back 2300 years in believing these Aristotelian notions.
" Things come to be when form is instantiated in matter and cease to be when when form and matter separate. In between the termini of coming to be and ceasing to be, the material existing thing remains in existence by virtue of what keeps form and matter together." --This scenario of a thing called form, a thing called matter, and a sort of glue that brings them into existence by pulling them together is an ancient fantasy.
" No matter what keeps an existing material thing in existence is, it cannot be it's own agent of it's own existence so there must be something else sustaining it." --The simpler explanation is that matter exists in various arrangements. If the matter and arrangement stay the same there is no call for any changer because staying the same is not a change.
For a macro object if something changes its arrangement then that is a physical causal interaction, approximated by Newton's third law.
" Just like the argument from motion, there can't be an infinite regress of these things," --Motion is necessarily a process over time. An infinite regress of motions is necessary an infinite temporal regress.
The notion of a series of motions regress hierarchically stems from the notion of a multibody system with zero elasticity, like pushing a row of idealized bearing balls. Motion doesn't work that way. Materials are elastic. In between gaseous materials is space. Time is required to traverse space. The Earth is surrounded by space. A regress of motions on Earth, or anyplace else, is necessarily a temporal regress with a finite number of elements in contact with each other.
" so ultimately there must be an existent thing that does not require something else to keep it in existence." --That is matter. In the language of A-T matter is fully actualized in the respect of being matter. If I have 100 grams of water it is fully actualized as 100 grams of mass. In the next second it is still 100 grams of mass. That 100 grams of mass cannot become any more or less mass because it is fully actualized as 100 grams of mass.
" This has to be true not only of all existing material things, but even immaterial things. If an immaterial thing actually exists," --A big "if". To say a thing exists is to say it is material. To speak of an existent immaterial thing is oxymoronic.
BTW I have watched the Feser video in the past and it is a collection of muddled concepts with crude examples riddled with ad-hoc assertions. It is somewhat shocking that educated Americans find such "explanations" convincing.
In my view the rock has not changed. So I say, ok, the rock stayed the same.
You say, oh no, the rock is being continuously changed.
I say, uhm, no, it's the same, why do you say it is being continuously changed?
You say, it could disappear at any moment.
I say, that would be a huge nuclear explosion, E=mcc.
You say, no, the energy would disappear too.
I say, really? Where would it go?
You say, it would just cease to exist.
I say, hmm, so why does the rock look like it is staying the same?
You say, because there is an invisible being, and that invisible being is acting continuously, not only on that rock, but on every planet, star, and galaxy throughout the universe, always acting by intelligent will to keep the rock and everything else from disappearing from existence.
I say, well, how about we just say that if things don't change we don't need to find a changer. Wouldn't that be more reasonable than inventing an invisible being that somehow acts to keep stuff in existence?
You say, nope, there is an invisible being continuously changing everything in just the right way so it looks like it is not changing because if the invisible being did not keep changing things to look like there was no change they would just change themselves from something to absolutely nothing. The fact they are not changing themselves from something to absolutely nothing proves there is an invisible being continuously changing them so they appear to not be changing.
@ SDP: "That is matter. In the language of A-T matter is fully actualized in the respect of being matter."
Just a little correction: your second sentence above is not formulated in the language of A-T. Matter is by definition potentiality. What is actualized is a substance that has a certain form, or else an attribute of a substance is actualized (e.g. becomes maximally hot or whatever). With respect of being water, in A-T lingo it's the actualization of the simple body, water, which is a substance. You're not using the term "matter" the way it's used in A-T lingo.
@ SDP: "That is matter. In the language of A-T matter is fully actualized in the respect of being matter."
" Just a little correction: your second sentence above is not formulated in the language of A-T. " --I'm using the word "actualized".
I realize I am using differently than in ordinary A-T useage. Ordinary A-T useage of the term leads to the conclusion that an invisible being is continuously changing every bit of matter in the universe in just the right way so that appears to be an unchanged amount of matter.
That is not reasonable or necessary. That is inventing a convoluted invisible being where none is called for. Matter simply is "actualized" in the respect of its mass. No changer is called for to account for a persistent amount of matter because a persistent amount of matter is not a change.
I say m = m
A-T says m = m - G + G
Ok, but by that logic m = m - x + x With x being any wild convoluted speculation you wish to dream up, like G for example.
>> "I realize I am using differently than in ordinary A-T useage"
Translation: I realize I'm altering the argument that A-T is making
>> "That is not reasonable or necessary."
Under A-T it is necessary. Under your metaphysical reality, it's not. You're just telling everyone that you disagree with A-T metaphysics. Yeah, we know that.
No, that is not what *form* means. You've been *informed* of the definition multiple times. If you *form* conclusions based on the wrong assumptions you are creating a straw man.
This is the incoherency I've pointed out in your arguments before: 1. The molecules, atoms, and subatomic particles are in fact always in motion. 2. --The simpler explanation is that matter exists in various arrangements. If the matter and arrangement stay the same there is no call for any changer because staying the same is not a change.
On the one hand (1) you argue that things are continuously changing and the other hand (2) you argue that they are not. I'll let you continue to argue with yourself. Let me know which of you ended up winning the argument.
It is a great mistake to set one's thinking back 2300 years in believing these Aristotelian notions.
As I mentioned, you have the definition of form wrong, so until you get that right, you can't reach a proper conclusion.
" Just like the argument from motion, there can't be an infinite regress of these things," --Motion is necessarily a process over time. An infinite regress of motions is necessary an infinite temporal regress.
You seem to be able to talk about and analyze a thing that is existing at this moment by considering all of it's constituent parts down to the quantum level and realize that there cannot be an infinite number of these constituent parts. How then, can you not talk about and analyze those same components as they are moving and realize that there cannot be an infinite number of them? Just curious.
After several back-and-forth clarifications on what the FW argument is saying, Cal decides it's best to ignore those clarifications and stick to his commonsense reading (aka strawman) - because atheism, or something. This is from January 30
----------------- Cal: "I'm tired of this one as well but I'll pick up where Stardusty left off as my own coda.
Although I agree with Stardusty's commonsense reading of Aquinas's First Way (basically, it takes an actually moving thing to move something), I don't think that resolving these little interpretations one way or another does much to salvage what the First Way is purported to do -- show that a deity must exist.
At its heart, the First Way still violates some version of its essential premise (that all moving things are moved by something else) to arrive at a valid conclusion:
Everything that moves is moved by something else, EXCEPT this one thing which is not. (This is separate from any quibbling over the nature of the actual thing doing the moving, etc.)
Following the violation of its essential premise, the First Way eliminates a possible conclusion (that existence is an infinite regress) not because an infinite regress violates one of the argument's premises, but because it violates the arguments conclusion ("But this [series of events] cannot go on to infinity, because then there would be no first mover...")
And after all this, we still arrive at the essential problem that an argument that is supposed to show that a deity exists merely asserts this as an ad hoc conclusion tacked onto the end.
The above are the problems that we have been pointing out consistently for many, many comments now, and no one seems to have found a way to resolve these basic problems that don't require special pleading, irrationality, etc."
" No, that is not what *form* means. " --Then the antecedent of my conditional is false. You can move along now, little bot, these aren't the droids you're looking for.
This is the incoherency I've pointed out in your arguments before: 1. The molecules, atoms, and subatomic particles are in fact always in motion. --Yes, and motion is necessarily a temporal process. So arrangement of mass/energy is never truly static, rather, it varies temporally, not hierarchically.
2. --The simpler explanation is that matter exists in various arrangements. If the matter and arrangement stay the same there is no call for any changer because staying the same is not a change. --This is a case of speaking in the vernacular, again using a conditional that the A-T thinker can be true. For the scientifically minded person a static model is just that, a model, an abstraction, a simplification, an approximation, employed for practical purposes of analysis and engineering.
For the A-T minded form can persist. We see this in the crude examples Feser continually employs such as a cup of water, a stick, a rock, and a book.
In the grossly oversimplified notions of the A-T thinker it makes sense that not only mass/energy but form could appear to remain the same moment to moment. That's why they are dumbfounded here https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2017/10/five-proofs-on-patrick-coffin-show.html?showComment=1509416515851#c677262061339979687
They are flabbergasted. The thread has come to a standstill. Feser is utterly out of his depth with me. They have no rational response whatsoever to the fact that if (note the word if) mass/energy and form remain the same then there is no change and therefore no changer is called for.
This blows their minds.
They are dumbstruck. They have no clue how to respond.
--This is a case of speaking in the vernacular, again using a conditional that the A-T thinker can be true
I have no idea what you are trying say. If you are trying to say that a materially existing object's matter and form remain static during their time of existence you are wrong.
I didn't see responses to the following. Can I expect any? On the one hand (1) you argue that things are continuously changing and the other hand (2) you argue that they are not. I'll let you continue to argue with yourself. Let me know which of you ended up winning the argument.
You seem to be able to talk about and analyze a thing that is existing at this moment by considering all of it's constituent parts down to the quantum level and realize that there cannot be an infinite number of these constituent parts. How then, can you not talk about and analyze those same components as they are moving and realize that there cannot be an infinite number of them? Just curious.
They are flabbergasted. The thread has come to a standstill. Feser is utterly out of his depth with me. They have no rational response whatsoever to the fact that if (note the word if) mass/energy and form remain the same then there is no change and therefore no changer is called for.
If they are flabbergasted at all is because you have shown no ability to read responses but then claim that no one has responded to you.
I'm not sure what existing material object you think has been or can be eternally unchanging, but the fact that you even include *energy* as something that can remain unchanged is nonsensical since energy is defined in terms of the motion of an existing material object.
They have no clue how to respond.
It's rather difficult to respond to nonsensical propositions.
Stardusty: "This blows their minds. They are dumbstruck. They have no clue how to respond."
My best guess is that in the mind of an apologist (which is, by definition, dishonest and made more stupid through that dishonesty) when people act trollishly by respondong to specific and trenchant questions by calling you a troll, then therefore (?) you are demonstrated to be a troll.
But that's not what a troll is. A troll destroys discussion that would otherwise be focused on the topic. And you have only focused on the topic, and asked specific questions that cast light on that topic. Like, for instance, why it is that apologists think that a changer is required for no change at all?
It's clear that apologists would label Socrates a troll. Which is really all you need to know about which side one should be on.
Here we are reminded that reality does not persuade Cal. Except for scientific discovery and everyday observation, Cal sees no reason to accept that an object cannot move itself.
---------------- Cal: "Martin: "This type of series cannot stretch to infinity because if it did, then there wouldn't be a cause to account for the effect. E.g. the clock won't run with JUST gears; it requires a motor. If the gears are infinitely long, then by definition there is no motor."
The way you've been explaining this seems unpersuasive to me; I see no reason why a series of related causes could not stretch on in an infinite progression as well.
Do you have a reference that maybe explains this in another way?"
Hey, stevek -- thanks, as always, for republishing my comments. It seems obvious from how you characterize what I've written that you're entirely out of touch (as apologists must be, because dishonesty makes one stupid in ways that mere dullness cannot).
On that note, are you ever going to try and take an honest approach to discussion?
If so, when will you admit that you lied when you said you were a mechanical engineer?
If you can't be acknowledge your dishonesty, you can't correct your dishonesty. And if you can't stop being honest, there's no reason to have a discussion with you -- because discussions are inherently built in intersubjectivity, and intersubjectivity without honesty is a practice in deception, NOT discovery.
So as long as you remain steadfastly dishonest, we must recognize that you make discussions worse, and that your comments are offered in service to your weak moral character (your pride, dishonesty, and narcissism), and do not serve the purposes of a meaningful discussion.
But that's not what a troll is. A troll destroys discussion that would otherwise be focused on the topic.
I get what you mean. Like when someone can do nothing but burb insults, unsupported opinions and unsubstantiated accusations rather than offer rational topical arguments. I agree with you, that sir is a troll. 🤣
bmiller: "I get what you mean. Like when someone can do nothing but burb insults, unsupported opinions and unsubstantiated accusations rather than offer rational topical arguments. I agree with you, that sir is a troll."
I pointed out the many problems with the First Way per the OP.
The dishonesty with which apologists have routinely engaged with these criticisms (stevek, trying to assert authority on a topic in which he is obviously largely ignorant: "I am a mechanical engineer.", etc.) is apparent to anyone reading this thread, just as it is apparent that I have pointed out this persistent dishonesty, and how it explains the emptiness (stupidity) of the responses from apologists.
I see that apologists routinely attempt to misrepresent having their dishonesty identified as an abusive insult, just as you and other apologists attempt to misrepresent the likes of Stardusty and myself as trolls.
What is an abusive insult is routinely employing dishonesty in a discussion.
Like pretending that you have a basic education in science (at a good high school or college level, with lab work), that this supposed education supersedes that of Stardusty and myself (ha), and that our having identified the obvious problems in the First Way stems from anything more than the many ways in which the First Way obviously violates the rules of good argument.
You know that you don't have a basic education in science, just as stevek knows that he is not really a mechanical engineer, and yet you persist in your dishonesty because to admit this (which would be the first step in fixing it) here would damage your pride.
Letting pride interfere with discussion is what motivates trolls. And apologists are, of course, trolls. Which should be a caution to all those who want to engage in discussion without being identified as a troll.
Here Martin is reacting to Cal's statement that reality is unpersuasive to him, so Martin tries to help Cal figure it out. Whether it's trains, clocks, or puppets, the atheist mind seems unable to grasp the fact that a series of objects cannot move themselves.
-------------- Martin: "Cal Metzger,
I'm not sure what's unpersuasive about it...?
Let's say you are watching a puppet show. You can see the puppets, and the strings that go up towards the roof and out of sight. Based on the fact that you know the puppets can't move themselves, and that the string can't move itself, you can infer either a person, machine, or something off stage that is causing them both to move.
I see this as very strong reasoning, and you probably do it all the time without realizing it."
stevek: "Here Martin is reacting to Cal's statement that reality is unpersuasive to him..."
No. You lie. I explicitly stated that, "The WAY you've been explaining this seems unpersuasive to me; I "see no reason why a series of related causes could not stretch on in an infinite progression as well."
You are a known liar. And you are routinely dishonest.
Dishonesty destroy discussions. And that is why you are a troll, and that is why all apologists are trolls.
Cal: "I see no reason why a series of related causes could not stretch on in an infinite progression as well"
Based on Cal's knowledge and experience Cal sees no reason. The question is: WHY?
Cal knows that causes from yesterday are not moving the clock in the moment, today.
Cal knows that clocks, batteries, motors, gears, etc cannot move themselves so WHY does Cal think an infinite number of clocks, batteries, motors and gears can do this?
And WHY does Cal think an infinite series actually exists at any moment in time such that he would seriously entertain the idea?
Me:I get what you mean. Like when someone can do nothing but burb insults, unsupported opinions and unsubstantiated accusations rather than offer rational topical arguments. I agree with you, that sir is a troll. ��
The reply I get is *surprise*! The exact same gratuitous insults, unsupported opinions and unsubstantiated accusations. I guess he self-identified☺
bmiller: "The exact same gratuitous insults, unsupported opinions and unsubstantiated accusations."
"gratuitous insults"
Gratuitous basically means "unearned." But calling out dishonesty (as I did in the comment to which you refer) when there is dishonesty isn't gratuitous -- it's correct, and necessary.
Your false charges make you a liar.
"unsupported opinions and unsubstantiated accusations"
I have pointed out, over and over and over, that stevek's laughable claim that he is a mechanical engineer is contradicted by those comments (well documented above) in which he displays not even a basic understanding of science (or disciplined, logical thinking, for that matter), let alone the specialized understanding of physics required of a mechanical engineer. The only way you could be unfamiliar with this is if you had not read this thread, which seems like an odd confession at this point.
You are a liar.
Just as stevek clearly lied when he falsely claimed to be a mechanical engineer, you lie when you attempt to mischaracterize the comments of Stardusty and myself.
And because you are dishonest, you are incapable of discussion.
Here, in a nutshell, is why apologists can't have nice things:
Apologists: "Discuss this with me!" Honest People: "Okay, so long as we can discuss it honestly." Apologists: "Of course. Okay, ready? I'm the King of Sweden." Honest People: "Um, I doubt that. Do you even speak Swedish?" Apologists: "Stop being a troll." Honest People: "Well, speaking Swedish is relevant to the topic, which you declared to be that you're the King of Sweden." Apologists: "Stop insulting me, troll." Honest People: "I'm not insulting you. Why should anyone think you're the King of Sweden if you don't speak Swedish." Other Apologists: "Stop being a troll. There's no reason for you to not think he's the king of Sweden. Do your research, and stop being a troll."
The above synopsis is brought to you by every apologist combox in the history of ever.
Here grodrigues is responding to Cal's "criticism" of the FW argument. Of course, anyone who understands the argument knows it's not valid - and anyone who understands the physics of causality knows that causes from yesterday aren't moving clock gears or trains today. Cal doesn't understand this.
----------- grodrigues: "After several threads, clocking several hundreds of comments, we have Mr. Metzger writing:
"So, this objection fails to understand the refutation -- that the absurdity of an infinite past is no less likely than the absurdity of an unmoved mover,"
that is, he is *still* laboring under the idea that the First Way is concerned with temporal beginnings. When this was explicitly denied by everyone here, is explicitly denied by St. Thomas and all his commentators. All, without exception. St. Thomas even wrote a little tract explicitly arguing that it is *impossible* to prove that the universe was *not* infinite in the past. And Aristotle (you know, the inventor of the First Way) actually held that the universe was indeed infinite in the past. And *then* he writes to bmiller such stuff as:
"Like a child, you seem to think that implying that I am as confused as you are (if that's what I am, then what are you!) should distract from your patent ignorance. I don't think you're fooling anyone."
I have met my share of delusional morons haunting the internet, but man...."
Cal: "I see no reason why a series of related causes could not stretch on in an infinite progression as well"
Based on Cal's knowledge and experience Cal sees no reason. The question is: WHY?
Cal knows(??) that causes from yesterday are not moving the clock in the moment, today.
Cal knows that clocks, batteries, motors, gears, etc cannot move themselves so WHY does Cal think an infinite number of clocks, batteries, motors and gears can do this?
And WHY does Cal think an infinite series actually exists at any moment in time such that he would seriously entertain the idea?
bmiller: "By your reasoning then, since you have made false charges you a liar."
What have I said that's false?
Every time you've called someone a liar you yourself have lied. You do not know whether someone is lying or not but you claim that you do. I could list all the times but there is a limit to the number of words that fit in a combox.
The topic is the First Way. If you don't want to be called a troll, then you should engage in the topic.
You can start here, since it seems that the atheists want to avoid it:
They are flabbergasted. The thread has come to a standstill. Atheists are utterly out of their depth with the argument. They simply cannot respond *The List*
March 18, 2017 10:47 AM March 19, 2017 12:31 PM July 22, 2017 2:39 PM January 22, 2017 6:28 PM February 12, 2017 5:59 PM February 05, 2017 11:23 AM February 07, 2017 11:25 AM February 12, 2017 4:48 PM May 23, 2017 8:40 PM June 30, 2017 7:50 AM March 19, 2017 2:14 PM July 08, 2017 8:23 PM May 07, 2017 12:07 PM May 11, 2017 12:19 PM May 18, 2017 8:37 PM July 02, 2017 12:50 PM July 09, 2017 7:53 AM July 11, 2017 12:25 PM
July 10, 2017 at 8:46 PM July 11, 2017 at 5:41 AM July 11, 2017 at 8:40 AM July 12, 2017 at 7:52 PM July 13, 2017 at 10:19 AM July 13, 2017 at 7:36 PM July 15, 2017 at 12:45 PM July 16, 2017 at 1:40 PM July 16, 2017 at 5:19 PM July 16, 2017 at 5:19 PM July 18, 2017 at 7:53 PM July 18, 2017 at 8:01 PM July 19, 2017 at 5:39 AM July 19, 2017 at 9:36 AM July 20, 2017 at 9:26 PM July 21, 2017 at 9:27 PM July 22, 2017 at 1:59 PM July 22, 2017 at 11:20 PM July 23, 2017 at 3:06 PM July 23, 2017 at 9:44 PM July 24, 2017 at 8:55 AM
They have no clue how to respond on that thread. Not one single theist has addressed my questions at all. All they are capable of on that thread is to call names and plead with each other "please, please" don't even talk to me, as a lawyer advises the guilty.
You have zero capacity to engage me on that thread. Feser has zero capacity to engage me on that thread. SteveK couldn't find his own dick much less engage me on that thread. Grod is too busy telling stories about some Portuguese guy in 2003 he wishes he was to engage me on that thread.
My questions are clear and simple.
No theist can provide a link to any article, paper, lecture, or any words that specifically and directly address my clear arguments on that thread.
The first premise of the First Way is that we can perceive a thing moving. From there it ends up concluding that there must be an Unmoved Mover. It is considered more manifest due to the fact that we can directly observe a thing changing.
But it may be objected that there may be an existent material thing, that is a combination of form and matter, that is not now changing, never came into existence and will never go out of existence. Let's leave aside for now whether such a thing is even possible.
Now if such a thing were possible, it would be outside the scope of the First Way since the First Way only is concerned with the ultimate cause of an existing material thing's motion (change of one or more properties). However, if even one thing is moving, that thing's movement is *in scope* and must ultimately terminate in the Unmoved Mover. So since we see can observe motion, at least some things are changing and there must be an Unmoved Mover.
But what about that hypothetical perpetually existing yet unchanging combination of form and matter? Then the question is what is the (efficient) cause of this form/matter combination? This falls under the broader scope of the Second Way.
From the ST:
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. There is no case known (neither is it, indeed, possible) in which a thing is found to be the efficient cause of itself; for so it would be prior to itself, which is impossible. Now in efficient causes it is not possible to go on to infinity, because in all efficient causes following in order, the first is the cause of the intermediate cause, and the intermediate is the cause of the ultimate cause, whether the intermediate cause be several, or only one. Now to take away the cause is to take away the effect. Therefore, if there be no first cause among efficient causes, there will be no ultimate, nor any intermediate cause. But if in efficient causes it is possible to go on to infinity, there will be no first efficient cause, neither will there be an ultimate effect, nor any intermediate efficient causes; all of which is plainly false. Therefore it is necessary to admit a first efficient cause, to which everyone gives the name of God.
So while the First Way addresses the cause of the motion of an existent thing, the Second Way addresses the cause of the actual existence of things.
This was first addressed here: https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2017/07/taking-aquinas-seriously.html July 23, 2017 at 3:06 PM
" They were clearly answered in easily understandable terms already in the list I just posted." --None of which are on that thread. http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2017/10/five-proofs-on-patrick-coffin-show.html?showComment=1509595999732#c35351119815815066584
That thread is at a standstill. Not one single person has even begun to answer my questions on that thread. You are incapable of coming to that thread and engaging me on that thread because you fear exposure in front of people you feel community with and admiration for.
On this thread you at least made some half hearted attempts to answer my questions. Far from crickets I corrected your errors at length. As usual you did not understand the corrections and persisted in repeating your errors so I moved on to other communications with other people.
You fear engaging me on that thread because you would feel social pressure to be rigorous in your argumentation and a part of you realizes that you are incapable of arguing rigorously on this subject so you would be exposed as incapable in the process.
Why can't Dusty answer his own questions? Why must Dusty repeatedly demand engagement if he's convinced he has stumped everyone? The only reason would be because Dusty is unsure - or he's a troll. Take your pick.
Feser has no need to engage Dusty because Feser is sure of the answers to Dusty's questions.
" Why can't Dusty answer his own questions?" --I already have, publicly, directly to Feser. My answers to my questions have him completely stumped.
Feser is flabbergasted. He has no capacity to engage me on that subject.
" Feser has no need to engage Dusty because Feser is sure of the answers to Dusty's questions." --He has never posted any such answer. His long time followers do not know the answer and are incapable of stating it, because Feser has never provided any such answer.
" Dusty's question to Feser is intellectually on par with, "If evolution is true as you say it is, then how come apes still exist?"" --Perhaps you should suggest that analogy to Feser and all the rest over there. They are completely stumped and really need your assistance.
Similarly, biologists are stumped by the question about apes and evolution. Why DO apes still exist if evolution is true? I've seen the 'answers' some biologists have given and trust me, they've been stumped by whoever thought of the question.
So flabbergasted are the evolutionists that nobody will engage a person in any combox asking this question.
" I've seen the 'answers' some biologists have given and trust me, they've been stumped by whoever thought of the question. " --Undoubtedly those biologists mentioned that apes and humans have a common ancestor. Present day apes evolved from that common ancestor within and in response to their environment. Humans evolved from that common ancestor within and in response to their environments. Not difficult to answer.
So, what is the simple answer for Feser? He often uses ordinary objects such as a stick, a rock, a book, or a table in his examples. In an ordinary view of these objects they do not seem to change moment to moment. Feser says the could just blink out of existence.
Given those assertions of Feser wouldn't blinking out of existence be a change? Why would the absence of a changer lead to a change? Wouldn't the absence of a changer lead to no change?
Further, to persist in existence seems to be no change. Why would a changer be called for to account for no change?
Answering the ape/human question is easy. What easy answer do you propose for the Feser blink out contradiction?
What twisted webs the mind of the apologist must wrap itself in.
Me: "What have I said that's false?" bmiller: "Every time you've called someone a liar you yourself have lied."
What a stupid thing to say.
I have pointed that stevek obviously lied when he claimed to be a mechanical engineer (guffaw).
In order for me to be lying when I called him a liar (?!??!), not only would stevek have to actually be a mechanical engineer (guffaw), but I would also have to have no good reason to believe that stevek is not a mechanical engineer.
You are apparently so dishonest that you don’t understand what lying is.
Not only have you falsely accused me of lying, but now you seem to be falsely accusing me of being stupid (that I am so stupid that I think stevek has completed his mechanical engineering degree, which flies in the face of his revealed understanding of physics and basic science).
Let me see, where else did I point out lying?
bmiller: "It's funny to see someone whose only exposure to physics is what he has recently googled make such bold claims." Me: “Project much? I truly wonder what it's like being a liar.”
You are a liar because you accuse me of only being exposed to physics by recently googling on the subject. Not only is this false, but I have corrected you on too many numerous occasions regarding your misunderstanding of basic scientific terms and principles — in other words, only a proud, dishonest person would fail to recognize that I possess a reasonable grounding in the sciences, while realizing that it’s true that he has never taken a real science class (the kind one gets at a good high school, or college, including lab work).
Like stevek who knows he is in fact not a mechanical engineer, you know the truth about your lack of a good science background (which is revealed practically every time you write concerning physics or on topics that require a basic understanding of science).
That you will certainly continue to deny this, just as stevek dodges the topic of his lie about being a mechanical engineer, is not a sign that you are not a liar, nor is it a sign that we are at an impasse.
It is obvious to the reasonable, honest observer that I have encountered a pair of liars, who will continue to lie — because that’s what shabby, dishonest, proud and narcissistic people (like you and stevek) do.
stevek: "If you want to discuss the FW argument, which involves change, this is the place to do it."
Right. With you, a known liar.
There is never a good time to discuss ANYTHING with a known liar. That because liars destroy discussion -- because discussion depends on intersubjectivity, which is impossible when a participant is so morally defective they would rather lie than contribute.
Stardusty: "Answering the ape/human question is easy. What easy answer do you propose for the Feser blink out contradiction?"
Whenever you ask a real question to apologists, they have to either dodge the question, or wait for what they think is someone higher up to answer the question for them.
What apologists fear isn't being asked a tough question; what apologists fear is responding to a tough question with a response that's not approved by the group in which they belong -- and approval is a top-down process.
That's why you'll see apologists wait or delay or make excuses or point to obscure places (where there is no answer) -- they don't want to be caught giving a real answer that makes the whole group look more ridiculous later.
And that's why all that Feser has to do eventually is write, in response to your tough question, "Eleventy." and then every single apologist (all of them) will jump on and shout the same thing. But they won't do it before then, because they fear being out of step with each other -- not whether or not their answers make sense. (Remember: apologists don't care about the same things as you and me.)
Still, Feser is obviously flummoxed by your questioning. I've seen it soooo many times. Apologists like Feser who have worked to achieve a certain esteem among the other apologists (quelle honor), who obsess over the trivial and meaningless for most of their lives, suddenly become super duper busy when you ask them tough questions that they fear can be easily ridiculed. I love the pretending that he's up to something important, though, when answering something that's actually well-founded, as you and I know, is trivial and fast and easy.
Me:If they are flabbergasted at all is because you have shown no ability to read responses but then claim that no one has responded to you.
" They were clearly answered in easily understandable terms already in the list I just posted." --None of which are on that thread.
Right. Why would anyone think it was worth responding to someone who ignores responses? No matter how many threads you repeat the nonsense.
You are incapable of coming to that thread and engaging me on that thread because you fear exposure in front of people you feel community with and admiration for.
Well, I see you are as incompetent at mind reading as you are at science, philosophy and reading comprehension. The host asked us to stop responding to trolls.
As usual you did not understand the corrections and persisted in repeating your errors so I moved on to other communications with other people.
No, it's clear that you are flabbergasted. You are utterly out of your depth with the response given. Failing to engage is merely a dodge.
You fear engaging me on that thread because you would feel social pressure to be rigorous in your argumentation and a part of you realizes that you are incapable of arguing rigorously on this subject so you would be exposed as incapable in the process.
Since the Feser blog thread from *The List* includes 21 of my posts (there were more), this is a remarkably curious statement. It looks like projection to me. Especially since you appear to be afraid to respond to my posts right here, right now.
Me: "What have I said that's false?" bmiller: "Every time you've called someone a liar you yourself have lied."
What a stupid thing to say.
Oh, then you do know that SteveK is lying. That is a serious charge.
Then I assume that you have SteveK's high school and college transcripts? Where will you post them? If you do post them how do I know it is this SteveK and not another SteveK? You've made and accusation. You have the burden of proof.
What? You say that your authority in the matter is the final word? I am skeptical that you have the credentials to judge. Please post your high school and college transcripts. But of course I will need your permission to request them from the schools myself so I can verify. Your social security number will also be necessary as well as a means for me to verify that you are indeed the person who's transcript you indicated. How do you propose to do that?
Not only have you falsely accused me of lying, but now you seem to be falsely accusing me of being stupid
Let me see, where else did I point out lying?
bmiller: "It's funny to see someone whose only exposure to physics is what he has recently googled make such bold claims." Me: “Project much? I truly wonder what it's like being a liar.”
You are a liar because you accuse me of only being exposed to physics by recently googling on the subject.
I don't think this is an example of you *lying*. But according to your standards this is an example of your *stupidity*. Perhaps even narcissism and projection. That hyperbolic jab was directed against Strawdusty, not you. Ooops!
The topic is the First Way. You are merely dodging the topic. Why? You have the list. Respond to it unless you admit to being a troll. You know. The list you claimed you *read* but also claimed you *ignored*.
This paper by Feser is evidence that he is neither stumped nor flabbergasted by Dusty’s questions. They’ve been answered and for $20 anyone who is interested can read about it. Or you can search his blog for free.
" This paper by Feser is evidence that he is neither stumped nor flabbergasted by Dusty’s questions." --No, actually it isn't, but is is evidence that Feser has written a long attempt to obfuscate the clear objection that no change calls for no changer, and a change does not follow from the absence of a changer.
But thank you very much for the link. You are the first person to actually post something that at least purports to address a related subject.
" They’ve been answered and for $20 anyone who is interested can read about it." --That's the game isn't it? Outlandish claims sell papers and books. By the time one reads the falsity of the arguments it is too late, the check has cleared.
But I do appreciate the abstract because it provides some key terms to look into further: existential inertia divine conserving cause doctrine of divine conservation DDC
Here Feser mentions the doctrine of divine conservation but provides no arguments for it. Nor does he provide any justification for the Feser blink out contradiction.
Google Books Five Proofs for the Existence of God By Edward Feser
The DDC is mentioned, but again, Feser is stumped. He has no argument that supports the notion that things would change in the absence of a changer and to continue unchanged calls for a changer.
All he does is make vague references to some arguments someplace and state what the claim of DDC is, but he makes no arguments for DDC and he makes no arguments against my simple dismantling of DDC.
No change calls for no changer. The absence of a changer does not logically lead to a change.
I too have been reading on those terms for a few days. I'm having a few issues with divine conservation (DC). The following is my initial impression.
DC is by no means obvious, like act and potency. Existential inertia seems far more intuitive and in line with the discoveries of physics.
DC treats the entirety of matter and energy as the effect in an essentially ordered series, in which existence is the effect and annihilation the "friction" acting to erase everything. God is said to be actively overcoming this force of annihilation in order to sustain the universe. I see numerous potential issues here.
One, it has to be reconciled with the second law of thermodynamics. While entropy can increase, nothing is lost because there is no natural force that can completely annihilate matter or energy. Even a collision of matter and antimatter produces energy that conserves total mass and energy of the initial forms.
Two, DC seems to be saying evetything literally poofs into the void of nonexistence if God does not sustain it, which would mean that the ABSENCE of this sustaining power is in fact the natural state of matter and energy, as it would their tendency to become nothing without being sustained by God. So there would have to be a mechanism, a force, that would cause matter and energy to be instantly annihilated if God stopped sustaining it. No such natural mechanism is known, because Nothing exerts no force - there would be no cause driving matter and energy to erase. If there was, then that force's existence would violate DC, unless it's claimed that God sustains both existence and the force attempting to annihilate it.
Three, and related to two, going from existence to nonexistence is indeed a change, so there has to be something actualizing that potential. God would have to be sustaining the annihilating force in order for both the First Way and DC to be true.
Four, "levels" of reality we observe are comprised of smaller components. A society is made of people who are made of organs which are made of cells which are made of molecules which are made of atoms which are made of particles and so on. We only have two options, either an infinite regress of smaller components or a base "stuff" that is configured into the larger levels. DC would suggest that this smallest basic component of reality is still an actualized potential, even though at that point there is no further subcomponent - that's it. It is not derived. To then claim that this smallest unit is still contingent upon something else for its continued existence, well that would need support.
At any rate, I'm very slowly learning the terminology and concepts since everything on the subject is behind paywalls or subscriptions, so all of these things may have already been addressed, or my objections may be flawed.
Legion, I agree that DC is not as obvious because the argument is more complex. Despite being more complex, at it's core the argument is similar to the FW argument in that a first cause is necessary -- 'first' is not wrt time, but wrt ontology or being.
The argument goes through the steps necessary to show that existence requires a 'first' being that is not a composite of essence and existence in order to actualize existence and therefore explain continuous existence. If that being didn't exist then the composite beings would cease to exist.
This is similar to the FW argument that shows change requires a 'first' being that is not a composite of actuality and potentiality in order to actualize change and therefore explain continuous change. If that being didn't exist then change would cease to exist.
Quoting Feser from "Aquinas": "That is to say, just as the First Way is meant to show that no motion or change would occur here and now unless there were a first unmoved mover operating here and now, the Second Way is meant to show that nothing would even exist here and now unless there were a first uncaused cause sustaining things in being here and now."
Legion: "At any rate, I'm very slowly learning the terminology and concepts since everything on the subject is behind paywalls or subscriptions, so all of these things may have already been addressed, or my objections may be flawed."
Or you could be on your way to becoming a non-apologist. The way that you're thinking, and revealing your thought process, and questioning things that don't align with the rules of good argument -- these are not the ways of the apologist.
Me: "What have I said that's false?" bmiller: "Every time you've called someone a liar you yourself have lied." Me: “What a stupid thing to say.” bmiller: “Oh, then you do know that SteveK is lying. That is a serious charge.”
It sure is. We are supposed to be having a discussion, but liars destroy discussion.
bmiller: “Then I assume that you have SteveK's high school and college transcripts? Where will you post them? If you do post them how do I know it is this SteveK and not another SteveK? You've made and accusation. You have the burden of proof.”
I said that I have good reason to believe that stevek is lying.
The good reason is that he (in no way) writes like someone who thinks clearly, or has a basic understanding of science -- let alone the specialized knowledge that comes from completing a mechanical engineering degree. And despite these obvious facts, he still claimed, stevek: “I am a mechanical engineer.”
When someone makes a claim that is contradicted by a preponderance of evidence (the many, many comments in which stevek reveals that he doesn’t think clearly, and doesn’t express views or seem familiar with terms that are required to earn a degree in mechanical engineering), then we have good reason to believe that the claim is false.
As I pointed out upthread, when someone claims to be the King of Sweden, but doesn’t know how to speak Swedish, we can (and must, if we are to be considered rational) make the determination that that person is lying. To do otherwise would be to embrace aggressive gullibility.
You should know all this, but you, like stevek, probably realize that your reputation here hinges on trying to prop up stevek’s obvious lie — and if stevek is revealed to be a liar, you are complicit in his dishonesty, and are merely a dupe. Being a dupe means that you are bad at determining what is true and what is false. A dupe is another way of saying that you are stupid. So, once again, we can see that your need to buttress stevek in his lie requires that you become even stupider (embrace the role of a dupe).
Do you see now acting dishonestly makes you seem stupider here?
bmiller: “What? You say that your authority in the matter is the final word? I am skeptical that you have the credentials to judge. Please post your high school and college transcripts. But of course I will need your permission to request them from the schools myself so I can verify. Your social security number will also be necessary as well as a means for me to verify that you are indeed the person who's transcript you indicated. How do you propose to do that?”
I make my own determinations. Stevek is clearly a liar, as he clearly lied when he blurted out “I’m a mechanical engineer.”
But I am not asking you to take my word for it. I am pointing out that the evidence (stevek’s comments) are incompatible with what he claimed to be. If you are incapable of seeing what I see, then we learn something about you, don’t we?
Here we see Cal is still confused about the FW argument that he claims has been shown to be invalid and unsound. A mind is a terrible thing to waste they say. This is from February 8
------------ Cal: "Me: "Cal: "The First Way basically shell games the terms change and existence (actual), and misleads many readers by implying that a change is not really a transfer of a property or properties between two things that already exist, but an unfolding in which the change between two things brings something altogether non-existent into existence." Legion: "I may be wrong, but this objection seems to conflate the First Way with something like the Kalam cosmological argument."
Well, it seems to be a problem imbued in the First Way, because that's roughly been the defense of the argument here by apologists.
For instance, we see it in full bloom in comments like this one: "Indeed, the actuality Aquinas is referring to is and actuality of change. Only an actually changing thing can move a potentially changing thing to become actually changing."
--- followed immediately by bmiller --- "@Cal Metzger,
"For instance, we see it in full bloom in comments like this one: "Indeed, the actuality Aquinas is referring to is and actuality of change. Only an actually changing thing can move a potentially changing thing to become actually changing.""
That has been a claim made by Stardusty Psyche, not by anyone familiar with the First Way."
" Only an actually changing thing can move a potentially changing thing to become actually changing.""
--Those are the only sorts of examples Aquinas provided. One provides examples of the sort that illustrate what one is talking about. It makes no sense to talk about one thing and then give an example of something else.
Changing things impart change. Non-changing things do not impart change. Please provide a counterexample if you can.
Now, anyone who knows Cal can easily predict that Cal will either deny that this is evidence for anything or he'll accept it and move on to some other form of public degeneracy. Anything to avoid having to rationally defend this claims about the FW argument.
It's automatic. It's predictable. It's Cal Metzger.
Blogger Legion of Logic said.. November 03, 2017 10:46 PM.
" I too have been reading on those terms for a few days. I'm having a few issues with divine conservation (DC)... so all of these things may have already been addressed, or my objections may be flawed." --Apparently this rather bizarre notion of continuous creation is a thing: https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/scholarly-writings/the-existence-of-god/creation-and-conservation-once-more/
Craig presents some attempts at forming arguments and raises a number of issues but fails to address the Feser blink out contradiction, and fails to address how a thing would change itself from something to nothing in the absence of a changer.
Craig also makes the strange assertion that creation is not a change because there was nothing there previously. So in his view G = G + X. More pretzel logic.
If X is being continuously created then where does it go to get recreated? To be created means to transition from nothing to X. But X already exists. If we then create X we now have 2X, then 3X and on an on. So X must become nothing so X can be created again. So you and I and the whole universe are blinking out of existence and back into existence so fast and so frequently we don't know it?
Well, maybe god is just holding stuff up, as it were. He isn't so much creating continuously, rather, he is just sort of pushing back all the time against self annihilation. In that case god is not the first mover after all! Stuff just moves itself! Absent god stuff will change itself from something to nothing and that force is outside god and not originating from god, rather a pre-existing force god continuously acts against, like Atlas holding up the world.
Or maybe god is the source of the force behind the suicidal tendencies of matter, in which case god is in a continuous tug of war with himself in a sort of universal exercise of isometrics.
How very odd these ideas quickly become. It is truly a wonderment that so many otherwise intelligent people actually take such notions seriously.
Go back to the first words of the First Way, what is manifest and evident to our senses? Existing stuff that stays the same doesn't change so there is no call for a changer. Stuff doesn't disappear because that would be a change and there is no changer to instigate that sort of change so it just stays the same. Pretty simple. Why invent an invisible being that is somehow continuously changing or recreating or in a tug of war with himself?
Absent a changer stuff just stays the same. How hard is that?
It just doesn't seem to dawn on these folks that no force, no power, and no action is called for for continued existence because continued existence is no change. No force is required for no change. No power is required for no change. No action is required for no change. No cause is required for no change. No changer is required for no change.
https://maritain.nd.edu/jmc/etext/pnt16.htm
"The continued existence of a thing must be due to some cause, no less than the origination of that existence. There must be something to account for that existence in each successive period of time through which it endures. God is the only being who is uncaused. This cause must be either the original act by which the thing was called into being, or the thing itself as a constituted reality, or some other created being, or finally God. No other hypothesis is possible. But of these alternatives the first three must all be rejected. Hence by a process of exclusion we are forced to recognize that God is the cause of the continued existence of things. The original act of creation cannot account for the thing's persistence in being: for that act is past and gone. A present fact demands a present explanation. It cannot, again, be the thing as a constituted and persistent reality: for this is just that for whose cause we are searching. We are enquiring why it should persist. If we say that it has a power of self-conservation, we are, on the one hand, explaining the existence of the thing by the power, while on the other we must explain the existence of the power by the thing to which it belongs -- a patent instance of a vicious circle. "
Thanks for the thoughtful questions. It's refreshing in this thread.
One, it has to be reconciled with the second law of thermodynamics. While entropy can increase, nothing is lost because there is no natural force that can completely annihilate matter or energy. Even a collision of matter and antimatter produces energy that conserves total mass and energy of the initial forms.
Existing material objects are a combination of form and matter and they come into existence and cease to exist all the time, so something is indeed lost. That particular existing thing.
Now we do normally observe new material existent objects come into being when others pass from being, but that new thing is now also a combination of form and matter requiring something to keep form and matter together. See #4 for more detail.
Two, DC seems to be saying evetything literally poofs into the void of nonexistence if God does not sustain it, which would mean that the ABSENCE of this sustaining power is in fact the natural state of matter and energy, as it would their tendency to become nothing without being sustained by God.
There is no "force of annihilation". The lack of a force is not a force at all and has no existence. Thomism calls this privation.
Three, and related to two, going from existence to nonexistence is indeed a change, so there has to be something actualizing that potential. God would have to be sustaining the annihilating force in order for both the First Way and DC to be true.
As in response to #3, annihilation is just the absence of a sustaining cause and has no existence.
We only have two options, either an infinite regress of smaller components or a base "stuff" that is configured into the larger levels.
This base "stuff" is considered matter without form and is known as prime matter.
That is precisely what you are doing. The only evidence you have attempted to provide is your own judgement in a field of which you are ignorant. You have no scientific background yet claim to be able to judge whether someone is using proper terms in a discussion of science. That is rather like a blind man insisting I am painting with the wrong shade of blue when the paint I am using is red.
But of course name calling is mere trollish behavior and is meant to cover for your inability to respond rationally to the topic.
The topic is the First Way. You are merely dodging the topic. Why? You have the list. Respond to it unless you admit to being a troll. You know. The list you claimed you *read* but also claimed you *ignored*.
" Existing material objects are a combination of form and matter and they come into existence and cease to exist all the time, so something is indeed lost. " --We never see material get lost. Material is never observed to cease to exist. Material is never observed to begin to exist.
The persistence of material is no change in the material extant.
We do observe changes in the arrangements, relationships, and form of material. All such changes are temporal. Zero change occurs in zero time.
To perform a regression analysis of changes we must necessarily perform a temporal regression analysis because change is necessarily a process over time.
To use the word "cause" in the sense of "explanation" we use a hierarchy of abstractions, of models. We explain the structure of the crystal in terms of the arrangements of molecules. We explain the structure of the molecule in terms of the arrangements of atoms. We explain the structure of the atoms in terms of arrangements of electrons, protons, neutrons, and fields. We explain those atomic constituents in terms of arrangements of standard model particles and fields. We explain the standard model particles and fields in terms of the deepest laws of nature whatever they turn out to be, also known as fundamental physics. Hierarchical regress of abstractions terminated.
The persistence of the material calls for no changer because the existence of the material never changes in the aspect of its existence.
For material to blink out of existence would be a change in its aspect of existence and would therefore call for a changer, not the absence of a changer.
The changes we observe are all temporal changes in the arrangement of material and therefore calls for a temporal, not a hierarchical, causal regress analysis.
The arrangements we observe at any moment call for a hierarchical regress of abstractions, of models, the terminus of which is fundamental physics.
In no aspect is a first changer, or sustaining cause called for in the present moment.
The great existential riddle is a consideration of the deep past, what came before the big bang, why has there been so very much of something for so very long instead of absolutely nothing at all ever? That is the great riddle that has vexed humanity for millennia and I doubt very much I shall ever learn the answer in my remaining years of life.
The persistence of material is no change in the material extant.
Since the blogger refuses to respond to this observation: On the one hand (1) you argue that things are continuously changing and the other hand (2) you argue that they are not. I'll let you continue to argue with yourself. Let me know which of you ended up winning the argument.
Let me comment on the situation. He is on record that it is his belief that everything is continuously changing. Indeed, if one looks at any existing material thing that is apparently static, modern physics will tell you that there is actually constant motion. The forces that hold things together are not static but actually dynamic.
He is also on record as saying that macro reality is an illusion and that *real* reality is at this micro level of whirling dynamic elementary particles.
He is therefore contradicting himself if he is also on record as stating that at the same time and in the same respect an existent material object is not changing.
This is illogical and irrational.
If some material thing is changing, then there must be an ultimate changer. The First Way.
But even if he were to abandon his belief that things are continuously changing as he does here, then there must still be an explanation for why a particular thing remains as a combination of form and matter. The Second Way.
We explain the structure of the crystal in terms of the arrangements of molecules... We explain the standard model particles and fields in terms of the deepest laws of nature whatever they turn out to be, also known as fundamental physics. Hierarchical regress of abstractions terminated.
He also refuses to respond to this observation: You seem to be able to talk about and analyze a thing that is existing at this moment by considering all of it's constituent parts down to the quantum level and realize that there cannot be an infinite number of these constituent parts. How then, can you not talk about and analyze those same components as they are moving and realize that there cannot be an infinite number of them? Just curious.
The example of causes he cites is indeed a hierarchical series and not temporal series. So he is apparently capable of making this distinction in at least some cases. This is a good thing.
Things that are in existence are in existence in time. They exist moment to moment. We can ask these hierarchical questions without being flummoxed by sequential temporal questions.
Now he terminates his analysis at "the deepest laws of nature". But we are only able to discern "the deepest laws of nature" by the regularity we witness in the world. Science would be impossible if things did not change or changed in totally unpredictable ways.
The very fact that we can do science at all is that is our ability to recognize the nature of existent material things, their regular behavior, and predict how they will behave.
The Fifth Way.
The fifth way is taken from the governance of the world. We see that things which lack intelligence, such as natural bodies, act for an end, and this is evident from their acting always, or nearly always, in the same way, so as to obtain the best result. Hence it is plain that not fortuitously, but designedly, do they achieve their end. Now whatever lacks intelligence cannot move towards an end, unless it be directed by some being endowed with knowledge and intelligence; as the arrow is shot to its mark by the archer. Therefore some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are directed to their end; and this being we call God.
"Since the blogger refuses to respond to this observation: On the one hand (1) you argue that things are continuously changing and the other hand (2) you argue that they are not." --I covered this case. It's right there. All I can do is write it for you. I can't read it for you.
Blogger Strawdusty said...November 05, 2017 4:13 AM
--I covered this case.
You mean when you tell us that existent material things are always changing here:
1. The molecules, atoms, and subatomic particles are in fact always in motion. --Yes, and motion is necessarily a temporal process. So arrangement of mass/energy is never truly static, rather, it varies temporally, not hierarchically.
And then tell us that the same thing at the same time is not changing here?
The persistence of material is no change in the material extant.
You consider the only reality as being those tiny dynamic particles and forces and those tiny particles and forces are constantly changing but at the same time and the same respect they are not changing.
So yes, it's clear that your coverage of this case is to *persist* in incoherence. It remains to be seen if you will *change* your story.
" You consider the only reality as being those tiny dynamic particles and forces and those tiny particles and forces are constantly changing but at the same time and the same respect they are not changing." --Not in the same respect.
In the existential respect the material of those particles is not changing.
In the structural respect the material of those particles are temporally changing.
In the existential respect the material is not changing because there is in existence at this time the same amount of material as there was in the past second, past hour, or past century. No new material has come into existence over time. No material has passed out of existence over time.
Thus, there is no change in the existential respect of material so no changer is called for.
In the structural respect there are changes, as are manifest and apparent to our senses. Aquinas got at least that much correct.
When using the word "cause" in the sense of "a causal series of cause and effect changes" every causal series is a temporal series. Causal influences propagate, classically, no faster than c. All systems are elastic. There are no perfectly rigid multibody systems.
When using the word "cause" in the sense of "explanation" we can consider a hierarchy of human abstractions, human models, approximations formulated for analytical reasons. The lowest level model we have right now is the standard model of particles and fields with their associated theories of modern physics. There is good reason to think we are not at the bottom. Feser uses the term "deepest laws of nature whatever they turn out to be", for what I simply call "fundamental physics". The terminus of our hierarchical regress of abstractions is fundamental physics.
There is no aspect, no respect, of material reality as is manifest to our senses that calls for a first changer in the present moment.
Dusty, >> Thus, there is no change in the existential respect of material so no changer is called for.
Unchanging matter does not exist according to A-T. All matter is changeable and is changing according to A-T because A-T says every physical being is a composition of form + matter.
What you are doing here is criticizing A-T metaphysics on the basis of YOUR own metaphysics. You seem to be saying that matter exists without form, and because it has no form it never changes. Is that right?
Changeless matter cannot have form because whatever is physical has a form that could be a different form (changed). A-T refers to this as 'prime matter', and it considers formless 'prime matter' a pure potential with respect to having any kind of form (a molecule, and atom, a ball, a planet). A-T also says what is purely potential has no actuality.
So, A-T is not arguing that unchanging, formless 'prime matter' must be sustained at every moment because A-T says 'prime matter' doesn't actually exist.
Dusty, >> Thus, there is no change in the existential respect of material so no changer is called for.
" Unchanging matter does not exist according to A-T. " --That is correct.
"All matter is changeable and is changing according to A-T because A-T says every physical being is a composition of form + matter." --That is correct.
All changes of matter are changes of form, or structure, or arrangement.
Matter never changes existentially. That is what is manifest and evident to the senses. The material never changes in the existential respect. This is called conservation of mass/energy and it is always observed to be true and never observed to be false.
Material is never observed to come into existence, only change form, or shape, or structure, or arrangement.
Material is never observed to pass out of existence, only change form, or shape, or structure, or arrangement.
All such changes of form, or shape, or structure, or arrangement are temporal, they are necessarily changes over time, zero change occurs in zero time. Thus no first changer is called for in the present moment by the changes we observe in material.
In the existential aspect, or respect, material does not change at all, it always exists in the same amount, never coming into existence and never passing out of existence, so no sustaining changer is called for in the present moment because material is never existentially changing.
>> "In the existential aspect, or respect, material does not change at all, it always exists in the same amount, never coming into existence and never passing out of existence, so no sustaining changer is called for in the present moment because material is never existentially changing."
I repeat, your complain is not with A-T since unchanging 'prime matter' doesn't "always exist". It has no actual existence according to A-T.
This is why Feser and the others are ignoring you. You don't understand the basics. Come back when you do.
" I repeat, your complain is not with A-T since unchanging 'prime matter' doesn't "always exist". It has no actual existence according to A-T." --Those A-T concepts are shown to be unnecessary by these observations 1.Conservation of mass/energy. 2.Temporal changes of structure.
You can make up any fantasy you wish. Maybe it's gazillions of angels nudging every particle along, or maybe it's magic turtles. Whatever. There are always an unbounded number of fantasies people can concoct, A-T is just one such fantasy.
" If some material thing is changing, then there must be an ultimate changer. " --Since all change is temporal then the regress of changers is temporal, leading to a choice between an infinite past that has always been changing or a finite past that would have to be at least 13 billion years ago.
Bmiller... "You seem to be able to talk about and analyze a thing that is existing at this moment by considering all of it's constituent parts down to the quantum level and realize that there cannot be an infinite number of these constituent parts. How then, can you not talk about and analyze those same components as they are moving and realize that there cannot be an infinite number of them? Just curious." --Right, there are a finite number of particles in the universe and a finite number of levels of abstraction leading to fundamental physics.
Bmiller... "Now he terminates his analysis at "the deepest laws of nature". But we are only able to discern "the deepest laws of nature" by the regularity we witness in the world. Science would be impossible if things did not change or changed in totally unpredictable ways.
The very fact that we can do science at all is that is our ability to recognize the nature of existent material things, their regular behavior, and predict how they will behave." --Right, which is why conservation of mass energy and temporal changes together make A-T unnecessary based on what is manifest and evident to the senses.
3,162 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 2801 – 3000 of 3162 Newer› Newest»SteveK said.. October 13, 2017 6:30 PM.
" The FW argument doesn’t require a specific list. Any list of physical objects that cannot move themselves will do."
-- You example of an "essential" series is the train. Ok a list is
Piston
Connecting rod
Crankshaft
Generator
Motor
Wheel
Car1
Car2
Carn
Caboose
Done. No consideration of going on to infinity, thus no first mover called for.
In the freeze frame I see the start with the piston and the end with the caboose. That's it. Nothing else needed or called for.
Or do you want to ask what moved the piston? Hot CO2 molecules.
What moved the hot CO2 molecules? The reaction betwee O2 molecules and hydrocarbon molecules.
What moved the O2 molecules? Collisions with other O2 and N2 molecules.
What moved those molecules? Collisions with other molecules.
How far back does this goe? No further than the total number of molecules on Earth, a finite number.
Still a finite series. No first mover called for. What items in the series have I omitted? What are they named?
@Strawdusty,
"In the freeze frame I see the start with the piston and the end with the caboose. That's it. Nothing else needed or called for.
Or do you want to ask what moved the piston? Hot CO2 molecules.
What moved the hot CO2 molecules? The reaction betwee O2 molecules and hydrocarbon molecules.
What moved the O2 molecules? Collisions with other O2 and N2 molecules.
What moved those molecules? Collisions with other molecules.
How far back does this goe? No further than the total number of molecules on Earth, a finite number."
The freeze frame picture shows all of the elements of the essentially ordered series that are presently causing motion or being moved.
The question is what is moving the piston, not what moved the piston.
The question is what is moving the CO2 molecules, not what moved the CO2 molecules.
It is the collection of molecules that were set in motion by the reation that are moving the piston. Once in motion, the molecules remain in motion (being existing objects that are a combination of form and matter) tend to remain in motion unless they encounter something to alter that motion (per Newton's first law of motion), the piston in this case.
So, in that freeze frame, we see some molecules applying force to the piston to move it due to their vis inertiae, an inherent property of those molecules being in existence as the particular composition of form and matter that they are.
Still a finite series. No first mover called for. What items in the series have I omitted? What are they named?
This seems to be a point of confusion. It is possible that an infinite series would have no first mover. Finite series do have a first member, second member and so on. So in a finite series of movers, there has to be a first as well as a last. The First Way argues against an infinite series, not a finite series, the finite series having a first mover.
@SteveK,
The FW argument doesn’t require a specific list. Any list of physical objects that cannot move themselves will do. The logic goes through on that basis.
Right. The FW argument does not try to be an exhaustive examination of all possible members of all possible essentially ordered series, but only what must be true of all essentially ordered series.
If something can't move itself and is moving, then something else must be moving it.
I wonder why this is such a difficult concept.
@bmiller
After all this discussion, I’m not sure why it’s so difficult. If you read Cal’s last comment you’ll see how lost he is. He cannot even correctly state what the FW is about. Dumber than a box of rocks.
bmiller: "The question is what is moving the piston, not what moved the piston. / The question is what is moving the CO2 molecules, not what moved the CO2 molecules."
There is no movement in a freeze frame; there are only the elements in the freeze frame. There is only movement revealed in a freeze frame if one looks at a prior frame.
Repeat after me: no freeze frame can reveal motion.
Only two or more reference frames can reveal motion.
So long as you continue to fail to acknowledge this fact (which has been acknowledged and considered since the ancient Greeks, prior to Aristotle), you will continue to appear as profoundly stupid as you have throughout these threads.
bmiller: "It is the collection of molecules that were set in motion by the reation that are moving the piston."
Yes. PRIOR events preceded current ones. Yes.
Apparently you need to make a greater mental effort and see if you can truly consider this fact, and where it inevitably leads. For reasons I have given (poor moral character and ignorance, which lead to a great stupidity) your mind cannot grasp how the ramifications of what you concede destroy the silly concepts inherent in the First Way.
bmiller: "So, in that freeze frame, we see some molecules applying force...."
No.
Repeat after me: no freeze frame can reveal motion.
Only two or more reference frames can reveal motion.
So long as you continue to fail to acknowledge this fact (which has been acknowledged and considered since the ancient Greeks, prior to Aristotle), you will continue to appear as profoundly stupid as you have throughout these threads.
Cal:
>> "There is no movement in a freeze frame; there are only the elements in the freeze frame."
There is the EFFECT in the freeze frame too. When a cause is present, there is a simultaneous cause/effect present. The effect produces motion over time. We've been over this.
If you missed it, see my comments here:
October 07, 2017 9:55 AM
October 07, 2017 10:45 AM
Dusty's agreement is here: October 07, 2017 12:28 PM
Me: "Cause and effect happen at the moment of simultaneity"
Dusty: "That being agreed upon, then what is a causal series?"
Are you gonna disagree with Dusty?? It could end your bromance.
>> "Repeat after me: no freeze frame can reveal motion"
Repeat after me: cause/effect occur in a moment of simultaneity.
Given the simultaneous nature of cause/effect, some philosophical questions a person might ask are:
a) "What is an effect if it is not a motion - how are they different?"
b) "If at every instant there is an effect but not a motion, then how can a motion occur over a series of instances?"
I'm not going to get sucked into discussing these questions because Cal is way over his head right now as it is.
Blogger SteveK said.. October 15, 2017 8:33 AM.
Cal:
>> "There is no movement in a freeze frame; there are only the elements in the freeze frame."
--Correct, because the freeze freeze frame is an abstraction of 0 time. 0 movement occurs in 0 time.
Me: "Cause and effect happen at the moment of simultaneity"
Dusty: "That being agreed upon, then what is a causal series?"
" Are you gonna disagree with Dusty?? It could end your bromance."
--Apparently we agreed on the words but not the meaning of those words.
"Moment of simultaneity" is not the same as "0 time".
If "moment of simultaneity" was the same as "0 time" Newton would not have introduced his fluxions, nor would later mathematicians have defined the differential in terms of a limit. Instead, we would just use 0 as the differential, but then calculus would be useless and provide only 0 results.
" Repeat after me: cause/effect occur in a moment of simultaneity."
--Right, which is not a 0 time freeze frame.
Where is the causal regress in the freeze frame exactly? Zero motion occurs in zero time. No change is occurring in the freeze frame.
In what sense is the piston in some sort of regress? What is the next object in the regress? What is the next object before that? What is the next object before that? What are the names of these objects in the regress you see in the freeze frame starting with the piston and regressing from there?
>> "Moment of simultaneity" is not the same as "0 time".
How do you know this? I'll let you explain the difference if you care to. I'll ignore any actual difference until you do.
It's a philosophical discussion to be had. You and Cal appear to think this distinction has been settled by science and math. It hasn't, and it never will be.
I don't think time is synonymous with the mathematical model that describes it. What is time? Does zero exist? If not, then how can "0 time" exist? Do numbers exist?
You both are asserting your philosophical musings and you think that undermines the FW argument. It doesn't work that way.
You both claim PHYSICS proves the FW is wrong. Well, that is a 100% FALSE claim as noted here and elsewhere.
Me: "cause/effect occur in a moment of simultaneity."
Dusty: "Right, which is not a 0 time freeze frame"
What you're saying is a cause doesn't occur in a 0 time freeze frame. What you're saying then is the FW argument doesn't apply to 0 time.
You have a very bad habit of pointing out things that end up have nothing do with the FW argument. At one time it was 'grandfathers and sticks' and here it's 'cause and 0 time'.
Whatever label you want to put on it, the freeze frame I'm referring to is the freeze frame when a cause/effect occur in a moment of simultaneity.
SteveK said.. October 15, 2017 11:16 AM.
" Whatever label you want to put on it, the freeze frame I'm referring to is the freeze frame when a cause/effect occur in a moment of simultaneity."
--So you have a special sort of freeze frame, not a 0 time freeze frame, rather, some pictorial representation of the limit as t goes to zero.
Where is the causal regress in the freeze frame exactly?
In what sense is the piston in some sort of regress? What is the next object in the regress? What is the next object causally prior to that? What is the next object causally prior to that and so on? What are the names of these objects in the causal regress you see in the freeze frame starting with the piston and regressing from there?
I say “0 time” doesn’t exist. It’s the same as “no thing”. Both terms describe an absence of existence. You want to treat it as real? I’m not playing along with your game.
SteveK said.. October 15, 2017 11:55 AM.
I say “0 time” doesn’t exist. It’s the same as “no thing”. Both terms describe an absence of existence. You want to treat it as real? I’m not playing along with your game.
--OK, so you have a special sort of freeze frame, not a 0 time freeze frame, rather, some pictorial representation of the limit as t goes to zero.
Where is the causal regress in the freeze frame exactly?
In what sense is the piston in some sort of regress? What is the next object in the regress? What is the next object causally prior to that? What is the next object causally prior to that and so on? What are the names of these objects in the causal regress you see in the freeze frame starting with the piston and regressing from there?
Dusty,
>> "OK, so you have a special sort of freeze frame"
Yes, it's the kind of freeze frame that exists within space/time. Your "0 time" frame is a frame that exists in the absence of time - which is nowhere to be found in this space/time universe.
>> "Where is the causal regress in the freeze frame exactly?"
The FW references the members of the essential series and the cause/effect relationship between them. What is this regress you're talking about and how is it relevant to the FW argument?
Keyword: relevant
@Strawdusty,
In what sense is the piston in some sort of regress?
Is the piston moving? If yes, then what is moving it? If you say moving molecules, then what is moving them? This is the line of questions posed by the FW.
No matter how many elements there are in the series of moving movers, and no matter how physics analyzes the series, there must ultimately be a first, Unmoved Mover.
bmiller said.. October 15, 2017 5:38 PM.
@Strawdusty,
In what sense is the piston in some sort of regress?
" Is the piston moving? If yes, then what is moving it? If you say moving molecules, "
--Ok, at least you named 1 more thing in your asserted series. That will be enough for me to work with.
Even in a compressed gas the distance between molecules is large compared to the size of the molecules. At any particular moment relatively few atoms of the molecules are in direct contact with the atoms of the piston. Nearly all of the gas is in the space of the combustion chamber and not in direct contact with the piston at any given moment.
In between those molecules in the freeze frame that conceptually represents the moment of simultaneity as t goes to zero perhaps some small number of atoms as constituents of gas molecules are in direct contact with the piston.
"then what is moving them?"
--Outside of themselves? Nothing. That is where the series of direct contact in the moment ends. Beyond the molecules with atoms directly in contact with the atoms of the piston there is no more matter in the series, only space.
So, there simply is no call for any further members of this series, certainly no need to bring up the notion of going on to infinity. The series of direct object contact in the moment has ended, no further movers of any sort are called for.
>> Outside of themselves? Nothing
So the gas molecules just accelerated for no reason whatsoever? Surely you jest.
SteveK said.. October 16, 2017 7:35 PM.
>> Outside of themselves? Nothing
" So the gas molecules just accelerated for no reason whatsoever? Surely you jest."
--Now you are discussing a past temporal process, which is just what any reasonable person would consider.
However, Thomism is not reasonable in that respect.
By raising the issue of prior acceleration of the molecules you have left the realm of the freeze frame and are now engaged in a temporal regress analysis, which is both entirely reasonable and entirely anti-Thomistic.
@Strawdusty,
"then what is moving them?"
--Outside of themselves? Nothing.
OK, then your position is that inanimate things move themselves. This certainly is not scientific, but you could have saved us all a lot of time by just stating that inanimate objects move themselves.
If inanimate objects move themselves, then why don't they stop themselves or start to move themselves, or even change directions by themselves?
In the freeze frame where cause/effect occur, there’s a net force imbalance in the direction of the piston motion. What object is causing the force?
bmiller: "then what is moving them?"
Stadusty: "--Outside of themselves? Nothing."
bmiller: "OK, then your position is that inanimate things move themselves."
Ha.
No, that's not the position. The position is that everything that is moving (and everything is moving) is tied to a prior series of events that goes back in time all the way back to the big bang.
Your dishonesty makes you even stupider. With the regularity of a metronome. I am starting to think it must be one of the most predictable outcomes in all of psychology.
bmiller said.. October 16, 2017 7:59 PM.
@Strawdusty,
"then what is moving them?"
--Outside of themselves? Nothing.
" OK, then your position is that inanimate things move themselves. "
--My position is conservation of energy and conservation of momentum and the concept of inertia.
Once a thing is moving it continues to move without any outside contribution to its motion.
"This certainly is not scientific,"
--If you think conservation is not scientific you have never studied science.
" If inanimate objects move themselves, then why don't they stop themselves"
--That is a change to mass/energy and so calls for a changer outside the object.
" or start to move themselves,"
--That is a change to mass/energy and so calls for a changer outside the object.
" or even change directions by themselves?"
--That is a change to mass/energy (in the case of a free body) and so calls for a changer outside the object.
There is a fundamental difference between uniform motion as opposed to acceleration. If you do not understand this basic scientific fact you do not understand the very rudiments of science.
SteveK said..
October 16, 2017 9:23 PM.
" In the freeze frame where cause/effect occur, there’s a net force imbalance in the direction of the piston motion."
--No, the molecules in contact with the piston at the moment of the freeze frame are in a process of transferring kinetic energy to the piston.
Nothing is gained or lost on balance. Conservation holds.
Cal
Your statement about the past has nothing to do with present causality. There was (past) a change when the gas molecules were ignited and there is (present) a change at the moment of impact. Energy (objects) are being moved/converted/transferred and that change requires a cause. What object is causing the motion of energy conversion to occur? Gravity, perhaps?
Dusty
What object is being moved during the transferring process and what is moving it?
@Strawdusty,
There is a fundamental difference between uniform motion as opposed to acceleration. If you do not understand this basic scientific fact you do not understand the very rudiments of science.
The molecules *are* accelerating in moving the piston.
If you do not understand this basic scientific fact you do not understand the very rudiments of science.
@Strawdusty,
" In the freeze frame where cause/effect occur, there’s a net force imbalance in the direction of the piston motion."
--No, the molecules in contact with the piston at the moment of the freeze frame are in a process of transferring kinetic energy to the piston.
If there was no net force imbalance there would be no movement. Meaning no work would be done and nothing would move.
It's funny to see someone whose only exposure to physics is what he has recently googled make such bold claims.
bmiller: "It's funny to see someone whose only exposure to physics is what he has recently googled make such bold claims."
Project much?
I truly wonder what it's like being a liar.
SteveK blurted out, "I'm a mechanical engineer." and has yet to admit that he lied. Predictably, his shabby moral character (pride) prevents him from admitting his mistake and resetting. Without honesty and humility, knowledge becomes far more elusive, and stupid seems as inevitable as the sun rising each day.
You (bmiller) understand that you don't actually have a basic science education (the kind one gets at a good high school, or college, including lab work), that you regularly google scientific concepts, then come back here with some dilettantish understanding -- which gestures toward measurement and terms and concepts, but fails to take hold in your mind because you haven't taken the time and work that fundamental and basic science understanding requires.
And your poor moral character prevents you from acknowledging this fact and remedying it. Hence, you write things as stupid as, "It's funny to see someone whose only exposure to physics is what he has recently googled make such bold claims," which is as laughably stupid to those who understand basic science as stevek's silly lie that he is actually a mechanical engineer.
A new theory of mine is that shabby people (apologists) can only imagine people as stupid as they are, and that is why their lies are so obvious and pathetic.
Cal’s’ man-crush makes an incorrect statement and Cal defends his honor anyway. Awww! Such a cute couple.
stevek: "Cal’s’ man-crush makes an incorrect statement and Cal defends his honor anyway. Awww! Such a cute couple."
Stevek: "I'm a mechanical engineer."
Why should anyone listen to a liar?
I DO listen to you, Cal. Are you asking because Dusty has been ignoring you? Relationships are tough sometimes.
Stevek: "I'm a mechanical engineer."
I point out that stevek has clearly lied, and that this dishonesty is what contributes to his evident stupidity. Furthermore, stevek presently lives with the knowledge that he has lied -- that he is not a mechanical engineer, and he has yet to correct the fact that he blurted out a lie. I go on to wonder aloud what it's like to live with oneself with that knowledge, to be reminded of it, and to lack the moral character to correct an obvious lie.
Apparently, the situation makes stevek so uncomfortable that he thinks that childish taunts can divert from his sad predicament, and his moral turpitude, and his great stupidity.
Sad.
Let us know when you have a valid argument, Cal. You haven't come up with any yet so I'm not expecting it.
In the meantime, bmiller and I will be here - waiting - and reminding you that cause/effect occur in a moment simultaneity, that past events don't cause current motions, that grandfathers don't contribute some particular amount to the motion of their grandchildren and that the physics of motion involves a net force imbalance.
In other words, bmiller and I will be here to teach you about the physics of causality.
You claimed that you understood causality, but every word you speak reveals that you were bluffing. You don't really know anything about it.
@SteveK,
Don't forget that they are both not only scientifically illiterate, but actual Science™ Deniers. Oh my!
@stevek and bmiller,
I have scant hope that rational argument could cure your moral defects, the ones that contribute to your great stupidity.
My hope has been to constantly expose you for what you are -- dishonest people, cowardly, and incapable of applying diligence and rigor to your thinking.
I am pleased to see that your comments continue to serve as a warning sign to others who fear looking stupid and appearing shabby, and that the path of the apologist (the ones you embody to the utmost) is indeed a pathetic one.
The important thing, Cal, is bmiller and I have described the physics correctly, whereas you have not.
stevek: "I'm a mechanical engineer."
stevek: "The important thing, Cal, is bmiller and I have described the physics correctly, whereas you have not."
You are a liar, and you're lying makes you stupider.
Sic.
Project, project, project.
When you have a valid argument, we'll be here.
@SteveK,
When you have a valid argument, we'll be here.
We've been waiting for that since January. I'm not holding my breath.😀
Guess you can't get blood from a rock.
stevek: "When you have a valid argument, we'll be here."
bmiller: "We've been waiting for that since January. I'm not holding my breath.😀 Guess you can't get blood from a rock."
I'll be clear (again).
Dishonest people have exempted themselves from conversations about arguments. Their opinions don't matter. Only arguments matter.
The fact that you think you have somehow defended the First Way in these threads is a demonstration of your dishonesty and stupidity, and how the two are conjoined in a mix that makes each worse. Just as you two are joined.
So, try to clear yourselves from the delusion that we should care about what you think.
How it is that your poor moral character makes you stupider is, however, endlessly fascinating (and cautionary). And that is what your comments provide.
Only arguments matter, not opinions, and you haven't given us any valid arguments. If you have one, we'll be here.
Dishonest people have exempted themselves from conversations about arguments.
Yet he keeps posting anyway. How true to form.
@bmiller,
Do you think that stevek is really a mechanical engineer?
If you do, you are as stupid as I have said you are, as he speaks in ways that are incompatible with anyone who has a basic science education, let alone technical expertise based on scientific knowledge.
If you don't, you acknowledge that the person with whom you have chosen to ally is a straightforward liar.
And by insinuating that that I have been dishonest here (rather than the other way around) you make yourself appear more dishonest. And hence, stupid.
Sic.
One of us is lying here. Stevek (stevek: "I'm a mechanical engineer." or me: "No, you're not.")
How stupid and dishonest are you?
I don't wonder.
>> "One of us is lying here"
I know which one.
Let us know when you have an argument. As you know, dishonest people exempt themselves from conversations about arguments.
Me: "One of us is lying here. Stevek (stevek: "I'm a mechanical engineer." or me: "No, you're not.") "
stevek: "I know which one. "
Yes, you do.
Sad.
@Little Cal,
I've seen nothing but projection in any of your posts. Since I'm not interested in psychology I find your posts pretty boring.
Like SteveK said, let us know when you think you have a topical argument.
@bmiller
If you haven't seen it, Dusty is back peddling his nonsense here. I decided that this time I wouldn't pull any punches.
@SteveK,
I'm pretty sure that most people who follow this blog do not have a rigorous scientific background as Victor is a philosopher and discusses things particular to Christian philosophy.
Perhaps that may be why people with no scientific background are attracted and think they can regurgitate what they think *scientists* are saying without being challenged.
They end up looking pretty stupid when they end up denying accepted scientific facts such as the location of an object is a property of that object.
But hey, mistaken people are still people.
bmiller: "I've seen nothing but projection in any of your posts."
Huh.
How is, for example, my recent question to you, "projection"?
My question: "Do you think that stevek is really a mechanical engineer?"
is, well, a question.
You attempt to dodge it by, apparently, declaring that my pointing out stevek's lie could somehow be .... dishonest?
You and stevek demonstrate that dishonesty and stupidity go hand in hand.
Your comments are the best evidence we have that your dishonesty makes you both more stupid.
Only one of us can be right about this.
I know who I am, and your comments show who you are. I gather that you are not so stupid that you actually think stevek is a mechanical engineer (but maybe your dishonesty does make that you stupid -- it's little questions like that which still keep me here).
Stevek has manifestly lied, and you both remain stupid and dishonest throughout your comments above.
What a putrid stink you make, and how well you reflect all apologetics. No wonder you guys are so reviled.
Cal said he understood the physics of causality. Most people are not so stupid as to actually think Cal knows this for this simple reason: there's no evidence that he does.
The question everyone is asking is: why did Cal lie about this? We may never know why.
Cal,
If you can show us that you actually understand the physics of causality as it applies to the FW argument, I'll *consider* showing you a photo of my ME license. If I decide to do it, it will come with a handwritten note next to it so you know it's mine and not someone else's.
I'm making this offer so that you can redeem yourself, if you want to do that. It's your decision.
stevek: "If you can show us that you actually understand the physics of causality as it applies to the FW argument, I'll *consider* showing you a photo of my ME license."
Ohymgod you're so stupid and dishonest you think that mechanical engineer's get a license instead of earning a degree.
You're so stupid that you think that other's are as stupid and ignorant as you are.
You are as stupid as an apologist can be.
And that's saying something.
I’ll show you both the degree and the license, Cal.
I’m calling your bluff. Your move.
@stevek, you're obviously not a mechanical engineer. You're obviously not even employed at something like a full-time job.
Just as you are obviously stupid, and obviously dishonest.
And you are so stupid and dishonest that you think that you can hide these things from others, because you can only imagine people as stupid and dishonest as you.
By the way, if you want to tell us where you supposedly earned your Mechanical Engineering Degree, and when, in such a way that we can fact check what you say, then knock yourself out. If that's the bluff you want to make, then, sure, I'll call it.
I am certain that you won't, because virtually everything you have written here is incompatible with a basic understanding in science, let alone one that applies that knowledge in constructive ways.
Here's my prediction. You will NEVER present us with a checkable way of verifying that you have earned a mechanical engineering degree (guffaw), because you can't. And you can't, because you lied. And you lied, because you are dishonest, and so stupid that you think that others are as stupid and credulous and easy to fool as you obviously are.
You lie. And your dishonesty makes you stupider. Which is saying something.
Until you fix those things, the only purpose you can serve here is as a cautionary example of how dishonesty and ignorance are inevitably exposed, and subject those so afflicted to the ridicule and scorn they deserve. Your aura infects everything you support.
Sad.
@SteveK,
I'd advise against sharing personal information on the internet, especially with deranged people of ill intent.
The topic is the FW and Cal has shown he can't follow that argument or even any of the points raised by the other 3 people. He is desperate to change the topic, so he has become Triumph the Insult Dog.
Let him spout irrelevant nonsense. I wouldn't want someone like him to know where I work or live.
Just as I suspected. You're a proven troll.
@bmiller
I don't intend to share my personal information. Just a redacted image of my license and degree. Cal's more interested in trolling.
@SteveK,
OK, but I wouldn't do even that.
But I do have to admit I made a mistake wrt Cal and Triumph the Insult Comic Dog.
Triumph the Insult Comic Dog is actually funny when he is delivering insults. Cal the Insult Comic Troll is only funny when he is simulating making sensible arguments.
stevek: "If you can show us that you actually understand the physics of causality as it applies to the FW argument, I'll *consider* showing you a photo of my ME license."
stevek: "I’ll show you both the degree and the license, Cal. I’m calling your bluff. Your move."
Me: "By the way, if you want to tell us where you supposedly earned your Mechanical Engineering Degree, and when, in such a way that we can fact check what you say, then knock yourself out. If that's the bluff you want to make, then, sure, I'll call it."
stevek: "I don't intend to share my personal information."
So, your promise above was just another lie.
Quelle surprise.
I should submit a paper on this or something, as clearly dishonesty makes one as reliably stupid as very low IQ.
@bmiller, do you really think that stevek is a mechanical engineer?
Are you so stupid and credulous that you think that stevek has actually earned a degree in Mechanical Engineering, and is employed as a mechanical engineer?
Or are you so proud and dishonest that you'd rather defend the words of a liar than accept that your position and beliefs are supported by the kind of ugly, shabby, and stupid comments that are the reliable product of apologetics?
Dishonest people exempt themselves from conversations about arguments.
stevek: "Dishonest people exempt themselves from conversations about arguments."
Agreed.
That's why I moved past trying to argue with you a long time ago -- you are obviously just a liar. And I don't expect a liar to honestly confront the fact that he's a liar, nor to acknowledge its effects. But that doesn't require me to pretend with you -- to pretend that the opinion of an obviously dishonest person pertains to an argument in which he feels compelled to lie. I am not that stupid, nor that dishonest.
As I have mentioned before, I don't think of you (and other apologists) as intersubjective equals in a discussion with me, but more as subjects. By testing and observing how your dishonesty makes you stupider, I believe others can learn about how their own minds work (at a level that doesn't cross the threshold of pathology, but probably has bias effects), while also gaining insights into ways to thwart and mitigate the problems that ensue from your pathologically damaging character.
Your dishonesty and stupidity are a growing problem in a world like ours, and the most responsible thing I can think of doing is trying to better understand how to isolate and mitigate the deleterious effects you bring into our environment.
Sadly, you know what a liar you are. And the fact that you don't care is beyond my powers to fix, but that doesn't mean that I can't expose and ridicule you for the shabby little creature you are.
To do otherwise would be a kind of dishonesty on my part.
@Little Cal,
Your rants are as irrelevant irrational as usual.
I have no reason to think that SteveK is lying. But I do have reasons to think that you have lied.
Neither of those facts are relevant to the topic of the FW and what makes it a valid argument.
I take your continued irrelevant rants as final proof you have no rational arguments.
@Little Cal,
That's why I moved past trying to argue with you a long time ago
Yes, we all noticed that you've never tried to argue rationally.
Me: "Cal is a dishonest person who exempts himself from conversations about arguments"
Cal: "Agreed"
" stevek: "I don't intend to share my personal information."
--You said you would, but how?
I mean, above you said you would show the BSME and the PE (or whatever) but I don't see a way to upload a picture to this blog. What did you have in mind to actually show these items?
bmiller: "I have no reason to think that SteveK is lying. But I do have reasons to think that you have lied."
Then you have declared yourself obviously stupid and credulous -- which is what you would need to be in order to think that stevek did not, in fact, like when he blurted out the laughable, "I'm a mechanical engineer."
bmiller: "Neither of those facts are relevant to the topic of the FW and what makes it a valid argument."
Any discussion over arguments depends on honesty; if apologists can't be held to basic standards of honesty, then that fact is entirely relevant to their being incapable of contributing to a discussion over an argument.
Honesty is a requirement of discussion. Without it there can be no discussion.
Which is why apologists are incapable of real discussion on those topic in which they pretend to argue.
This should be obvious. But your dishonesty makes you so stupid you have to pretend that what is obvious is somehow hidden from you.
Hence, your dishonesty propels you to even further depths of stupidity.
Sic.
For the rational people who want to logically discuss the merits/problems of the FW argument, please stay here and offer logically valid comments relevant to the argument itself.
For the others, like Cal, who have an strong affinity for logical fallacies such as the ad hominem fallacy and the genetic fallacy - please go to this forum to discuss that. This isn't the forum for you.
stevek: "For the rational people who want to logically discuss the merits/problems of the FW argument, please stay here and offer logically valid comments relevant to the argument itself."
You don't run this blog, and your a liar. Why would anyone want to discuss anything with you?
stevek: "For the others, like Cal, who have an strong affinity for logical fallacies such as the ad hominem fallacy and the genetic fallacy - please go to this forum to discuss that. This isn't the forum for you."
No forum is the forum for you, because forums are for people who want to discuss ideas honestly.
And you are a liar.
@Little Cal and Stawdusty,
Then you have declared yourself obviously stupid and credulous
I've posted the reasons I consider both you and Strawdusty dishonest. So I am not credulous.
My assessment is that you did not pass physics in high school if you even took it, and I'm sure that Strawdusty's story is similar.
Both of you want to appear to know what you are talking about wrt science, but it is obvious that you do not. That is dishonesty.
That neither of you are competent in the area of science or philosophy, which is the gist of the FW, is obvious. Otherwise you would argue on those principles and provide evidence rather than ad hominem (which you would know is a logical fallacy if you understood logic, but I digress).
So to summarize:
1) Neither of you are honest interlocutors
2) Neither of you are competent in the area of science
3) Neither of you are competent in the area of logic or philosophy
4) Neither of you provide any relevant evidence for any of your claims.
So when I hear these people make even more unsubstantiated claims I simply don't believe them.
The topic is the First Way.
Do either of you have anything to say relevant to the topic?
I didn't think so.
Guess you admit defeat on the topic. About time.
Yup. Cal only has logical fallacies to offer. That is a rationally defeated person.
If you go back to when Cal wasn't obsessed with logical fallacies, here is what you find. As you can see, there's nothing there.
Me: "The FW argument doesn’t require a specific list."
Cal: “If the First Way doesn't describe a specific list of real events then the First Way fails on soundness.”
Invalid criticism. Nowhere does the soundness of the argument depend on this. Asserted without argument.
Cal: “The "logic" of the First Way fail on because it is circular (an endless regression is impossible because an endless regression is impossible). “
Invalid criticism. Circular arguments start by assuming the conclusion. The FW does not do this.
Cal: “But it also fails in that the argument actually does to purport to describe reality”
Invalid criticism. Asserted without argument or evidence.
Cal: “Repeat after me: no freeze frame can reveal motion. “
Invalid criticism. If no motion has occurred then the FW doesn’t apply. The point of the freeze frame idea was to get Dusty to focus on essential objects rather than time.
Cal: “The position is that everything that is moving (and everything is moving) is tied to a prior series of events that goes back in time all the way back to the big bang.”
Invalid criticism. Causality involves existing objects. Non-existing objects do not cause existing object to move.
bmiller: "My assessment is that you did not pass physics in high school if you even took it, and I'm sure that Strawdusty's story is similar."
Along with your assessment that stevek is actually a mechanical engineer (guffaw), your assessment above lends more credence to my theory about how stupid your dishonesty makes you.
You are literally blinded by your poor moral character. Your stupidity would be pitiable were it derived from ignorance or neglect, but in your case you only deserve scorn, because your stupidity is a product of your loathsome character.
stevek knows that he is not a mechanical engineer, and yet he persists in lying about it.
You know that you haven't taken a real science class (at a good high school, or university, with lab work) -- my guess is that you were probably home-schooled at some point. And yet you continue to dishonestly pretend that you have this basic science background that you so clearly lack.
Instead of realizing how deficient your educations have made you, you persist in lying and failing to take the steps to rise from your stupidity.
Instead of realizing that your lies are obvious to those of us who are better educated and not made stupid by a blinding dishonesty, you make yourself seem even more transparently shabby by declaring what is so obviously false.
What's strangest to me is that even though you both know the truth about yourselves (that you are dishonest here), I wonder why you haven't realized that the other with whom you have allied is telling the same kind of whoppers about themselves.
And what does it say about how stupid your dishonesty has made you both that you're the only ones who can't see what's so obvious to the rest of us -- those of us who are smarter than you, better educated than you, and not steeped in moral failings can so easily identify your lies?
stevek: "If you go back... cause existing object to move."
Blah blah.
Dishonest people forfeit the civility in which discussions are held.
And you persist in lying above (misrepresenting arguments and positions, etc.), and most glaringly refusing to acknowledge and correct the obvious lie you told when you somehow felt compelled to blurt out, "I'm a mechanical engineer."
If you lack the moral strength to discuss topics without resorting to lying, then no one else is obligated to treat your comments with anything more than ridicule.
stevek is a liar.
stevek is a liar because he blurted out, "I'm a mechanical engineer," when so many of his comments betray the fact that he lacks a basic understanding of science and physics, let alone the rigorous applied training required to become a mechanical engineer.
The logical fallacies continue to flow from the defeated irrational mind of Cal Metzger
Ad hominem fallacy
Genetic fallacy
The FW argument remains unscathed.
stevek: "The logical fallacies continue to flow from the defeated irrational mind of Cal Metzger / Ad hominem fallacy
Genetic fallacy / The FW argument remains unscathed."
Fallacies relate to arguments.
My comments relate to your poor moral character and your (related) stupidity, and how your dishonesty prevents you from contributing to a discussion on a topic.
Your comments are reliably stupid.
And my comments explain why.
Sic.
@SteveK,
What's strangest to me is that even though you both know the truth about yourselves (that you are dishonest here),
I forgot to inlcude pathological projection in my assessment of Little Cal. This is a perfect example from the trove he presented us with.
I always figured he was merely trolling, but he's given up all pretense now. I think he finally lost all touch with reality.
I highly recommend you do not let people like this know any of your personal details.
bmiller: "I forgot to inlcude pathological projection in my assessment of Little Cal."
stevek said he is a mechanical engineer, and I called him on it.
Only one of us can be right.
You have asserted that you have a better grasp of science and physics that Stardusty and myself (guffaw), and I have offered as best explanation for your stupidity here that you don't seem to have even taken a real science class (at a good high school, or university, with lab work) -- my guess is that you were probably home-schooled at some point.
Only one of us can be right.
You mimic my earlier observation that both of you evidenced psychological projection in your accusations here, but my observations above would only be projection were I the one who falsely claimed to be formally educated in ways that I am not.
stevek knows that he is not a mechanical engineer. He lies, and you are so stupid that you have expressed belief in his ludicrous claim.
You know that you haven't completed a real science class (at a good high school, or university, with lab work), or that you were probably home-schooled at some point, and yet you believe that that your comments here indicate otherwise.
You are both intellectual jokes, literally made more stupid by your dishonesty.
You both are a caution to all who want to someday contribute to discussions about ideas, and reality; be humble, check your pride, apply consistency to your thinking, and above all, swear off dishonesty in all its forms.
Without that, the outcome is a kind of obvious stupidity.
In summary:
There is no evidence that Cal or Dusty have successfully shown the FW argument to be an unsound or invalid argument.
There is no evidence that modern science has shown that the FW argument is false. To the contrary, modern science is consistent with the FW argument at every step.
The many logical fallacies and assertions that have been offered by Cal and Dusty do nothing to undermine the argument.
@SteveK,
There is no evidence that Cal or Dusty have successfully shown the FW argument to be an unsound or invalid argument.
Yep. I'd add that there is no evidence that either of them even understand the argument after almost a year.
Guess I originally set my expectations too high.
@bmiller
I went back and read through several of Cal’s criticisms and there’s nothing there that is valid. Most are asserted to be valid without argument or evidence. Anyone can do that. I might post a few of them just for giggles.
Below are a couple of beauties from January 23
Cal is unaware that reading comprehension is a prerequisite requirement to understanding the FW argument.
Cal:
“Objection: If god had been motionless and then moved then god moved itself, which is irrational, and a violation per Aquinas.
The violation can maybe be seen more clearly in: “(2) f. It is therefore impossible that, in the same way and same sense, a thing is moving and is moved, or in other words, that it moves itself.”
Objection: If god has always been in motion then that is the very infinite regress Aquinas denies, owing to the irrationality of an infinite regress of motion.
The violation: “(4) But this [chain of movers and moved] cannot proceed to infinity:
The premises are clear: something cannot move itself, and an infinite regress is impossible. Thus, the conclusion of the First Mover has to violate one of the premises presented in the argument itself. All that the "argument" does is present an ancient existential riddle and "solve" it by violating one its premises and stating the mystery has somehow been resolved by irrationality? Seriously?
How many times and in how many ways does the same objection need to be stated in order for you to see it?
stevek: "In summary... the argument."
You have been shown to be dishonest as you try to inflict your opinion on this discussion.
If you cannot approach a topic honestly not only is your opinion meaningless, but as I have shown it is also reliably more stupid. Your comment that begins and ends with the portions I quoted is another example of this stupidity.
Dishonesty = Greater Stupidity.
In your case, this establishes (per your comments) an unusually low floor.
You claimed that you are a mechanical engineer (guffaw). You are clearly not a mechanical engineer. You fail to admit to your lie, and as I have explained, your moral failings (dishonesty, and pride) make you as reliably stupid as your recent comments demonstrate.
You are a caution to all who would consider apologetics, and a demonstration that choosing this path (which requires dishonesty) makes one more obviously stupid.
stevek: "I went back and read through several of Cal’s criticisms and there’s nothing there that is valid."
stevek: "I'm a mechanical engineer."
Why should anyone care about your (mistaken) opinion when you obviously lie?
stevek: "Most are asserted to be valid without argument or evidence. Anyone can do that. I might post a few of them just for giggles."
stevek: "I'm a mechanical engineer."
Why should anyone care about your (mistaken) opinion when you obviously lie?
@SteveK,
I went back and read through several of Cal’s criticisms and there’s nothing there that is valid. Most are asserted to be valid without argument or evidence. Anyone can do that. I might post a few of them just for giggles.
How about when he actually tried to back up one of those assertions and ended up denying Science™. Location is not a property of an object....hee hee!
@Little Cal,
Why should anyone care about your (mistaken) opinion when you obviously lie?
Good point. Now you know why no one pays attention to your litany of false assertions.
It's going to be fun reliving the past 10 months. There's so much good material there.
In this comment from January 25, we see Cal continuing to embrace his ignorance of the FW argument. Ahh, good times!
----------------
Cal:
grod: "But more importantly, how do you go from "All things change" to "all things that cause change must themselves be changed"? These are two distinct claims, so enlighten me, please."
Since you seem to object to the linked article's interpretation of Aquinas's words I will use a different translation of the argument.
Aquinas: "For motion is nothing else than the reduction of something from potentiality to actuality."
Motion is a kind of change.
Aquinas: "But nothing can be reduced from potentiality to actuality, except by something in a state of actuality."
And nothing can change except by something that is moving.
Aquinas: "Thus that which is actually hot, as fire, makes wood, which is potentially hot, to be actually hot, and thereby moves and changes it."
A moving thing (which is a kind of change) is what moves (changes) another thing.
Aquinas; "Now it is not possible that the same thing should be at once in actuality and potentiality in the same respect, but only in different respects."
Not moving (not changing) and moving (changing) are incompatible. Therefore, the only way that a mover can move something is if it is moving (changing) itself.
Seems like a pretty straightforward reading to me. I hope that you are now enlightened.
@SteveK,
Thanks for that. How many months did the clown duo insist they *knew* the meaning of the terms Aquinas used better than Aquinas.
What a hoot!
bmiller: "Thanks for that. How many months did the clown duo insist they *knew* the meaning of the terms Aquinas used better than Aquinas. / What a hoot!"
Yet another example of your dishonesty making you stupider.
Nowhere have we claimed to know the meaning of terms used better than Aquinas. In fact, it is the apologists here who routinely pose as supreme and unquestioned diviners of Aquinas's intent. (As if.)
No, we have shown that the terms used in the First Way are so muddled as to be constraining or useless (only real things move real things), and that applying strict definitions to the terms renders the argument incoherent, unsound, and/or contradictory.
The above summation is obvious from perusing the comments preceding.
Yet another example of your dishonesty making you stupider.
@Stevek, thanks for re-publishing my comments. I wish that you were smart enough and honest enough to understand them, but anyone can see that you are not.
Just as anyone can see that you are not a mechanical engineer, despite your laughable prior claim that you are one.
Here's today's 'LOL moment' taken from January 26. Per usual, Cal projects HIS ignorance onto everyone when he finishes with "I don't think anyone knows what Aristole means".
-------------------
Cal:
Me: “”And nothing can change except by something that is moving.""
Grod: "Aristotle never asserted that (the First Way is taken by St. Thomas from Aristotle). St. Thomas never asserted that, neither it follows from anything that Aristotle or St. Thomas asserted. "
More nonsense. I already showed how it follows from Aquinas’s silly argument.
Aquinas: "For motion is nothing else than the reduction of something from potentiality to actuality."
As Aquinas indicates, he defined motion as a kind of change. It is, to use the awkward terminology of the argument, a reduction FROM potentiality TO actuality.
Aquinas: "But nothing can be reduced from potentiality to actuality, except by something in a state of actuality."
So, only an actual (as opposed to potential) thing can make something move (change). I am using the term “move” in both senses — the one that Aquinas uses (a reduction FROM potentiality TO actuality, or change), of being actual, but also in the more modern, physical sense as well; if something CHANGES its position, for instance, then Aquinas and I would be using the term in near identical ways about the something’s motion (ugh — is it any wonder that we have abandoned these fuzzy terms?).
So, more nonsense from you — it not only DOES follow that Aquinas argues that nothing can change except by something that is in motion (is moving, as I describe above), but I don’t see any other way to read the premises that he sets up.
———
Grod: “But from "it is not possible to be in potency and act, in the same respect and at the same time" and the principle of causality, it does not follow that "the only way that a mover can move something is if it is moving". Not here, not in China, not anywhere where reason and logic are used in a sound manner.”
Well, if something hasn’t undergone a change, isn’t actual, or hasn’t changed position, then I don’t think anyone knows what Aristotle means when he sets out: “But nothing can be reduced from potentiality to actuality [be in motion], except by something in a state of actuality.”
Cal:"thanks for re-publishing my comments."
This is one time I have to agree with Cal. Thanks.
It's not only funny to recall the clueless comments, but also to see that the cluelessness is still in full swing.
As well as his projection as you pointed out his "then I don’t think anyone knows what Aristotle means". Great illustration!
Thanks again for republishing more of my comments. I mean that sincerely -- it's actually surprising to see a fuller representation of what I've written, instead of the much more typical few-word blurb, without context, followed by a typically stupid conclusion.
In these discussions, stevek blurted out, "I'm a mechanical engineer," apparently because he thought it would lend weight to what he thought. But as I have pointed out, and the comments from apologists make clear, dishonesty inevitably makes one stupider.
And just as bmiller excises 9 words from my longer quote directly above, in context, as if those 9 words represent my criticism (directly above). The failure of bmiller to see how easily his misrepresentation (dishonesty) is revealed (by reading my fuller argument just directly above) is yet another example of how dishonesty makes one evens stupider. Dishonesty, apparently, is as stultifying as a head injury, heavy drink, or indiscipline.
There is no understanding without honesty. And that is why stevek and bmiller fail to recognize the obvious ways in which the First Way violates the rules of good argument, and that is why they fail to see the ways in which my comments elucidate around those violations.
Sad.
The laughs continue. Cal doesn't know how ignorant he is and grodrigues is helping him to see this so that he might make valid criticisms. Approx 10 months later, little has changed as Cal continues to rely on invalid criticisms. This is from January 27
--------
grodrigues:
"@Cal Metzger:
"To some extent I agree with you here; the First Way doesn’t seem to understand that motion in the present is inextricably linked to motion in the past, and to beginnings in the very distant past — in fact, he seems to be ignorant of what we understand today about the origins of our universe. I wonder if that could be related to the fact that he was playing with an ancient argument, in a time when he didn’t even have access to Newtonian physics."
And this is why you are a moron. I have just said that you are egregiously misunderstanding the First Way and yet here you repeat your misunderstanding, and present it as some deep "wondering". Pause for a chuckle at your expense. Whether motion in the present is inextricably linked to the past, and thus to the origins, is a very plausible notion held by a number of philosophers way before Newton formulated his theories. It is also totally and completely irrelevant to the First Way.
Newton of course, thought there had to be a First Mover that set things in motion, but whether he was right or not, the fact is that Newton's First Mover has nothing to do with how St. Thomas, after Aristotle, understands the First Mover. Nothing at all. Simply because St. Thomas is not concerned with who or what set things in motion but with the causes of motion as such."
@stevek, you are so stupid (made more stupid by your dishonesty, which has compelled you to lie about being a mechanical engineer, and now compels you to search about for things you still don't understand and that you somehow (stupidly) imagine recover your lost pride) that you think the quote below represents a coherent rebuttal to the the simple, irrefutable fact that ALL series are accidental (sequenced over time):
grod: "Simply because St. Thomas is not concerned with who or WHAT set things in motion but with the CAUSES of motion as such."
Ha.
You are so stupid that you don't understand the rules of argument (that arguments must be sound), and that because all series occur over time (no sequence is simultaneous), then a First Way that imagines an essential series (as Grod does above) fails to abide by the rules of good argument and MUST be considered a bad (failed) argument.
Your dishonesty has formed a tiny, tiny little wall that your even smaller mind cannot see over.
It's as obvious to the rest of us as watching a rodent repeat its course back and forth though a maze.
Sad.
SteveK:Cal continues to rely on invalid criticisms.
As we can tell from his responses to this day, nothing has changed. 90% of his posts are projections of his own disorders and the other 10% indicate his lack of understanding.
I really get a good laugh when he both projects and indicates his dimness at the same time, such as here:
You are so stupid that you don't understand the rules of argument
Using a fallacious ad hominem attack in which he projects his stupidity onto others in the course of maintaining he understands the "rules of argument". It's kind of a irony 3-fer 🙃
Like I said:
It's not only funny to recall the clueless comments, but also to see that the cluelessness is still in full swing.
@bmiller,
You are so dishonest that your assessment is laughable.
bmiller: "I really get a good laugh when he both projects and indicates his dimness at the same time, such as here:
You are so stupid that you don't understand the rules of argument"
1. The rules of argument are readily available through a number of sources -- online, in books, through discussion, etc.
2. The rules of argument are relatively simple and easy to apply -- they are things like use sound premises and the rules of logic, remain consistent, avoid contradiction, circular reasoning, and the known fallacies, etc.
The First Way obviously violates the rules of good argument in a number of ways, as explicated here (seemingly endlessly) by Stardusty and myself.
The only way that someone could consider the First Way a good argument is if they remained stupid -- and as I have suggested, there is the kind of dullness of mind which makes one stupid, and there are also apparently moral failings (chiefly dishonesty, hypocrisy, narcissism, and pride) that can make anyone stupider.
While it seems that intelligence is largely an endowment of genetics (albeit partly offset by access to a good education), moral failings should be easier to fix.
The problem with you and stevek isn't so much the extent that you may be inherently stupid (and poorly educated, as you both obviously are with regard to science, etc).
The problem with you and stevek is that you both obviously present poor moral character -- you are both reliably dishonest, hypocritical, proud, and narcissistic -- and that these moral failings make you both more stupid and predictable. For instance, I predict that neither of you will be able to recognize the obvious failings explicated here with regard to the First Way -- not because these problems are not obvious (they are so obvious that enlightened thinkers have esteemed it such for centuries, and no one who contributes to meaningful intellectual progress today refers to or bases their endeavors on the First Way or AT physics).
Shabby people (you and Stevek are both shabby people) are predictable bores, and burdens on the rest of us. Your assessment of arguments are meaningless because you are both reliably dishonest, hypocritical, proud and narcissistic, and these moral failings confine you like rodents trapped in a maze whose layout is visible to the rest of us but hidden from you.
Why you prefer being trapped in a maze over fixing your moral failings is a question that only you can answer. To the rest of us, your choices just seem stupid.
@Little Cal,
1. The rules of argument are readily available through a number of sources -- online, in books, through discussion, etc.
2. The rules of argument are relatively simple and easy to apply -- they are things like use sound premises and the rules of logic, remain consistent, avoid contradiction, circular reasoning, and the known fallacies, etc.
Then why don't you read them, understand them and practice them. It's clear that you either didn't read them, didn't understand them or if did those 2 things that you are not inclined to practice them by the remainder of your little rant. Not a thing relevant to the topic.
Since it's obvious that you feel a constant urge to project, you must have deep anxiety that others think you are stupid, uneducated and a liar. Such inward myopic focus on oneself and one's failings is characteristic of narcissism so it's no wonder that you project that on others also.
It's also very interesting, now that it is clear you are projecting, that you use the analogy of a mouse in a maze. This must be how you see yourself trying to follow the conversation as topics such as physics, math, metaphysics and philosophy are being discussed. It's all beyond your grasp and you can't find your way. It must be very frustrating for you.
@bmiller
Dusty is now widely known to be a troll over at Feser’s blog. See the first comments and then scroll down to see Dusty wave his arms around trying to get noticed. Everyone ignores him, LOL
Dusty’s reputation as an ignorant troll looks to have been cemented here
@SteveK,
Yes, I always check out Feser's blog. One of the best on the web.
It attracts a pretty philosophically educated crowd, so they lose patience quickly when it becomes obvious that someone is interested only in slinging assertions and not in understanding and interacting with counter arguments.
Only newbies engage with him over there and then quickly find out why the others warned against it.
Is this blog and Feser's the only ones that haven't banned him?
It's kind of funny that even atheists can't put up with him while 2 Christian philosophy sites allow him to post.
bmiller: "Then why don't you read [the rules of argument], understand them and practice them. It's clear that you either didn't read them, didn't understand them or if did those 2 things that you are not inclined to practice them by the remainder of your little rant. Not a thing relevant to the topic."
The rules of good argument excludes begging the question -- assuming what the argument sets out to demonstrate.
How does the First Way demonstrate that an infinite regress of movers is impossible -- without begging the question, what is the actual argument for an infinite regress of movers being impossible?
The fact that you don't have a good answer to the simple question above is the most obvious example that:
1. You don't understand the rules of argument (that they apply, without exception, to good arguments), and
2. You don't understand the First Way (which begs the question about the necessity for a First Mover).
The above is entirely obvious. There is no complexity or subtlety to it.
It is so obvious that only one who is profoundly stupid, profoundly dishonest, or both (as I have explained) could deny it.
That is why you are so obviously stupid, in a way that is pathetic, to the rest of us. That is why your assessment of an argument, and our replies to it, is meaningless to the rest of us.
Dishonest people have nothing to add to an argument.
You are dishonest.
stevek: "Dusty’s reputation as an ignorant troll looks to have been cemented here."
Thanks for the link!
Your link demonstrates, yet again, how your dishonesty makes you profoundly stupid, and how your dishonesty puts you at odds with reality in a way that is reliable and predictable.
Sad.
bmiller: "Yes, I always check out Feser's blog. One of the best on the web."
You are so dishonest that your ability to assess reality is reliably stupid, which explains the comment above.
bmiller: "It attracts a pretty philosophically educated crowd, so they lose patience quickly when it becomes obvious that someone is interested only in slinging assertions and not in understanding and interacting with counter arguments."
You are so dishonest that your ability to assess reality is reliably stupid, which explains the comment above.
bmiller: "Only newbies engage with him over there and then quickly find out why the others warned against it."
You are so dishonest that your ability to assess reality is reliably stupid, which explains the comment above.
bmiller: "Is this blog and Feser's the only ones that haven't banned him? It's kind of funny that even atheists can't put up with him while 2 Christian philosophy sites allow him to post."
You are so dishonest that your ability to assess reality is reliably stupid, which explains the comment above.
Not only do dishonest people have nothing to add to an argument, but the value they could offer (intersubjective assessments) appears equally valueless.
Sad.
bmiller: "Since it's obvious that you feel a constant urge to project, you must have deep anxiety that others think you are stupid, uneducated and a liar. Such inward myopic focus on oneself and one's failings is characteristic of narcissism so it's no wonder that you project that on others also."
Stevek said he is a mechanical engineer, and he obviously is not. Stevek is a liar.
How is it projection for me to point out that stevek lies, when stevek lies? (You don't understand projection.)
You said you have no reason to not believe that stevek lied about being a mechanical engineer, when only a stupid person could be fooled into believing that stevek's writing is compatible with someone who has the scientific understanding required of a mechanical engineer.
How is it projection for me to point out that it's stupid of you to be fooled by stevek? (You don't understand projection._
bmiller: "It's also very interesting, now that it is clear you are projecting..."
You are dishonest and you don't understand projection (see above).
bmiller: "This must be how you see yourself trying to follow the conversation as topics such as physics, math, metaphysics and philosophy are being discussed. It's all beyond your grasp and you can't find your way. It must be very frustrating for you."
You know that you don't have a basic science education, as I have explained before. Just as stevek knows that he is not actually a mechanical engineer.
The theory of projection explains that you will feel discomfort over this dissonance (you will know that you are being dishonest, and that dishonesty is a moral failing), and you will project this dishonesty onto another (me) rather than acknowledge your dishonesty and amend it.
It is impossible for me to project stevek's lie about himself (that he is a mechanical engineer) from me onto him, because he is the one who told the lie.
It is impossible for me to project your stupidity about stevek's lie about himself (that he is a mechanical engineer) from me onto you, because you are the one who is being stupid.
And that is yet another example of how dishonesty makes you even stupider than already are, and why apologists are such an obvious embarrassment to the rest of us.
Cal Metzger said...
"Stevek said he is a mechanical engineer, and he obviously is not. Stevek is a liar"
We've got another one:
http://dangerousidea.blogspot.com/2017/10/why-modern-physics-does-not-refute.html
October 29, 2017 9:38 AM
Interesting that bmiller gave you the Feser link to the Prager show. Of course, A-T says a first changer is needed to account for continued material existence. Without this first changer material would just blink out into nothingness.
So, under A-T continued existence, which is no change, requires a changer.
Annihilation of existence, which is a change, would happen absent any changer.
I am finding that the level of shrill personal attack, diversions, willful blindness, and lies coming from theists has reached something of a crescendo as I illuminate this incontrovertibly false A-t concept.
As long as there are enough variables and long winded arguments available to play an endless game of verbal whack-a-mole the attacks simmer, but faced with a simple and inescapable exposition of the falsity of their cherished worldview their heads either explode or get buried in the sand.
It's not pretty.
Stardusty: "I am finding that the level of shrill personal attack...coming from theists"
Personal attacks are always fine when one's own side is engaged in them, or so it seems. Sometimes the entirety of a poster's contributions consists of nothing but personal attacks, and they do not get called out by their ideological allies. Interesting, is it not?
Does A-T hold that matter and energy would vanish per the First Mover argument if said First Mover was not actively sustaining them? This is a question for bmiller and SteveK.
Legion: "Personal attacks are always fine when one's own side is engaged in them, or so it seems."
I agree it sometimes seems this way.
Legion: "Sometimes the entirety of a poster's contributions consists of nothing but personal attacks, and they do not get called out by their ideological allies. Interesting, is it not?"
Why should anyone be called out for recognizing a lie?
Stevek lied about being a mechanical engineer. Is it a personal attack to point this out, and to observe other instances of dishonesty that best explain comments?
Do you think that pointing out dishonesty is a personal attack?
If you catch someone stealing from you and announce what has happened, have you personally attacked them?
Cal: "Do you think that pointing out dishonesty is a personal attack?"
I have no idea how the mechanical engineer thing originated, nor the points supporting the contention that he lied about it, so I can't make a judgment call on it. If SteveK lied, then there is nothing wrong with pointing out that he lied. I do question the usefulness of "SteveK lied about being a mechanical engineer" as a response to everything, but if your goal is to prompt some sort of either admission of lying or proof that he wasn't lying, then I suppose yours is perhaps the only viable path. I don't think online discussions really lend themselves to the latter, since SteveK would have to give out personal information to vindicate himself, and most sane people are leery of doing this.
I also suspect that, regardless of whether he lied or not, he probably doesn't care about your opinion of him as a person, which further adds to the futility.
Hit publish too quickly.
While an accusation of dishonesty in the face of perceived dishonesty is not a personal attack per se, we might be able to agree that calling someone stupid repeatedly, well it kind of is.
Legion
Rational people know that a persons education and character are irrelevant to the logic of the FW argument. As far as the argument is concerned, I don’t care what Cal’s opinion is of me. I only care that Cal hasn’t shown the FW argument to be unsound or invalid or in opposition to modern science.
If Cal actually did that it would be obvious, and he could show us - but it’s not obvious, and he cannot show us. That’s all anyone needs to know.
Cal: "Do you think that pointing out dishonesty is a personal attack?"
Legion: "I have no idea how the mechanical engineer thing originated, nor the points supporting the contention that he lied about it, so I can't make a judgment call on it."
I didn't ask you to make a judgment call on it. I asked if you think that pointing out dishonesty is a personal attack. Do you?
Legion: "I do question the usefulness of "SteveK lied about being a mechanical engineer" as a response to everything, but if your goal is to prompt some sort of either admission of lying or proof that he wasn't lying, then I suppose yours is perhaps the only viable path."
As I have pointed out upthread, honesty is sine qua non of discussion. When a participant in a discussion resorts to dishonesty in that discussion, their participation becomes meaningless. Do you disagree?
Legion: "I don't think online discussions really lend themselves to the latter, since SteveK would have to give out personal information to vindicate himself, and most sane people are leery of doing this."
stevek is the one who (disingenuously) offered to provide some sort of proof that he is actually a mechanical engineer. This after he lied about being a mechanical engineer. I think stevek's sanity may be questionable, but the fact that he is dishonest in this discussion is not. And, as I have pointed out, dishonesty destroys one's ability to participate in a discussion (which depends on intersubjectivity, which demands honesty).
Legion: "I also suspect that, regardless of whether he lied or not, he probably doesn't care about your opinion of him as a person, which further adds to the futility."
You're wrong about that. Stevek is an apologists. Apologists are primarily concerned with being considered smart, and if it can be shown that an apologist has made a stupid determination (that a lie, told to assert his authority in a matter in which he had little actual knowledge, would not be unexposed as a lie), then stevek is revealed to be a dishonest person -- and this dishonesty will reveal that so much of what he has also argued for is also a sham.
Stevek fears being exposed -- he cares deeply, in fact more than almost anything, that he be considered smart -- and so he will continue to evade the issue that he lied, in order to attempt to assert his authority, in a matter in which he had little actual knowledge.
What is most sad is that stevek knows the truth. Stevek knows that he is not actually a mechanical engineer, and that he unequivocally lied when he said he was one.
What is ironic is that in the process of telling such an obvious lie, stevek has revealed himself to be the one thing that he most fears being described as -- stupid.
And what is cautionary is that the only way to be considered smart is to honestly acknowledge all the ways in which we have been and continue to be stupid, and correct them.
And it is stevek's poor moral character that thus prevents him from being what most wants to be.
Sic.
Legion: "While an accusation of dishonesty in the face of perceived dishonesty is not a personal attack per se, we might be able to agree that calling someone stupid repeatedly, well it kind of is."
If being dishonest makes one stupid, is it a personal attack to point out that one's stupidity is directly related to one's inability to be honest?
If dishonesty were laudable, then pointing out dishonesty would be a compliment. But it's not. So, hands are kind of tied here.
stevek: "Rational people know that a persons education and character are irrelevant to the logic of the FW argument."
Agreed. Which is why you're lying about being a mechanical engineer, in a pathetic attempt to gain authority for your argument, was such an obviously stupid thing to do.
stevek: "As far as the argument is concerned, I don’t care what Cal’s opinion is of me."
Sure you don't. My opinion of you is written here, and my opinion influences what others think of you.
And you sure do care what others here think of you. And I have pointed out that you are a liar, which means you are a sham.
stevek: "I only care that Cal hasn’t shown the FW argument to be unsound or invalid or in opposition to modern science. If Cal actually did that it would be obvious, and he could show us - but it’s not obvious, and he cannot show us. That’s all anyone needs to know."
As I have pointed out so many times, you are dishonest, and your dishonesty alone makes your assessment in a discussion meaningless. Discussions depend completely on honesty, because discussions are necessarily intersubjective.
Why don't you admit what you know, and is so obvious to the rest of us who have just a basic background in science? That you lied about being a mechanical engineer, in a pathetic attempt to gain authority for your argument.
I know why.
Blogger Legion of Logic said.. October 29, 2017 12:14 PM.
" Does A-T hold that matter and energy would vanish per the First Mover argument if said First Mover was not actively sustaining them? This is a question for bmiller and SteveK."
--This seems to have gotten lost in the "stupid is as stupid does" debate. But, being the helpful guy I am I will provide an entertaining video of the good Dr. Edward Feser that addresses this question clearly. You're welcome :-)
(timestamps)
12:10
19:20
Can You Prove God Exists? —Dr. Edward Feser
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hi9cQHHyjg
@Legion,
Does A-T hold that matter and energy would vanish per the First Mover argument if said First Mover was not actively sustaining them? This is a question for bmiller and SteveK.
The short answer is yes.
The longer answer is that all materially existent things are a combination of form and matter. Things come to be when form is instantiated in matter and cease to be when when form and matter separate. In between the termini of coming to be and ceasing to be, the material existing thing remains in existence by virtue of what keeps form and matter together.
So when Ed Feser explains that *poof* water would cease to exist if God were not ultimately holding it in existence, that is the bottom line metaphysical conclusion that he could summarize in a short clip. No matter what keeps an existing material thing in existence is, it cannot be it's own agent of it's own existence so there must be something else sustaining it. Just like the argument from motion, there can't be an infinite regress of these things, so ultimately there must be an existent thing that does not require something else to keep it in existence.
This has to be true not only of all existing material things, but even immaterial things. If an immaterial thing actually exists, it still exists as a combination of essence and an act of existence and so the combination must be held together by something else.
If you want to know a more detailed background behind it all you'd have to actually read Aquinas or something similar to start with.
@Legion,
If you can spare an hour, this video from Ed Feser gives a better explanation than a combox, but not as exhaustive as a book:
An Aristotelian Proof of the Existence of God
Blogger bmiller said..
October 29, 2017 6:35 PM.
" The longer answer is that all materially existent things are a combination of form and matter."
--If by "form" you mean arrangement, OK. A macro object, say a crystal, is an arrangement of molecules, which are in turn an arrangement of atoms, which are in turn an arrangement of standard model particles.
Human beings have abstracted this hierarchy of structural arrangements for analytical reasons. This hierarchy of models provides relative explanations at one level in terms of constituents at the next lower level.
These abstractions are largely static approximations of dynamic systems. The molecules, atoms, and subatomic particles are in fact always in motion. The crystal appears static on the table but is actually a dynamic system of vast complexity.
Aristotle knew none of this. He used naked eye observations to attempt to make sense of the world, and he was a genius in his day, but ultimately he failed.
It is a great mistake to set one's thinking back 2300 years in believing these Aristotelian notions.
" Things come to be when form is instantiated in matter and cease to be when when form and matter separate. In between the termini of coming to be and ceasing to be, the material existing thing remains in existence by virtue of what keeps form and matter together."
--This scenario of a thing called form, a thing called matter, and a sort of glue that brings them into existence by pulling them together is an ancient fantasy.
" No matter what keeps an existing material thing in existence is, it cannot be it's own agent of it's own existence so there must be something else sustaining it."
--The simpler explanation is that matter exists in various arrangements. If the matter and arrangement stay the same there is no call for any changer because staying the same is not a change.
For a macro object if something changes its arrangement then that is a physical causal interaction, approximated by Newton's third law.
" Just like the argument from motion, there can't be an infinite regress of these things,"
--Motion is necessarily a process over time. An infinite regress of motions is necessary an infinite temporal regress.
The notion of a series of motions regress hierarchically stems from the notion of a multibody system with zero elasticity, like pushing a row of idealized bearing balls. Motion doesn't work that way. Materials are elastic. In between gaseous materials is space. Time is required to traverse space. The Earth is surrounded by space. A regress of motions on Earth, or anyplace else, is necessarily a temporal regress with a finite number of elements in contact with each other.
" so ultimately there must be an existent thing that does not require something else to keep it in existence."
--That is matter. In the language of A-T matter is fully actualized in the respect of being matter. If I have 100 grams of water it is fully actualized as 100 grams of mass. In the next second it is still 100 grams of mass. That 100 grams of mass cannot become any more or less mass because it is fully actualized as 100 grams of mass.
" This has to be true not only of all existing material things, but even immaterial things. If an immaterial thing actually exists,"
--A big "if". To say a thing exists is to say it is material. To speak of an existent immaterial thing is oxymoronic.
BTW I have watched the Feser video in the past and it is a collection of muddled concepts with crude examples riddled with ad-hoc assertions. It is somewhat shocking that educated Americans find such "explanations" convincing.
I see a rock.
I still see a rock.
In my view the rock has not changed. So I say, ok, the rock stayed the same.
You say, oh no, the rock is being continuously changed.
I say, uhm, no, it's the same, why do you say it is being continuously changed?
You say, it could disappear at any moment.
I say, that would be a huge nuclear explosion, E=mcc.
You say, no, the energy would disappear too.
I say, really? Where would it go?
You say, it would just cease to exist.
I say, hmm, so why does the rock look like it is staying the same?
You say, because there is an invisible being, and that invisible being is acting continuously, not only on that rock, but on every planet, star, and galaxy throughout the universe, always acting by intelligent will to keep the rock and everything else from disappearing from existence.
I say, well, how about we just say that if things don't change we don't need to find a changer. Wouldn't that be more reasonable than inventing an invisible being that somehow acts to keep stuff in existence?
You say, nope, there is an invisible being continuously changing everything in just the right way so it looks like it is not changing because if the invisible being did not keep changing things to look like there was no change they would just change themselves from something to absolutely nothing. The fact they are not changing themselves from something to absolutely nothing proves there is an invisible being continuously changing them so they appear to not be changing.
I say, you have issues.
@ SDP: "That is matter. In the language of A-T matter is fully actualized in the respect of being matter."
Just a little correction: your second sentence above is not formulated in the language of A-T. Matter is by definition potentiality. What is actualized is a substance that has a certain form, or else an attribute of a substance is actualized (e.g. becomes maximally hot or whatever). With respect of being water, in A-T lingo it's the actualization of the simple body, water, which is a substance. You're not using the term "matter" the way it's used in A-T lingo.
OK, carry on.
Blogger ficino4ml said...
@ SDP: "That is matter. In the language of A-T matter is fully actualized in the respect of being matter."
" Just a little correction: your second sentence above is not formulated in the language of A-T. "
--I'm using the word "actualized".
I realize I am using differently than in ordinary A-T useage. Ordinary A-T useage of the term leads to the conclusion that an invisible being is continuously changing every bit of matter in the universe in just the right way so that appears to be an unchanged amount of matter.
That is not reasonable or necessary. That is inventing a convoluted invisible being where none is called for. Matter simply is "actualized" in the respect of its mass. No changer is called for to account for a persistent amount of matter because a persistent amount of matter is not a change.
I say
m = m
A-T says
m = m - G + G
Ok, but by that logic
m = m - x + x
With x being any wild convoluted speculation you wish to dream up, like G for example.
@ficino4ml,
Just a little correction:
Is that the only misunderstanding you see in his latest posts?
>> "I realize I am using differently than in ordinary A-T useage"
Translation: I realize I'm altering the argument that A-T is making
>> "That is not reasonable or necessary."
Under A-T it is necessary. Under your metaphysical reality, it's not. You're just telling everyone that you disagree with A-T metaphysics. Yeah, we know that.
@Strawdusty,
--If by "form" you mean arrangement,
No, that is not what *form* means. You've been *informed* of the definition multiple times. If you *form* conclusions based on the wrong assumptions you are creating a straw man.
This is the incoherency I've pointed out in your arguments before:
1. The molecules, atoms, and subatomic particles are in fact always in motion.
2. --The simpler explanation is that matter exists in various arrangements. If the matter and arrangement stay the same there is no call for any changer because staying the same is not a change.
On the one hand (1) you argue that things are continuously changing and the other hand (2) you argue that they are not. I'll let you continue to argue with yourself. Let me know which of you ended up winning the argument.
It is a great mistake to set one's thinking back 2300 years in believing these Aristotelian notions.
As I mentioned, you have the definition of form wrong, so until you get that right, you can't reach a proper conclusion.
" Just like the argument from motion, there can't be an infinite regress of these things,"
--Motion is necessarily a process over time. An infinite regress of motions is necessary an infinite temporal regress.
You seem to be able to talk about and analyze a thing that is existing at this moment by considering all of it's constituent parts down to the quantum level and realize that there cannot be an infinite number of these constituent parts. How then, can you not talk about and analyze those same components as they are moving and realize that there cannot be an infinite number of them? Just curious.
After several back-and-forth clarifications on what the FW argument is saying, Cal decides it's best to ignore those clarifications and stick to his
commonsense reading (aka strawman) - because atheism, or something. This is from January 30
-----------------
Cal:
"I'm tired of this one as well but I'll pick up where Stardusty left off as my own coda.
Although I agree with Stardusty's commonsense reading of Aquinas's First Way (basically, it takes an actually moving thing to move something), I don't think that resolving these little interpretations one way or another does much to salvage what the First Way is purported to do -- show that a deity must exist.
At its heart, the First Way still violates some version of its essential premise (that all moving things are moved by something else) to arrive at a valid conclusion:
Everything that moves is moved by something else, EXCEPT this one thing which is not. (This is separate from any quibbling over the nature of the actual thing doing the moving, etc.)
Following the violation of its essential premise, the First Way eliminates a possible conclusion (that existence is an infinite regress) not because an infinite regress violates one of the argument's premises, but because it violates the arguments conclusion ("But this [series of events] cannot go on to infinity, because then there would be no first mover...")
And after all this, we still arrive at the essential problem that an argument that is supposed to show that a deity exists merely asserts this as an ad hoc conclusion tacked onto the end.
The above are the problems that we have been pointing out consistently for many, many comments now, and no one seems to have found a way to resolve these basic problems that don't require special pleading, irrationality, etc."
Blogger bmiller said.. October 30, 2017 10:38 AM.
@Strawdusty,
--If by "form" you mean arrangement,
" No, that is not what *form* means. "
--Then the antecedent of my conditional is false. You can move along now, little bot, these aren't the droids you're looking for.
This is the incoherency I've pointed out in your arguments before:
1. The molecules, atoms, and subatomic particles are in fact always in motion.
--Yes, and motion is necessarily a temporal process. So arrangement of mass/energy is never truly static, rather, it varies temporally, not hierarchically.
2. --The simpler explanation is that matter exists in various arrangements. If the matter and arrangement stay the same there is no call for any changer because staying the same is not a change.
--This is a case of speaking in the vernacular, again using a conditional that the A-T thinker can be true. For the scientifically minded person a static model is just that, a model, an abstraction, a simplification, an approximation, employed for practical purposes of analysis and engineering.
For the A-T minded form can persist. We see this in the crude examples Feser continually employs such as a cup of water, a stick, a rock, and a book.
In the grossly oversimplified notions of the A-T thinker it makes sense that not only mass/energy but form could appear to remain the same moment to moment. That's why they are dumbfounded here
https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2017/10/five-proofs-on-patrick-coffin-show.html?showComment=1509416515851#c677262061339979687
They are flabbergasted. The thread has come to a standstill. Feser is utterly out of his depth with me. They have no rational response whatsoever to the fact that if (note the word if) mass/energy and form remain the same then there is no change and therefore no changer is called for.
This blows their minds.
They are dumbstruck. They have no clue how to respond.
They don't want to feed the troll
@Strawdusty,
--This is a case of speaking in the vernacular, again using a conditional that the A-T thinker can be true
I have no idea what you are trying say. If you are trying to say that a materially existing object's matter and form remain static during their time of existence you are wrong.
I didn't see responses to the following. Can I expect any?
On the one hand (1) you argue that things are continuously changing and the other hand (2) you argue that they are not. I'll let you continue to argue with yourself. Let me know which of you ended up winning the argument.
You seem to be able to talk about and analyze a thing that is existing at this moment by considering all of it's constituent parts down to the quantum level and realize that there cannot be an infinite number of these constituent parts. How then, can you not talk about and analyze those same components as they are moving and realize that there cannot be an infinite number of them? Just curious.
They are flabbergasted. The thread has come to a standstill. Feser is utterly out of his depth with me. They have no rational response whatsoever to the fact that if (note the word if) mass/energy and form remain the same then there is no change and therefore no changer is called for.
If they are flabbergasted at all is because you have shown no ability to read responses but then claim that no one has responded to you.
I'm not sure what existing material object you think has been or can be eternally unchanging, but the fact that you even include *energy* as something that can remain unchanged is nonsensical since energy is defined in terms of the motion of an existing material object.
They have no clue how to respond.
It's rather difficult to respond to nonsensical propositions.
Stardusty: "This blows their minds. They are dumbstruck. They have no clue how to respond."
My best guess is that in the mind of an apologist (which is, by definition, dishonest and made more stupid through that dishonesty) when people act trollishly by respondong to specific and trenchant questions by calling you a troll, then therefore (?) you are demonstrated to be a troll.
But that's not what a troll is. A troll destroys discussion that would otherwise be focused on the topic. And you have only focused on the topic, and asked specific questions that cast light on that topic. Like, for instance, why it is that apologists think that a changer is required for no change at all?
It's clear that apologists would label Socrates a troll. Which is really all you need to know about which side one should be on.
If Socrates repeatedly asked why A-T says a changer is necessary to produce no change, I'd label him a troll too.
Here we are reminded that reality does not persuade Cal. Except for scientific discovery and everyday observation, Cal sees no reason to accept that an object cannot move itself.
----------------
Cal:
"Martin: "This type of series cannot stretch to infinity because if it did, then there wouldn't be a cause to account for the effect. E.g. the clock won't run with JUST gears; it requires a motor. If the gears are infinitely long, then by definition there is no motor."
The way you've been explaining this seems unpersuasive to me; I see no reason why a series of related causes could not stretch on in an infinite progression as well.
Do you have a reference that maybe explains this in another way?"
That was from January 31
Hey, stevek -- thanks, as always, for republishing my comments. It seems obvious from how you characterize what I've written that you're entirely out of touch (as apologists must be, because dishonesty makes one stupid in ways that mere dullness cannot).
On that note, are you ever going to try and take an honest approach to discussion?
If so, when will you admit that you lied when you said you were a mechanical engineer?
If you can't be acknowledge your dishonesty, you can't correct your dishonesty. And if you can't stop being honest, there's no reason to have a discussion with you -- because discussions are inherently built in intersubjectivity, and intersubjectivity without honesty is a practice in deception, NOT discovery.
So as long as you remain steadfastly dishonest, we must recognize that you make discussions worse, and that your comments are offered in service to your weak moral character (your pride, dishonesty, and narcissism), and do not serve the purposes of a meaningful discussion.
"And if you can't stop being honest..." should have been "And if you can't stop being dishonest..."
@Little Cal,
But that's not what a troll is. A troll destroys discussion that would otherwise be focused on the topic.
I get what you mean. Like when someone can do nothing but burb insults, unsupported opinions and unsubstantiated accusations rather than offer rational topical arguments. I agree with you, that sir is a troll. 🤣
bmiller: "I get what you mean. Like when someone can do nothing but burb insults, unsupported opinions and unsubstantiated accusations rather than offer rational topical arguments. I agree with you, that sir is a troll."
I pointed out the many problems with the First Way per the OP.
The dishonesty with which apologists have routinely engaged with these criticisms (stevek, trying to assert authority on a topic in which he is obviously largely ignorant: "I am a mechanical engineer.", etc.) is apparent to anyone reading this thread, just as it is apparent that I have pointed out this persistent dishonesty, and how it explains the emptiness (stupidity) of the responses from apologists.
I see that apologists routinely attempt to misrepresent having their dishonesty identified as an abusive insult, just as you and other apologists attempt to misrepresent the likes of Stardusty and myself as trolls.
What is an abusive insult is routinely employing dishonesty in a discussion.
Like pretending that you have a basic education in science (at a good high school or college level, with lab work), that this supposed education supersedes that of Stardusty and myself (ha), and that our having identified the obvious problems in the First Way stems from anything more than the many ways in which the First Way obviously violates the rules of good argument.
You know that you don't have a basic education in science, just as stevek knows that he is not really a mechanical engineer, and yet you persist in your dishonesty because to admit this (which would be the first step in fixing it) here would damage your pride.
Letting pride interfere with discussion is what motivates trolls. And apologists are, of course, trolls. Which should be a caution to all those who want to engage in discussion without being identified as a troll.
Don't be an apologist.
Here Martin is reacting to Cal's statement that reality is unpersuasive to him, so Martin tries to help Cal figure it out. Whether it's trains, clocks, or puppets, the atheist mind seems unable to grasp the fact that a series of objects cannot move themselves.
--------------
Martin:
"Cal Metzger,
I'm not sure what's unpersuasive about it...?
Let's say you are watching a puppet show. You can see the puppets, and the strings that go up towards the roof and out of sight. Based on the fact that you know the puppets can't move themselves, and that the string can't move itself, you can infer either a person, machine, or something off stage that is causing them both to move.
I see this as very strong reasoning, and you probably do it all the time without realizing it."
stevek: "Here Martin is reacting to Cal's statement that reality is unpersuasive to him..."
No. You lie. I explicitly stated that, "The WAY you've been explaining this seems unpersuasive to me; I "see no reason why a series of related causes could not stretch on in an infinite progression as well."
You are a known liar. And you are routinely dishonest.
Dishonesty destroy discussions. And that is why you are a troll, and that is why all apologists are trolls.
Cal: "I see no reason why a series of related causes could not stretch on in an infinite progression as well"
Based on Cal's knowledge and experience Cal sees no reason. The question is: WHY?
Cal knows that causes from yesterday are not moving the clock in the moment, today.
Cal knows that clocks, batteries, motors, gears, etc cannot move themselves so WHY does Cal think an infinite number of clocks, batteries, motors and gears can do this?
And WHY does Cal think an infinite series actually exists at any moment in time such that he would seriously entertain the idea?
Me:I get what you mean. Like when someone can do nothing but burb insults, unsupported opinions and unsubstantiated accusations rather than offer rational topical arguments. I agree with you, that sir is a troll. ��
The reply I get is *surprise*!
The exact same gratuitous insults, unsupported opinions and unsubstantiated accusations.
I guess he self-identified☺
Not only a troll, but a droll troll.
bmiller: "The exact same gratuitous insults, unsupported opinions and unsubstantiated accusations."
"gratuitous insults"
Gratuitous basically means "unearned." But calling out dishonesty (as I did in the comment to which you refer) when there is dishonesty isn't gratuitous -- it's correct, and necessary.
Your false charges make you a liar.
"unsupported opinions and unsubstantiated accusations"
I have pointed out, over and over and over, that stevek's laughable claim that he is a mechanical engineer is contradicted by those comments (well documented above) in which he displays not even a basic understanding of science (or disciplined, logical thinking, for that matter), let alone the specialized understanding of physics required of a mechanical engineer. The only way you could be unfamiliar with this is if you had not read this thread, which seems like an odd confession at this point.
You are a liar.
Just as stevek clearly lied when he falsely claimed to be a mechanical engineer, you lie when you attempt to mischaracterize the comments of Stardusty and myself.
And because you are dishonest, you are incapable of discussion.
Sic.
Here, in a nutshell, is why apologists can't have nice things:
Apologists: "Discuss this with me!"
Honest People: "Okay, so long as we can discuss it honestly."
Apologists: "Of course. Okay, ready? I'm the King of Sweden."
Honest People: "Um, I doubt that. Do you even speak Swedish?"
Apologists: "Stop being a troll."
Honest People: "Well, speaking Swedish is relevant to the topic, which you declared to be that you're the King of Sweden."
Apologists: "Stop insulting me, troll."
Honest People: "I'm not insulting you. Why should anyone think you're the King of Sweden if you don't speak Swedish."
Other Apologists: "Stop being a troll. There's no reason for you to not think he's the king of Sweden. Do your research, and stop being a troll."
The above synopsis is brought to you by every apologist combox in the history of ever.
Here grodrigues is responding to Cal's "criticism" of the FW argument. Of course, anyone who understands the argument knows it's not valid - and anyone who understands the physics of causality knows that causes from yesterday aren't moving clock gears or trains today. Cal doesn't understand this.
This is from February 13
-----------
grodrigues:
"After several threads, clocking several hundreds of comments, we have Mr. Metzger writing:
"So, this objection fails to understand the refutation -- that the absurdity of an infinite past is no less likely than the absurdity of an unmoved mover,"
that is, he is *still* laboring under the idea that the First Way is concerned with temporal beginnings. When this was explicitly denied by everyone here, is explicitly denied by St. Thomas and all his commentators. All, without exception. St. Thomas even wrote a little tract explicitly arguing that it is *impossible* to prove that the universe was *not* infinite in the past. And Aristotle (you know, the inventor of the First Way) actually held that the universe was indeed infinite in the past. And *then* he writes to bmiller such stuff as:
"Like a child, you seem to think that implying that I am as confused as you are (if that's what I am, then what are you!) should distract from your patent ignorance. I don't think you're fooling anyone."
I have met my share of delusional morons haunting the internet, but man...."
Cal: "I see no reason why a series of related causes could not stretch on in an infinite progression as well"
Based on Cal's knowledge and experience Cal sees no reason. The question is: WHY?
Cal knows(??) that causes from yesterday are not moving the clock in the moment, today.
Cal knows that clocks, batteries, motors, gears, etc cannot move themselves so WHY does Cal think an infinite number of clocks, batteries, motors and gears can do this?
And WHY does Cal think an infinite series actually exists at any moment in time such that he would seriously entertain the idea?
@Little Cal,
Your false charges make you a liar.
By your reasoning then, since you have made false charges you a liar.
All you have done is made assertions and conclude that anyone that disagrees with your assertions is thereby dishonest or defective in some way.
What a projecting crackpot!
bmiller: "By your reasoning then, since you have made false charges you a liar."
What have I said that's false?
If I made a false statement somewhere, of course I would correct it. It just has to be pointed out to me.
So, let me know what I said that was false, and explain why it is false.
@Little Cal,
bmiller: "By your reasoning then, since you have made false charges you a liar."
What have I said that's false?
Every time you've called someone a liar you yourself have lied.
You do not know whether someone is lying or not but you claim that you do.
I could list all the times but there is a limit to the number of words that fit in a combox.
The topic is the First Way. If you don't want to be called a troll, then you should engage in the topic.
You can start here, since it seems that the atheists want to avoid it:
They are flabbergasted. The thread has come to a standstill. Atheists are utterly out of their depth with the argument. They simply cannot respond *The List*
March 18, 2017 10:47 AM
March 19, 2017 12:31 PM
July 22, 2017 2:39 PM
January 22, 2017 6:28 PM
February 12, 2017 5:59 PM
February 05, 2017 11:23 AM
February 07, 2017 11:25 AM
February 12, 2017 4:48 PM
May 23, 2017 8:40 PM
June 30, 2017 7:50 AM
March 19, 2017 2:14 PM
July 08, 2017 8:23 PM
May 07, 2017 12:07 PM
May 11, 2017 12:19 PM
May 18, 2017 8:37 PM
July 02, 2017 12:50 PM
July 09, 2017 7:53 AM
July 11, 2017 12:25 PM
https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2017/07/taking-aquinas-seriously.html
July 10, 2017 at 8:46 PM
July 11, 2017 at 5:41 AM
July 11, 2017 at 8:40 AM
July 12, 2017 at 7:52 PM
July 13, 2017 at 10:19 AM
July 13, 2017 at 7:36 PM
July 15, 2017 at 12:45 PM
July 16, 2017 at 1:40 PM
July 16, 2017 at 5:19 PM
July 16, 2017 at 5:19 PM
July 18, 2017 at 7:53 PM
July 18, 2017 at 8:01 PM
July 19, 2017 at 5:39 AM
July 19, 2017 at 9:36 AM
July 20, 2017 at 9:26 PM
July 21, 2017 at 9:27 PM
July 22, 2017 at 1:59 PM
July 22, 2017 at 11:20 PM
July 23, 2017 at 3:06 PM
July 23, 2017 at 9:44 PM
July 24, 2017 at 8:55 AM
There is no excuse now even for the cheap to live in the darkness.
Aquinas: A Beginners Guide Kindle edition is the monthly deal at Amazon.
Let there be light!
bmiller said...
SP " They are flabbergasted. The thread has come to a standstill. "
--Indeed.
http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2017/10/five-proofs-on-patrick-coffin-show.html?showComment=1509595999732#c3535111981581506658
They have no clue how to respond on that thread. Not one single theist has addressed my questions at all. All they are capable of on that thread is to call names and plead with each other "please, please" don't even talk to me, as a lawyer advises the guilty.
You have zero capacity to engage me on that thread.
Feser has zero capacity to engage me on that thread.
SteveK couldn't find his own dick much less engage me on that thread.
Grod is too busy telling stories about some Portuguese guy in 2003 he wishes he was to engage me on that thread.
My questions are clear and simple.
No theist can provide a link to any article, paper, lecture, or any words that specifically and directly address my clear arguments on that thread.
@Strawdusty,
My questions are clear and simple.
They were clearly answered in easily understandable terms already in the list I just posted.
As well as my post of October 31, 2017 10:40 AM.
The response? Crickets.
The first premise of the First Way is that we can perceive a thing moving. From there it ends up concluding that there must be an Unmoved Mover. It is considered more manifest due to the fact that we can directly observe a thing changing.
But it may be objected that there may be an existent material thing, that is a combination of form and matter, that is not now changing, never came into existence and will never go out of existence. Let's leave aside for now whether such a thing is even possible.
Now if such a thing were possible, it would be outside the scope of the First Way since the First Way only is concerned with the ultimate cause of an existing material thing's motion (change of one or more properties). However, if even one thing is moving, that thing's movement is *in scope* and must ultimately terminate in the Unmoved Mover. So since we see can observe motion, at least some things are changing and there must be an Unmoved Mover.
But what about that hypothetical perpetually existing yet unchanging combination of form and matter?
Then the question is what is the (efficient) cause of this form/matter combination?
This falls under the broader scope of the Second Way.
From the ST:
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. There is no case known (neither is it, indeed, possible) in which a thing is found to be the efficient cause of itself; for so it would be prior to itself, which is impossible. Now in efficient causes it is not possible to go on to infinity, because in all efficient causes following in order, the first is the cause of the intermediate cause, and the intermediate is the cause of the ultimate cause, whether the intermediate cause be several, or only one. Now to take away the cause is to take away the effect. Therefore, if there be no first cause among efficient causes, there will be no ultimate, nor any intermediate cause. But if in efficient causes it is possible to go on to infinity, there will be no first efficient cause, neither will there be an ultimate effect, nor any intermediate efficient causes; all of which is plainly false. Therefore it is necessary to admit a first efficient cause, to which everyone gives the name of God.
So while the First Way addresses the cause of the motion of an existent thing, the Second Way addresses the cause of the actual existence of things.
This was first addressed here:
https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2017/07/taking-aquinas-seriously.html
July 23, 2017 at 3:06 PM
bmiller said...
@Strawdusty,
My questions are clear and simple.
" They were clearly answered in easily understandable terms already in the list I just posted."
--None of which are on that thread.
http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2017/10/five-proofs-on-patrick-coffin-show.html?showComment=1509595999732#c35351119815815066584
That thread is at a standstill. Not one single person has even begun to answer my questions on that thread. You are incapable of coming to that thread and engaging me on that thread because you fear exposure in front of people you feel community with and admiration for.
On this thread you at least made some half hearted attempts to answer my questions. Far from crickets I corrected your errors at length. As usual you did not understand the corrections and persisted in repeating your errors so I moved on to other communications with other people.
You fear engaging me on that thread because you would feel social pressure to be rigorous in your argumentation and a part of you realizes that you are incapable of arguing rigorously on this subject so you would be exposed as incapable in the process.
Why can't Dusty answer his own questions?
Why must Dusty repeatedly demand engagement if he's convinced he has stumped everyone?
The only reason would be because Dusty is unsure - or he's a troll. Take your pick.
Feser has no need to engage Dusty because Feser is sure of the answers to Dusty's questions.
SteveK said...
" Why can't Dusty answer his own questions?"
--I already have, publicly, directly to Feser. My answers to my questions have him completely stumped.
Feser is flabbergasted. He has no capacity to engage me on that subject.
" Feser has no need to engage Dusty because Feser is sure of the answers to Dusty's questions."
--He has never posted any such answer. His long time followers do not know the answer and are incapable of stating it, because Feser has never provided any such answer.
By asking repeatedly I expose these facts.
November 03, 2017 8:59 AM
Since you have your answer already, you're being a troll who trolls people for the sake of trolling.
If you want to discuss the FW argument, which involves change, this is the place to do it.
Dusty's question to Feser is intellectually on par with, "If evolution is true as you say it is, then how come apes still exist?"
SteveK said...
" Dusty's question to Feser is intellectually on par with, "If evolution is true as you say it is, then how come apes still exist?""
--Perhaps you should suggest that analogy to Feser and all the rest over there. They are completely stumped and really need your assistance.
Feser really is stumped. You've got him now.
Similarly, biologists are stumped by the question about apes and evolution. Why DO apes still exist if evolution is true? I've seen the 'answers' some biologists have given and trust me, they've been stumped by whoever thought of the question.
So flabbergasted are the evolutionists that nobody will engage a person in any combox asking this question.
SteveK said...
" I've seen the 'answers' some biologists have given and trust me, they've been stumped by whoever thought of the question. "
--Undoubtedly those biologists mentioned that apes and humans have a common ancestor. Present day apes evolved from that common ancestor within and in response to their environment. Humans evolved from that common ancestor within and in response to their environments. Not difficult to answer.
So, what is the simple answer for Feser? He often uses ordinary objects such as a stick, a rock, a book, or a table in his examples. In an ordinary view of these objects they do not seem to change moment to moment. Feser says the could just blink out of existence.
Given those assertions of Feser wouldn't blinking out of existence be a change? Why would the absence of a changer lead to a change? Wouldn't the absence of a changer lead to no change?
Further, to persist in existence seems to be no change. Why would a changer be called for to account for no change?
Answering the ape/human question is easy. What easy answer do you propose for the Feser blink out contradiction?
What twisted webs the mind of the apologist must wrap itself in.
Me: "What have I said that's false?"
bmiller: "Every time you've called someone a liar you yourself have lied."
What a stupid thing to say.
I have pointed that stevek obviously lied when he claimed to be a mechanical engineer (guffaw).
In order for me to be lying when I called him a liar (?!??!), not only would stevek have to actually be a mechanical engineer (guffaw), but I would also have to have no good reason to believe that stevek is not a mechanical engineer.
You are apparently so dishonest that you don’t understand what lying is.
Not only have you falsely accused me of lying, but now you seem to be falsely accusing me of being stupid (that I am so stupid that I think stevek has completed his mechanical engineering degree, which flies in the face of his revealed understanding of physics and basic science).
Let me see, where else did I point out lying?
bmiller: "It's funny to see someone whose only exposure to physics is what he has recently googled make such bold claims."
Me: “Project much? I truly wonder what it's like being a liar.”
You are a liar because you accuse me of only being exposed to physics by recently googling on the subject. Not only is this false, but I have corrected you on too many numerous occasions regarding your misunderstanding of basic scientific terms and principles — in other words, only a proud, dishonest person would fail to recognize that I possess a reasonable grounding in the sciences, while realizing that it’s true that he has never taken a real science class (the kind one gets at a good high school, or college, including lab work).
Like stevek who knows he is in fact not a mechanical engineer, you know the truth about your lack of a good science background (which is revealed practically every time you write concerning physics or on topics that require a basic understanding of science).
That you will certainly continue to deny this, just as stevek dodges the topic of his lie about being a mechanical engineer, is not a sign that you are not a liar, nor is it a sign that we are at an impasse.
It is obvious to the reasonable, honest observer that I have encountered a pair of liars, who will continue to lie — because that’s what shabby, dishonest, proud and narcissistic people (like you and stevek) do.
stevek: "If you want to discuss the FW argument, which involves change, this is the place to do it."
Right. With you, a known liar.
There is never a good time to discuss ANYTHING with a known liar. That because liars destroy discussion -- because discussion depends on intersubjectivity, which is impossible when a participant is so morally defective they would rather lie than contribute.
Stardusty: "Answering the ape/human question is easy. What easy answer do you propose for the Feser blink out contradiction?"
Whenever you ask a real question to apologists, they have to either dodge the question, or wait for what they think is someone higher up to answer the question for them.
What apologists fear isn't being asked a tough question; what apologists fear is responding to a tough question with a response that's not approved by the group in which they belong -- and approval is a top-down process.
That's why you'll see apologists wait or delay or make excuses or point to obscure places (where there is no answer) -- they don't want to be caught giving a real answer that makes the whole group look more ridiculous later.
And that's why all that Feser has to do eventually is write, in response to your tough question, "Eleventy." and then every single apologist (all of them) will jump on and shout the same thing. But they won't do it before then, because they fear being out of step with each other -- not whether or not their answers make sense. (Remember: apologists don't care about the same things as you and me.)
Still, Feser is obviously flummoxed by your questioning. I've seen it soooo many times. Apologists like Feser who have worked to achieve a certain esteem among the other apologists (quelle honor), who obsess over the trivial and meaningless for most of their lives, suddenly become super duper busy when you ask them tough questions that they fear can be easily ridiculed. I love the pretending that he's up to something important, though, when answering something that's actually well-founded, as you and I know, is trivial and fast and easy.
@Strawdusty,
Me:If they are flabbergasted at all is because you have shown no ability to read responses but then claim that no one has responded to you.
" They were clearly answered in easily understandable terms already in the list I just posted."
--None of which are on that thread.
Right. Why would anyone think it was worth responding to someone who ignores responses? No matter how many threads you repeat the nonsense.
You are incapable of coming to that thread and engaging me on that thread because you fear exposure in front of people you feel community with and admiration for.
Well, I see you are as incompetent at mind reading as you are at science, philosophy and reading comprehension. The host asked us to stop responding to trolls.
As usual you did not understand the corrections and persisted in repeating your errors so I moved on to other communications with other people.
No, it's clear that you are flabbergasted. You are utterly out of your depth with the response given. Failing to engage is merely a dodge.
You fear engaging me on that thread because you would feel social pressure to be rigorous in your argumentation and a part of you realizes that you are incapable of arguing rigorously on this subject so you would be exposed as incapable in the process.
Since the Feser blog thread from *The List* includes 21 of my posts (there were more), this is a remarkably curious statement. It looks like projection to me. Especially since you appear to be afraid to respond to my posts right here, right now.
@Little Cal,
Me: "What have I said that's false?"
bmiller: "Every time you've called someone a liar you yourself have lied."
What a stupid thing to say.
Oh, then you do know that SteveK is lying. That is a serious charge.
Then I assume that you have SteveK's high school and college transcripts? Where will you post them? If you do post them how do I know it is this SteveK and not another SteveK? You've made and accusation. You have the burden of proof.
What? You say that your authority in the matter is the final word? I am skeptical that you have the credentials to judge. Please post your high school and college transcripts. But of course I will need your permission to request them from the schools myself so I can verify. Your social security number will also be necessary as well as a means for me to verify that you are indeed the person who's transcript you indicated. How do you propose to do that?
Not only have you falsely accused me of lying, but now you seem to be falsely accusing me of being stupid
Let me see, where else did I point out lying?
bmiller: "It's funny to see someone whose only exposure to physics is what he has recently googled make such bold claims."
Me: “Project much? I truly wonder what it's like being a liar.”
You are a liar because you accuse me of only being exposed to physics by recently googling on the subject.
I don't think this is an example of you *lying*. But according to your standards this is an example of your *stupidity*. Perhaps even narcissism and projection. That hyperbolic jab was directed against Strawdusty, not you. Ooops!
The topic is the First Way. You are merely dodging the topic. Why?
You have the list. Respond to it unless you admit to being a troll.
You know. The list you claimed you *read* but also claimed you *ignored*.
This paper by Feser is evidence that he is neither stumped nor flabbergasted by Dusty’s questions. They’ve been answered and for $20 anyone who is interested can read about it. Or you can search his blog for free.
SteveK said.. November 03, 2017 8:00 PM.
" This paper by Feser is evidence that he is neither stumped nor flabbergasted by Dusty’s questions."
--No, actually it isn't, but is is evidence that Feser has written a long attempt to obfuscate the clear objection that no change calls for no changer, and a change does not follow from the absence of a changer.
But thank you very much for the link. You are the first person to actually post something that at least purports to address a related subject.
" They’ve been answered and for $20 anyone who is interested can read about it."
--That's the game isn't it? Outlandish claims sell papers and books. By the time one reads the falsity of the arguments it is too late, the check has cleared.
But I do appreciate the abstract because it provides some key terms to look into further:
existential inertia
divine conserving cause
doctrine of divine conservation
DDC
Here Feser mentions the doctrine of divine conservation but provides no arguments for it. Nor does he provide any justification for the Feser blink out contradiction.
http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2010/09/classical-theism.html
https://books.google.com/books?id=WhwwDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA233&lpg=PA233&dq=doctrine+of+divine+conservation+feser&source=bl&ots=garPkUgDK4&sig=7y2DwKATiwrgO2uyA9uuuIjL2Cg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiXpaHv_6PXAhWLzIMKHaaIAMUQ6AEIPDAD#v=onepage&q=doctrine%20of%20divine%20conservation%20feser&f=false
Google Books
Five Proofs for the Existence of God
By Edward Feser
The DDC is mentioned, but again, Feser is stumped. He has no argument that supports the notion that things would change in the absence of a changer and to continue unchanged calls for a changer.
All he does is make vague references to some arguments someplace and state what the claim of DDC is, but he makes no arguments for DDC and he makes no arguments against my simple dismantling of DDC.
No change calls for no changer.
The absence of a changer does not logically lead to a change.
Feser is stumped at every turn.
LOL!!
Not only is Feser stumped but every one of his admirers are stumped.
They have absolutely no idea how to even begin to respond to my exposition of the Feser blink out contradiction.
https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2017/10/five-proofs-on-patrick-coffin-show.html?showComment=1509758748272#c6659228147167785805
Why does no change call for a changer?
Why does no changer lead to a change?
Feser does not have a clue, hence, his sycophants are equally dumbfounded. The leader is speechless so the sycophants are speechless.
I too have been reading on those terms for a few days. I'm having a few issues with divine conservation (DC). The following is my initial impression.
DC is by no means obvious, like act and potency. Existential inertia seems far more intuitive and in line with the discoveries of physics.
DC treats the entirety of matter and energy as the effect in an essentially ordered series, in which existence is the effect and annihilation the "friction" acting to erase everything. God is said to be actively overcoming this force of annihilation in order to sustain the universe. I see numerous potential issues here.
One, it has to be reconciled with the second law of thermodynamics. While entropy can increase, nothing is lost because there is no natural force that can completely annihilate matter or energy. Even a collision of matter and antimatter produces energy that conserves total mass and energy of the initial forms.
Two, DC seems to be saying evetything literally poofs into the void of nonexistence if God does not sustain it, which would mean that the ABSENCE of this sustaining power is in fact the natural state of matter and energy, as it would their tendency to become nothing without being sustained by God. So there would have to be a mechanism, a force, that would cause matter and energy to be instantly annihilated if God stopped sustaining it. No such natural mechanism is known, because Nothing exerts no force - there would be no cause driving matter and energy to erase. If there was, then that force's existence would violate DC, unless it's claimed that God sustains both existence and the force attempting to annihilate it.
Three, and related to two, going from existence to nonexistence is indeed a change, so there has to be something actualizing that potential. God would have to be sustaining the annihilating force in order for both the First Way and DC to be true.
Four, "levels" of reality we observe are comprised of smaller components. A society is made of people who are made of organs which are made of cells which are made of molecules which are made of atoms which are made of particles and so on. We only have two options, either an infinite regress of smaller components or a base "stuff" that is configured into the larger levels. DC would suggest that this smallest basic component of reality is still an actualized potential, even though at that point there is no further subcomponent - that's it. It is not derived. To then claim that this smallest unit is still contingent upon something else for its continued existence, well that would need support.
At any rate, I'm very slowly learning the terminology and concepts since everything on the subject is behind paywalls or subscriptions, so all of these things may have already been addressed, or my objections may be flawed.
Legion,
I agree that DC is not as obvious because the argument is more complex. Despite being more complex, at it's core the argument is similar to the FW argument in that a first cause is necessary -- 'first' is not wrt time, but wrt ontology or being.
The argument goes through the steps necessary to show that existence requires a 'first' being that is not a composite of essence and existence in order to actualize existence and therefore explain continuous existence. If that being didn't exist then the composite beings would cease to exist.
This is similar to the FW argument that shows change requires a 'first' being that is not a composite of actuality and potentiality in order to actualize change and therefore explain continuous change. If that being didn't exist then change would cease to exist.
Quoting Feser from "Aquinas":
"That is to say, just as the First Way is meant to show that no motion or change would occur here and now unless there were a first unmoved mover operating here and now, the Second Way is meant to show that nothing would even exist here and now unless there were a first uncaused cause sustaining things in being here and now."
Legion: "At any rate, I'm very slowly learning the terminology and concepts since everything on the subject is behind paywalls or subscriptions, so all of these things may have already been addressed, or my objections may be flawed."
Or you could be on your way to becoming a non-apologist. The way that you're thinking, and revealing your thought process, and questioning things that don't align with the rules of good argument -- these are not the ways of the apologist.
Gives me hope.
Me: "What have I said that's false?"
bmiller: "Every time you've called someone a liar you yourself have lied."
Me: “What a stupid thing to say.”
bmiller: “Oh, then you do know that SteveK is lying. That is a serious charge.”
It sure is. We are supposed to be having a discussion, but liars destroy discussion.
bmiller: “Then I assume that you have SteveK's high school and college transcripts? Where will you post them? If you do post them how do I know it is this SteveK and not another SteveK? You've made and accusation. You have the burden of proof.”
I said that I have good reason to believe that stevek is lying.
The good reason is that he (in no way) writes like someone who thinks clearly, or has a basic understanding of science -- let alone the specialized knowledge that comes from completing a mechanical engineering degree. And despite these obvious facts, he still claimed, stevek: “I am a mechanical engineer.”
When someone makes a claim that is contradicted by a preponderance of evidence (the many, many comments in which stevek reveals that he doesn’t think clearly, and doesn’t express views or seem familiar with terms that are required to earn a degree in mechanical engineering), then we have good reason to believe that the claim is false.
As I pointed out upthread, when someone claims to be the King of Sweden, but doesn’t know how to speak Swedish, we can (and must, if we are to be considered rational) make the determination that that person is lying. To do otherwise would be to embrace aggressive gullibility.
You should know all this, but you, like stevek, probably realize that your reputation here hinges on trying to prop up stevek’s obvious lie — and if stevek is revealed to be a liar, you are complicit in his dishonesty, and are merely a dupe. Being a dupe means that you are bad at determining what is true and what is false. A dupe is another way of saying that you are stupid. So, once again, we can see that your need to buttress stevek in his lie requires that you become even stupider (embrace the role of a dupe).
Do you see now acting dishonestly makes you seem stupider here?
bmiller: “What? You say that your authority in the matter is the final word? I am skeptical that you have the credentials to judge. Please post your high school and college transcripts. But of course I will need your permission to request them from the schools myself so I can verify. Your social security number will also be necessary as well as a means for me to verify that you are indeed the person who's transcript you indicated. How do you propose to do that?”
I make my own determinations. Stevek is clearly a liar, as he clearly lied when he blurted out “I’m a mechanical engineer.”
But I am not asking you to take my word for it. I am pointing out that the evidence (stevek’s comments) are incompatible with what he claimed to be. If you are incapable of seeing what I see, then we learn something about you, don’t we?
Here we see Cal is still confused about the FW argument that he claims has been shown to be invalid and unsound. A mind is a terrible thing to waste they say. This is from February 8
------------
Cal:
"Me: "Cal: "The First Way basically shell games the terms change and existence (actual), and misleads many readers by implying that a change is not really a transfer of a property or properties between two things that already exist, but an unfolding in which the change between two things brings something altogether non-existent into existence."
Legion: "I may be wrong, but this objection seems to conflate the First Way with something like the Kalam cosmological argument."
Well, it seems to be a problem imbued in the First Way, because that's roughly been the defense of the argument here by apologists.
For instance, we see it in full bloom in comments like this one: "Indeed, the actuality Aquinas is referring to is and actuality of change. Only an actually changing thing can move a potentially changing thing to become actually changing."
--- followed immediately by bmiller ---
"@Cal Metzger,
"For instance, we see it in full bloom in comments like this one: "Indeed, the actuality Aquinas is referring to is and actuality of change. Only an actually changing thing can move a potentially changing thing to become actually changing.""
That has been a claim made by Stardusty Psyche, not by anyone familiar with the First Way."
SteveK said.. November 04, 2017 9:09 AM.
" Only an actually changing thing can move a potentially changing thing to become actually changing.""
--Those are the only sorts of examples Aquinas provided. One provides examples of the sort that illustrate what one is talking about. It makes no sense to talk about one thing and then give an example of something else.
Changing things impart change. Non-changing things do not impart change. Please provide a counterexample if you can.
Let the evidence show that Cal is a dishonest person who spreads falsehoods.
Now, anyone who knows Cal can easily predict that Cal will either deny that this is evidence for anything or he'll accept it and move on to some other form of public degeneracy. Anything to avoid having to rationally defend this claims about the FW argument.
It's automatic. It's predictable. It's Cal Metzger.
Blogger Legion of Logic said.. November 03, 2017 10:46 PM.
" I too have been reading on those terms for a few days. I'm having a few issues with divine conservation (DC)... so all of these things may have already been addressed, or my objections may be flawed."
--Apparently this rather bizarre notion of continuous creation is a thing:
https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/scholarly-writings/the-existence-of-god/creation-and-conservation-once-more/
Craig presents some attempts at forming arguments and raises a number of issues but fails to address the Feser blink out contradiction, and fails to address how a thing would change itself from something to nothing in the absence of a changer.
Craig also makes the strange assertion that creation is not a change because there was nothing there previously. So in his view G = G + X. More pretzel logic.
If X is being continuously created then where does it go to get recreated? To be created means to transition from nothing to X. But X already exists. If we then create X we now have 2X, then 3X and on an on. So X must become nothing so X can be created again. So you and I and the whole universe are blinking out of existence and back into existence so fast and so frequently we don't know it?
Well, maybe god is just holding stuff up, as it were. He isn't so much creating continuously, rather, he is just sort of pushing back all the time against self annihilation. In that case god is not the first mover after all! Stuff just moves itself! Absent god stuff will change itself from something to nothing and that force is outside god and not originating from god, rather a pre-existing force god continuously acts against, like Atlas holding up the world.
Or maybe god is the source of the force behind the suicidal tendencies of matter, in which case god is in a continuous tug of war with himself in a sort of universal exercise of isometrics.
How very odd these ideas quickly become. It is truly a wonderment that so many otherwise intelligent people actually take such notions seriously.
Go back to the first words of the First Way, what is manifest and evident to our senses? Existing stuff that stays the same doesn't change so there is no call for a changer. Stuff doesn't disappear because that would be a change and there is no changer to instigate that sort of change so it just stays the same. Pretty simple. Why invent an invisible being that is somehow continuously changing or recreating or in a tug of war with himself?
Absent a changer stuff just stays the same. How hard is that?
SteveK said.. November 04, 2017 12:07 PM.
Let the evidence show that ...
I am as much of a mechanical engineer as you are
https://kek.gg/i/7FDfNb.jpg
It just doesn't seem to dawn on these folks that no force, no power, and no action is called for for continued existence because continued existence is no change.
No force is required for no change.
No power is required for no change.
No action is required for no change.
No cause is required for no change.
No changer is required for no change.
https://maritain.nd.edu/jmc/etext/pnt16.htm
"The continued existence of a thing must be due to some cause, no less than the origination of that existence. There must be something to account for that existence in each successive period of time through which it endures. God is the only being who is uncaused. This cause must be either the original act by which the thing was called into being, or the thing itself as a constituted reality, or some other created being, or finally God. No other hypothesis is possible. But of these alternatives the first three must all be rejected. Hence by a process of exclusion we are forced to recognize that God is the cause of the continued existence of things. The original act of creation cannot account for the thing's persistence in being: for that act is past and gone. A present fact demands a present explanation. It cannot, again, be the thing as a constituted and persistent reality: for this is just that for whose cause we are searching. We are enquiring why it should persist. If we say that it has a power of self-conservation, we are, on the one hand, explaining the existence of the thing by the power, while on the other we must explain the existence of the power by the thing to which it belongs -- a patent instance of a vicious circle. "
@Legion,
Thanks for the thoughtful questions. It's refreshing in this thread.
One, it has to be reconciled with the second law of thermodynamics. While entropy can increase, nothing is lost because there is no natural force that can completely annihilate matter or energy. Even a collision of matter and antimatter produces energy that conserves total mass and energy of the initial forms.
Existing material objects are a combination of form and matter and they come into existence and cease to exist all the time, so something is indeed lost. That particular existing thing.
Now we do normally observe new material existent objects come into being when others pass from being, but that new thing is now also a combination of form and matter requiring something to keep form and matter together. See #4 for more detail.
Two, DC seems to be saying evetything literally poofs into the void of nonexistence if God does not sustain it, which would mean that the ABSENCE of this sustaining power is in fact the natural state of matter and energy, as it would their tendency to become nothing without being sustained by God.
There is no "force of annihilation". The lack of a force is not a force at all and has no existence. Thomism calls this privation.
Three, and related to two, going from existence to nonexistence is indeed a change, so there has to be something actualizing that potential. God would have to be sustaining the annihilating force in order for both the First Way and DC to be true.
As in response to #3, annihilation is just the absence of a sustaining cause and has no existence.
We only have two options, either an infinite regress of smaller components or a base "stuff" that is configured into the larger levels.
This base "stuff" is considered matter without form and is known as prime matter.
@Little Cal,
But I am not asking you to take my word for it.
That is precisely what you are doing. The only evidence you have attempted to provide is your own judgement in a field of which you are ignorant.
You have no scientific background yet claim to be able to judge whether someone is using proper terms in a discussion of science. That is rather like a blind man insisting I am painting with the wrong shade of blue when the paint I am using is red.
But of course name calling is mere trollish behavior and is meant to cover for your inability to respond rationally to the topic.
The topic is the First Way. You are merely dodging the topic. Why?
You have the list. Respond to it unless you admit to being a troll.
You know. The list you claimed you *read* but also claimed you *ignored*.
Blogger bmiller said.. November 04, 2017 4:30 PM.
" Existing material objects are a combination of form and matter and they come into existence and cease to exist all the time, so something is indeed lost. "
--We never see material get lost.
Material is never observed to cease to exist.
Material is never observed to begin to exist.
The persistence of material is no change in the material extant.
We do observe changes in the arrangements, relationships, and form of material. All such changes are temporal. Zero change occurs in zero time.
To perform a regression analysis of changes we must necessarily perform a temporal regression analysis because change is necessarily a process over time.
To use the word "cause" in the sense of "explanation" we use a hierarchy of abstractions, of models.
We explain the structure of the crystal in terms of the arrangements of molecules.
We explain the structure of the molecule in terms of the arrangements of atoms.
We explain the structure of the atoms in terms of arrangements of electrons, protons, neutrons, and fields.
We explain those atomic constituents in terms of arrangements of standard model particles and fields.
We explain the standard model particles and fields in terms of the deepest laws of nature whatever they turn out to be, also known as fundamental physics.
Hierarchical regress of abstractions terminated.
The persistence of the material calls for no changer because the existence of the material never changes in the aspect of its existence.
For material to blink out of existence would be a change in its aspect of existence and would therefore call for a changer, not the absence of a changer.
The changes we observe are all temporal changes in the arrangement of material and therefore calls for a temporal, not a hierarchical, causal regress analysis.
The arrangements we observe at any moment call for a hierarchical regress of abstractions, of models, the terminus of which is fundamental physics.
In no aspect is a first changer, or sustaining cause called for in the present moment.
The great existential riddle is a consideration of the deep past, what came before the big bang, why has there been so very much of something for so very long instead of absolutely nothing at all ever? That is the great riddle that has vexed humanity for millennia and I doubt very much I shall ever learn the answer in my remaining years of life.
Blogger Strawdusty said...November 04, 2017 6:08 PM
The persistence of material is no change in the material extant.
Since the blogger refuses to respond to this observation:
On the one hand (1) you argue that things are continuously changing and the other hand (2) you argue that they are not. I'll let you continue to argue with yourself. Let me know which of you ended up winning the argument.
Let me comment on the situation.
He is on record that it is his belief that everything is continuously changing. Indeed, if one looks at any existing material thing that is apparently static, modern physics will tell you that there is actually constant motion. The forces that hold things together are not static but actually dynamic.
He is also on record as saying that macro reality is an illusion and that *real* reality is at this micro level of whirling dynamic elementary particles.
He is therefore contradicting himself if he is also on record as stating that at the same time and in the same respect an existent material object is not changing.
This is illogical and irrational.
If some material thing is changing, then there must be an ultimate changer. The First Way.
But even if he were to abandon his belief that things are continuously changing as he does here, then there must still be an explanation for why a particular thing remains as a combination of form and matter. The Second Way.
We explain the structure of the crystal in terms of the arrangements of molecules...
We explain the standard model particles and fields in terms of the deepest laws of nature whatever they turn out to be, also known as fundamental physics.
Hierarchical regress of abstractions terminated.
He also refuses to respond to this observation:
You seem to be able to talk about and analyze a thing that is existing at this moment by considering all of it's constituent parts down to the quantum level and realize that there cannot be an infinite number of these constituent parts. How then, can you not talk about and analyze those same components as they are moving and realize that there cannot be an infinite number of them? Just curious.
The example of causes he cites is indeed a hierarchical series and not temporal series. So he is apparently capable of making this distinction in at least some cases. This is a good thing.
Things that are in existence are in existence in time. They exist moment to moment. We can ask these hierarchical questions without being flummoxed by sequential temporal questions.
Now he terminates his analysis at "the deepest laws of nature". But we are only able to discern "the deepest laws of nature" by the regularity we witness in the world. Science would be impossible if things did not change or changed in totally unpredictable ways.
The very fact that we can do science at all is that is our ability to recognize the nature of existent material things, their regular behavior, and predict how they will behave.
The Fifth Way.
The fifth way is taken from the governance of the world. We see that things which lack intelligence, such as natural bodies, act for an end, and this is evident from their acting always, or nearly always, in the same way, so as to obtain the best result. Hence it is plain that not fortuitously, but designedly, do they achieve their end. Now whatever lacks intelligence cannot move towards an end, unless it be directed by some being endowed with knowledge and intelligence; as the arrow is shot to its mark by the archer. Therefore some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are directed to their end; and this being we call God.
bmiller
"Since the blogger refuses to respond to this observation:
On the one hand (1) you argue that things are continuously changing and the other hand (2) you argue that they are not."
--I covered this case. It's right there. All I can do is write it for you. I can't read it for you.
Blogger Strawdusty said...November 05, 2017 4:13 AM
--I covered this case.
You mean when you tell us that existent material things are always changing here:
1. The molecules, atoms, and subatomic particles are in fact always in motion.
--Yes, and motion is necessarily a temporal process. So arrangement of mass/energy is never truly static, rather, it varies temporally, not hierarchically.
And then tell us that the same thing at the same time is not changing here?
The persistence of material is no change in the material extant.
You consider the only reality as being those tiny dynamic particles and forces and those tiny particles and forces are constantly changing but at the same time and the same respect they are not changing.
So yes, it's clear that your coverage of this case is to *persist* in incoherence. It remains to be seen if you will *change* your story.
Blogger bmiller said...
" You consider the only reality as being those tiny dynamic particles and forces and those tiny particles and forces are constantly changing but at the same time and the same respect they are not changing."
--Not in the same respect.
In the existential respect the material of those particles is not changing.
In the structural respect the material of those particles are temporally changing.
In the existential respect the material is not changing because there is in existence at this time the same amount of material as there was in the past second, past hour, or past century. No new material has come into existence over time. No material has passed out of existence over time.
Thus, there is no change in the existential respect of material so no changer is called for.
In the structural respect there are changes, as are manifest and apparent to our senses. Aquinas got at least that much correct.
When using the word "cause" in the sense of "a causal series of cause and effect changes" every causal series is a temporal series. Causal influences propagate, classically, no faster than c. All systems are elastic. There are no perfectly rigid multibody systems.
When using the word "cause" in the sense of "explanation" we can consider a hierarchy of human abstractions, human models, approximations formulated for analytical reasons. The lowest level model we have right now is the standard model of particles and fields with their associated theories of modern physics. There is good reason to think we are not at the bottom. Feser uses the term "deepest laws of nature whatever they turn out to be", for what I simply call "fundamental physics". The terminus of our hierarchical regress of abstractions is fundamental physics.
There is no aspect, no respect, of material reality as is manifest to our senses that calls for a first changer in the present moment.
Dusty,
>> Thus, there is no change in the existential respect of material so no changer is called for.
Unchanging matter does not exist according to A-T. All matter is changeable and is changing according to A-T because A-T says every physical being is a composition of form + matter.
What you are doing here is criticizing A-T metaphysics on the basis of YOUR own metaphysics. You seem to be saying that matter exists without form, and because it has no form it never changes. Is that right?
Changeless matter cannot have form because whatever is physical has a form that could be a different form (changed). A-T refers to this as 'prime matter', and it considers formless 'prime matter' a pure potential with respect to having any kind of form (a molecule, and atom, a ball, a planet). A-T also says what is purely potential has no actuality.
So, A-T is not arguing that unchanging, formless 'prime matter' must be sustained at every moment because A-T says 'prime matter' doesn't actually exist.
Dusty has again argued against a strawman.
SteveK said...
Dusty,
>> Thus, there is no change in the existential respect of material so no changer is called for.
" Unchanging matter does not exist according to A-T. "
--That is correct.
"All matter is changeable and is changing according to A-T because A-T says every physical being is a composition of form + matter."
--That is correct.
All changes of matter are changes of form, or structure, or arrangement.
Matter never changes existentially. That is what is manifest and evident to the senses. The material never changes in the existential respect. This is called conservation of mass/energy and it is always observed to be true and never observed to be false.
Material is never observed to come into existence, only change form, or shape, or structure, or arrangement.
Material is never observed to pass out of existence, only change form, or shape, or structure, or arrangement.
All such changes of form, or shape, or structure, or arrangement are temporal, they are necessarily changes over time, zero change occurs in zero time. Thus no first changer is called for in the present moment by the changes we observe in material.
In the existential aspect, or respect, material does not change at all, it always exists in the same amount, never coming into existence and never passing out of existence, so no sustaining changer is called for in the present moment because material is never existentially changing.
>> "In the existential aspect, or respect, material does not change at all, it always exists in the same amount, never coming into existence and never passing out of existence, so no sustaining changer is called for in the present moment because material is never existentially changing."
I repeat, your complain is not with A-T since unchanging 'prime matter' doesn't "always exist". It has no actual existence according to A-T.
This is why Feser and the others are ignoring you. You don't understand the basics. Come back when you do.
SteveK said...
" I repeat, your complain is not with A-T since unchanging 'prime matter' doesn't "always exist". It has no actual existence according to A-T."
--Those A-T concepts are shown to be unnecessary by these observations
1.Conservation of mass/energy.
2.Temporal changes of structure.
You can make up any fantasy you wish. Maybe it's gazillions of angels nudging every particle along, or maybe it's magic turtles. Whatever. There are always an unbounded number of fantasies people can concoct, A-T is just one such fantasy.
bmiller said...
" If some material thing is changing, then there must be an ultimate changer. "
--Since all change is temporal then the regress of changers is temporal, leading to a choice between an infinite past that has always been changing or a finite past that would have to be at least 13 billion years ago.
Bmiller...
"You seem to be able to talk about and analyze a thing that is existing at this moment by considering all of it's constituent parts down to the quantum level and realize that there cannot be an infinite number of these constituent parts. How then, can you not talk about and analyze those same components as they are moving and realize that there cannot be an infinite number of them? Just curious."
--Right, there are a finite number of particles in the universe and a finite number of levels of abstraction leading to fundamental physics.
Bmiller...
"Now he terminates his analysis at "the deepest laws of nature". But we are only able to discern "the deepest laws of nature" by the regularity we witness in the world. Science would be impossible if things did not change or changed in totally unpredictable ways.
The very fact that we can do science at all is that is our ability to recognize the nature of existent material things, their regular behavior, and predict how they will behave."
--Right, which is why conservation of mass energy and temporal changes together make A-T unnecessary based on what is manifest and evident to the senses.
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