Stardusty: "But what of linear uniform motion? For Aquinas to be correct about X Aquinas must be correct about all Xs. A counter example of X disproves Aquinas."
It's one thing to have to explain the basics of science. I sometimes lose heart when it seems that we have to explain the basics of argument as well.
>> "Except if we use the same example of a rock on dirt, the rock does stop because of gravity, friction, etc. It is acted upon by other things and its motion is stopped, so that is in full accordance with the First Way."
This is correct. This is the example that Dusty must deal with, not his example. I reminded him of this some 1100 comments ago. His example is questionable at best. Changing gravitational forces are still acting on X.
What about it? Can you show us that nothing - and I mean nothing - is acting to move an object? How would you set up a controlled experiment to demonstrate this?
Consider linear uniform motion in Newtonian mechanics. X remains stationary unless acted upon (so far no big problem) If we push X it moves (kind of ok still) As X moves its position changes, presumably because we are pushing X (still sort of OK) If we stop pushing X the object does not stop! (Aquinas fails) X continues to change position, said to be a property of X, yet nothing outside of X is changing X, so X must be changing itself!
Newton claimed inertia is responsible for the continued motion, not X itself and not nothing. If you are claiming that inanimate objects move themselves you're contradicting 'SCIENCE'.
@bmiller Believing that inanimate objects move themselves is nothing short of magic. It's a science stopper for sure. If you search the comments Dusty flatly denied that he believes in this sort of thing but now it appears he's a true believer.
"Dusty flatly denied that he believes in this sort of thing but now it appears he's a true believer."
Yes, but that was yesterday :-).
Looks like he's decided to air all the objections he's heard whether he holds them or not just to see the reaction. I've asked him "why do that?", but he's chosen not to answer.
>> They are all a process of mass and energy and thus a physical process, no ghosts or spirits or gods or whatever required, just mass/energy doing what mass/energy does.
More kookisms but I'll bite if only to be entertained even more.
When you imagine a pink unicorn an image is formed in your brain. Because everything is physical, the image MUST be identical IN EVERY WAY to some part of the physical brain. Can you show me that exact image in your brain?
Even dealing with uniform motion operating under inertia, the object would be in a state of motion at a given speed, and to change either the direction or speed would require an outside intervention. The speed and direction are actualized states, and Newton does not contradict this.
Even if we accept that passing through a series of locations under inertia is the actualization of potentials (it was here, now it is here, and that's a change!) rather than a mere change in reference to other things, then the cause would be whatever produced the movement in the first place. A theoretical moving object as old as the universe might have to be traced to the Big Bang in order to locate the cause of the movement, but there is still a cause of movement for any moving object that is not the object itself. Again, Newton does nothing to damage the First Way.
Cal: "It's one thing to have to explain the basics of science. I sometimes lose heart when it seems that we have to explain the basics of argument as well."
You're like the kid in online gaming that trash talks everyone else even though he himself is doing the worst. You aren't doing yourself any favors blustering like this.
"Even dealing with uniform motion operating under inertia, the object would be in a state of motion at a given speed, and to change either the direction or speed would require an outside intervention. The speed and direction are actualized states, and Newton does not contradict this.
Yes and here is the actual relevant quote from Newton's Principia:
LAW I. “Every body perseveres in its state of rest, or of uniform motion in a right line, unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed thereon.”
So if a body is actually in a state of rest it has the potential to change to a state of uniform motion in a straight line if an actual impulse force is impressed upon it. Likewise, if a body is in an actual state of uniform motion in a straight line it has the potential to change to a new state of motion if an actual force compels it to change.
This sounds like your explanation of water in the state of liquid having the potential to be in the state of a solid if the temperature is changed to below 0C.
" If you are claiming that inanimate objects move themselves you're contradicting 'SCIENCE'." The language of Aquinas in the First Way is self consistent under Aristotelian physics but is self contradictory under Newtonian physics.
Motion is change. The thing changing is position. If object X moves it changes position.
Under A-T physics object Y pushing object X is the cause of the change in X, its change in position. When Y ceases pushing X then X ceases changing, which is self consistent with "nothing changes itself"
With Newtonian mechanics when Y ceases pushing X then X continues to change without any other thing causing it to change, so X changes itself in the language of A-T applied to real world Newtonian mechanics. Thus A-T language becomes self contradictory in the real world.
Aristotle knew all this. I am not just making this up. Aristotle understood this problem because he knew objects roll or move through the air after being pushed initially. Aristotle was well aware that one can throw a rock through the air and its motion caused his language to fail.
Aristotle knew his language fails in cases such as a rock thrown through air. So he invented the idea that the rock is actually still being continuously pushed by the air. He was wrong about that, and in truth his language simply fails.
Aquinas fails because his language is based on the language of Aristotle, making both men fail.
" When you imagine a pink unicorn an image is formed in your brain. Because everything is physical, the image MUST be identical IN EVERY WAY to some part of the physical brain." Wrong, the image is stored as an analog, a mapping, a symbolic representation.
" Can you show me that exact image in your brain?" You see a picture of a flower on your computer. Where is the flower in your computer? Open up the box and find the flower for me.
You're making my point Dusty. The image is nowhere to be seen, yet you say it's 100% physical. The TV screen image is physical, everyone can see it. The brain image, nope, can't see it.
Your computer analogy fails. The image actually exists.
With Newtonian mechanics when Y ceases pushing X then X continues to change without any other thing causing it to change
Here you accuse Newton of stating that literally nothing causes the body to continue movement. I contend that he attributed this behavior to vis inertiae. If you have proof that Newton thought literally nothing was responsible for that type of motion, please cite it. Otherwise both Newtonian physics and the First Way agree.
I am not just making this up.
Probably not. You probably just found some web site that got it wrong rather than looking at primary sources just like the one you linked that misattributed a force equation to Aristotle.
To put this issue to rest so we can get back to arguing over the First Way:
'meanings' and 'ideas' are not a physical things, thus they cannot be found in your physical brain. It doesn't matter HOW meanings/ideas get produced so don't bother going that rabbit trail. It's irrelevant. It only matters that meanings/ideas exist in your brain, yet they do NOT have any of the physical properties that the brain has. The idea of "two" in your brain has no chemical properties, no electrical potential, no mass, no density, no force, etc.
Reductionism fails. Physicalism fails. Class dismissed.
Legion: "You're like the kid in online gaming that trash talks everyone else even though he himself is doing the worst. You aren't doing yourself any favors blustering like this."
No bluster; truth.
Comments reveal much, don't they?
Stevek is obviously, well, slow.
bmiller is perpetually out of his depth, but lacks the maturity and intelligence to recognize his surroundings.
Both of them are probably assigned to their roles -- personality is destiny for many of us.
But you seem more the product of your upbringing. And I honestly feel sorry for you. It seems like your life will be a long slow unfolding of how different your life could have been if you hadn't been so handicapped by how you were indoctrinated.
Any time you're ready to move on with the argument I'm ready to point out the problems.
What would it mean for you if it turned out the First Way really isn't a good argument? If it would really bother you, then you're (still) not ready to discuss it.
Cal: "It seems like your life will be a long slow unfolding of how different your life could have been if you hadn't been so handicapped by how you were indoctrinated."
This is strictly out of curiosity, but how precisely would not being "handicapped" improve my life? I've often heard this claim in the atheist debates but have never been given an answer.
Cal: "Any time you're ready to move on with the argument I'm ready to point out the problems."
I honestly think that if I were to ask you to state what (1) through (2)c meant according to Aquinas, that you wouldn't be able to do so. Can you? If so, then I'd be happy to move on.
Cal: "What would it mean for you if it turned out the First Way really isn't a good argument? If it would really bother you, then you're (still) not ready to discuss it."
I don't have anything emotional tied to the argument, if that's what you're getting at. If I had a lot riding on it, I could have stuck my head in the sand and abandoned this thread long ago, rather than hold it up for scrutiny. I was only vaguely aware of the contents of the Five Ways until the first Aquinas thread on this site, so my belief in God would not be impacted in the slightest were all of the Five Ways soundly demolished.
" You're making my point Dusty. The image is nowhere to be seen, yet you say it's 100% physical. The TV screen image is physical, everyone can see it. The brain image, nope, can't see it.
Your computer analogy fails. The image actually exists."
Where inside the box of your computer is an image of the flower?
Legion: "I honestly think that if I were to ask you to state what (1) through (2)c meant according to Aquinas, that you wouldn't be able to do so. Can you?"
This is among the problems of discussing issues with apologists; they don't understand something as basic as the rules of argument. Case in point is your silly belief that the standard for evaluating the First Way is to determine not if the argument is any good, but to declare oneself the final arbiter of what the author of the argument must have meant and then evaluate criticism against that silly standard.
Not only do I not accept this switch, I think it's a laughable conceit on your part.
You have admitted you knew very little about the argument before this discussion started. And now you, in full Dunning Kruger, have assumed that you understand Aquinas's innermost thoughts, and the works that influenced and motivated him, and that this new ability on your part is the standard for which criticism of an obviously flawed argument should be evaluated.
On top of which you have yet to show how my criticisms (and more particularly and saliently, Stardusty's) here fail to refute the argument which is the First Way. Every criticism I have offered is a criticism of that argument, and each of these criticisms demonstrate that we both understand the First Way better than you do, and that I am engaging in the rules of argument.
While you continue to do neither, you just demonstrate how little you can offer this discussion in way of a genuine defense. Which is not so much your fault, as it is the fault of a genuinely terrible argument.
Like I said, you misunderstand your role in this discussion. You make a claim (that the First Way is not refuted by the criticisms offered by Stardusty and me), and at that point you offered to assign what you consider the correct definitions, per your position, to the words of the argument in order to demonstrate that the criticisms offered so many times have no truck.
So, using the definitions that you say accurately reflect what Aquinas really meant when he presented the First Way, we have:
(1)For it is certain and evident to the senses that something in this world [changes].* (2)But, all that is [changed], is [changed] by another.** a.Nothing is, in fact, [changed], unless it is [possible] to that towards which it is [changed].*** b. But, a thing [changes] only insomuch as it [exists].**** c. In fact, to [change] is nothing else than to bring a thing from [possible] to [real].*****
* It is understood that Aquinas is talking about real things (“to the senses.”). ** Observed change only ever occurs because some other thing causes the the observed thing to undergo a change. *** Impossible changes can’t happen. **** Gibberish that has yet to be cleared up. ***** To change is to change into only those things that are possible. More gibberish.
So, you ever going to straighten out the above for us?
Cal: "This is among the problems of discussing issues with apologists; they don't understand something as basic as the rules of argument."
Says the guy who claims to know it's a bad argument even though he doesn't have the faintest clue what the argument is even saying. I don't consider you any sort of authority to be critiquing my understanding of argumentation.
Cal: "You have admitted you knew very little about the argument before this discussion started. And now you, in full Dunning Kruger, have assumed that you understand Aquinas's innermost thoughts, and the works that influenced and motivated him, and that this new ability on your part is the standard for which criticism of an obviously flawed argument should be evaluated."
There were two paths to take, and each of us took one. I encountered the argument and didn't really understand it, so what did I do? Research. I went to the people who are intimately familiar with it. Thomists are experts on the philosophy and arguments of Aquinas, so I read them. I read Aquinas' other writings for additional context. It becomes apparent pretty quickly what Aquinas was getting at, due to a combination of reading Aquinas, learning from the Thomists, and the fact that the concepts are quite simple to understand. As a result, I feel comfortable expressing and defending what the experts say about it, since I agree with them that it indeed is what Aquinas was saying.
You encountered the argument and didn't really understand it, so what did you do? Pretended to know what it was saying, readily agreed with Stardusty's First Strawman, and then declared it to be bad, even though you don't have the faintest clue what it's even about. You accomplished nothing but humiliating yourself through a combination of proud ignorance, bigotry toward anything Christian, and an astounding inability to understand simple concepts even when they are spelled out for you over and over again, with clear examples to accompany. You are not even remotely qualified to tell anyone what the First Way was saying, since you understand none of it.
And you actually feel superior? Dunning Kruger indeed.
Cal: "On top of which you have yet to show how my criticisms (and more particularly and saliently, Stardusty's) here fail to refute the argument which is the First Way."
I've refuted you multiple times. Your failure to recognize the abysmal quality of your attempts at refutation does not change that fact.
Your (b) and (c) footnotes are not gibberish, though not how I would word them.
"But, a thing [changes] only insomuch as it [exists]."
It's not so much the object existing as the state of actuality the object is in, but yes a thing that exists is in one or more actualized states (hot, moving, sharp, luminescent, etc). And depending on what state of actuality the object is in, it will have different effects it can generate. A thing's ability to change is entirely dependent upon what state the thing is in.
"In fact, to [change] is nothing else than to bring a thing from [possible] to [real]"
Change "real" to "realized" and there is no problem.
" Even if we accept that passing through a series of locations under inertia is the actualization of potentials (it was here, now it is here, and that's a change!) rather than a mere change in reference to other things, " Motion is change, it has been said here often. To move is to change. A moving thing is a changing thing, the theists here have asserted time and again in many ways.
So, if motion is change, what is changing? Clearly, in the case of uniform linear motion, the thing that is changing is position.
According to A-T, the thing pushing object X is what is changing X. Stop pushing X and X stops. In the case of a rock thrown through the air it is the air that continues to push on the rock. That is A-T physics and A-T language.
"then the cause would be whatever produced the movement in the first place." This is the anthropomorphization or personalization or time displacement illusory assignment of causation I warned about many posts back. This is why I always recommend reading J.S. Bell or some other modern deep thinker on the subject of causation.
Causal effects propagate by mutual interaction no faster than c, classically (perhaps superluminally according to some interpretations of Bell).
Your language employs a personification of cause, identifying an object as somehow a cause of something even though it is disconnected from the thing it is supposedly causing to do something. This is time dissociated and space dissociated thinking.
Aristotle disagreed with you. The cause of the motion of object X is object Y pushing on it. When object Y stops pushing on it then object Y stops being the cause of change in object X so object X stops changing.
A-T language is fairly self consistent in these simple cases under Aristotelian physics, which is no surprise, since that is what the "A" stands for. But to be valid today the language of A-T must be valid under modern physics, which it is not, and therefore A-T language becomes self contradictory.
It doesn't matter if Aquinas was consistent given medieval notions of motion and causation. If the language of Aquinas does not make sense under modern physics and modern causation then Aquinas simply is wrong by self contradiction.
1) For it is certain and evident to the senses that something in this world [changes].* (2) But, all that is [changed], is [changed] by another. a. Nothing is, in fact, [changed], unless it is [possible] to that towards which it is [changed]. b. A thing that exists is in one or more actualized states (hot, moving, sharp, luminescent, etc). c. In fact, to [change] is nothing else than to bring a thing from [possible] to [realized]. d. But, it is not possible that a [possible] thing be [made real], unless it is by a thing that exists.
bmiller: " Otherwise both Newtonian physics and the First Way agree."
List what Aristotlean physics got wrong.
Or don't you know?
The premise under dispute in the First Way is that things cannot change themselves but require something else to actually cause them to change. Newtonian physics confirm the premise. Do you disagree? If so, then cite where Newtonian physics say that inanimate objects move themselves or that nothing moves them.
The entirety of Aristotelian physics is an interesting subject but is irrelevant to this particular premise. Also, your question as phrased, would require me to compare all the works of Aristotle to all areas of classical physics, GR and QM which don't even agree among themselves.
I'd be happy to discuss particular aspects using primary sources, but isn't this supposed to be about the First Way?
Dusty: "Where inside the box of your computer is an image of the flower?" Me: "You're looking at it, genius! Only an idiot would now go looking somewhere else"
Dusty: "Where inside the box of your computer is an image of the flower?" Me: "You're looking at it, genius! Only an idiot would now go looking somewhere else"
inside the box
Where is the image of the flower inside the box ?
Hint, inside the box means you go to your computer, remove the cover, look at the circuits and wires and find the image of the flower inside the box .
" The premise under dispute in the First Way is that things cannot change themselves but require something else to actually cause them to change. Newtonian physics confirm the premise. Do you disagree? " Yes.
"If so, then cite where Newtonian physics say that inanimate objects move themselves or that nothing moves them." Irrelevant. A-T language fails when it is applied to Newtonian physics.
A-T language is consistent with Aristotelian physics. Newtonian language is consistent with Newtonian physics. A-T language is self contradictory when applied to Newtonian physics.
" The entirety of Aristotelian physics is an interesting subject but is irrelevant to this particular premise." Wrong. Aristotelian physics is embedded in A-T language. A-T language is only self consistent on Aristotelian physics. When we change the physics and keep the language the same the language fails by self contradiction making the language invalid.
" Also, your question as phrased, would require me to compare all the works of Aristotle to all areas of classical physics, GR and QM which don't even agree among themselves." A key highlight will suffice for now. Aristotle asserted the following: Forced motion or violent motion or unnatural motion of object X is caused by object Y exerting a force on X. When object Y stops acting upon object X then X stops moving. Motion of an object, for Aristotle and thus for Aquinas, requires continuous force acting upon the object, stop the outside force and the object stops.
" I'd be happy to discuss particular aspects using primary sources, but isn't this supposed to be about the First Way?" The First Way is an argument from motion. The A-T language is critically dependent upon Aristotelian physics. When we change to Newtonian physics while keeping the language the same the language fails by self contradiction.
Dusty "Where is the image of the pink unicorn in your arm?"
Your question is equally incoherent. Why would anyone look for the image of the flower in the computer when you already know where it is? The ignorance you're spouting is simply amazing.
The principle under discussion is a metaphysical principle consistent with A-T physics, Newtonian physics, GR and QM. None contradict it.
The vis inertiae is a passive principle by which bodies persist in their motion or rest, receive motion in proportion to the force impressing it, and resist as much as they are resisted. By this principle alone there could never have been any motion in the world. Some other Principle was necessary for putting Bodies into Motion; and now they are in motion, some other principle is necessary for conserving the motion. Sir Isaac Newton, Opticks, bk. 3, query 31
There have been arguments whether inertial motion is intrinsic, extrinsic or whether zero acceleration should be considered change at all, but none of these attempts at explanation suppose that inanimate objects change themselves or are changed by nothing and so none contradict the premise.
Notice that I have quoted a primary source, so I'm not winging it.
" Why would anyone look for the image of the flower in the computer when you already know where it is? "
Suppose you turn off the computer, unplug it, disconnect all the cables to your monitor. Where is the image of the flower now? Is there any physical analog to the flower anyplace still physically existent inside the computer?
Now, suppose you had previously set the image of the flower as your desktop image. Plug in the computer, cable it back up, turn it on. The image of the flower appears on your screen. Where did it come from? How was it stored? By what sort of process did your seemingly motionless, unpowered, inanimate physical device produce the image of the flower on your screen?
>> "some other principle is necessary for conserving the motion"
Indeed. Translated, this means some other actual thing is necessary to conserve (sustain) the motion. Perfectly consistent with the First Way argument.
The flip side of this would be that an finite cause is capable of producing (sustaining) an infinite effect. Nothing in science demonstrates this to be true, so once again science is consistent with the FW.
Dusty, How the image is formed is not the issue. It's irrelevant to the issue.
The image exists. It's the final product being perceived. You say everything is physical so the image must also physical. Where do we look if not somewhere north of the human neckline? Tell me.
" You say everything is physical so the image must also physical. Where do we look if not somewhere north of the human neckline? Tell me."
Start with the arrangement of magnetic domains on your hard drive. That is a physical analog of the flower. Then physical circuits process that analog using physical processes.
The image is represented as a number of dots, or clusters of 3 dots, analogous to the clusters of light sensing "dots" in your eye.
The physical process continues as your screen is illuminated such that each dot emits physical energy, electromagnetic radiation, which is physically bent in its path by your physical lens, and then forms and inverted physical image on your physical eye as this physical process continues.
Physical signals are sent on physical nerves to your physical brain, which physically correlates the pattern of incoming signals with physically stored analogs or past images to issue a physical reaction of recognition and association with a physical pressure wave pattern that has the physical analog of the symbols F L O W E R.
" Notice that I have quoted a primary source, so I'm not winging it."
Newtonian language is consistent with Newtonian physics. A-T language is consistent with Aristotelian physics. A-T language is self contradictory when applied to Newtonian physics.
Dusty, >> "The image is represented as a number of dots, or clusters of 3 dots"
Find the represented image of a pink unicorn. It's physical, it's north of the neckline and it's perceived as an image of a pink unicorn. Should be fairly easy for science to recognize.
The image is represented as a pattern of brain cells, neurons, etc that together are perceived to be a pink unicorn. This pattern should be fairly easy to spot.
" The image is represented as a pattern of brain cells, neurons, etc that together are perceived to be a pink unicorn. This pattern should be fairly easy to spot."
Why would the pattern be easy to spot? If you knew anything about data storage you would know the opposite is the case. Data is stored in a distributed and highly complex arrangement bearing no immediate resemblance to the real external object the data is an analog representation of.
Okay, maybe 'easy' isn't the right word. Let's just say it's there to be found and leave it at that.
The image is not in some other form so I don't need to know anything about data storage. It exists in a physical form that is perceived as a pink unicorn.
We can quit this topic anytime you want. You're flailing around.
" Okay, maybe 'easy' isn't the right word. Let's just say it's there to be found and leave it at that." Right, a physical representation of an object is stored in the brain in physical structures. The brain is physical. The representation of the object is physical. Physical processes store and retrieve the representation of the object.
A-T language is self contradictory when applied to Newtonian physics.
This is the only A-T language that's been quoted and is relevant: Therefore, whatever is in motion must be put in motion by another.
This is the relevant Newtonian language: By this principle alone there could never have been any motion in the world. Some other Principle was necessary for putting Bodies into Motion; and now they are in motion, some other principle is necessary for conserving the motion.
'Processes' are not physical things nor are 'representations'. Physical things have rest mass or energy that can be measured.
I can measure the mass of a computer and the energy it consumes and expends. Where do I plug in my meter or scale to measure a 'process' or a 'representation'?
>> "Right, a physical representation of an object is stored in the brain in physical structures."
You're still flailing around.
a) I perceive a pink unicorn b) It therefore exists in an actual form that is actually perceived as an actual pink unicorn c) It's not in an unrecognizable form such as 'storage' or 'analog' d) It exists in physical form e) It's physically located somewhere f) You say it's in/around the brain. Find it.
stevek: "Okay, maybe 'easy' isn't the right word. Let's just say it's there to be found and leave it at that....We can quit this topic anytime you want. You're flailing around."
" 'Processes' are not physical things" A physical process is a changing physical thing, as opposed to a ghost or a god or a mind or some other imagined spookystuff. Thus a process is physical in the sense that running is physical.
" nor are 'representations'." Remember your old dial up, or your old Fax, those funny tones? The process of one frequency represented a 1, the process of another frequency represented a 0. The variations in the electromagnetic radiation detected by your radio antenna represent human voice, or music, or data, or whatever they are encoded to represent.
" Physical things have rest mass or energy that can be measured." Ok, at least you understand that much.
" I can measure the mass of a computer and the energy it consumes and expends." Ok.
" Where do I plug in my meter or scale to measure a 'process' or a 'representation'?" You need more sophisticated test equipment for that, such as an oscilloscope, logic analyzer, spectrum analyzer, etc., depending what you wish to measure.
" d) It exists in physical form e) It's physically located somewhere f) You say it's in/around the brain. Find it."
Please arrive at 123 Main street, Smalltown USA, at 12pm on May 12 2017. At that time I will open your skull and start cutting out parts of your brain while asking you to keep picturing a pink unicorn. When you can no longer picture the pink unicorn we will know I have cut out the cells that stored the representation of the pink unicorn in your brain, thus demonstrating I have found it.
No. A changing physical thing is a changing physical thing. A process is "a natural phenomenon marked by gradual changes that lead toward a particular result". I can measure the energy/mass of a changing physical thing. I cannot measure the energy/mass of a phenomenon.
The instruments you mentioned measure aspects of energy which apply to changing physical things. You didn't mention a 'phenomenonmeter'. Maybe you can borrow one from the Ghostbusters :-)
>> "When you can no longer picture the pink unicorn we will know I have cut out the cells that stored the representation of the pink unicorn in your brain, thus demonstrating I have found it."
Nope. You gotta show me the pink unicorn to demonstrate you found it. It could be elsewhere and you just interrupted the signal.
@Stardusty, when the only demonstration that your interlocutors have left is to brandish their ignorance and stupidity, I think you've done all you can.
If Legion ever comes back to fulfill his vow to properly explain, line by line, how it somehow is that the First Way hasn't been soundly refuted so very long ago, then maybe there will be something to work with.
bmiller: " 'For example, in physics, a phenomenon may be described by a system of information related to matter, energy, or spacetime, such as Isaac Newton's observations of the moon's orbit and of gravity, or Galileo Galilei's observations of the motion of a pendulum.[4]' / Measuring energy and mass is not measuring information. No, a phenomenon is not a changing physical thing."
Cal Metzger said... " @Stardusty, when the only demonstration that your interlocutors have left is to brandish their ignorance and stupidity, I think you've done all you can."
Yes, the latest bits about information and phenomena and pink unicorns show a very scattered thought process for b and s.
" If Legion ever comes back to fulfill his vow to properly explain, line by line," Well, he has given it an honest try, I think. We got kind of stuck because I don't think he anticipated objections to the fundamental assumptions implicit in A-T language even in the first few lines of the OP.
I don't mind so much speaking in the vernacular just for the sake of discussion. But he asked for objections and now I am going to add another post date to my reference list I have reposted from time to time.
It will be interesting to see how he handles the begging the question, ad hoc, false assertion, non sequitur defects of the OP. If we get through that far maybe we will even get to the glaring omissions of Haines's notation.
Haines stopped at U, completely ignoring his own 5 in his own notation. I followed up with G (a human understanding of god) and E (the existence of god).
I suspect Haines omitted G and E from his notation because they are so blatantly based on false assertion, ad hoc, and non-sequitur that it was impossible to write any logical notation for G and E, so he hoped to just sweep this omission under the rug where it would not be noticed by the credulous.
May 12, 2017 4:57 AM
Reposting reference dates March 12, 2017 9:25 AM March 12, 2017 9:27 AM March 12, 2017 9:28 AM March 12, 2017 10:10 AM
I'll assume that you agree with description of phenomenon being described as "a system of information". Now while the "system of information" may be related to matter, energy or spacetime it is not itself, matter, energy or spacetime otherwise the description would not have made the distinction.
Thanks for graciously pointing out my mistake. You're quite right. I should have quoted the whole thing:
In scientific usage, a phenomenon is any event that is observable, however common it might be, even if it requires the use of instrumentation to observe, record, or compile data concerning it. For example, in physics, a phenomenon may be described by a system of information related to matter, energy, or spacetime, such as Isaac Newton's observations of the moon's orbit and of gravity, or Galileo Galilei's observations of the motion of a pendulum.[4]
The description says that science considers a phenomenon an observable event. I had in mind Kant's distinction between phenomena and noumena and inadvertently read that into the scientific description. Noumena being the actual thing, phenomena being the perception.
So if you are a Kantian, which I'm not, then the phenomena is not a real physical thing.
The scientific description mentions that a phenomenon is any event that is observable, so according to that definition any physical change that can be measured is a phenomenon including chaotic noise. A process however has added restrictions. A process is "a natural phenomenon marked by gradual changes that lead toward a particular result". So in order to qualify as a process, it must lead to particular results and so has information content.
Information is not measured by rest mass or energy as physical things are. So to understand a process, you will need to do more than measure mass or energy.
bmiller: "The scientific description mentions that a phenomenon is any event that is observable, so according to that definition any physical change that can be measured is a phenomenon including chaotic noise."
I wonder if my phrase 'chaotic noise' was unclear now.
By chaotic noise, I mean lack of information ascertainable in measurements. If you've ever had an AM radio between stations you can hear static. The static is considered noise and is considered random and unpredictable.
If you googled 'chaotic noise' the first thing you would have found was the "Chaotic Noise Marching Corps". So no, I was not referring to that.
" FYI, I work weekend nights and have had school events with the kiddos so it will likely be tomorrow or Sunday before I can jump back in." --Ok, fair enough, but I have yet to see any sound explanation from you or anybody else the addresses the defects of the First Way: Incorrect language of physics Begging the question Self contradiction Ad hoc Non sequitur False dichotomy Omission of the existence of god from the argument
Also the shortcomings of Haines: Abbreviated notation throughout argument Truncated notation at U Omission of G (human understanding of god) Omission of E (existence of god)
That is a great many defects both in the First Way as written by Aquinas and the logical notation used by Haines.
Do you really consider yourself capable of going line by line to show that all these problems somehow really are not problems?
I've covered this already, no conflict has been shown. Also, provisional postulates and no language god.
Stardusty: "Begging the question"
I know the part you're referring to. I'm not concerned. We'll see if it's actually begging the question when we get there.
Stardusty: "Self contradiction...False dichotomy"
None has been pointed out in the First Way. First Strawman, yes, but not the First Way.
Stardusty: "Omission of the existence of god from the argument"
Not sure what you're getting at there.
Stardusty: "Also the shortcomings of Haines"
I have no interest in defending Haines. The only reason I'm using him at all is because of the OP. If he botches something, that's on him. If you're really wanting someone to defend Haines, you'll have to ask one of the others, because the First Way isn't his argument.
Stardusty: "--Ok, fair enough, but I have yet to see any sound explanation from you or anybody else the addresses the DEFECTS of the First Way: Incorrect language of physics..." Legion: "I've covered this already, no CONFLICT has been shown. Also, provisional postulates and no language god."
Defect ≠ Conflict
If you can't be precise in your defense then you have even less home than I imagined.
Cal: "1) For it is certain and evident to the senses that something in this world [changes].*"
Good.
"(2) But, all that is [changed], is [changed] by another."
Good.
"a. Nothing is, in fact, [changed], unless it is [possible] to that towards which it is [changed]."
Good.
"b. A thing that exists is in one or more actualized states (hot, moving, sharp, luminescent, etc)."
To use Haines' wording in (2)b, he says "But, a thing moves only insomuch as it is in act". So, a thing X changes other things only to the extent that Thing X is in some realized state, a state that is in effect - and whatever state(s) it is in would determine what changes it could effect. It's not that the thing simply exists, it is that the existing thing is in one or more realized states, which can generate effects.
"c. In fact, to [change] is nothing else than to bring a thing from [possible] to [realized]."
Good.
"d. But, it is not possible that a [possible] thing be [made real], unless it is by a thing that exists."
If I stick with using "possible", I'd say something like "But, it is not possible that a [possible] thing be [brought into effect, realized], unless it is by a thing that is [in a realized state]."
Cal: "If you can't be precise in your defense then you have even less home than I imagined."
Assuming you meant "hope". That was strictly in response to Stardusty's comment ""Incorrect language of physics". And I correctly pointed out that no conflict between the First Way and physics has been shown.
" I correctly pointed out that no conflict between the First Way and physics has been shown." --The language of Aquinas is only consistent with Aristotelian physics. The combination of assertions in the First way breaks down under uniform linear motion and the modern physics of causality.
See May 11, 2017 9:00 AM May 11, 2017 11:00 AM
Here it is again in other words: I assert that the language of Aquinas, his terminology, and most importantly his views of the physics of motion implicit in his language is defective when applied to the modern physics of motion.
For the First Way to be a sound argument today it must be sound in consideration of modern physics. Perhaps the statements of Aquinas accurately reflected 13th century understandings of physics, but that is not sufficient for the First Way to be a sound modern argument for god.
I will reference your OP above for wording locations. (2) But, all that is moved, is moved by another. (2)c. In fact, to move is nothing else than to bring a thing from potency to act. (4)b. in the same way that a cane is not moved unless it is moved by a hand.
I realize that “move” is used rather ambiguously by Aquinas, although that is not my core criticism in this argument. In 2c “move” is defined very generally as a realization of a potential, whereas in 4b “move” is used in the common sense of a change in position.
These views are not mutually exclusive when we consider common motion as a change in position. An object has the potential to move to a new location. Every time an object changes position it realizes a potential to be in that position. When an object moves from position a to b to c then upon arrival at b its potential to move to b is realized, and according to Aquinas it must be moved by another to change from position b to realize position c. The language is clumsy, but not strictly erroneous on its face, or so it seems.
But what of 2? When something is moved it is necessarily moved by another. Well, ok with the example of 4b, when the cane is moved, it is moved by a moving hand. When the hand stops moving, the cane stops moving. If one pushes a book across a table the book moves because it is being pushed. When one stops pushing the book, the book stops.
What is my problem then? You may well ask. Things seem to be just fine with the First Way. And on Aristotelian physics, indeed, the language of Aquinas seems to match with simple ordinary object motion like a hand, a cane, and a sliding book.
Newton is the problem! Newton said the cane does not stop when the hand stops and the book does not stop when the pushing stops. Position keeps changing. Motion continues. Each successive new position is being brought into actualization from potency even after the outside causal agent stops pushing. Thus, for uniform linear motion 2 is violated, since there is no other, yet the object moves from position b (at which point it is only potentially at position c) and then the object realizes this change to position c, yet without another as called for by the A-T language of 2.
Aristotle knew of this problem, for example throwing a rock through the air. Aristotle asserted that a force is continuously applied to the rock from outside the rock even in the air.
The language of Aquinas implicitly accepts these assertions of Aristotle, and in fact depends upon them, yet Aristotle was wrong, and therefore the language of Aquinas becomes self-contradictory under modern physics, rendering the First Way unsound.
On the definition of motion provided in 2c the assertion of 2 is false in the case of linear uniform motion, thus the First Way is unsound by reason of a false premise in 2.
Newton is not a problem. I've already addressed this. Say you have a ball sitting still. You come up and strike it with a golf club, and the ball flies up. Now because of gravity and wind resistance the ball will slow and arc downward, but let's say for simplicity's sake that those were not factors. You hit the ball and it flies upward at a given angle at a given speed and continues on.
The speed and direction the ball are traveling in are potential states that were actualized when the club struck the ball. Aristotle and Aquinas were indeed wrong about some of their physics, but that is hardly detrimental to the First Way. If the ball is moving, something made it move. It did not make itself move. If the ball is traveling in X direction, something put it in that state. The argument does not depend on medieval understanding of physics. Another reason an object that continues moving after you let go is not a problem is because that would be an accidentally ordered series, and not an essentially ordered series like the First Way is addressing.
In a real-world example, you hit the ball and it arcs, but the deceleration and change in direction are due to the influence of other things, so we again have potential states being actualized by actualized things. The First Way still applies. With the hand and cane and rock, there are variables that Aristotle and Aquinas were unaware of, but those other variables - gravity, etc - are simply other actualized states of things that are changing the movement of the rock. It doesn't falsify the premise that the rock does not change its state unless acted upon, whether that state is "motionless" or in motion.
No conflict between Newton and the First Way has been demonstrated. You want to keep trying, or are you ready to move on?
Stardusty: "Omission of the existence of god from the argument" " Not sure what you're getting at there."
Stardusty: "Also the shortcomings of Haines" " I have no interest in defending Haines. The only reason I'm using him at all is because of the OP. If he botches something, that's on him. " --Fair enough.
But, my points about some of the defects of Aquinas are illustrated by the omissions of Haines.
The First Way is an argument for God, capital G. Aquinas was not arguing for a first mover in isolation, or a human understanding of God, rather, Aquinas set out to argue for the existence of God.
Yet, Aquinas fails to close the deal. He stops 1 meter short of the finish line and just sits down on the track. Aquinas never ties his arguments to the existence of God, only a human understanding of God. Human understanding does not constitute existence. Human understanding versus existence are a chasm apart.
You certainly have no obligation to defend any other analysis. You quite reasonably go to the primary source. However, I contend that the fact Haines stopped his notation at U is that it is not possible to write defensible logical notation for U therefore G (human understanding of God) G therefore E (existence of God)
The glaring omission of logical notation in the OP beyond U supports my contention of defects of Aquinas including Ad hoc False assertion False dichotomy Non sequitur
Dusty the anti-science wonder >> "Thus, for uniform linear motion 2 is violated"
Newton's theory didn't state, or even imply, that things can move themselves. Don't bastardize his theory just to fit your crackpot idea. Your crazy idea that a finite cause produces an infinite effect is known as "perpetual motion" Don't try to pin that nonsense on Newton.
" You want to keep trying, or are you ready to move on?" --Either way, but the language remains defective on Newtonian mechanics and the modern physics of causality.
Suppose we consider this from the point of view of A-T understanding for a starting point. An object is pushed from postion a to b to c. What is changing? What is the potential and what is the actual?
Postion.
In the view of A-T when the object is at a it is actually at a and potentially at b. According to "all that is moved, is moved by another" to change from position a to position b "another" must must move the object.
So let's be another and push the object from a to b. Now position b is realized and position c is potential. So again, we must be another and again push the object from position b to position c.
Each successive change requires an action by another. That's why the object stops when we stop pushing. "all that is moved, is moved by another" works under A-T physics, at least for ordinary high friction objects and their apparent stoppage when the "another" stops moving the object.
It cannot be the case that Aquinas intended "motion" to be the "state" as you assert above. Aquinas had no such notion because he used the physics of Aristotle, like basically everybody else. It must be that Aquinas considered the position to be the state that requires a change by another, with each new change in position requiring a new "moved by another".
But Aquinas was wrong. That which is moved does not require to be moved by another. Objects do move themselves, they just don't begin to move themselves or change their own motion, but they do change their own position.
The language of Aquinas is simply wrong in the case of uniform linear motion. Objects do move themselves. An object having moved from a to b does not require another to move it from b to c.
That's why Newton abandoned the language of A-T. A-T language fails in uniform linear motion.
Dusty the anti-science wonder >> "Thus, for uniform linear motion 2 is violated"
" Newton's theory didn't state, or even imply, that things can move themselves." Of course it does. That's what uniform linear motion is, an object moving itself.
In uniform linear motion no outside force is acting upon the object, yet it is moving, so it must be moving all on its own, by itself.
Newton said an object does not change its own motion, but it does change its own position.
Aquinas must have been referring to a change in position, not a change in motion, because under A-T motion stops by itself, which is a change in motion, but not a change in position.
>> "In uniform linear motion no outside force is acting upon the object, yet it is moving"
Meaning that this motion will continue forever, unaided by any outside force - despite conservation of energy. Cite the theory that says perpetual motion is possible, and more importantly, cite the tests that have confirmed/verified it. You're bluffing.
The theory doesn't say anything about the existence of outside causes. You're bastardizing the theory.
But anyway, theories are just that. Cite the tests that confirm/validate unaided perpetual motion. Not "it's assumed to be" unaided or "we cannot detect anything" unaided. Don't forget to control for the effect of gravity. Good luck.
It has been argued since Newton's time whether interial motion at a constant velocity is: 1)a natural intrinsic property of matter like Aristotle's definition of a body's natural motion (Newton's position) 2) due to an extrinsic cause (Mach's theory) 3) not a real change at all since constant velocity cannot be sensed nor measured without reference to something that is in a different intertial reference frame.
None of these explanations contradict the First Way's premise.
Additionally Strawdusty is making things up. His descriptions of what both Newton and Aquinas held the cause to be came out of his own imagination. I've posted the relevant quotes from both authors and I have more.
" But anyway, theories are just that. Cite the tests that confirm/validate unaided perpetual motion." --Now you are moving the goalposts. You asked for a theory. It is the theory of Newtonian uniform motion.
But, you can add the theory of cosmic expansion. It seems the universe might expand for all time, thus, be in perpetual motion.
Legion: "It's not that the thing simply exists, it is that the existing thing is in one or more realized states, which can generate effects."
Can you distinguish between a thing that "simply exists" and a potential (thing)? Aren't they the same? If so, why not use the same terminology consistently -- actual = realized, potential = possible. This other term, "simply exists", seems to occupy a vague ground between both sets of terms.
Legion: "If I stick with using "possible", I'd say something like "But, it is not possible that a [possible] thing be [brought into effect, realized], unless it is by a thing that is [in a realized state]."
Me: "Cal: "If you can't be precise in your defense then you have even less home than I imagined." Legion: "Assuming you meant "hope".
I did; thanks.
Legion: "That was strictly in response to Stardusty's comment ""Incorrect language of physics". And I correctly pointed out that no conflict between the First Way and physics has been shown."
An argument need not be in conflict with something else in order to be defective. So, your response is, well, defective.
Stardusty: "In uniform linear motion no outside force is acting upon the object, yet it is moving" Stevek: " Meaning that this motion will continue forever.... Cite the theory that says perpetual motion is possible," Stardusty: "You just did it for me. Didn't you notice?"
@Stardusty, there's a level of stupid that fails to recognize one's own ignorance. Stevek luxuriates on that level.
bmiller: "It has been argued since Newton's time whether interial motion at a constant velocity is.... I've posted the relevant quotes from both authors and I have more."
Translation: bmiller has no foundation in basic science, and believes that whatever random snipped he can discover on the internet supplants a process of broad study and analytical thinking.
I'm used to apologists, but this might be the new high water mark of embarrassing for you guys.
Stardusty: "It cannot be the case that Aquinas intended "motion" to be the "state" as you assert above. Aquinas had no such notion because he used the physics of Aristotle, like basically everybody else. It must be that Aquinas considered the position to be the state that requires a change by another, with each new change in position requiring a new "moved by another".
Even given that the physics of Aristotle were wrong, Newton does nothing to damage the actual argument. If an object moving under inertia passes from A to B to C and so on, it is only able to do so because its motion was caused by something else. The object did not cause its own motion, so its ability to pass through a series of locations was granted by something that caused its motion. That fits squarely into the premises of the First Way dealing with potential and actual states.
In addition, particularly in the staff example, the main focus for the essentially ordered series he is talking about would be the staff and the hand, not the rock. If he'd known about inertia, his example would possibly have been different, but it still works even with inertia being known because the question he implies is "Why does the staff have the ability to move the rock in that scenario?"
To the extent that Newtonian physics would answer the question, it doesn't contradict the answer that Aquinas would give. The most damaging Newton could possibly be to the First Way would be invalidating the staff scenario as an example (though I don't agree that it does), but it doesn't damage the actual premises.
Interestingly enough, it seems as though unlike in science, where either of us would expect an idea to be adjusted or scrapped in the face of new discoveries, you apparently expect the First Way to be completely intertwined in the physics of the day, even though the argument isn't a physics treatise. Knowing that Aquinas and Aristotle had no knowledge of Newtonian physics, I would simply see if the First Way's primary points - if not examples - withstood Newtonian physics, and they do. Velocity absent acceleration would be a state, even if Aquinas and Aristotle were ignorant of that. You apparently think the entire thing should be scrapped, even though the primary purpose of the argument still stands under Newtonian physics.
Cal: "Can you distinguish between a thing that "simply exists" and a potential (thing)? Aren't they the same? If so, why not use the same terminology consistently -- actual = realized, potential = possible. This other term, "simply exists", seems to occupy a vague ground between both sets of terms."
"Simply exists" would be vague under the First Way, so I wouldn't want to use it as synonymous with either actual or potential. There will likely be pitfalls that I don't foresee, but let's proceed under "actual = realized, potential = possible" and see what happens.
Legion: ""Simply exists" would be vague under the First Way, so I wouldn't want to use it as synonymous with either actual or potential. There will likely be pitfalls that I don't foresee, but let's proceed under "actual = realized, potential = possible" and see what happens."
Legion: "Velocity absent acceleration would be a state, even if Aquinas and Aristotle were ignorant of that."
This is a fundamental misunderstanding of the difference between AT physic and Newtonian physics.
In AT physics, something is moving because it is being pushed.
In Newtonian physics, something is moving because it was set in motion.
Similarly, AT physics assumes an intuitive simultaneity of causes -- the thing moving now is moving because something at the very end of the chain is currently moving it.
Modern physics makes the more accurate description of spacetime.
And this is a fundamental problem with the defective terms of AT physics -- it takes the naive approach that the underlying force behind something like motion is simultaneous to the observed motion, but this is (of course) not the case.
The defect of this language becomes most apparent when the defenders of the First Way try to insist that the argument is not about origins -- and by so claiming they confess that the argument is hopelessly defective in its description of physical reality.
If your opponents insist that inanimate things are moving themselves or that nothing is moving them it seems you can't move past that. You can't use scientific arguments with people who don't believe in science.
Cal: " I'm still waiting for you to proceed to the next part of the First Way. Were you waiting for something else?"
Summer vacation is going to slow me down.
Cal: "This is a fundamental misunderstanding of the difference between AT physic and Newtonian physics."
It doesn't matter if Aquinas or Aristotle were wrong about physics, the First Way withstands Newton. In fact, the language of Newton closely supports the First Way. "Every object persists in its state of rest or uniform motion in a straight line unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed upon it." That is remarkably similar to premises of the First Way:
"Now whatever is in motion is put in motion by another";
"But nothing can be reduced from potentiality to actuality, except by something in a state of actuality";
"It is therefore impossible that in the same respect and in the same way a thing should be both mover and moved, i.e. that it should move itself. Therefore, whatever is in motion must be put in motion by another."
As I've been saying all along, the First Way is not a physics argument and was not intended to be a physics argument. That's why even though they got their physics wrong, the First Way easily withstands Newton - the ideas remain even if the science changes. Velocity absent acceleration is a state, and it takes an outside force to change that state. That's the First Way's early premises in a nutshell, even if they didn't know their argument was actually superior to the physics of the time.
Cal: "And this is a fundamental problem with the defective terms of AT physics -- it takes the naive approach that the underlying force behind something like motion is simultaneous to the observed motion, but this is (of course) not the case."
Again, the most Newton could do to the First Way would be invalidating an example, not the entire argument. Both Aristotle and Aquinas believed in two different series of causes - accidentally ordered and essentially ordered. In other words, not everything was an essentially ordered series in which the cause and effect are simultaneous. Even now, the essentially ordered series is a valid concept.
Cal: "The defect of this language becomes most apparent when the defenders of the First Way try to insist that the argument is not about origins"
We don't "try to insist" - we accurately point it out. Aquinas did not believe the origin of the universe could be logically demonstrated, so he would not then present an argument attempting to describe the origin of the universe. It's an argument for God, as one part of a larger argument for God, using the fact of change to reach that conclusion. It's not about the origin of the universe.
bmiller: "If your opponents insist that inanimate things are moving themselves or that nothing is moving them it seems you can't move past that. You can't use scientific arguments with people who don't believe in science."
I've long suspected that the only interest the average anti-theist has in science is in the parts that can ostensibly be used to attack religious beliefs. That's why there are such gaping holes in their knowledge of science and philosophy.
(2)d: But, it is not possible that a thing be reduced to act, unless it is by a thing that is in act.
i. For example, an actually burning or hot thing, such as a flame, makes wood, which is potentially burning, to be burning in act, and in this way the wood is moved and altered.
Using "actual = realized", "potential = possible", and "motion = going from possible to realized", (2)d says that it is not possible that a thing (including a thing's potential states) become realized, unless it is by a thing that itself is realized. So, it takes something that is actually hot (as opposed to potentially hot) to make wood actually burn.
Potential/possible states of a thing have no causal power - only the actualized/realized states of a thing have causal power.
Legion: "It doesn't matter if Aquinas or Aristotle were wrong about physics, the First Way withstands Newton. In fact, the language of Newton closely supports the First Way. 'Every object persists in its state of rest or uniform motion in a straight line unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed upon it.' That is remarkably similar to premises of the First Way: 'Now whatever is in motion is put in motion by another'; "
So, to be clear, you interpret Aquinas's argument to mean that those things we observe to be in motion NOW (in the present) DO NOT require current causes, only prior ones? In other words, if Aquinas's argument conflicts with modern physics, we should understand Aquinas to be compatible with modern physics?
If that were the case, it would mean that the motion is not due to an essentially ordered series where the cause and effect are simultaneous. And that would mean the FW argument doesn't apply to THAT specific situation.
" Both Aristotle and Aquinas believed in two different series of causes - " --How can causation somehow vary? Causal influences propagate through space at not faster than c, classically, in a continuous/continual mutual interaction.
"accidentally ordered and essentially ordered. In other words, not everything was an essentially ordered series in which the cause and effect are simultaneous." --Yes, for example, 2 electrons moving and electrostaticaly interacting with changing velocities for each. Both electrons are the cause of each other's change the the effect from the other.
" Even now, the essentially ordered series is a valid concept." --Right, it is the accidentally ordered series that is dubious, and is a sort of personification of causation, a labeling a thing as "the cause" in a simplistic human level view of mutual causal propagation systems.
These do not show that the motion is UNAIDED by an outside simultaneous cause. They also do not show the motion can continue forever. That is what you claim the theory says.
Your partner has claimed that things move themselves according to Newton. Do you agree? You just made inaccurate and muddled claims regarding both Aristotelean physics and Newtonian physics. No telling what you're thinking.
" These do not show that the motion is UNAIDED by an outside simultaneous cause. " --What is outside our big bang aiding it with a simultaneous cause of its expansion?
"They also do not show the motion can continue forever." --Yes, Newton did formulate his theory in just that way.
Further, yes the preponderance of measurements of cosmic expansion indicate it will indeed continue expanding forever.
Strawdusty: " Newton's theory didn't state, or even imply, that things can move themselves." Of course it does. That's what uniform linear motion is, an object moving itself.
In uniform linear motion no outside force is acting upon the object, yet it is moving, so it must be moving all on its own, by itself.
Newton said an object does not change its own motion, but it does change its own position.
May 15, 2017 6:00 PM
Now it's your turn. Cite primary sources to support your claims. It could be fun to read.
"Newton's theory didn't state, or even imply, that things can move themselves." Stardusty: "Of course it does. That's what uniform linear motion is, an object moving itself."
Ah, you remain confused about the difference between initiating motion, and being in motion.
In Newtonian physics, things at rest tend to stay at rest, and things in motion tend to stay in motion. That's the old-fashioned way of expressing it.
In AT physics, things at rest tend to stay at rest, and thing in motion ONLY REMAIN IN MOTION IF THEY ARE BEING PUSHED. That is what Stardusty means when he says that Newtonian physics includes things moving themselves -- meaning that they remain in motion even though no new force is propelling the object as it continues to move.
If you fail to understand that much, then you fail to understand a key distinction between these two explanations of physics.
In other words, you think Newton said a finite cause can produce an infinite effect. What's strange is how many experiments show this to be false - Every. Time. It's a theory in search of a reality.
Cal: "So, to be clear, you interpret Aquinas's argument to mean that those things we observe to be in motion NOW (in the present) DO NOT require current causes, only prior ones? In other words, if Aquinas's argument conflicts with modern physics, we should understand Aquinas to be compatible with modern physics?"
This is why I've always said that the First Way is not a physics argument, because the premises exist independently of whatever physics Aristotle and Aquinas believed. Potential states being actuated, only actualized states having causal power, a thing's causal power derived from further causes acting upon it simultaneously with its effect, etc. Those things exist under both Aristotle and Newton. The only things that would change would be examples, not the premises themselves. And the examples in the First Way still work even under Newton, due to what concept is being demonstrated (which isn't physics).
Using a rock getting pushed, according to Newton the rock would continue moving if it wasn't acted upon by friction and gravity (on Earth). In space, the rock's movement would be a potential state getting actualized, but getting pushed would not be part of an essentially ordered series with whatever pushed it, because you could remove whatever pushed it and the rock would still move. (On Earth, the essentially ordered series still applies due to something being required to overcome the forces of gravity and friction to make the rock move.)
But even though whatever pushed the rock in space is not part of an essentially ordered series with the rock, the rock is still part of such a series on different levels. Whatever property grants inertia, the atomic forces holding the rock together, etc. There are active causes that, if removed, would result in the destruction of the rock or possibly the cessation of its movement. This is why science has done little, if nothing, to impact the First Way, even if it more or less obliterated the physics of the day. Our understanding of nature at most changes illustrations of the concepts, but the concepts remain untouched.
Stardusty: "Of course it does. That's what uniform linear motion is, an object moving itself."
Ah, you remain confused about the difference between initiating motion, and being in motion.
Uniform linear motion is not now and has never been considered "an object moving itself" in Aristotelean nor Newtonian physics. If an inanimate object could move itself why doesn't it start moving itself or stop moving itself? That is the reason Aristotle rejected the notion and Newton agreed (along with everyone else). The mover that causes this type of motion was called impetus in the Aristotelean tradition and later inertia in the Newtonian tradition.
In AT physics, things at rest tend to stay at rest, and thing in motion ONLY REMAIN IN MOTION IF THEY ARE BEING PUSHED. That is what Stardusty means when he says that Newtonian physics includes things moving themselves -- meaning that they remain in motion even though no new force is propelling the object as it continues to move.
When I asked for primary sources, I didn't mean Strawdusty. You know that right? :-)
Briefly, Aristotle held there were 2 kinds of motion, natural motion and constrained motion. Have you noticed that a ball will fall to the floor immediately if you remove your hand from beneath it at increasing velocity on the way down? Aristotle called that natural motion since it happened naturally with no one doing any "pushing" (an imprecise and incorrect term). Newton called it gravity. In this case the body moved to where nature intended it to move to. In neither case is the object considered to move itself but is considered to be moved by another (see above).
Constrained motion meant that (what we call) force had to be applied since the body would resist this type of motion (equal and opposite what Newton's phrase). Once that resistance was overcome the body remained in motion and impetus (Newton called it inertia) kept it in motion until (what we call) friction stopped it or another body collided with it. Is the continued motion natural or constrained? Aristotle favored the idea it was constrained (as did Ernst Mach and Einstein) since it started out as constrained. Newton favored constrained at first, then natural. However, in neither case is the object considered to move itself but is considered to be moved by another (see above).
So both systems agree with the First Way and in fact are based on the premise that nothing moving moves itself.
" In other words, you think Newton said a finite cause can produce an infinite effect." In A-T language position is a property that changes when caused to change by "another".
In Newtownian physics a change in position is not a change in the intrinsic properties of the object. These properties are described with F=ma E=mvv/2
At constant v the object is no longer changing its intrinsic properties, according to Newton, but according to A-T it is.
So, the "effect" in terms of a change in properties is finite under Newton. From outside the object, if you consider change in position to be an "effect" then yes, that is unbounded with a finite energy cause because v remains constant.
Steve, you apparently never took a physics course, which is unfortunate for you but curable. Go to a library and check out a physics book, or buy a used physics book, or go on line and learn the above equations for starters.
" What's strange is how many experiments show this to be false - Every. Time. It's a theory in search of a reality." --I suppose you are referring to friction. Yes, that fooled humanity for millennia, notably including A-T. We now know that the motion that appears to disappear is actually transferred to molecular motion, and thus continues with no upper bound on time.
bmiller said... "Aristotle called that ... Constrained motion meant that (what we call) force had to be applied since the body would resist this type of motion (equal and opposite what Newton's phrase). Once that resistance was overcome the body remained in motion " --Wrong according to A-T. When the force is removed the object stops. An object only moves (changes position) if it is being moved by something else. When "another" stops moving the object then the object stops, according to A-T.
" nothing moving moves itself." --A planet is moving through space, ideally in a circular orbit. Nothing is moving it, yet it is moving.
You are mixing up "moves" meaning a change in position, with "moves" meaning to move or to cause a change in motion.
Nothing "moves" itself in the latter sense. Everything "moves" itself in the former sense.
>> At constant v the object is no longer changing its intrinsic properties, according to Newton, but according to A-T it is.
Then Newton's theory doesn't actually disagree with the FW. The FW defines change as X and makes a case for how X occurs. Newton's theory says "I don't define change that way"
--Wrong according to A-T. When the force is removed the object stops. An object only moves (changes position) if it is being moved by something else. When "another" stops moving the object then the object stops, according to A-T.
No you're wrong. There. That settled it didn't it? You're not big on researching and citing primary sources are you?
Nothing "moves" itself in the latter sense. Everything "moves" itself in the former sense.
Planets are moved by gravity and inertia according to Newton, not themselves. But of course you don't really care what science has to say at the end of the day do you? I don't mind discussing ontology and epistemology, but why pretend you are defending your position using science?
bmiller: "But of course you don't really care what science has to say at the end of the day do you? I don't mind discussing ontology and epistemology, but why pretend you are defending your position using science?"
It's worse than that. It's an irrelevant tangent. The First Way is not a physics argument, so its premises do not rest upon the physics of the day being correct. The First Way operates just fine under classical physics, so even if every A-T conception of physics was flawed, it wouldn't invalidate the argument.
Of course it is. When your opponent argues for things he's shown he doesn't believe in he is arguing in bad faith. I've set my expectation accordingly.
But all in all there are some pluses. Cal isn't shouting "multiverse" anymore. Strawdusty has apparently read at least one website that had correct AT terminology. You've done your research and I've done mine.
The best you can hope for is that there are some thought provoking challenges, but expect them to be irrelevant to the First Way.
" This is as close to understanding what the argument is saying as you've come thus far. Keep at it." --You have reduced the First Way to a tautology. As written, the observations and examples make meaningful statements based on observations, albeit with A-T error.
"Stuff can only do what stuff can do" is true, but trivial. It will not form a sound basis for further argument, certainly not for an unmoved mover or a human understanding of god (which is as far as Aquinas fallaciously got), and not for the existence of god (which Aquinas did not explicitly state, only implied, and Haines did not even attempt to include in his notation, the argument being so blatantly defective at that point).
Legion: "The First Way operates just fine under classical physics..."
No it doesn't -- it avoids the precision that more accurately describes the interactions of real things. It uses antiquated language that makes understanding modern physics impossible. That is why we use more precise language now, language that more accurately conveys the properties and interactions of real things.
"...so even if every A-T conception of physics was flawed, it wouldn't invalidate the argument."
This seems like a particularly stupid thing to say; if A-T's conception that real things are in motion is flawed, for example, then there is no argument.
Cal: "If the First Way isn't about physics -- about the properties and interactions of matter and energy over time -- then it's not about real things."
In that case I'll send the recipe for my mom's hamburger sliders to the nearest physics journal, since she is clearly performing a physics experiment and producing valid results when she cooks them.
You guys seem to not understand the difference between "theoretically testable by the science of physics" and "performing the science of physics".
Cal: "No it doesn't -- it avoids the precision that more accurately describes the interactions of real things."
Point out the part of classical physics that says things do not have potential or actualized states, as A-T presents them.
Cal: "It uses antiquated language that makes understanding modern physics impossible."
And yet I've demonstrated that no incompatibility between the First Way and Newton has been shown thus far. The First Way isn't an attempt at science so its usefulness in scientific descriptions is irrelevant.
Cal: "This seems like a particularly stupid thing to say; if A-T's conception that real things are in motion is flawed, for example, then there is no argument."
I thought it self-evident that even a deeply flawed understanding of physics would have to acknowledge the reality of motion in order to be an attempt at physics. By definition, denying motion would make it not physics since there would be no subject material.
Stardusty: "Stuff can only do what stuff can do" is true, but trivial."
I said it was the closest you'd come to understanding it. I didn't say that was even remotely close to what the First Way was saying. No one remotely familiar with the argument would recognize your characterization of the difference between a thing's potential and actual states.
And since they do indeed have a purpose for spelling out the difference, it's clear you still don't understand the point of the argument.
Cal: "If the First Way isn't about physics -- about the properties and interactions of matter and energy over time -- then it's not about real things."
" In that case I'll send the recipe for my mom's hamburger sliders to the nearest physics journal, since she is clearly performing a physics experiment and producing valid results when she cooks them." --Indeed, if your mom claims that analyzing the process of cooking her sliders can be leveraged into an argument for a first mover then yes, she has turned her slider cooking into a physics argument and her assertions would need to pass review of modern physics to be considered sound.
BTW, cooking is physics, whether you or your mom realize it or not.
Legion: "You guys seem to not understand the difference between "theoretically testable by the science of physics" and "performing the science of physics"."
Then you should elucidate. Because I think they should be the same thing.
Legion: "Point out the part of classical physics that says things do not have potential or actualized states, as A-T presents them."
This is again a pretty stupid thing to ask.
Modern psychology doesn't present "demons" to discuss mental illness, it simply uses more precise and refined terms to describe mental illness. But the term "demons" does do some work if we want to point out that someone suffers from a kind of mental torment or pathos.
"Demons" is just not a very good way to present the problem, nor explore it with more precision. In the same way, potential and actual states are a simplistic (and tautological) way to discuss something that can be examined much more productively by using more precise terms.
Read this comment over to yourself many, many times. I don't think you've absorbed any of this yet.
Legion: "And yet I've demonstrated that no incompatibility between the First Way and Newton has been shown thus far."
Newtonian physics and AT physics do part ways in several regards, and the nature of motion is one. If you don't understand this difference then you are simply ignorant. I have tried to help you out, but at this point you appear willfully ignorant. Willful ignorance is not something I can help you with.
Legion: "The First Way isn't an attempt at science so its usefulness in scientific descriptions is irrelevant."
And you have yet to point out how it is that you can know anything about external reality that isn't better described by applying scientific principles, so your complaint seems fatuous and narcissistic.
Legion: ""The First Way operates just fine under classical physics so even if every A-T conception of physics was flawed, it wouldn't invalidate the argument." Me: "This seems like a particularly stupid thing to say; if A-T's conception that real things are in motion is flawed, for example, then there is no argument." Legion: "I thought it self-evident that even a deeply flawed understanding of physics would have to acknowledge the reality of motion in order to be an attempt at physics."
I did, too. Which is why I thought it stupid that you would say something as obviously incorrect as your first statement.
Legion: "By definition, denying motion would make it not physics since there would be no subject material."
I pretty much agree. Do you still think that reality is the subject of the First Way?
Stardusty: "Stuff can only do what stuff can do" is true, but trivial." Legion: "I said it was the closest you'd come to understanding it. I didn't say that was even remotely close to what the First Way was saying."
That's funny.
Because when I asked you upthread if you would agree that this -- "Nothing is, in fact, [changed], unless it is [possible] to that towards which it is [changed]." --was part of what the First Way was saying, your one word reply was, "Good."
Is act/potency an ancient discredited idea? Not to modern physicists.
The total energy of a closed system is defined as the sum of it's kinetic energy and it's potential energy. Kinetic energy is the energy associated with the actual motion of the system, while potential energy is related to the possible motion of the system. The concept of the conservation of energy is based on this distinction.
This modern concept of energy is a special application and historical development of Aristotle's more general metaphysical concept of act/potency distinction.
Cal: "Please explain what you think the difference is."
Your definition of "performing physics" is indistinguishable from "existing". Here's a thought experiment (gasp physics): I'm 35 years old. Why can I not put "35 years experience in the field of physics" on a job application? Why can't my 10 year old claim to be a physicist of 10 years?
It means something to be a physicist. It means something to work in the scientific field of physics. Tripping over a Lego does not make me a qualified physicist, even if it's possible to predict my trajectory using physics. That's why there is a difference between "testable by the science of physics" and "performing the science of physics". Simply existing does not make me a physicist performing physics, and neither does cooking. Otherwise science is a meaningless word.
Cal: "Read this comment over to yourself many, many times. I don't think you've absorbed any of this yet."
Why? It's irrelevant. The First Way isn't an attempt at physics like "demons" are an attempt at psychological diagnosis or like phlogiston is an attempt at explaining why things burn. I'm no longer curious why you are struggling so much to understand this simple fact, as you apparently think everything that exists performs physics. By definition, any argument is therefore a physics argument. Unfortunately, your foundation is...flawed.
Cal: "Newtonian physics and AT physics do part ways in several regards"
Too bad the First Way isn't an A-T physics argument, as it accounts for all change and not just physical movement. And even if it was, and even if A-T physics was deeply flawed, the First Way's premises easily withstand modern physics. An object at rest stays at rest unless moved by an external force. An object that can potentially move can only have its movement actualized by something else in a state of actuality. Very compatible.
Either way, it doesn't matter if Newtonian physics and A-T physics part ways in several regards.
Cal: "And you have yet to point out how it is that you can know anything about external reality that isn't better described by applying scientific principles, so your complaint seems fatuous and narcissistic."
Your projection is not useful to this discussion. And how about this: My kids love me. Explain to me how using science is going to somehow deepen my knowledge that my kids love me.
Science isn't a bludgeon to be used in every occasion. Sometime's it's downright silly to use it.
Cal: "I did, too. Which is why I thought it stupid that you would say something as obviously incorrect as your first statement."
Whooooooooosssshhh. I'd be careful with intellectual insults. They have a tendency to make others laugh at your expense.
Cal: "Do you still think that reality is the subject of the First Way?"
And we come full circle. "Reality" is synonymous with "performing physics". With such a foundation, I can understand why your choices are to either be aggressive against Christians or to run screaming from them, because we are stepping on your deity. What is physics? I am that I am!
Cal: "Because when I asked you upthread if you would agree that this -- "Nothing is, in fact, [changed], unless it is [possible] to that towards which it is [changed]." --was part of what the First Way was saying, your one word reply was, "Good."
You guys are endless wonders. The whole point of that line (and the next) is to show that nothing has infinite potential and that nothing has infinite causal power. A rock has many potential states, but they are limited by the intrinsic physical properties of the rock. And those potential states can only be realized if acted upon by something in an appropriate realized state of its own - a light breeze can't move a rock but a tornado can.
Didn't realize it was possible to enter a comment without clicking "publish". Oops.
At any rate, the point is not just a tautology, but setting up the concept (and limitations) of potential and actual states so that the essentially ordered series will be understood. So basically, if you guys want to keep showing your hyper-ignorance and reducing it to "stuff can only do what stuff can do" or "stuff does stuff" then go right ahead, but it isn't the argument that is looking bad when you do so.
" And we come full circle. "Reality" is synonymous with "performing physics". " --Of course. What other sort of reality could there be? If there is a god it must be made of something else god is nothing, literally not anything.
You can speculate some entirely unanticipated sort of godstuff, but it is still stuff, and thus a part of physics, else god is absolutely nothing at all, which is an incoherent notion.
" You guys are endless wonders. The whole point of that line (and the next) is to show that nothing has infinite potential and that nothing has infinite causal power." --So god is finite.
" potential states can only be realized if acted upon by something in an appropriate realized state of its own - a light breeze can't move a rock but a tornado can." --At least that statement provides a glimmer of meaning. It still reduces to only stuff that can do stuff does stuff, but you have made a baby step in the right direction.
Stardusty: "Of course. What other sort of reality could there be? If there is a god it must be made of something else god is nothing, literally not anything."
Are you honestly saying that everyone and everything that exists is a physicist? Science has no meaning then.
Stardusty: "So god is finite"
I don't know who "god" is. I was referencing the oft-repeated assertion that we were saying "being actualized" was all that needed to be said on a thing's causal power, but that's not it at all. A thing's causal power is based on whatever actualized state(s) it is in. "Being actualized" doesn't mean it can cause any effect.
Stardusty: "It still reduces to only stuff that can do stuff does stuff, but you have made a baby step in the right direction."
It's hilarious that someone who has no idea what the argument is getting at is telling me I'm moving in the right direction. Thanks for the chuckle.
Anything can be reduced to "stuff does stuff" if you dumb it down far enough and ignore the point. Your insistence on doing so here is amusing, but not doing yourself any favors.
Legion: "Too bad the First Way isn't an A-T physics argument, as it accounts for all change and not just physical movement."
Describe a change in which there is no physical movement.
It's clear that you haven't thought very long or well about these topics before. I think that's because you haven't thought about these topics very much in the past (and you're discovering all these problems on the fly), and because when you do try and think about them you start with something as silly as the First Way. And that is why you appear so confused.
Legion: "You guys seem to not understand the difference between "theoretically testable by the science of physics" and "performing the science of physics"." Me: Then you should elucidate. Because I think they should be the same thing. / Please explain what you think the difference is."
Legion: "Your definition of "performing physics" is indistinguishable from "existing".
I asked for you to explain what you think is the the difference between "theoretically testable by the science of physics" and "performing the science of physics".
Legion: "Here's a thought experiment (gasp physics): I'm 35 years old. Why can I not put "35 years experience in the field of physics" on a job application? Why can't my 10 year old claim to be a physicist of 10 years?"
I asked for you to explain what you think is the the difference between "theoretically testable by the science of physics" and "performing the science of physics".
Legion: "It means something to be a physicist. It means something to work in the scientific field of physics."
Sure. If by a physicist you mean it in the modern, trained sense of having passed a series of Math and contemporary Physics classes, and maybe even working in the field of study so as to oversee lab training, conduct experiments, or maybe even just ponder about the nature of things so as to maybe make more sense of our world (theoretical).
But I asked you to explain what you think is the the difference between "theoretically testable by the science of physics" and "performing the science of physics".
Legion: "Tripping over a Lego does not make me a qualified physicist, even if it's possible to predict my trajectory using physics. That's why there is a difference between "testable by the science of physics" and "performing the science of physics"."
This doesn't make sense. Do you mean that you think that you will trip differently if your fall is predicted based on the latest physical models? Your fall will be your fall, and modern physics can very closely describe it -- in ways that are testable, predictable, and productive.
Legion: "Simply existing does not make me a physicist performing physics, and neither does cooking. Otherwise science is a meaningless word."
Science can very precisely (more precisely than any other human process) describe the process of cooking. That you appear to think otherwise only indicates that you don't understand science, and haven't really thought about the philosophical underpinnings behind all this.
Legion: "Why? It's irrelevant. The First Way isn't an attempt at physics like "demons" are an attempt at psychological diagnosis or like phlogiston is an attempt at explaining why things burn. I'm no longer curious why you are struggling so much to understand this simple fact, as you apparently think everything that exists performs physics. By definition, any argument is therefore a physics argument. Unfortunately, your foundation is...flawed."
If the First Way isn't an attempt at physics -- meaning an attempt to describe reality -- then you have conceded that the First Way is not actually about reality. And that is another reason why it would be a silly argument.
Cal: "And you have yet to point out how it is that you can know anything about external reality that isn't better described by applying scientific principles, so your complaint seems fatuous and narcissistic." Legion: "Your projection is not useful to this discussion. And how about this: My kids love me. Explain to me how using science is going to somehow deepen my knowledge that my kids love me."
Sigh.
Your knowledge that your children love you is based on physical reality.
The things they say to you occur in physical reality. The way they look at you, the way they interact with you, all of these things happen in physical reality. Your understanding of your children, and their affection for you, is entirely due to your physical interactions with them.
The way that YOU feel about THEIR affection for you is something you experience, but no one else can. It is introspective knowledge. But your introspective knowledge isn't part of external reality -- it's internal.
This is such basic stuff that the only explanation is that you simply haven't thought very much about it before. So maybe slow down, take your time, maybe do a little reading, think about things for awhile, and compose your thoughts before repeating yourself, again.
Legion: "Science isn't a bludgeon to be used in every occasion. Sometime's it's downright silly to use it."
Sure. But it's the best process we have for describing external reality. Unless you can propose something better.
Legion: "And we come full circle. "Reality" is synonymous with "performing physics". With such a foundation, I can understand why your choices are to either be aggressive against Christians or to run screaming from them, because we are stepping on your deity. What is physics? I am that I am!"
You are just ranting. I think you can be better than this.
Cal: "Because when I asked you upthread if you would agree that this -- "Nothing is, in fact, [changed], unless it is [possible] to that towards which it is [changed]." --was part of what the First Way was saying, your one word reply was, "Good." Legion: "You guys are endless wonders. The whole point of that line (and the next) is to show that nothing has infinite potential and that nothing has infinite causal power."
Or, as Stardusty said, "Stuff can only do what stuff can do" Same same.
And if by "show" you mean "make a tautological claim," then sure.
"A rock has many potential states, but they are limited by the intrinsic physical properties of the rock."
Without describing those properties, in detail, then this claim is worthless. It's akin to stating, Stuff is made up of the stuff of which things are made.
Legion: "And those potential states can only be realized if acted upon by something in an appropriate realized state of its own - a light breeze can't move a rock but a tornado can."
At least you're starting to approach the question in a meaningful way -- presumably describing those properties (mass, and force) and their relationships.
>> "If the First Way isn't an attempt at physics -- meaning an attempt to describe reality -- then you have conceded that the First Way is not actually about reality."
What an ignorant thing to say. Philosophical arguments attempt to explain reality without being an attempt at physics. Arguments for an all-physical reality is one example of such a thing, the 5 ways arguments are another.
" Are you honestly saying that everyone and everything that exists is a physicist? Science has no meaning then." --Everything that exists is a part of physics, including any god, if one exists.
Stardusty: "So god is finite" " I don't know who "god" is. " --Gee, you seem to make a great many arguments about something you know nothing about, then.
"I was referencing the oft-repeated assertion that we were saying "being actualized"" --You said "nothing has infinite potential and that nothing has infinite causal power."" So, that means god has finite potential and god has finite causal power. Looks like god is finite by your own statement.
Thus, the notion that an infinitely existing god is the first mover is negated by your own statement.
" Anything can be reduced to "stuff does stuff" if you dumb it down far enough and ignore the point." -False. Scientific theories define particular relationships, ratios, reactions, transformations of only particular sorts and by particular values of particular parameters.
A-T language is hopelessly vague, unspecific, and thus meaningless and true only in the sense that a tautology is true.
A-T language is not employed in any modern serious study of causality because it is so useless.
" Do you have any idea whether these guys hold the position that inanimate objects moves themselves? " --Maybe you did not read my post about the various forms of "moves".
In the sense of "moves" meaning "changes position" then an object continues to change position without being acted upon by anything outside of the object, and in that sense "moves itself".
Cal: "Describe a change in which there is no physical movement."
There is no relevant reason why I should do this.
Cal: "And that is why you appear so confused."
Not sharing your profound ignorance does not make me confused.
Cal: "I asked for you to explain what you think is the the difference between "theoretically testable by the science of physics" and "performing the science of physics".
Do you truly not get the point of my response? Incredible. Try thinking about it. I'm trying not to insult your intelligence by being forced to spell it out.
Cal: "Science can very precisely (more precisely than any other human process) describe the process of cooking. That you appear to think otherwise only indicates that you don't understand science, and haven't really thought about the philosophical underpinnings behind all this."
I'm beginning to suspect that you simply cannot comprehend anything you read.
Cal: "If the First Way isn't an attempt at physics -- meaning an attempt to describe reality -- then you have conceded that the First Way is not actually about reality."
According to Cal, when lawyers argue before a judge, they are presenting physics arguments.
Cal: "Your knowledge that your children love you is based on physical reality."
Physical reality is not synonymous with practicing the field of physics. You are beyond clueless about apparently everything.
Cal: "The way that YOU feel about THEIR affection for you is something you experience, but no one else can. It is introspective knowledge. But your introspective knowledge isn't part of external reality -- it's internal."
Why did you bring up how I feel about it? I didn't. I asked how science was relevant to that subject. I know how they feel without using science. Explain how using science improves my knowledge in that subject. No doubt you are going to use the "everything but religion" definition of science to determine they love me by using these nebulous "scientific principles" that rocks and river currents are using, since every subatomic particle is a physicist.
Cal: "Sure. But it's the best process we have for describing external reality. Unless you can propose something better."
Not in every situation. My experience with my kids is a far greater measure of how they feel about me than any scientific experiment could ever hope to approach.
Cal: "You are just ranting."
You misspelled "mocking foolishness". Because that's what I'm doing. Your insistence that everything that exists is practicing physics is laughably absurd. If you truly believe that, then I don't think your grasp of reality is strong enough to be able to engage in dialogue with someone who disagrees with you.
bmiller: "Do you have any idea whether these guys hold the position that inanimate objects moves themselves? That seems to be Strawdusty's latest position."
I'm too amazed at their position that inanimate objects are physicists to consider that, but it does seem to be the case based on what Stardusty has said.
Stardusty: "Everything that exists is a part of physics, including any god, if one exists."
"Testable by the field of physics" is not synonymous with "practicing physics".
Stardusty: "Gee, you seem to make a great many arguments about something you know nothing about, then."
I have never made an argument about "god".
Stardusty: "So, that means god has finite potential and god has finite causal power. Looks like god is finite by your own statement."
I said what I meant by that. If you insist otherwise, you're a liar.
Stardusty: "Scientific theories define particular relationships, ratios, reactions, transformations of only particular sorts and by particular values of particular parameters."
I've been attempting to make a good-faith effort to discuss the First Way line by line, in the hopes that rather than jumping all over the place, there could be dialogue about what each premise is getting at, and then discussing the conclusion based upon understanding the premises.
What I'm getting in return is personal insults, strawmen, irrelevant tangents, lazy caricatures, and now delusions about inanimate objects practicing the science of physics. No worthwhile dialogue is possible when the skeptical side of the debate has abandoned any pretense of rationality or charity.
And while I'm perfectly comfortable returning the insults and laughing at the absurd "objections" being thrown at the First Way - and sometimes, there is no other reasonable response - that's not my motivation for still being here. The point was analyzing the First Way, which does not involve insults, strawmen, tangents, caricatures, and delusions about inanimate objects practicing the science of physics.
I'm not certain why Cal and Stardusty are still participating, since there is no evidence they have any interest in actually knowing what Aristotle and Aquinas were getting at. Insults and strawmen and tangents and caricatures and delusions are all fine, but they don't have the power to put a scratch on the First Way. It takes understanding of the argument to do that, but understanding is not possible when obliterated by proud ignorance.
When the skeptics are prepared to act like rational adults, hopefully they will let it be known. I'm not proceeding with the argument until the skeptics abandon all insults, strawmen, tangents, caricatures, and delusions.
" I have never made an argument about "god"." --The first way is an argument for God, uppercase G, not just an unmoved mover, God.
I was genuinely surprised by the way theists run away from this simple fact.
Stardusty: "So, that means god has finite potential and god has finite causal power. Looks like god is finite by your own statement."
" I said what I meant by that. If you insist otherwise, you're a liar." --You said "nothing". Nothing excludes god. If nothing has infinite potential and nothing has infinite causal power then god has finite potential and god has finite causal power.
Whatever you thought you had in mind at the time these are simple facts of the meanings of words. I suspect you equivocate internally without realizing it, hence your vociferous reaction when you get caught out in your own words as they limit god although you otherwise would deny such limits.
Theists typically get kind of snarky when their self contradictions are exposed.
Stardusty: "Scientific theories define particular relationships, ratios, reactions, transformations of only particular sorts and by particular values of particular parameters."
" In other words, stuff does stuff." --No, in other words very specific sorts of stuff do very specific sorts of things.
A-T language lacks that specificity and is true only on the level of a tautology. A-T language is so vague by your reading that it is true for both Aristotelian and Modern physics!
I've been attempting to make a good-faith effort to discuss the First Way line by line, in the hopes that rather than jumping all over the place, there could be dialogue about what each premise is getting at, and then discussing the conclusion based upon understanding the premises.
But this would require your opponents to also argue in good faith. I'd given up on that a long time ago.
I'm not certain why Cal and Stardusty are still participating,
Maybe they just really enjoy insulting people to in order to provoke them. Maybe they've hung around here because they're lonely and you're the only one that will talk to them.
Legion, " I've been attempting to make a good-faith effort to discuss the First Way line by line, " --But you have not gone beyond 2d in your latest series.
"in the hopes that rather than jumping all over the place," --The language in the first few lines is already defective, but I am willing to speak in that primitive vernacular for the sake of communicating on that level.
" there could be dialogue about what each premise is getting at, and then discussing the conclusion based upon understanding the premises." --Yes, and the premises as exemplified in 2d have some useful specificity. But you object to that specificity, preferring to reduce the argument to the level of saying that unreal stuff cannot make real stuff do real stuff. Only real stuff can make real stuff do real stuff.
Ok, fine, although some interpretations of QM suggest intrinsic randomness, the notion that things do change without external cause. That seems unreasonable to me so I think the materialistic determinism of your reading up to 2d seems to be the case.
" I'm not certain why Cal and Stardusty are still participating," --We are never justifiably certain of the motives of other posters.
Stardusty: "The first way is an argument for God, uppercase G, not just an unmoved mover, God."
I knew you could do it.
Stardusty: "You said "nothing""
And if you ignore what I said I was getting at, you're a liar.
Stardusty: "A-T language lacks that specificity and is true only on the level of a tautology. A-T language is so vague by your reading that it is true for both Aristotelian and Modern physics!"
It's not vague at all to someone who has even an inkling of understanding. "Stuff does stuff" works equally well with science.
Stardusty: "But you have not gone beyond 2d in your latest series."
"Stuff does stuff" means you don't understand what everything up to (2)d is saying. Why proceed?
Stardusty: "The language in the first few lines is already defective, but I am willing to speak in that primitive vernacular for the sake of communicating on that level."
"Stuff does stuff" is not A-T language, nor is it an A-T concept. Nor is it what I'm saying. So you have yet to demonstrate that you can speak in that "primitive vernacular".
Legion: "Legion: "Too bad the First Way isn't an A-T physics argument, as it accounts for all change and not just physical movement." Me: "Describe a change in which there is no physical movement." Legion: "There is no relevant reason why I should do this."
The relevant reason is that by not responding you are failing to do what you said you would do -- defend the First Way. The latest in your seemingly never-ending but always futile defense was what you wrote above -- that now there is some kind of change that doesn't involve physical movement.
In order for your words to have meaning, then you need to demonstrate what you say above -- that there is some other kind of change that the First Way now magically describes that doesn't involve physical movement.
Your failure to rise to this level, or admit that you were mistaken when you wrote that, is a telling example of why your "defense" is just so much flailing about.
As I have been saying over and over, it's pretty obvious you haven't thought very long or very deeply about the topic that you imagine to have such command over. It's really kind of painful to watch -- only because you sometimes are better than you have recently been. I can only suppose that the last few days have been more overwhelming for you, and rather than absorb some bit of it you have reeled and reverted.
I'm losing interest in this. I think you should take some time off, reread more carefully the last several days of comments, and see if you can offer some cogent responses and advance your own understanding of the failings of the First Way. If you're not going to advance your thinking as a result of these exchanges there's little reason for me (or Stardusty, I imagine) repeating the same things in slightly different ways, over and over and over again.
Cal: "The relevant reason is that by not responding you are failing to do what you said you would do -- defend the First Way."
The First Way requires no defense from irrelevant tangents, strawmen, caricatures, or delusions. But sure, I'll humor you. Since no one has put the tiniest dent in the First Way, I'll give you another chance.
According to A-T, there were different kinds of change other than physical location change, since atomic movement and things of that nature were impossible to know at the time. So, the point of the argument would not simply be about why something moves from one place to another, but why something grows, why someone changes their mind, why something fades in sunlight, etc. Obviously they were not arguing about subatomic motion, since they had no knowledge of it, but they do come right out and define what they mean by "motion" in the argument's premises. So you're wrong about what the argument is even about.
If we apply modern physics to the subject, we now know about subatomic particles, photons, and things of that nature. So we do know that indeed, there is possibly nothing consisting of the stuff of the universe that isn't in motion on some level. This does absolutely nothing to damage the primary premises of the First Way regarding potentiality and actuality, so you're wrong about the argument being flawed based on modern physics.
Either way, you're wrong. And since describing the mechanical processes by which a thing can move from one place to another is not the point of the First Way, it's an irrelevant tangent.
Cal: "admit that you were mistaken when you wrote that"
Baseless assertion.
Cal: "As I have been saying over and over, it's pretty obvious you haven't thought very long or very deeply about the topic that you imagine to have such command over."
Projection. The worse you perform, the more your profound and intentional ignorance are highlighted, the more delusional your "objections" become, the more condescending your responses get, as though the people familiar with the subject matter know less than the people who know nothing. A rational analysis might point to it being some sort of desire to avoid admitting how embarrassing your position has been, and how utterly ineffective your "objections" have proven, so you try to adopt an air of superiority in lieu of actual argumentation. However, you have been defending the position that inanimate objects perform physics, so the normal standards of motivations may not apply.
Cal: "I'm losing interest in this."
Common among people whose bluster can't overcome opposition. I made the offer to you, and you have proven incapable of overcoming your ideological shackles in order to analyze it. I'm not a psychologist or a trained educator, so I lack the tools to help you.
Cal: "If you're not going to advance your thinking as a result of these exchanges there's little reason for me (or Stardusty, I imagine) repeating the same things in slightly different ways, over and over and over again."
I don't have a single reason to suspect that a thinking person would believe me to be the one having difficulty understanding. The repetition of the same points trying to grant understanding of the actual subject matter has indeed been one of us...but not you.
I'll have to find other skeptics to attempt to refute the First Way. It appears to be the most ironclad logic in history from the responses I'm getting here.
The point the argument makes is NOT the subject of physics, sequences, mathematics or the mechanisms of causality. Some of these subjects are interwoven into the discussion, yes, but these subjects are not the main point.
The main point the argument makes is the subject of ontology - the nature of existence - what kind of things actually exist. The argument attempts to work this out logically, starting with what we know. Boiled down to it's basic core, the argument says:
>> There are 2 kinds existence: (1) beings with potency, (2) one being with no potency
Legion: "According to A-T, there were different kinds of change other than physical location change, since atomic movement and things of that nature were impossible to know at the time. So, the point of the argument would not simply be about why something moves from one place to another, but why something grows, why someone changes their mind, why something fades in sunlight, etc. Obviously they were not arguing about subatomic motion, since they had no knowledge of it, but they do come right out and define what they mean by "motion" in the argument's premises. So you're wrong about what the argument is even about."
This is borderline incoherent. Which is why I'me getting so bored with this -- instead of carefully going through the argument, line by line, you respond to patient criticism with these (see, above) meandering non-answers.
Legion: "Legion: "Too bad the First Way isn't an A-T physics argument, as it accounts for all change and not just physical movement." Me: "Describe a change in which there is no physical movement." Legion: "There is no relevant reason why I should do this."
Like I said, pull yourself together.
And try to understand this:
When you
1) claim that a criticism is irrelevant because the argument addresses change where there is no physical movement, 2) are asked to describe what this means, 3) then say that what you just asserted in service of your defense is irrelevant, 4) you just seem confused and incoherent.
I can predict your response from the above:
You'll pretend that you are exasperated, and that I'm somehow not getting it -- as if your incomprehensible non-replies actually address the criticisms you've been asked to address, over and over.
On the contrary, I'm being patient, and asking you to be disciplined in your thinking, and your writing.
And it's apparent that the thing you're actually frustrated over is your inability to form a coherent defense, as you said you would, as evidenced by the growing silliness of your comments.
So why don't you try again -- since you raised this as part of your supposed defense of the First Way, can you describe a change in which there is no physical movement? (Legion: "Too bad the First Way isn't an A-T physics argument, as it accounts for all change and not just physical movement.")
Do you understand yet that arguments aren't judged by whether or not someone says they can magically apprehend the intentions of the arguer -- but by the actual standards by which arguments are evaluated?
Anyone familiar with A-T would disagree. Obviously the problem is not what I wrote.
Cal: "You'll pretend that you are exasperated, and that I'm somehow not getting it -- as if your incomprehensible non-replies actually address the criticisms you've been asked to address, over and over."
Somehow you aren't getting it. The reason it is incomprehensible to you is because you can't think your way past your ideological shackles. Anyone familiar with A-T would understand it easily. The worst criticism you could level at my replies would be that I'm still not dumbing it down enough, which is possible. I don't know how to dumb it down any further.
Cal: "And it's apparent that the thing you're actually frustrated over is your inability to form a coherent defense, as you said you would, as evidenced by the growing silliness of your comments."
This is the opposite of reality.
Cal: "So why don't you try again -- since you raised this as part of your supposed defense of the First Way, can you describe a change in which there is no physical movement?"
I already addressed the First Strawman in my previous response. Read it and respond to it. I'll put it here.
"According to A-T, there were different kinds of change other than physical location change, since atomic movement and things of that nature were impossible to know at the time. So, the point of the argument would not simply be about why something moves from one place to another, but why something grows, why someone changes their mind, why something fades in sunlight, etc. Obviously they were not arguing about subatomic motion, since they had no knowledge of it, but they do come right out and define what they mean by "motion" in the argument's premises. So you're wrong about what the argument is even about.
If we apply modern physics to the subject, we now know about subatomic particles, photons, and things of that nature. So we do know that indeed, there is possibly nothing consisting of the stuff of the universe that isn't in motion on some level. This does absolutely nothing to damage the primary premises of the First Way regarding potentiality and actuality, so you're wrong about the argument being flawed based on modern physics.
Either way, you're wrong. And since describing the mechanical processes by which a thing can move from one place to another is not the point of the First Way, it's an irrelevant tangent."
Remember, what I said means something specific - every sentence - so your task here is to read each sentence, one at a time if necessary, and point out either what you don't understand or point out where I'm wrong, but of course the latter requires understanding what I wrote.
Legion: "Remember, what I said means something specific - every sentence - so your task here is to read each sentence, one at a time if necessary, and point out either what you don't understand or point out where I'm wrong, but of course the latter requires understanding what I wrote."
Okay! Let's start with you first sentence!
Legion: ""According to A-T, there were different kinds of change other than physical location change, since atomic movement and things of that nature were impossible to know at the time."
What other kinds of change are there besides those that involve a change in physical location?
Cal: "What other kinds of change are there besides those that involve a change in physical location?"
There were several categories according to A-T, but one example would be qualitative change, such as leaves changing color. They did not think of that as physical motion.
Me: "Cal: "What other kinds of change are there besides those that involve a change in physical location?" Legion: "There were several categories according to A-T, but one example would be qualitative change, such as leaves changing color. They did not think of that as physical motion."
Right. But A-T physics was wrong about that -- because we know that leaves changing color is only possible through changes in physical location. So, that's NOT an example of a change that doesn't involve a change in physical location.
I think you're defense is incoherent because you don't seem to know what it means to defend an argument. Here's the tactic you (consciously or subconsciously) employ:
1. Critics point out a problem in the First Way. 2. Apologists claim that critics don't understand the argument. 3. Critics ask for clarification based on the fact that part of the argument is defective, begs question, contradicts, etc. 4. Apologists retreat to pretending that they are only defending what Aquinas meant to say given the limitation of his time (no duh), not what the argument is, or (even worse) that an argument based on false premises is somehow still a good argument.
And that's the pattern throughout here. You've just been doing it longest. It's like waking up every morning to the same bad coffee.
Unlike most of the other apologists I come across you've demonstrated an ability to learn (and change). So I haven't given up on you, but for the moment you seem stuck in a groove. Seriously, I think you need to spend more time considering what we've written here throughout, instead of reflexively responding according to the script above.
Cal: "Right. But A-T physics was wrong about that"
Irrelevant. The First Strawman keeps popping up in this "name one thing that doesn't move" objection. As we have pointed out, the purpose of the First Way is not simply about physics, as in physical movement. How do we know this? Because Aquinas and Aristotle had no knowledge of subatomic particles or even cells - they couldn't know about motion at that level. A leaf changing color does not, upon study with the naked eye, move physically in order for the change to occur, so they placed it in a different category of change. Since the First Way covers every category of change that they had in mind - only one of which being physical movement - we know that they weren't just making a physics argument.
Cal: "I think you're defense is incoherent because you don't seem to know what it means to defend an argument."
Let's see if this has even the most remote resemblance to reality.
"1. Critics point out a problem in the First Way."
Most if not all of the problems proposed have been caricatures, strawmen, and tangents. My defense has been geared toward pointing that fact out.
"2. Apologists claim that critics don't understand the argument.
That is because I have no evidence that either of you understand the argument. I'd be thrilled for you to prove me wrong, because then I'd have qualified people who could tell me what the flaws are, if they exist.
"3. Critics ask for clarification based on the fact that part of the argument is defective, begs question, contradicts, etc."
The whole point of my exercise with going line by line was to show that those objections are baseless if you actually understand the point. Or, an equally desirable outcome, the First Way is shown to be flawed through argument based upon the actual argument and not strawmen, tangents, and caricatures.
"4. Apologists retreat to pretending that they are only defending what Aquinas meant to say given the limitation of his time (no duh), not what the argument is, or (even worse) that an argument based on false premises is somehow still a good argument."
This has zero resemblance to reality. Going to the source material and reading the writings of A-T philosophers, past and present, is the exact opposite of what you are accusing me of doing. I know that's what the argument means because no one knowledgeable of the argument has demonstrated otherwise. On the other hand, you have offered no evidence that your explanation of the argument is correct. I'm comfortable in the gap between our approaches.
Cal: "Seriously, I think you need to spend more time considering what we've written here throughout, instead of reflexively responding according to the script above."
I've been treating statements of this nature with the contempt they deserve, but here's a serious response. Neither you nor Stardusty has given me a single reason to suspect that I'm wrong. When I'm getting inundated with caricatures, strawmen, and tangents, I have no reason to believe anything except the First Way is a stronger argument than even I had suspected. What you call incomprehensible and unintelligible defense on my part is crystal clear and obvious to me, so that several people I've introduced to it - including a 10 year old - were able to understand it, so there's a huge disconnect in the way we are perceiving reality. If you truly believe you're the one with the clarity, feel free to try and demonstrate it, but I say that telling me I haven't thought about this subject (which is laughably false, if not provable) does nothing but lower your credibility. Try a new tactic, if you actually think you're right. I'll listen, but not to the same nonsense I've been getting. Either relevant arguments, or demonstrations that my understanding of the point of the argument is wrong.
@Cal "But A-T physics was wrong about that -- because we know that leaves changing color is only possible through changes in physical location."
The leaf has not changed physical location so Legion's citation was accurate. Any location change that occurs at the molecular level is described accurately by the FW as far as I can tell.
" A leaf changing color does not, upon study with the naked eye, move physically in order for the change to occur, so they placed it in a different category of change. Since the First Way covers every category of change that they had in mind " --Ok, fine, things change. Only a real thing can make something else change. An unreal thing cannot make a real thing change.
Is that supposed to be some sort of profound wisdom that will lead to a sound argument for a first mover?
Supposedly nothing changes itself. Maybe. That remains to be seen. Per the assertion of intrinsic randomness that is false. If you consider the position of a thing to be a property of a thing then it is false in the case of uniform motion.
We don't know the mechanism for the things we study with probability at the subatomic scale, so the jury is still out. That is one of the problems with trying to use macro level approximate observations to comment on the most fundamental structures of existence, such reasoning can be erroneous.
Further, the nature of infinity is itself mysterious to we poor little humans.
But, at the macro level of our naked eye observations it looks like nothing moves itself, if you don't consider position to be a property of an object.
Stardusty: "Ok, fine, things change. Only a real thing can make something else change. An unreal thing cannot make a real thing change."
"Real" and "unreal" are not synonymous with actual and potential.
Stardusty: "Is that supposed to be some sort of profound wisdom that will lead to a sound argument for a first mover?"
Aristotle and Aquinas were actually rather clever people, so spouting off pointless inanities was probably not their purpose in talking about potential and actual states. Whether or not we can ever reach the purpose is an entirely different matter.
Is that supposed to be some sort of profound wisdom that will lead to a sound argument for a first mover?
Aristotle proposed the act/potency distinction to answer the philosophical arguments of Parmenides and Heraclitus. It was an answer to how a thing could come to be, change without ceasing to be the same thing while it existed, and then go out of existence. One or more of those 3 propositions were denied by the other 2 philosophers who claimed that real world observations that conflicted with their theories were merely illusions.
So no, act/potency was not proposed to establish an argument for a first mover (first mover is not the end point of the First Way, Unmoved Mover is) but to defend our observations as reflecting reality.
Cal: "Right. But A-T physics was wrong about that" Legion: "Irrelevant. The First Strawman keeps popping up in this "name one thing that doesn't move" objection."
You remain confused.
You are supposed to be defending THE ARGUMENT that is the First Way.
You are NOT supposed to be defending AQUINAS for thinking what he thought.
There's a difference. You seem to be able to understand it. I have allowed that this is because you are thinking hastily, but I'm losing faith that more time will do you any service.
If you can understand the above, maybe you can explain that when you claimed that there are:
Legion: "... different kinds of change other than physical location change..."
You need to demonstrate that there REALLY IS a kind of change other than physical location change.
Because you a) brought it up (which means YOU thought it was relevant to your "defense," of the argument, and b) defending the argument itself is what you are supposed to be doing here.
Per the assertion of intrinsic randomness that is false
This is a problem for determinism not AT causality. The very fact that QM measurements have a limited possible range of values that can be recorded makes experimentation possible. Otherwise QM experiments would just as likely produce no change at all as the limited range of expected values. AT causality allows for both deterministic or probabilistic effects.
Stardusty: "Ok, fine, things change. Only a real thing can make something else change. An unreal thing cannot make a real thing change."
" "Real" and "unreal" are not synonymous with actual and potential." --Unreal things do not exist and are merely figments of our brain process. A potential thing is an unreal thing is a non-existent thing is not a thing at all is a mere figment of our brain process.
An actual thing is a real thing.
A potential change has no reality because it is a figment of our brain process imagining that there might be some sort of change as we perceive it.
An actual change is a change of a real thing.
Stardusty: "Is that supposed to be some sort of profound wisdom that will lead to a sound argument for a first mover?"
" Aristotle and Aquinas were actually rather clever people," --Just goes to show you how wrong clever people can be.
Cal: "Because you a) brought it up (which means YOU thought it was relevant to your "defense," of the argument, and b) defending the argument itself is what you are supposed to be doing here."
Already addressed. I'll write it a third time. The first paragraph seems to be the only one you read - focus on the second paragraph.
""According to A-T, there were different kinds of change other than physical location change, since atomic movement and things of that nature were impossible to know at the time. So, the point of the argument would not simply be about why something moves from one place to another, but why something grows, why someone changes their mind, why something fades in sunlight, etc. Obviously they were not arguing about subatomic motion, since they had no knowledge of it, but they do come right out and define what they mean by "motion" in the argument's premises. So you're wrong about what the argument is even about.
If we apply modern physics to the subject, we now know about subatomic particles, photons, and things of that nature. So we do know that indeed, there is possibly nothing consisting of the stuff of the universe that isn't in physical motion on some level. This does absolutely nothing to damage the primary premises of the First Way regarding potentiality and actuality, so you're wrong about the argument being flawed based on modern physics.
Either way, you're wrong. And since describing the mechanical processes by which a thing can move from one place to another is not the point of the First Way, it's an irrelevant tangent."
As an aside, the point of the first paragraph is simply to demonstrate that we know the First Way isn't a mere attempt at physics. It's not "defending Aquinas".
Stardusty: "Unreal things do not exist and are merely figments of our brain process. A potential thing is an unreal thing is a non-existent thing is not a thing at all is a mere figment of our brain process."
Wrong. A potential state is something that, based upon a thing's inherent properties, will be realized under the correct conditions, such as water freezing into ice. Those inherent properties exist.
"Unreal things" could include nuclear-powered unicorns that eat nothing but room-temperature liquid diamond flyswatters and pee out invisible penguin robots who recite bad poetry on the eighth day of the week.
If you don't see the difference between the inherent capacity for water to freeze into ice given the correct conditions, and nuclear-powered unicorns that eat nothing but room-temperature liquid diamond flyswatters and pee out invisible penguin robots who recite bad poetry on the eighth day of the week, then you can't be helped on this subject. "Unreal things" doesn't cut it when describing potential states.
" "Real" and "unreal" are not synonymous with actual and potential." --Unreal things do not exist and are merely figments of our brain process. A potential thing is an unreal thing is a non-existent thing is not a thing at all is a mere figment of our brain process.
The physics concept of potential and kinetic energy is taught around the 8th grade in the US. As one can see from the link, potential energy is not described as "non-existent" but an existent part of a mechanical system. It is a historical fact that the concept of TE=PE+KE is a derivative of the Aristotelian act/potency theory. It's fine if you wish to claim potential energy is non existent, but then you're ignoring scientific definitions and apparently haven't opened a physics book.
Legion: "Since the First Way covers every category of change that they had in mind - only one of which being physical movement - we know that they weren't just making a physics argument."
Me: "Cal: "What other kinds of change are there besides those that involve a change in physical location?"
Legion: "This does absolutely nothing to damage the primary premises of the First Way regarding potentiality and actuality, so you're wrong about the argument being flawed based on modern physics."
How can you pretend to defend the First Way you won't explain exactly what you mean by change -- in particular, how it is that something can change without a change in physical position -- the kind of change that DOES NOT ACTUALLY involve a change in physical location.
Do you know what I think?
I think you realize that there's no such thing as a change without a change in physical position.
And because you were pretending before when you were trying to say that YOU were the one who TRULY understood the argument, you realize that to backtrack now would make you look even sillier than you've already made yourself appear.
Because without your tired, baseless assertion that you are the one who truly understands the First Way (despite your not even being aware of its shortcomings), you've provided nothing but shallow, poorly thought out refrains so typical of apologetics.
Litmus paper changes colors without changing physical position. A block of steel rusts without moving to some new location. Your body heats up without moving across the room.
stevek: "Litmus paper changes colors without changing physical position. A block of steel rusts without moving to some new location. Your body heats up without moving across the room."
Sigh. This is what Ancients thought. You are not an ancient.
Sad that you remain ignorant of modern understanding.
I have to say, as a coda, that these series of discussions have revealed how much dullness and ignorance lies at the heart of apologetics. I used to think it was more based on biases and cognitive dissonance, but that's true of only some, and to a lesser degree than I had imagined.
Legion: "Since the First Way covers every category of change that they had in mind - only one of which being physical movement - we know that they weren't just making a physics argument."
Cal: "What other kinds of change are there besides those that involve a change in physical location?"
Legion: "This does absolutely nothing to damage the primary premises of the First Way regarding potentiality and actuality, so you're wrong about the argument being flawed based on modern physics."
A very fascinating select cut from my answer. Know what you left out from the second paragraph?
Legion: "If we apply modern physics to the subject, we now know about subatomic particles, photons, and things of that nature. So we do know that indeed, there is possibly nothing consisting of the stuff of the universe that isn't in physical motion on some level."
So, when you say
Cal: "I think you realize that there's no such thing as a change without a change in physical position. And because you were pretending before when you were trying to say that YOU were the one who TRULY understood the argument, you realize that to backtrack now would make you look even sillier than you've already made yourself appear."
Do you know what I think? I think you're lying.
Three times now I've addressed it, and three times you've ignored it. There is no excuse I can charitably come up with for this behavior. Why are you lying about what I've said?
The simple fact is that I understand the argument and you do not. There is no evidence otherwise for either of us. Sure, you can ignore what I write and claim I'm avoiding your questions that I have now answered four times. Sure, you can ignore my spelled-out motivation for noting that A-T believed in categories of change that didn't involve any physical movement. But ignoring what I write does not strengthen your baseless assertion that I'm the one lacking understanding of the argument - it just makes you look bad.
So why don't you address what I wrote? Here's the conversation:
Legion: "Since the First Way covers every category of change that they had in mind - only one of which being physical movement - we know that they weren't just making a physics argument."
Cal: "What other kinds of change are there besides those that involve a change in physical location?"
Legion: "There were several categories according to A-T, but one example would be qualitative change, such as leaves changing color. They did not think of that as physical motion."
Cal: "Right. But A-T physics was wrong about that -- because we know that leaves changing color is only possible through changes in physical location. So, that's NOT an example of a change that doesn't involve a change in physical location."
Legion: "Irrelevant. The First Strawman keeps popping up in this "name one thing that doesn't move" objection. As we have pointed out, the purpose of the First Way is not simply about physics, as in physical movement. How do we know this? Because Aquinas and Aristotle had no knowledge of subatomic particles or even cells - they couldn't know about motion at that level. A leaf changing color does not, upon study with the naked eye, move physically in order for the change to occur, so they placed it in a different category of change. Since the First Way covers every category of change that they had in mind - only one of which being physical movement - we know that they weren't just making a physics argument."
Cal: "You are supposed to be defending THE ARGUMENT that is the First Way...You need to demonstrate that there REALLY IS a kind of change other than physical location change."
Legion (part I've been trying to get you to respond to): "If we apply modern physics to the subject, we now know about subatomic particles, photons, and things of that nature. So we do know that indeed, there is possibly nothing consisting of the stuff of the universe that isn't in physical motion on some level. This does absolutely nothing to damage the primary premises of the First Way regarding potentiality and actuality, so you're wrong about the argument being flawed based on modern physics."
You've been carrying on for awhile now about how our criticism of the First Way is based on the fact that we don't understand the First Way.
And then you wrote, "Since the First Way covers every category of change that they had in mind - only one of which being physical movement - we know that they weren't just making a physics argument."
So, seeing as how you think we are the ones who fail to understand the argument, I asked (in reference to your comment above), "What other kinds of change are there besides those that involve a change in physical location?"
Take your pick.
Tell us what you had in mind -- what you understand about the First Way and we do not -- that is a change that doesn't involve a change in physical location.
Or confess that you haven't really thought about this very well, and that your silly claim about understanding the argument better than those who recognize it's obvious flaws is the crock it's been throughout.
That's quite a little conundrum for you, I imagine.
Perhaps this section from SEP will help illustrate the broader metaphysical concept of change Legion is referring to.
6.1 Matter and Form Thomas points out that the characteristic features of how we know some subject should not in general be attributed to that subject as if elements of what we know of it. So, although natural things are first thought of and analyzed in the most general of terms, there are not any general physical objects, only particular ones. Thus, in seeking to discern what is true of anything that has come to be as a result of a change and is subject to change until it ceases to be, Aristotle had to begin with a particular example of change, one so obvious that we would not be distracted by any difficulties in accepting it as such. “A man becomes musical.” Someone acquires a skill he did not previously have. Thomas pores over the analysis Aristotle provides of this instance of change and its product.
The change may be expressed in three ways:
A man becomes musical. What is not-musical becomes musical. A not-musical man becomes musical.
It's from Lecture 12 of Aquinas's commentary on Aristotle. Let me know if you want the link to the original commentary.
Now one won't find this kind of discussion of change in a physics course simply because it is in a different category than "matter and energy in motion" although both fall under the category of change.
" Wrong. A potential state is something that, based upon a thing's inherent properties, will be realized under the correct conditions, such as water freezing into ice. Those inherent properties exist." --"Exist" where? How? What are properties made of? What is property stuff?
I have a cup of water, liquid water at 23C. Where is the ice? Where is the "ice property"? Can I find the "ice property" under a microscope?
Perhaps you are a Platonist? A believer in a world of forms, some ethereal parallel plane of existence where these mysteries have existent form?
"Unreal things" could include nuclear-powered unicorns that eat nothing but room-temperature liquid diamond flyswatters and pee out invisible penguin robots who recite bad poetry on the eighth day of the week." --On an omnipotent god such unicorns are as likely as anything else.
" If you don't see the difference between the inherent capacity for water to freeze" --The future does not "exist", and is thus unreal. Real objects in the present are what are real. Past and future are symbolized as analog processes in our brains, but have no actual realization.
""Unreal things" doesn't cut it when describing potential states." --Right, we need fundamental physics to describe how things change.
I choose the third option, which corresponds to reality - I understand the argument and you don't, which is why I keep repeating myself and rewording my statements in the hopes that you'll get the point of what I'm saying and why I'm saying it.
So, we can easily expose which of us is wrong. I'll go first.
The point of the First Way is not just a proto-scientific explanation of how things move around. We know this because A-T held that there were types of change that did not involve physical movement, and the First Way covers those types of changes as well. I and bmiller have both listed examples. Logically, if the First Way was only about how things move around, it would not cover other types of change, which would be irrelevant. So logically, the First Way is not a predecessor to Newton. It does not rise and fall with A-T concepts of movement, but rather with the A-T concepts of change - act and potency.
These days we know that possibly any time something in the universe changes, it involves a physical movement on some level, cellular, subatomic etc. This also does nothing to damage the First Way, as it is not a precursor of Newtonian physics. The three pillars of the First Way are act, potency, and the essentially ordered series derived from the former two which leads one logically to an unmoved mover (according to the argument), which is the First Way stripped down to its bare essence. Nothing in modern physics has refuted act, potency, or an essentially ordered series.
Your turn. You say you understand it better than I do, let's see it.
Explain the First Way in terms of its purpose for being presented and how the premises relate to physical movement, as well as demonstrating how those premises fail to hold up to Newton. I just did so, and you claim I'm wrong. Your explanation will decisively demonstrate that, if so.
Stardusty: "Exist" where? How? What are properties made of? What is property stuff?"
Am I to take this to mean that you deny water has the physical properties necessary to become ice? Well if that's true, then there should be instances where I put water in my freezer and come back the next day to find it has not frozen, but rather is still a liquid, or perhaps evaporated, or maybe even become steel or a Blu-ray disc.
While you ponder whether water will ever become a Blu-ray disc, here's an article for your perusal.
Wikipedia also has an entry on physical properties you might find enlightening. If, after reading the articles, you still deny that things have properties, then I'm curious what magic it is that causes water to freeze into ice.
Legion: "We know this because A-T held that there were types of change that did not involve physical movement, and the First Way covers those types of changes as well. I and bmiller have both listed examples."
What other types of changes don't involve a change in physical location?
What example did you give earlier -- please cite it. Don't cite yourself saying you gave an example already. Provide the example for the argument you're defending. Be explicit. Be concise. Show some precision.
What other types of changes don't involve a change in physical location?
When a premise gives you this much trouble, and you can't quite find the words to explain what you're thinking, that should indicate to you that you're not thinking clearly.
And keep on trying to understand that you're defending the First Way -- the argument -- not excusing Aquinas for thinking what he thought. You still seem to be struggling with that distinction.
Ignoring what I write and then responding to me as if I didn't write anything is not a valid tactic. You have to actually read what I write, attempt to understand it, and respond to what I wrote. That's how it works.
Perhaps a history lesson will shed some light on this subject. Back on May 16 (as far back as I went), there was a discussion going on, and as part of this discussion both you and Stardusty were by all appearances making an attempt to tie the First Way to A-T understanding of physics, to the extent that if Newtonian physics made A-T physics obsolete, it also destroyed the First Way.
All of my talking about the purpose of the First Way, and the types of change A-T believed in, was in response to that attempt. At no point have I asserted that one of the premises of the First Way is that there must be types of change that involve no motion.
So, now that you know why I have been talking about the various types of change, I'm sure you won't ignore what I write about it anymore.
You're at least going to have to put in a minimal attempt, Cal. You're still asking the stuff that I've addressed many, many times now.
Cal: "What other types of changes don't involve a change in physical location?"
Either explain how there being types of change that involve no physical movement is a premise of the First Way, or admit that you are engaging in the First Strawman.
Cal: "What example did you give earlier"
I gave the example of a leaf changing color. A-T did not hold that as an example of a change of physical location.
Your turn. You say you understand it better than I do, let's see it.
Explain the First Way in terms of its purpose for being presented and how the premises relate to physical movement, as well as demonstrating how those premises fail to hold up to Newton. I just did so, and you claim I'm wrong. Your explanation will decisively demonstrate that, if so.
>> I gave the example of a leaf changing color. A-T did not hold that as an example of a change of physical location."
You'll now get the same response I got to my example of the litmus paper, at which point you'll (again) tell Cal that his criticism is irrelevant because the FW isn't a physics argument. And around and around we go
>> "If, after reading the articles, you still deny that things have properties, then I'm curious what magic it is that causes water to freeze into ice"
Hopefully Dusty will come to his senses, but if not he'd also need to explain why the magic is powerless to cause water to become a blu-ray disc or a bag of oranges. If the reason can't be found inherently in the water, then it must be inherently in the magic.
" A-T held that there were types of change that did not involve physical movement," --Cover? Where? In what words? The examples are of physical motion, burning and a moving staff, both of which are obviously necessarily physically moving.
* In fact, to move is nothing else than to bring a thing from potency to act.*
You have made the basic grammatical and logical association error of reading this as"
XXX In fact, to bring a thing from potency to act is nothing else than to move. XXX
Further, Aquinas clearly does not equate "move" with "change", else he was uncharacteristically redundant.
"in this way the wood is moved and altered. "
So moved is considered as distinct from changed (altered).
Thus, the First Way is an argument from motion, specifically, not from change, generally. You have committed the classic association fallacy
All A's are B's, therefore a B is nothing else than an A.
3,162 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 1201 – 1400 of 3162 Newer› Newest»Stardusty: "But what of linear uniform motion? For Aquinas to be correct about X Aquinas must be correct about all Xs. A counter example of X disproves Aquinas."
It's one thing to have to explain the basics of science. I sometimes lose heart when it seems that we have to explain the basics of argument as well.
>> "Except if we use the same example of a rock on dirt, the rock does stop because of gravity, friction, etc. It is acted upon by other things and its motion is stopped, so that is in full accordance with the First Way."
This is correct. This is the example that Dusty must deal with, not his example. I reminded him of this some 1100 comments ago. His example is questionable at best. Changing gravitational forces are still acting on X.
>> "But what of linear uniform motion?"
What about it? Can you show us that nothing - and I mean nothing - is acting to move an object? How would you set up a controlled experiment to demonstrate this?
@Strawdusty,
Consider linear uniform motion in Newtonian mechanics.
X remains stationary unless acted upon (so far no big problem)
If we push X it moves (kind of ok still)
As X moves its position changes, presumably because we are pushing X (still sort of OK)
If we stop pushing X the object does not stop! (Aquinas fails)
X continues to change position, said to be a property of X, yet nothing outside of X is changing X, so X must be changing itself!
Newton claimed inertia is responsible for the continued motion, not X itself and not nothing. If you are claiming that inanimate objects move themselves you're contradicting 'SCIENCE'.
@Strawdusty,
"Combustion is a process of rapid oxidation. If you do not think this process is physical then put your hand in the flame of your gas stove."
What is the rest mass of "rapid oxidation"? Or combustion? Or process? Or what equivalent wavelength if you prefer?
Those are the what are used to measure physical things.
@bmiller
Believing that inanimate objects move themselves is nothing short of magic. It's a science stopper for sure. If you search the comments Dusty flatly denied that he believes in this sort of thing but now it appears he's a true believer.
@SteveK,
"Dusty flatly denied that he believes in this sort of thing but now it appears he's a true believer."
Yes, but that was yesterday :-).
Looks like he's decided to air all the objections he's heard whether he holds them or not just to see the reaction. I've asked him "why do that?", but he's chosen not to answer.
>> They are all a process of mass and energy and thus a physical process, no ghosts or spirits or gods or whatever required, just mass/energy doing what mass/energy does.
More kookisms but I'll bite if only to be entertained even more.
When you imagine a pink unicorn an image is formed in your brain. Because everything is physical, the image MUST be identical IN EVERY WAY to some part of the physical brain. Can you show me that exact image in your brain?
Even dealing with uniform motion operating under inertia, the object would be in a state of motion at a given speed, and to change either the direction or speed would require an outside intervention. The speed and direction are actualized states, and Newton does not contradict this.
Even if we accept that passing through a series of locations under inertia is the actualization of potentials (it was here, now it is here, and that's a change!) rather than a mere change in reference to other things, then the cause would be whatever produced the movement in the first place. A theoretical moving object as old as the universe might have to be traced to the Big Bang in order to locate the cause of the movement, but there is still a cause of movement for any moving object that is not the object itself. Again, Newton does nothing to damage the First Way.
Cal: "It's one thing to have to explain the basics of science. I sometimes lose heart when it seems that we have to explain the basics of argument as well."
You're like the kid in online gaming that trash talks everyone else even though he himself is doing the worst. You aren't doing yourself any favors blustering like this.
@Legion,
"Even dealing with uniform motion operating under inertia, the object would be in a state of motion at a given speed, and to change either the direction or speed would require an outside intervention. The speed and direction are actualized states, and Newton does not contradict this.
Yes and here is the actual relevant quote from Newton's Principia:
LAW I.
“Every body perseveres in its state of rest, or of uniform motion in a right line, unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed thereon.”
So if a body is actually in a state of rest it has the potential to change to a state of uniform motion in a straight line if an actual impulse force is impressed upon it. Likewise, if a body is in an actual state of uniform motion in a straight line it has the potential to change to a new state of motion if an actual force compels it to change.
This sounds like your explanation of water in the state of liquid having the potential to be in the state of a solid if the temperature is changed to below 0C.
bmiller said...
" If you are claiming that inanimate objects move themselves you're contradicting 'SCIENCE'."
The language of Aquinas in the First Way is self consistent under Aristotelian physics but is self contradictory under Newtonian physics.
Motion is change. The thing changing is position. If object X moves it changes position.
Under A-T physics object Y pushing object X is the cause of the change in X, its change in position. When Y ceases pushing X then X ceases changing, which is self consistent with "nothing changes itself"
With Newtonian mechanics when Y ceases pushing X then X continues to change without any other thing causing it to change, so X changes itself in the language of A-T applied to real world Newtonian mechanics. Thus A-T language becomes self contradictory in the real world.
Aristotle knew all this. I am not just making this up. Aristotle understood this problem because he knew objects roll or move through the air after being pushed initially. Aristotle was well aware that one can throw a rock through the air and its motion caused his language to fail.
Aristotle knew his language fails in cases such as a rock thrown through air. So he invented the idea that the rock is actually still being continuously pushed by the air. He was wrong about that, and in truth his language simply fails.
Aquinas fails because his language is based on the language of Aristotle, making both men fail.
May 09, 2017 9:09 AM
SteveK said...
" When you imagine a pink unicorn an image is formed in your brain. Because everything is physical, the image MUST be identical IN EVERY WAY to some part of the physical brain."
Wrong, the image is stored as an analog, a mapping, a symbolic representation.
" Can you show me that exact image in your brain?"
You see a picture of a flower on your computer. Where is the flower in your computer? Open up the box and find the flower for me.
May 09, 2017 11:19 AM
You're making my point Dusty. The image is nowhere to be seen, yet you say it's 100% physical. The TV screen image is physical, everyone can see it. The brain image, nope, can't see it.
Your computer analogy fails. The image actually exists.
I don't care HOW the image is formed I only care that it's a physically observable image.
>> "Where is the flower in your computer?"
Where? You're looking at it, genius! Only an idiot would now go looking somewhere else. Find that brain image for me.
@Strawdusty,
With Newtonian mechanics when Y ceases pushing X then X continues to change without any other thing causing it to change
Here you accuse Newton of stating that literally nothing causes the body to continue movement. I contend that he attributed this behavior to vis inertiae. If you have proof that Newton thought literally nothing was responsible for that type of motion, please cite it. Otherwise both Newtonian physics and the First Way agree.
I am not just making this up.
Probably not. You probably just found some web site that got it wrong rather than looking at primary sources just like the one you linked that misattributed a force equation to Aristotle.
To put this issue to rest so we can get back to arguing over the First Way:
'meanings' and 'ideas' are not a physical things, thus they cannot be found in your physical brain. It doesn't matter HOW meanings/ideas get produced so don't bother going that rabbit trail. It's irrelevant. It only matters that meanings/ideas exist in your brain, yet they do NOT have any of the physical properties that the brain has. The idea of "two" in your brain has no chemical properties, no electrical potential, no mass, no density, no force, etc.
Reductionism fails. Physicalism fails. Class dismissed.
Legion: "You're like the kid in online gaming that trash talks everyone else even though he himself is doing the worst. You aren't doing yourself any favors blustering like this."
No bluster; truth.
Comments reveal much, don't they?
Stevek is obviously, well, slow.
bmiller is perpetually out of his depth, but lacks the maturity and intelligence to recognize his surroundings.
Both of them are probably assigned to their roles -- personality is destiny for many of us.
But you seem more the product of your upbringing. And I honestly feel sorry for you. It seems like your life will be a long slow unfolding of how different your life could have been if you hadn't been so handicapped by how you were indoctrinated.
Any time you're ready to move on with the argument I'm ready to point out the problems.
What would it mean for you if it turned out the First Way really isn't a good argument? If it would really bother you, then you're (still) not ready to discuss it.
Cal: "It seems like your life will be a long slow unfolding of how different your life could have been if you hadn't been so handicapped by how you were indoctrinated."
This is strictly out of curiosity, but how precisely would not being "handicapped" improve my life? I've often heard this claim in the atheist debates but have never been given an answer.
Cal: "Any time you're ready to move on with the argument I'm ready to point out the problems."
I honestly think that if I were to ask you to state what (1) through (2)c meant according to Aquinas, that you wouldn't be able to do so. Can you? If so, then I'd be happy to move on.
Cal: "What would it mean for you if it turned out the First Way really isn't a good argument? If it would really bother you, then you're (still) not ready to discuss it."
I don't have anything emotional tied to the argument, if that's what you're getting at. If I had a lot riding on it, I could have stuck my head in the sand and abandoned this thread long ago, rather than hold it up for scrutiny. I was only vaguely aware of the contents of the Five Ways until the first Aquinas thread on this site, so my belief in God would not be impacted in the slightest were all of the Five Ways soundly demolished.
SteveK said...
" You're making my point Dusty. The image is nowhere to be seen, yet you say it's 100% physical. The TV screen image is physical, everyone can see it. The brain image, nope, can't see it.
Your computer analogy fails. The image actually exists."
Where inside the box of your computer is an image of the flower?
May 10, 2017 7:14 AM
Legion: "I honestly think that if I were to ask you to state what (1) through (2)c meant according to Aquinas, that you wouldn't be able to do so. Can you?"
This is among the problems of discussing issues with apologists; they don't understand something as basic as the rules of argument. Case in point is your silly belief that the standard for evaluating the First Way is to determine not if the argument is any good, but to declare oneself the final arbiter of what the author of the argument must have meant and then evaluate criticism against that silly standard.
Not only do I not accept this switch, I think it's a laughable conceit on your part.
You have admitted you knew very little about the argument before this discussion started. And now you, in full Dunning Kruger, have assumed that you understand Aquinas's innermost thoughts, and the works that influenced and motivated him, and that this new ability on your part is the standard for which criticism of an obviously flawed argument should be evaluated.
On top of which you have yet to show how my criticisms (and more particularly and saliently, Stardusty's) here fail to refute the argument which is the First Way. Every criticism I have offered is a criticism of that argument, and each of these criticisms demonstrate that we both understand the First Way better than you do, and that I am engaging in the rules of argument.
While you continue to do neither, you just demonstrate how little you can offer this discussion in way of a genuine defense. Which is not so much your fault, as it is the fault of a genuinely terrible argument.
bmiller: " Otherwise both Newtonian physics and the First Way agree."
List what Aristotlean physics got wrong.
Or don't you know?
Like I said, you misunderstand your role in this discussion. You make a claim (that the First Way is not refuted by the criticisms offered by Stardusty and me), and at that point you offered to assign what you consider the correct definitions, per your position, to the words of the argument in order to demonstrate that the criticisms offered so many times have no truck.
So, using the definitions that you say accurately reflect what Aquinas really meant when he presented the First Way, we have:
(1)For it is certain and evident to the senses that something in this world [changes].*
(2)But, all that is [changed], is [changed] by another.**
a.Nothing is, in fact, [changed], unless it is [possible] to that towards which it is [changed].***
b. But, a thing [changes] only insomuch as it [exists].****
c. In fact, to [change] is nothing else than to bring a thing from [possible] to [real].*****
* It is understood that Aquinas is talking about real things (“to the senses.”).
** Observed change only ever occurs because some other thing causes the the observed thing to undergo a change.
*** Impossible changes can’t happen.
**** Gibberish that has yet to be cleared up.
***** To change is to change into only those things that are possible. More gibberish.
So, you ever going to straighten out the above for us?
Cal: "This is among the problems of discussing issues with apologists; they don't understand something as basic as the rules of argument."
Says the guy who claims to know it's a bad argument even though he doesn't have the faintest clue what the argument is even saying. I don't consider you any sort of authority to be critiquing my understanding of argumentation.
Cal: "You have admitted you knew very little about the argument before this discussion started. And now you, in full Dunning Kruger, have assumed that you understand Aquinas's innermost thoughts, and the works that influenced and motivated him, and that this new ability on your part is the standard for which criticism of an obviously flawed argument should be evaluated."
There were two paths to take, and each of us took one. I encountered the argument and didn't really understand it, so what did I do? Research. I went to the people who are intimately familiar with it. Thomists are experts on the philosophy and arguments of Aquinas, so I read them. I read Aquinas' other writings for additional context. It becomes apparent pretty quickly what Aquinas was getting at, due to a combination of reading Aquinas, learning from the Thomists, and the fact that the concepts are quite simple to understand. As a result, I feel comfortable expressing and defending what the experts say about it, since I agree with them that it indeed is what Aquinas was saying.
You encountered the argument and didn't really understand it, so what did you do? Pretended to know what it was saying, readily agreed with Stardusty's First Strawman, and then declared it to be bad, even though you don't have the faintest clue what it's even about. You accomplished nothing but humiliating yourself through a combination of proud ignorance, bigotry toward anything Christian, and an astounding inability to understand simple concepts even when they are spelled out for you over and over again, with clear examples to accompany. You are not even remotely qualified to tell anyone what the First Way was saying, since you understand none of it.
And you actually feel superior? Dunning Kruger indeed.
Cal: "On top of which you have yet to show how my criticisms (and more particularly and saliently, Stardusty's) here fail to refute the argument which is the First Way."
I've refuted you multiple times. Your failure to recognize the abysmal quality of your attempts at refutation does not change that fact.
Your (b) and (c) footnotes are not gibberish, though not how I would word them.
"But, a thing [changes] only insomuch as it [exists]."
It's not so much the object existing as the state of actuality the object is in, but yes a thing that exists is in one or more actualized states (hot, moving, sharp, luminescent, etc). And depending on what state of actuality the object is in, it will have different effects it can generate. A thing's ability to change is entirely dependent upon what state the thing is in.
"In fact, to [change] is nothing else than to bring a thing from [possible] to [real]"
Change "real" to "realized" and there is no problem.
Legion of Logic said...
" Even if we accept that passing through a series of locations under inertia is the actualization of potentials (it was here, now it is here, and that's a change!) rather than a mere change in reference to other things, "
Motion is change, it has been said here often. To move is to change. A moving thing is a changing thing, the theists here have asserted time and again in many ways.
So, if motion is change, what is changing? Clearly, in the case of uniform linear motion, the thing that is changing is position.
According to A-T, the thing pushing object X is what is changing X. Stop pushing X and X stops. In the case of a rock thrown through the air it is the air that continues to push on the rock. That is A-T physics and A-T language.
"then the cause would be whatever produced the movement in the first place."
This is the anthropomorphization or personalization or time displacement illusory assignment of causation I warned about many posts back. This is why I always recommend reading J.S. Bell or some other modern deep thinker on the subject of causation.
Causal effects propagate by mutual interaction no faster than c, classically (perhaps superluminally according to some interpretations of Bell).
Your language employs a personification of cause, identifying an object as somehow a cause of something even though it is disconnected from the thing it is supposedly causing to do something. This is time dissociated and space dissociated thinking.
Aristotle disagreed with you. The cause of the motion of object X is object Y pushing on it. When object Y stops pushing on it then object Y stops being the cause of change in object X so object X stops changing.
A-T language is fairly self consistent in these simple cases under Aristotelian physics, which is no surprise, since that is what the "A" stands for. But to be valid today the language of A-T must be valid under modern physics, which it is not, and therefore A-T language becomes self contradictory.
It doesn't matter if Aquinas was consistent given medieval notions of motion and causation. If the language of Aquinas does not make sense under modern physics and modern causation then Aquinas simply is wrong by self contradiction.
May 09, 2017 11:49 AM
1) For it is certain and evident to the senses that something in this world [changes].*
(2) But, all that is [changed], is [changed] by another.
a. Nothing is, in fact, [changed], unless it is [possible] to that towards which it is [changed].
b. A thing that exists is in one or more actualized states (hot, moving, sharp, luminescent, etc).
c. In fact, to [change] is nothing else than to bring a thing from [possible] to [realized].
d. But, it is not possible that a [possible] thing be [made real], unless it is by a thing that exists.
Is this your understanding?
@Cal,
bmiller: " Otherwise both Newtonian physics and the First Way agree."
List what Aristotlean physics got wrong.
Or don't you know?
The premise under dispute in the First Way is that things cannot change themselves but require something else to actually cause them to change. Newtonian physics confirm the premise. Do you disagree? If so, then cite where Newtonian physics say that inanimate objects move themselves or that nothing moves them.
The entirety of Aristotelian physics is an interesting subject but is irrelevant to this particular premise. Also, your question as phrased, would require me to compare all the works of Aristotle to all areas of classical physics, GR and QM which don't even agree among themselves.
I'd be happy to discuss particular aspects using primary sources, but isn't this supposed to be about the First Way?
Dusty: "Where inside the box of your computer is an image of the flower?"
Me: "You're looking at it, genius! Only an idiot would now go looking somewhere else"
QED
SteveK said...
Dusty: "Where inside the box of your computer is an image of the flower?"
Me: "You're looking at it, genius! Only an idiot would now go looking somewhere else"
inside the box
Where is the image of the flower inside the box ?
Hint, inside the box means you go to your computer, remove the cover, look at the circuits and wires and find the image of the flower inside the box .
May 11, 2017 9:40 AM
Blogger bmiller said...
" The premise under dispute in the First Way is that things cannot change themselves but require something else to actually cause them to change. Newtonian physics confirm the premise. Do you disagree? "
Yes.
"If so, then cite where Newtonian physics say that inanimate objects move themselves or that nothing moves them."
Irrelevant. A-T language fails when it is applied to Newtonian physics.
A-T language is consistent with Aristotelian physics.
Newtonian language is consistent with Newtonian physics.
A-T language is self contradictory when applied to Newtonian physics.
" The entirety of Aristotelian physics is an interesting subject but is irrelevant to this particular premise."
Wrong. Aristotelian physics is embedded in A-T language. A-T language is only self consistent on Aristotelian physics. When we change the physics and keep the language the same the language fails by self contradiction making the language invalid.
" Also, your question as phrased, would require me to compare all the works of Aristotle to all areas of classical physics, GR and QM which don't even agree among themselves."
A key highlight will suffice for now. Aristotle asserted the following:
Forced motion or violent motion or unnatural motion of object X is caused by object Y exerting a force on X.
When object Y stops acting upon object X then X stops moving.
Motion of an object, for Aristotle and thus for Aquinas, requires continuous force acting upon the object, stop the outside force and the object stops.
" I'd be happy to discuss particular aspects using primary sources, but isn't this supposed to be about the First Way?"
The First Way is an argument from motion. The A-T language is critically dependent upon Aristotelian physics. When we change to Newtonian physics while keeping the language the same the language fails by self contradiction.
May 11, 2017 9:40 AM
Dusty
"Where is the image of the pink unicorn in your arm?"
Your question is equally incoherent. Why would anyone look for the image of the flower in the computer when you already know where it is? The ignorance you're spouting is simply amazing.
@Strawdusty,
The principle under discussion is a metaphysical principle consistent with A-T physics, Newtonian physics, GR and QM. None contradict it.
The vis inertiae is a passive principle by which bodies persist in their motion or rest, receive motion in proportion to the force impressing it, and resist as much as they are resisted. By this principle alone there could never have been any motion in the world. Some other Principle was necessary for putting Bodies into Motion; and now they are in motion, some other principle is necessary for conserving the motion. Sir Isaac Newton, Opticks, bk. 3, query 31
There have been arguments whether inertial motion is intrinsic, extrinsic or whether zero acceleration should be considered change at all, but none of these attempts at explanation suppose that inanimate objects change themselves or are changed by nothing and so none contradict the premise.
Notice that I have quoted a primary source, so I'm not winging it.
SteveK said...
" Why would anyone look for the image of the flower in the computer when you already know where it is? "
Suppose you turn off the computer, unplug it, disconnect all the cables to your monitor. Where is the image of the flower now? Is there any physical analog to the flower anyplace still physically existent inside the computer?
Now, suppose you had previously set the image of the flower as your desktop image. Plug in the computer, cable it back up, turn it on. The image of the flower appears on your screen. Where did it come from? How was it stored? By what sort of process did your seemingly motionless, unpowered, inanimate physical device produce the image of the flower on your screen?
May 11, 2017 11:50 AM
>> "some other principle is necessary for conserving the motion"
Indeed. Translated, this means some other actual thing is necessary to conserve (sustain) the motion. Perfectly consistent with the First Way argument.
The flip side of this would be that an finite cause is capable of producing (sustaining) an infinite effect. Nothing in science demonstrates this to be true, so once again science is consistent with the FW.
Dusty,
How the image is formed is not the issue. It's irrelevant to the issue.
The image exists. It's the final product being perceived. You say everything is physical so the image must also physical. Where do we look if not somewhere north of the human neckline? Tell me.
SteveK said...
" You say everything is physical so the image must also physical. Where do we look if not somewhere north of the human neckline? Tell me."
Start with the arrangement of magnetic domains on your hard drive. That is a physical analog of the flower. Then physical circuits process that analog using physical processes.
The image is represented as a number of dots, or clusters of 3 dots, analogous to the clusters of light sensing "dots" in your eye.
The physical process continues as your screen is illuminated such that each dot emits physical energy, electromagnetic radiation, which is physically bent in its path by your physical lens, and then forms and inverted physical image on your physical eye as this physical process continues.
Physical signals are sent on physical nerves to your physical brain, which physically correlates the pattern of incoming signals with physically stored analogs or past images to issue a physical reaction of recognition and association with a physical pressure wave pattern that has the physical analog of the symbols F L O W E R.
No ghosts, gods, or spookstuff required.
May 11, 2017 12:39 PM
bmiller said...
" Notice that I have quoted a primary source, so I'm not winging it."
Newtonian language is consistent with Newtonian physics.
A-T language is consistent with Aristotelian physics.
A-T language is self contradictory when applied to Newtonian physics.
May 11, 2017 12:19 PM
Dusty,
>> "The image is represented as a number of dots, or clusters of 3 dots"
Find the represented image of a pink unicorn. It's physical, it's north of the neckline and it's perceived as an image of a pink unicorn. Should be fairly easy for science to recognize.
The image is represented as a pattern of brain cells, neurons, etc that together are perceived to be a pink unicorn. This pattern should be fairly easy to spot.
SteveK said...
" The image is represented as a pattern of brain cells, neurons, etc that together are perceived to be a pink unicorn. This pattern should be fairly easy to spot."
Why would the pattern be easy to spot? If you knew anything about data storage you would know the opposite is the case. Data is stored in a distributed and highly complex arrangement bearing no immediate resemblance to the real external object the data is an analog representation of.
May 11, 2017 2:19 PM
>> "Why would the pattern be easy to spot"
Okay, maybe 'easy' isn't the right word. Let's just say it's there to be found and leave it at that.
The image is not in some other form so I don't need to know anything about data storage. It exists in a physical form that is perceived as a pink unicorn.
We can quit this topic anytime you want. You're flailing around.
SteveK said...
" Okay, maybe 'easy' isn't the right word. Let's just say it's there to be found and leave it at that."
Right, a physical representation of an object is stored in the brain in physical structures. The brain is physical. The representation of the object is physical. Physical processes store and retrieve the representation of the object.
May 11, 2017 3:10 PM
@Strawdusty,
A-T language is self contradictory when applied to Newtonian physics.
This is the only A-T language that's been quoted and is relevant:
Therefore, whatever is in motion must be put in motion by another.
This is the relevant Newtonian language:
By this principle alone there could never have been any motion in the world. Some other Principle was necessary for putting Bodies into Motion; and now they are in motion, some other principle is necessary for conserving the motion.
BTW, both languages are English :-)
@Strawdusty,
'Processes' are not physical things nor are 'representations'.
Physical things have rest mass or energy that can be measured.
I can measure the mass of a computer and the energy it consumes and expends. Where do I plug in my meter or scale to measure a 'process' or a 'representation'?
>> "Right, a physical representation of an object is stored in the brain in physical structures."
You're still flailing around.
a) I perceive a pink unicorn
b) It therefore exists in an actual form that is actually perceived as an actual pink unicorn
c) It's not in an unrecognizable form such as 'storage' or 'analog'
d) It exists in physical form
e) It's physically located somewhere
f) You say it's in/around the brain. Find it.
stevek: "Okay, maybe 'easy' isn't the right word. Let's just say it's there to be found and leave it at that....We can quit this topic anytime you want. You're flailing around."
Um hmm.
bmiller said...
" 'Processes' are not physical things"
A physical process is a changing physical thing, as opposed to a ghost or a god or a mind or some other imagined spookystuff. Thus a process is physical in the sense that running is physical.
" nor are 'representations'."
Remember your old dial up, or your old Fax, those funny tones? The process of one frequency represented a 1, the process of another frequency represented a 0. The variations in the electromagnetic radiation detected by your radio antenna represent human voice, or music, or data, or whatever they are encoded to represent.
" Physical things have rest mass or energy that can be measured."
Ok, at least you understand that much.
" I can measure the mass of a computer and the energy it consumes and expends."
Ok.
" Where do I plug in my meter or scale to measure a 'process' or a 'representation'?"
You need more sophisticated test equipment for that, such as an oscilloscope, logic analyzer, spectrum analyzer, etc., depending what you wish to measure.
May 11, 2017 4:14 PM
SteveK said...
" d) It exists in physical form
e) It's physically located somewhere
f) You say it's in/around the brain. Find it."
Please arrive at 123 Main street, Smalltown USA, at 12pm on May 12 2017. At that time I will open your skull and start cutting out parts of your brain while asking you to keep picturing a pink unicorn. When you can no longer picture the pink unicorn we will know I have cut out the cells that stored the representation of the pink unicorn in your brain, thus demonstrating I have found it.
May 11, 2017 4:23 PM
@Strawdusty,
A physical process is a changing physical thing
No. A changing physical thing is a changing physical thing. A process is "a natural phenomenon marked by gradual changes that lead toward a particular result". I can measure the energy/mass of a changing physical thing. I cannot measure the energy/mass of a phenomenon.
The instruments you mentioned measure aspects of energy which apply to changing physical things. You didn't mention a 'phenomenonmeter'. Maybe you can borrow one from the Ghostbusters :-)
bmiller said...
@Strawdusty,
A physical process is a changing physical thing
" No. A changing physical thing is a changing physical thing."
You demonstrate no capacity to think beyond an absurd tautology on this subject.
May 11, 2017 8:56 PM
>> "When you can no longer picture the pink unicorn we will know I have cut out the cells that stored the representation of the pink unicorn in your brain, thus demonstrating I have found it."
Nope. You gotta show me the pink unicorn to demonstrate you found it. It could be elsewhere and you just interrupted the signal.
d, e or f could be false. Finding it would verify the facts. Do the science Dusty, don't assume.
bmiller: "I cannot measure the energy/mass of a phenomenon."
Um hmm.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quake_(natural_phenomenon)
@Stardusty, when the only demonstration that your interlocutors have left is to brandish their ignorance and stupidity, I think you've done all you can.
If Legion ever comes back to fulfill his vow to properly explain, line by line, how it somehow is that the First Way hasn't been soundly refuted so very long ago, then maybe there will be something to work with.
@Cal
If you had clicked on the first hyperlinked instance of 'phenomena' you would have found this:
For example, in physics, a phenomenon may be described by a system of information related to matter, energy, or spacetime, such as Isaac Newton's observations of the moon's orbit and of gravity, or Galileo Galilei's observations of the motion of a pendulum.[4]
Measuring energy and mass is not measuring information. No, a phenomenon is not a changing physical thing.
bmiller: " 'For example, in physics, a phenomenon may be described by a system of information related to matter, energy, or spacetime, such as Isaac Newton's observations of the moon's orbit and of gravity, or Galileo Galilei's observations of the motion of a pendulum.[4]' / Measuring energy and mass is not measuring information. No, a phenomenon is not a changing physical thing."
Read English much?
Cal Metzger said...
" @Stardusty, when the only demonstration that your interlocutors have left is to brandish their ignorance and stupidity, I think you've done all you can."
Yes, the latest bits about information and phenomena and pink unicorns show a very scattered thought process for b and s.
" If Legion ever comes back to fulfill his vow to properly explain, line by line,"
Well, he has given it an honest try, I think. We got kind of stuck because I don't think he anticipated objections to the fundamental assumptions implicit in A-T language even in the first few lines of the OP.
I don't mind so much speaking in the vernacular just for the sake of discussion. But he asked for objections and now I am going to add another post date to my reference list I have reposted from time to time.
It will be interesting to see how he handles the begging the question, ad hoc, false assertion, non sequitur defects of the OP. If we get through that far maybe we will even get to the glaring omissions of Haines's notation.
Haines stopped at U, completely ignoring his own 5 in his own notation. I followed up with G (a human understanding of god) and E (the existence of god).
I suspect Haines omitted G and E from his notation because they are so blatantly based on false assertion, ad hoc, and non-sequitur that it was impossible to write any logical notation for G and E, so he hoped to just sweep this omission under the rug where it would not be noticed by the credulous.
May 12, 2017 4:57 AM
Reposting reference dates
March 12, 2017 9:25 AM
March 12, 2017 9:27 AM
March 12, 2017 9:28 AM
March 12, 2017 10:10 AM
adding
May 11, 2017 9:00 AM
@Cal,
Thanks for your thoughtful counterpoint.
I'll assume that you agree with description of phenomenon being described as "a system of information".
Now while the "system of information" may be related to matter, energy or spacetime it is not itself, matter, energy or spacetime otherwise the description would not have made the distinction.
What do you think the distinction is?
@Legion,
Please proceed if you want to whenever you choose and I'll stop with the side topic as well as holding my comments to a minimum.
bmiller: "I'll assume that you agree with description of phenomenon being described as "a system of information"."
Bwahahahahaha.
AS ≠ BY
A fish may be described AS a picture. (Wha???)
A fish may be described BY a picture. (Yup.)
However, bmiller may be described as a a mendacious little apologist.
But I repeat myself.
FYI, I work weekend nights and have had school events with the kiddos so it will likely be tomorrow or Sunday before I can jump back in.
@Cal,
Thanks for graciously pointing out my mistake. You're quite right.
I should have quoted the whole thing:
In scientific usage, a phenomenon is any event that is observable, however common it might be, even if it requires the use of instrumentation to observe, record, or compile data concerning it. For example, in physics, a phenomenon may be described by a system of information related to matter, energy, or spacetime, such as Isaac Newton's observations of the moon's orbit and of gravity, or Galileo Galilei's observations of the motion of a pendulum.[4]
The description says that science considers a phenomenon an observable event.
I had in mind Kant's distinction between phenomena and noumena and inadvertently read that into the scientific description. Noumena being the actual thing, phenomena being the perception.
So if you are a Kantian, which I'm not, then the phenomena is not a real physical thing.
The scientific description mentions that a phenomenon is any event that is observable, so according to that definition any physical change that can be measured is a phenomenon including chaotic noise. A process however has added restrictions. A process is "a natural phenomenon marked by gradual changes that lead toward a particular result". So in order to qualify as a process, it must lead to particular results and so has information content.
Information is not measured by rest mass or energy as physical things are. So to understand a process, you will need to do more than measure mass or energy.
bmiller: "The scientific description mentions that a phenomenon is any event that is observable, so according to that definition any physical change that can be measured is a phenomenon including chaotic noise."
You're just an idiot.
And I can't fix stupid, despite my awesome powers
@Cal,
Well, I guess that showed me.
I wonder if my phrase 'chaotic noise' was unclear now.
By chaotic noise, I mean lack of information ascertainable in measurements. If you've ever had an AM radio between stations you can hear static. The static is considered noise and is considered random and unpredictable.
If you googled 'chaotic noise' the first thing you would have found was the "Chaotic Noise Marching Corps". So no, I was not referring to that.
Legion of Logic said...
" FYI, I work weekend nights and have had school events with the kiddos so it will likely be tomorrow or Sunday before I can jump back in."
--Ok, fair enough, but I have yet to see any sound explanation from you or anybody else the addresses the defects of the First Way:
Incorrect language of physics
Begging the question
Self contradiction
Ad hoc
Non sequitur
False dichotomy
Omission of the existence of god from the argument
Also the shortcomings of Haines:
Abbreviated notation throughout argument
Truncated notation at U
Omission of G (human understanding of god)
Omission of E (existence of god)
That is a great many defects both in the First Way as written by Aquinas and the logical notation used by Haines.
Do you really consider yourself capable of going line by line to show that all these problems somehow really are not problems?
May 12, 2017 12:30 PM
Stardusty: "Incorrect language of physics"
I've covered this already, no conflict has been shown. Also, provisional postulates and no language god.
Stardusty: "Begging the question"
I know the part you're referring to. I'm not concerned. We'll see if it's actually begging the question when we get there.
Stardusty: "Self contradiction...False dichotomy"
None has been pointed out in the First Way. First Strawman, yes, but not the First Way.
Stardusty: "Omission of the existence of god from the argument"
Not sure what you're getting at there.
Stardusty: "Also the shortcomings of Haines"
I have no interest in defending Haines. The only reason I'm using him at all is because of the OP. If he botches something, that's on him. If you're really wanting someone to defend Haines, you'll have to ask one of the others, because the First Way isn't his argument.
Stardusty: "--Ok, fair enough, but I have yet to see any sound explanation from you or anybody else the addresses the DEFECTS of the First Way: Incorrect language of physics..."
Legion: "I've covered this already, no CONFLICT has been shown. Also, provisional postulates and no language god."
Defect ≠ Conflict
If you can't be precise in your defense then you have even less home than I imagined.
Cal: "1) For it is certain and evident to the senses that something in this world [changes].*"
Good.
"(2) But, all that is [changed], is [changed] by another."
Good.
"a. Nothing is, in fact, [changed], unless it is [possible] to that towards which it is [changed]."
Good.
"b. A thing that exists is in one or more actualized states (hot, moving, sharp, luminescent, etc)."
To use Haines' wording in (2)b, he says "But, a thing moves only insomuch as it is in act". So, a thing X changes other things only to the extent that Thing X is in some realized state, a state that is in effect - and whatever state(s) it is in would determine what changes it could effect. It's not that the thing simply exists, it is that the existing thing is in one or more realized states, which can generate effects.
"c. In fact, to [change] is nothing else than to bring a thing from [possible] to [realized]."
Good.
"d. But, it is not possible that a [possible] thing be [made real], unless it is by a thing that exists."
If I stick with using "possible", I'd say something like "But, it is not possible that a [possible] thing be [brought into effect, realized], unless it is by a thing that is [in a realized state]."
Cal: "If you can't be precise in your defense then you have even less home than I imagined."
Assuming you meant "hope". That was strictly in response to Stardusty's comment ""Incorrect language of physics". And I correctly pointed out that no conflict between the First Way and physics has been shown.
Legion of Logic said...
" I correctly pointed out that no conflict between the First Way and physics has been shown."
--The language of Aquinas is only consistent with Aristotelian physics. The combination of assertions in the First way breaks down under uniform linear motion and the modern physics of causality.
See
May 11, 2017 9:00 AM
May 11, 2017 11:00 AM
Here it is again in other words:
I assert that the language of Aquinas, his terminology, and most importantly his views of the physics of motion implicit in his language is defective when applied to the modern physics of motion.
For the First Way to be a sound argument today it must be sound in consideration of modern physics. Perhaps the statements of Aquinas accurately reflected 13th century understandings of physics, but that is not sufficient for the First Way to be a sound modern argument for god.
I will reference your OP above for wording locations.
(2) But, all that is moved, is moved by another.
(2)c. In fact, to move is nothing else than to bring a thing from potency to act.
(4)b. in the same way that a cane is not moved unless it is moved by a hand.
I realize that “move” is used rather ambiguously by Aquinas, although that is not my core criticism in this argument. In 2c “move” is defined very generally as a realization of a potential, whereas in 4b “move” is used in the common sense of a change in position.
These views are not mutually exclusive when we consider common motion as a change in position. An object has the potential to move to a new location. Every time an object changes position it realizes a potential to be in that position. When an object moves from position a to b to c then upon arrival at b its potential to move to b is realized, and according to Aquinas it must be moved by another to change from position b to realize position c. The language is clumsy, but not strictly erroneous on its face, or so it seems.
But what of 2? When something is moved it is necessarily moved by another. Well, ok with the example of 4b, when the cane is moved, it is moved by a moving hand. When the hand stops moving, the cane stops moving. If one pushes a book across a table the book moves because it is being pushed. When one stops pushing the book, the book stops.
What is my problem then? You may well ask. Things seem to be just fine with the First Way. And on Aristotelian physics, indeed, the language of Aquinas seems to match with simple ordinary object motion like a hand, a cane, and a sliding book.
Newton is the problem! Newton said the cane does not stop when the hand stops and the book does not stop when the pushing stops. Position keeps changing. Motion continues. Each successive new position is being brought into actualization from potency even after the outside causal agent stops pushing. Thus, for uniform linear motion 2 is violated, since there is no other, yet the object moves from position b (at which point it is only potentially at position c) and then the object realizes this change to position c, yet without another as called for by the A-T language of 2.
Aristotle knew of this problem, for example throwing a rock through the air. Aristotle asserted that a force is continuously applied to the rock from outside the rock even in the air.
The language of Aquinas implicitly accepts these assertions of Aristotle, and in fact depends upon them, yet Aristotle was wrong, and therefore the language of Aquinas becomes self-contradictory under modern physics, rendering the First Way unsound.
On the definition of motion provided in 2c the assertion of 2 is false in the case of linear uniform motion, thus the First Way is unsound by reason of a false premise in 2.
May 15, 2017 3:52 PM
Stardusty: "Newton is the problem!"
Newton is not a problem. I've already addressed this. Say you have a ball sitting still. You come up and strike it with a golf club, and the ball flies up. Now because of gravity and wind resistance the ball will slow and arc downward, but let's say for simplicity's sake that those were not factors. You hit the ball and it flies upward at a given angle at a given speed and continues on.
The speed and direction the ball are traveling in are potential states that were actualized when the club struck the ball. Aristotle and Aquinas were indeed wrong about some of their physics, but that is hardly detrimental to the First Way. If the ball is moving, something made it move. It did not make itself move. If the ball is traveling in X direction, something put it in that state. The argument does not depend on medieval understanding of physics. Another reason an object that continues moving after you let go is not a problem is because that would be an accidentally ordered series, and not an essentially ordered series like the First Way is addressing.
In a real-world example, you hit the ball and it arcs, but the deceleration and change in direction are due to the influence of other things, so we again have potential states being actualized by actualized things. The First Way still applies. With the hand and cane and rock, there are variables that Aristotle and Aquinas were unaware of, but those other variables - gravity, etc - are simply other actualized states of things that are changing the movement of the rock. It doesn't falsify the premise that the rock does not change its state unless acted upon, whether that state is "motionless" or in motion.
No conflict between Newton and the First Way has been demonstrated. You want to keep trying, or are you ready to move on?
Legion of Logic said...
Stardusty: "Omission of the existence of god from the argument"
" Not sure what you're getting at there."
Stardusty: "Also the shortcomings of Haines"
" I have no interest in defending Haines. The only reason I'm using him at all is because of the OP. If he botches something, that's on him. "
--Fair enough.
But, my points about some of the defects of Aquinas are illustrated by the omissions of Haines.
The First Way is an argument for God, capital G. Aquinas was not arguing for a first mover in isolation, or a human understanding of God, rather, Aquinas set out to argue for the existence of God.
Yet, Aquinas fails to close the deal. He stops 1 meter short of the finish line and just sits down on the track. Aquinas never ties his arguments to the existence of God, only a human understanding of God. Human understanding does not constitute existence. Human understanding versus existence are a chasm apart.
You certainly have no obligation to defend any other analysis. You quite reasonably go to the primary source. However, I contend that the fact Haines stopped his notation at U is that it is not possible to write defensible logical notation for
U therefore G (human understanding of God)
G therefore E (existence of God)
The glaring omission of logical notation in the OP beyond U supports my contention of defects of Aquinas including
Ad hoc
False assertion
False dichotomy
Non sequitur
May 15, 2017 3:38 PM
Dusty the anti-science wonder
>> "Thus, for uniform linear motion 2 is violated"
Newton's theory didn't state, or even imply, that things can move themselves. Don't bastardize his theory just to fit your crackpot idea. Your crazy idea that a finite cause produces an infinite effect is known as "perpetual motion" Don't try to pin that nonsense on Newton.
Legion of Logic said...
" You want to keep trying, or are you ready to move on?"
--Either way, but the language remains defective on Newtonian mechanics and the modern physics of causality.
Suppose we consider this from the point of view of A-T understanding for a starting point. An object is pushed from postion a to b to c. What is changing? What is the potential and what is the actual?
Postion.
In the view of A-T when the object is at a it is actually at a and potentially at b. According to "all that is moved, is moved by another" to change from position a to position b "another" must must move the object.
So let's be another and push the object from a to b. Now position b is realized and position c is potential. So again, we must be another and again push the object from position b to position c.
Each successive change requires an action by another. That's why the object stops when we stop pushing. "all that is moved, is moved by another" works under A-T physics, at least for ordinary high friction objects and their apparent stoppage when the "another" stops moving the object.
It cannot be the case that Aquinas intended "motion" to be the "state" as you assert above. Aquinas had no such notion because he used the physics of Aristotle, like basically everybody else. It must be that Aquinas considered the position to be the state that requires a change by another, with each new change in position requiring a new "moved by another".
But Aquinas was wrong. That which is moved does not require to be moved by another. Objects do move themselves, they just don't begin to move themselves or change their own motion, but they do change their own position.
The language of Aquinas is simply wrong in the case of uniform linear motion. Objects do move themselves. An object having moved from a to b does not require another to move it from b to c.
That's why Newton abandoned the language of A-T. A-T language fails in uniform linear motion.
May 15, 2017 5:18 PM
SteveK said...
Dusty the anti-science wonder
>> "Thus, for uniform linear motion 2 is violated"
" Newton's theory didn't state, or even imply, that things can move themselves."
Of course it does. That's what uniform linear motion is, an object moving itself.
In uniform linear motion no outside force is acting upon the object, yet it is moving, so it must be moving all on its own, by itself.
Newton said an object does not change its own motion, but it does change its own position.
Aquinas must have been referring to a change in position, not a change in motion, because under A-T motion stops by itself, which is a change in motion, but not a change in position.
May 15, 2017 5:21 PM
>> "In uniform linear motion no outside force is acting upon the object, yet it is moving"
Meaning that this motion will continue forever, unaided by any outside force - despite conservation of energy. Cite the theory that says perpetual motion is possible, and more importantly, cite the tests that have confirmed/verified it. You're bluffing.
SteveK said...
>> "In uniform linear motion no outside force is acting upon the object, yet it is moving"
" Meaning that this motion will continue forever, "
" Cite the theory that says perpetual motion is possible,"
You just did it for me. Didn't you notice?
May 15, 2017 6:56 PM
The theory doesn't say anything about the existence of outside causes. You're bastardizing the theory.
But anyway, theories are just that. Cite the tests that confirm/validate unaided perpetual motion. Not "it's assumed to be" unaided or "we cannot detect anything" unaided. Don't forget to control for the effect of gravity. Good luck.
Gentlemen,
It has been argued since Newton's time whether interial motion at a constant velocity is:
1)a natural intrinsic property of matter like Aristotle's definition of a body's natural motion (Newton's position)
2) due to an extrinsic cause (Mach's theory)
3) not a real change at all since constant velocity cannot be sensed nor measured without reference to something that is in a different intertial reference frame.
None of these explanations contradict the First Way's premise.
Additionally Strawdusty is making things up. His descriptions of what both Newton and Aquinas held the cause to be came out of his own imagination. I've posted the relevant quotes from both authors and I have more.
SteveK said...
" But anyway, theories are just that. Cite the tests that confirm/validate unaided perpetual motion."
--Now you are moving the goalposts. You asked for a theory. It is the theory of Newtonian uniform motion.
But, you can add the theory of cosmic expansion. It seems the universe might expand for all time, thus, be in perpetual motion.
May 15, 2017 8:05 PM
Legion: "It's not that the thing simply exists, it is that the existing thing is in one or more realized states, which can generate effects."
Can you distinguish between a thing that "simply exists" and a potential (thing)? Aren't they the same? If so, why not use the same terminology consistently -- actual = realized, potential = possible. This other term, "simply exists", seems to occupy a vague ground between both sets of terms.
Legion: "If I stick with using "possible", I'd say something like "But, it is not possible that a [possible] thing be [brought into effect, realized], unless it is by a thing that is [in a realized state]."
Okay.
Me: "Cal: "If you can't be precise in your defense then you have even less home than I imagined."
Legion: "Assuming you meant "hope".
I did; thanks.
Legion: "That was strictly in response to Stardusty's comment ""Incorrect language of physics". And I correctly pointed out that no conflict between the First Way and physics has been shown."
An argument need not be in conflict with something else in order to be defective. So, your response is, well, defective.
Stardusty: "In uniform linear motion no outside force is acting upon the object, yet it is moving"
Stevek: " Meaning that this motion will continue forever.... Cite the theory that says perpetual motion is possible,"
Stardusty: "You just did it for me. Didn't you notice?"
@Stardusty, there's a level of stupid that fails to recognize one's own ignorance. Stevek luxuriates on that level.
bmiller: "It has been argued since Newton's time whether interial motion at a constant velocity is.... I've posted the relevant quotes from both authors and I have more."
Translation: bmiller has no foundation in basic science, and believes that whatever random snipped he can discover on the internet supplants a process of broad study and analytical thinking.
I'm used to apologists, but this might be the new high water mark of embarrassing for you guys.
Quoting one's sources is normally considered evidence for supporting one's position.
Stardusty: "It cannot be the case that Aquinas intended "motion" to be the "state" as you assert above. Aquinas had no such notion because he used the physics of Aristotle, like basically everybody else. It must be that Aquinas considered the position to be the state that requires a change by another, with each new change in position requiring a new "moved by another".
Even given that the physics of Aristotle were wrong, Newton does nothing to damage the actual argument. If an object moving under inertia passes from A to B to C and so on, it is only able to do so because its motion was caused by something else. The object did not cause its own motion, so its ability to pass through a series of locations was granted by something that caused its motion. That fits squarely into the premises of the First Way dealing with potential and actual states.
In addition, particularly in the staff example, the main focus for the essentially ordered series he is talking about would be the staff and the hand, not the rock. If he'd known about inertia, his example would possibly have been different, but it still works even with inertia being known because the question he implies is "Why does the staff have the ability to move the rock in that scenario?"
To the extent that Newtonian physics would answer the question, it doesn't contradict the answer that Aquinas would give. The most damaging Newton could possibly be to the First Way would be invalidating the staff scenario as an example (though I don't agree that it does), but it doesn't damage the actual premises.
Interestingly enough, it seems as though unlike in science, where either of us would expect an idea to be adjusted or scrapped in the face of new discoveries, you apparently expect the First Way to be completely intertwined in the physics of the day, even though the argument isn't a physics treatise. Knowing that Aquinas and Aristotle had no knowledge of Newtonian physics, I would simply see if the First Way's primary points - if not examples - withstood Newtonian physics, and they do. Velocity absent acceleration would be a state, even if Aquinas and Aristotle were ignorant of that. You apparently think the entire thing should be scrapped, even though the primary purpose of the argument still stands under Newtonian physics.
Cal: "Can you distinguish between a thing that "simply exists" and a potential (thing)? Aren't they the same? If so, why not use the same terminology consistently -- actual = realized, potential = possible. This other term, "simply exists", seems to occupy a vague ground between both sets of terms."
"Simply exists" would be vague under the First Way, so I wouldn't want to use it as synonymous with either actual or potential. There will likely be pitfalls that I don't foresee, but let's proceed under "actual = realized, potential = possible" and see what happens.
>> "--Now you are moving the goalposts. You asked for a theory."
Huh?? In the same sentence I asked you for the tests that confirm/verify the theory.
Me: "Cite the theory that says perpetual motion is possible, and more importantly, cite the tests that have confirmed/verified it."
Legion: ""Simply exists" would be vague under the First Way, so I wouldn't want to use it as synonymous with either actual or potential. There will likely be pitfalls that I don't foresee, but let's proceed under "actual = realized, potential = possible" and see what happens."
There you go; love it.
Legion: "Velocity absent acceleration would be a state, even if Aquinas and Aristotle were ignorant of that."
This is a fundamental misunderstanding of the difference between AT physic and Newtonian physics.
In AT physics, something is moving because it is being pushed.
In Newtonian physics, something is moving because it was set in motion.
Similarly, AT physics assumes an intuitive simultaneity of causes -- the thing moving now is moving because something at the very end of the chain is currently moving it.
Modern physics makes the more accurate description of spacetime.
And this is a fundamental problem with the defective terms of AT physics -- it takes the naive approach that the underlying force behind something like motion is simultaneous to the observed motion, but this is (of course) not the case.
The defect of this language becomes most apparent when the defenders of the First Way try to insist that the argument is not about origins -- and by so claiming they confess that the argument is hopelessly defective in its description of physical reality.
@Legion, I'm still waiting for you to proceed to the next part of the First Way. Were you waiting for something else?
@Legion,
If your opponents insist that inanimate things are moving themselves or that nothing is moving them it seems you can't move past that. You can't use scientific arguments with people who don't believe in science.
Cal: " I'm still waiting for you to proceed to the next part of the First Way. Were you waiting for something else?"
Summer vacation is going to slow me down.
Cal: "This is a fundamental misunderstanding of the difference between AT physic and Newtonian physics."
It doesn't matter if Aquinas or Aristotle were wrong about physics, the First Way withstands Newton. In fact, the language of Newton closely supports the First Way. "Every object persists in its state of rest or uniform motion in a straight line unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed upon it." That is remarkably similar to premises of the First Way:
"Now whatever is in motion is put in motion by another";
"But nothing can be reduced from potentiality to actuality, except by something in a state of actuality";
"It is therefore impossible that in the same respect and in the same way a thing should be both mover and moved, i.e. that it should move itself. Therefore, whatever is in motion must be put in motion by another."
As I've been saying all along, the First Way is not a physics argument and was not intended to be a physics argument. That's why even though they got their physics wrong, the First Way easily withstands Newton - the ideas remain even if the science changes. Velocity absent acceleration is a state, and it takes an outside force to change that state. That's the First Way's early premises in a nutshell, even if they didn't know their argument was actually superior to the physics of the time.
Cal: "And this is a fundamental problem with the defective terms of AT physics -- it takes the naive approach that the underlying force behind something like motion is simultaneous to the observed motion, but this is (of course) not the case."
Again, the most Newton could do to the First Way would be invalidating an example, not the entire argument. Both Aristotle and Aquinas believed in two different series of causes - accidentally ordered and essentially ordered. In other words, not everything was an essentially ordered series in which the cause and effect are simultaneous. Even now, the essentially ordered series is a valid concept.
Cal: "The defect of this language becomes most apparent when the defenders of the First Way try to insist that the argument is not about origins"
We don't "try to insist" - we accurately point it out. Aquinas did not believe the origin of the universe could be logically demonstrated, so he would not then present an argument attempting to describe the origin of the universe. It's an argument for God, as one part of a larger argument for God, using the fact of change to reach that conclusion. It's not about the origin of the universe.
bmiller: "If your opponents insist that inanimate things are moving themselves or that nothing is moving them it seems you can't move past that. You can't use scientific arguments with people who don't believe in science."
I've long suspected that the only interest the average anti-theist has in science is in the parts that can ostensibly be used to attack religious beliefs. That's why there are such gaping holes in their knowledge of science and philosophy.
At any rate, here comes the infamous (2)d.
(2)d: But, it is not possible that a thing be reduced to act, unless it is by a thing that is in act.
i. For example, an actually burning or hot thing, such as a flame, makes wood, which is potentially burning, to be burning in act, and in this way the wood is moved and altered.
Using "actual = realized", "potential = possible", and "motion = going from possible to realized", (2)d says that it is not possible that a thing (including a thing's potential states) become realized, unless it is by a thing that itself is realized. So, it takes something that is actually hot (as opposed to potentially hot) to make wood actually burn.
Potential/possible states of a thing have no causal power - only the actualized/realized states of a thing have causal power.
bmiller: "If your opponents insist that inanimate things are moving themselves or that nothing is moving them it seems you can't move past that."
This from a scientifically illiterate kid who has demonstrated he can't read for basic comprehension (see, above).
bmiller: "You can't use scientific arguments with people who don't believe in science."
Um hmm.
Legion: "It doesn't matter if Aquinas or Aristotle were wrong about physics, the First Way withstands Newton. In fact, the language of Newton closely supports the First Way. 'Every object persists in its state of rest or uniform motion in a straight line unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed upon it.' That is remarkably similar to premises of the First Way: 'Now whatever is in motion is put in motion by another'; "
So, to be clear, you interpret Aquinas's argument to mean that those things we observe to be in motion NOW (in the present) DO NOT require current causes, only prior ones? In other words, if Aquinas's argument conflicts with modern physics, we should understand Aquinas to be compatible with modern physics?
If that were the case, it would mean that the motion is not due to an essentially ordered series where the cause and effect are simultaneous. And that would mean the FW argument doesn't apply to THAT specific situation.
SteveK said...
" Me: "Cite the theory that says perpetual motion is possible,"
--Newtonian uniform motion.
--Cosmic expansion.
" and more importantly, cite the tests that have confirmed/verified it.""
--Really? You never heard of these?
May 16, 2017 3:40 PM
Legion of Logic said...
" Both Aristotle and Aquinas believed in two different series of causes - "
--How can causation somehow vary? Causal influences propagate through space at not faster than c, classically, in a continuous/continual mutual interaction.
"accidentally ordered and essentially ordered. In other words, not everything was an essentially ordered series in which the cause and effect are simultaneous."
--Yes, for example, 2 electrons moving and electrostaticaly interacting with changing velocities for each. Both electrons are the cause of each other's change the the effect from the other.
" Even now, the essentially ordered series is a valid concept."
--Right, it is the accidentally ordered series that is dubious, and is a sort of personification of causation, a labeling a thing as "the cause" in a simplistic human level view of mutual causal propagation systems.
May 17, 2017 2:21 PM
>> "Really? You never heard of these?"
These do not show that the motion is UNAIDED by an outside simultaneous cause. They also do not show the motion can continue forever. That is what you claim the theory says.
@Cal,
Your partner has claimed that things move themselves according to Newton. Do you agree?
You just made inaccurate and muddled claims regarding both Aristotelean physics and Newtonian physics. No telling what you're thinking.
SteveK said...
>> "Really? You never heard of these?"
" These do not show that the motion is UNAIDED by an outside simultaneous cause. "
--What is outside our big bang aiding it with a simultaneous cause of its expansion?
"They also do not show the motion can continue forever."
--Yes, Newton did formulate his theory in just that way.
Further, yes the preponderance of measurements of cosmic expansion indicate it will indeed continue expanding forever.
May 17, 2017 6:34 PM
LOL. Oh, Dusty!
bmiller: "Your partner has claimed that things move themselves according to Newton."
Citation?
bmiller: "You just made inaccurate and muddled claims regarding both Aristotelean physics and Newtonian physics. No telling what you're thinking."
You have demonstrated you don't understand basic science. I have demonstrated your inability to read English.
I don't care what you suppose.
@Cal,
"Citation? "
Strawdusty:
" Newton's theory didn't state, or even imply, that things can move themselves."
Of course it does. That's what uniform linear motion is, an object moving itself.
In uniform linear motion no outside force is acting upon the object, yet it is moving, so it must be moving all on its own, by itself.
Newton said an object does not change its own motion, but it does change its own position.
May 15, 2017 6:00 PM
Now it's your turn. Cite primary sources to support your claims. It could be fun to read.
"Newton's theory didn't state, or even imply, that things can move themselves."
Stardusty: "Of course it does. That's what uniform linear motion is, an object moving itself."
Ah, you remain confused about the difference between initiating motion, and being in motion.
In Newtonian physics, things at rest tend to stay at rest, and things in motion tend to stay in motion. That's the old-fashioned way of expressing it.
In AT physics, things at rest tend to stay at rest, and thing in motion ONLY REMAIN IN MOTION IF THEY ARE BEING PUSHED. That is what Stardusty means when he says that Newtonian physics includes things moving themselves -- meaning that they remain in motion even though no new force is propelling the object as it continues to move.
If you fail to understand that much, then you fail to understand a key distinction between these two explanations of physics.
In other words, you think Newton said a finite cause can produce an infinite effect. What's strange is how many experiments show this to be false - Every. Time. It's a theory in search of a reality.
Cal: "So, to be clear, you interpret Aquinas's argument to mean that those things we observe to be in motion NOW (in the present) DO NOT require current causes, only prior ones? In other words, if Aquinas's argument conflicts with modern physics, we should understand Aquinas to be compatible with modern physics?"
This is why I've always said that the First Way is not a physics argument, because the premises exist independently of whatever physics Aristotle and Aquinas believed. Potential states being actuated, only actualized states having causal power, a thing's causal power derived from further causes acting upon it simultaneously with its effect, etc. Those things exist under both Aristotle and Newton. The only things that would change would be examples, not the premises themselves. And the examples in the First Way still work even under Newton, due to what concept is being demonstrated (which isn't physics).
Using a rock getting pushed, according to Newton the rock would continue moving if it wasn't acted upon by friction and gravity (on Earth). In space, the rock's movement would be a potential state getting actualized, but getting pushed would not be part of an essentially ordered series with whatever pushed it, because you could remove whatever pushed it and the rock would still move. (On Earth, the essentially ordered series still applies due to something being required to overcome the forces of gravity and friction to make the rock move.)
But even though whatever pushed the rock in space is not part of an essentially ordered series with the rock, the rock is still part of such a series on different levels. Whatever property grants inertia, the atomic forces holding the rock together, etc. There are active causes that, if removed, would result in the destruction of the rock or possibly the cessation of its movement. This is why science has done little, if nothing, to impact the First Way, even if it more or less obliterated the physics of the day. Our understanding of nature at most changes illustrations of the concepts, but the concepts remain untouched.
@Cal,
Stardusty: "Of course it does. That's what uniform linear motion is, an object moving itself."
Ah, you remain confused about the difference between initiating motion, and being in motion.
Uniform linear motion is not now and has never been considered "an object moving itself" in Aristotelean nor Newtonian physics.
If an inanimate object could move itself why doesn't it start moving itself or stop moving itself? That is the reason Aristotle rejected the notion and Newton agreed (along with everyone else). The mover that causes this type of motion was called impetus in the Aristotelean tradition and later inertia in the Newtonian tradition.
In AT physics, things at rest tend to stay at rest, and thing in motion ONLY REMAIN IN MOTION IF THEY ARE BEING PUSHED. That is what Stardusty means when he says that Newtonian physics includes things moving themselves -- meaning that they remain in motion even though no new force is propelling the object as it continues to move.
When I asked for primary sources, I didn't mean Strawdusty. You know that right? :-)
Briefly, Aristotle held there were 2 kinds of motion, natural motion and constrained motion. Have you noticed that a ball will fall to the floor immediately if you remove your hand from beneath it at increasing velocity on the way down? Aristotle called that natural motion since it happened naturally with no one doing any "pushing" (an imprecise and incorrect term). Newton called it gravity. In this case the body moved to where nature intended it to move to. In neither case is the object considered to move itself but is considered to be moved by another (see above).
Constrained motion meant that (what we call) force had to be applied since the body would resist this type of motion (equal and opposite what Newton's phrase). Once that resistance was overcome the body remained in motion and impetus (Newton called it inertia) kept it in motion until (what we call) friction stopped it or another body collided with it. Is the continued motion natural or constrained? Aristotle favored the idea it was constrained (as did Ernst Mach and Einstein) since it started out as constrained. Newton favored constrained at first, then natural. However, in neither case is the object considered to move itself but is considered to be moved by another (see above).
So both systems agree with the First Way and in fact are based on the premise that nothing moving moves itself.
SteveK said...
" In other words, you think Newton said a finite cause can produce an infinite effect."
In A-T language position is a property that changes when caused to change by "another".
In Newtownian physics a change in position is not a change in the intrinsic properties of the object. These properties are described with
F=ma
E=mvv/2
At constant v the object is no longer changing its intrinsic properties, according to Newton, but according to A-T it is.
So, the "effect" in terms of a change in properties is finite under Newton. From outside the object, if you consider change in position to be an "effect" then yes, that is unbounded with a finite energy cause because v remains constant.
Steve, you apparently never took a physics course, which is unfortunate for you but curable. Go to a library and check out a physics book, or buy a used physics book, or go on line and learn the above equations for starters.
" What's strange is how many experiments show this to be false - Every. Time. It's a theory in search of a reality."
--I suppose you are referring to friction. Yes, that fooled humanity for millennia, notably including A-T. We now know that the motion that appears to disappear is actually transferred to molecular motion, and thus continues with no upper bound on time.
May 18, 2017 1:24 PM
Legion of Logic said...
" only actualized states having causal power, "
--Only real stuff does real stuff.
" the concepts remain untouched."
--That's not a concept, its a tautology.
May 18, 2017 2:19 PM
bmiller said...
"Aristotle called that ... Constrained motion meant that (what we call) force had to be applied since the body would resist this type of motion (equal and opposite what Newton's phrase). Once that resistance was overcome the body remained in motion "
--Wrong according to A-T. When the force is removed the object stops. An object only moves (changes position) if it is being moved by something else. When "another" stops moving the object then the object stops, according to A-T.
" nothing moving moves itself."
--A planet is moving through space, ideally in a circular orbit. Nothing is moving it, yet it is moving.
You are mixing up "moves" meaning a change in position, with "moves" meaning to move or to cause a change in motion.
Nothing "moves" itself in the latter sense.
Everything "moves" itself in the former sense.
May 18, 2017 8:37 PM
>> At constant v the object is no longer changing its intrinsic properties, according to Newton, but according to A-T it is.
Then Newton's theory doesn't actually disagree with the FW. The FW defines change as X and makes a case for how X occurs. Newton's theory says "I don't define change that way"
>> "Nothing is moving it, yet it is moving"
This is where you go beyond science and dive deep into philosophy.
@Strawdusty,
--Wrong according to A-T. When the force is removed the object stops. An object only moves (changes position) if it is being moved by something else. When "another" stops moving the object then the object stops, according to A-T.
No you're wrong. There. That settled it didn't it?
You're not big on researching and citing primary sources are you?
Nothing "moves" itself in the latter sense.
Everything "moves" itself in the former sense.
Planets are moved by gravity and inertia according to Newton, not themselves.
But of course you don't really care what science has to say at the end of the day do you? I don't mind discussing ontology and epistemology, but why pretend you are defending your position using science?
Stardusty: "Only real stuff does real stuff"
This is as close to understanding what the argument is saying as you've come thus far. Keep at it.
bmiller: "But of course you don't really care what science has to say at the end of the day do you? I don't mind discussing ontology and epistemology, but why pretend you are defending your position using science?"
It's worse than that. It's an irrelevant tangent. The First Way is not a physics argument, so its premises do not rest upon the physics of the day being correct. The First Way operates just fine under classical physics, so even if every A-T conception of physics was flawed, it wouldn't invalidate the argument.
Legion: "The First Way is not a physics argument, so its premises do not rest upon the physics of the day being correct."
If the First Way isn't about physics -- about the properties and interactions of matter and energy over time -- then it's not about real things.
Is the First Way about the properties and interactions of matter and energy over time?
@Legion,
It's worse than that. It's an irrelevant tangent.
Of course it is. When your opponent argues for things he's shown he doesn't believe in he is arguing in bad faith. I've set my expectation accordingly.
But all in all there are some pluses. Cal isn't shouting "multiverse" anymore. Strawdusty has apparently read at least one website that had correct AT terminology. You've done your research and I've done mine.
The best you can hope for is that there are some thought provoking challenges, but expect them to be irrelevant to the First Way.
Sorry I engaged in the inertia sidetrack.
Legion of Logic said...
Stardusty: "Only real stuff does real stuff"
" This is as close to understanding what the argument is saying as you've come thus far. Keep at it."
--You have reduced the First Way to a tautology. As written, the observations and examples make meaningful statements based on observations, albeit with A-T error.
"Stuff can only do what stuff can do" is true, but trivial. It will not form a sound basis for further argument, certainly not for an unmoved mover or a human understanding of god (which is as far as Aquinas fallaciously got), and not for the existence of god (which Aquinas did not explicitly state, only implied, and Haines did not even attempt to include in his notation, the argument being so blatantly defective at that point).
May 19, 2017 1:48 PM
Legion: "The First Way operates just fine under classical physics..."
No it doesn't -- it avoids the precision that more accurately describes the interactions of real things. It uses antiquated language that makes understanding modern physics impossible. That is why we use more precise language now, language that more accurately conveys the properties and interactions of real things.
"...so even if every A-T conception of physics was flawed, it wouldn't invalidate the argument."
This seems like a particularly stupid thing to say; if A-T's conception that real things are in motion is flawed, for example, then there is no argument.
Cal: "If the First Way isn't about physics -- about the properties and interactions of matter and energy over time -- then it's not about real things."
In that case I'll send the recipe for my mom's hamburger sliders to the nearest physics journal, since she is clearly performing a physics experiment and producing valid results when she cooks them.
You guys seem to not understand the difference between "theoretically testable by the science of physics" and "performing the science of physics".
Cal: "No it doesn't -- it avoids the precision that more accurately describes the interactions of real things."
Point out the part of classical physics that says things do not have potential or actualized states, as A-T presents them.
Cal: "It uses antiquated language that makes understanding modern physics impossible."
And yet I've demonstrated that no incompatibility between the First Way and Newton has been shown thus far. The First Way isn't an attempt at science so its usefulness in scientific descriptions is irrelevant.
Cal: "This seems like a particularly stupid thing to say; if A-T's conception that real things are in motion is flawed, for example, then there is no argument."
I thought it self-evident that even a deeply flawed understanding of physics would have to acknowledge the reality of motion in order to be an attempt at physics. By definition, denying motion would make it not physics since there would be no subject material.
Stardusty: "Stuff can only do what stuff can do" is true, but trivial."
I said it was the closest you'd come to understanding it. I didn't say that was even remotely close to what the First Way was saying. No one remotely familiar with the argument would recognize your characterization of the difference between a thing's potential and actual states.
And since they do indeed have a purpose for spelling out the difference, it's clear you still don't understand the point of the argument.
Legion of Logic said...
Cal: "If the First Way isn't about physics -- about the properties and interactions of matter and energy over time -- then it's not about real things."
" In that case I'll send the recipe for my mom's hamburger sliders to the nearest physics journal, since she is clearly performing a physics experiment and producing valid results when she cooks them."
--Indeed, if your mom claims that analyzing the process of cooking her sliders can be leveraged into an argument for a first mover then yes, she has turned her slider cooking into a physics argument and her assertions would need to pass review of modern physics to be considered sound.
BTW, cooking is physics, whether you or your mom realize it or not.
May 19, 2017 7:32 PM
Stardusty: "BTW, cooking is physics, whether you or your mom realize it or not."
Exactly.
Legion: "You guys seem to not understand the difference between "theoretically testable by the science of physics" and "performing the science of physics"."
Then you should elucidate. Because I think they should be the same thing.
Please explain what you think the difference is.
Legion: "Point out the part of classical physics that says things do not have potential or actualized states, as A-T presents them."
This is again a pretty stupid thing to ask.
Modern psychology doesn't present "demons" to discuss mental illness, it simply uses more precise and refined terms to describe mental illness. But the term "demons" does do some work if we want to point out that someone suffers from a kind of mental torment or pathos.
"Demons" is just not a very good way to present the problem, nor explore it with more precision. In the same way, potential and actual states are a simplistic (and tautological) way to discuss something that can be examined much more productively by using more precise terms.
Read this comment over to yourself many, many times. I don't think you've absorbed any of this yet.
Legion: "And yet I've demonstrated that no incompatibility between the First Way and Newton has been shown thus far."
Newtonian physics and AT physics do part ways in several regards, and the nature of motion is one. If you don't understand this difference then you are simply ignorant. I have tried to help you out, but at this point you appear willfully ignorant. Willful ignorance is not something I can help you with.
Legion: "The First Way isn't an attempt at science so its usefulness in scientific descriptions is irrelevant."
And you have yet to point out how it is that you can know anything about external reality that isn't better described by applying scientific principles, so your complaint seems fatuous and narcissistic.
Legion: ""The First Way operates just fine under classical physics so even if every A-T conception of physics was flawed, it wouldn't invalidate the argument."
Me: "This seems like a particularly stupid thing to say; if A-T's conception that real things are in motion is flawed, for example, then there is no argument."
Legion: "I thought it self-evident that even a deeply flawed understanding of physics would have to acknowledge the reality of motion in order to be an attempt at physics."
I did, too. Which is why I thought it stupid that you would say something as obviously incorrect as your first statement.
Legion: "By definition, denying motion would make it not physics since there would be no subject material."
I pretty much agree. Do you still think that reality is the subject of the First Way?
>> "This is again a pretty stupid thing to ask."
You cannot answer Legions question even though you've agreed to the definitions. There must not be a problem, otherwise you could explain it.
Stardusty: "Stuff can only do what stuff can do" is true, but trivial."
Legion: "I said it was the closest you'd come to understanding it. I didn't say that was even remotely close to what the First Way was saying."
That's funny.
Because when I asked you upthread if you would agree that this -- "Nothing is, in fact, [changed], unless it is [possible] to that towards which it is [changed]." --was part of what the First Way was saying, your one word reply was, "Good."
On the one hand these statements are trivially true. On the other they conflict with physics. Hmm...
Is act/potency an ancient discredited idea?
Not to modern physicists.
The total energy of a closed system is defined as the sum of it's kinetic energy and it's potential energy. Kinetic energy is the energy associated with the actual motion of the system, while potential energy is related to the possible motion of the system. The concept of the conservation of energy is based on this distinction.
This modern concept of energy is a special application and historical development of Aristotle's more general metaphysical concept of act/potency distinction.
Cal: "Please explain what you think the difference is."
Your definition of "performing physics" is indistinguishable from "existing". Here's a thought experiment (gasp physics): I'm 35 years old. Why can I not put "35 years experience in the field of physics" on a job application? Why can't my 10 year old claim to be a physicist of 10 years?
It means something to be a physicist. It means something to work in the scientific field of physics. Tripping over a Lego does not make me a qualified physicist, even if it's possible to predict my trajectory using physics. That's why there is a difference between "testable by the science of physics" and "performing the science of physics". Simply existing does not make me a physicist performing physics, and neither does cooking. Otherwise science is a meaningless word.
Cal: "Read this comment over to yourself many, many times. I don't think you've absorbed any of this yet."
Why? It's irrelevant. The First Way isn't an attempt at physics like "demons" are an attempt at psychological diagnosis or like phlogiston is an attempt at explaining why things burn. I'm no longer curious why you are struggling so much to understand this simple fact, as you apparently think everything that exists performs physics. By definition, any argument is therefore a physics argument. Unfortunately, your foundation is...flawed.
Cal: "Newtonian physics and AT physics do part ways in several regards"
Too bad the First Way isn't an A-T physics argument, as it accounts for all change and not just physical movement. And even if it was, and even if A-T physics was deeply flawed, the First Way's premises easily withstand modern physics. An object at rest stays at rest unless moved by an external force. An object that can potentially move can only have its movement actualized by something else in a state of actuality. Very compatible.
Either way, it doesn't matter if Newtonian physics and A-T physics part ways in several regards.
Cal: "And you have yet to point out how it is that you can know anything about external reality that isn't better described by applying scientific principles, so your complaint seems fatuous and narcissistic."
Your projection is not useful to this discussion. And how about this: My kids love me. Explain to me how using science is going to somehow deepen my knowledge that my kids love me.
Science isn't a bludgeon to be used in every occasion. Sometime's it's downright silly to use it.
Cal: "I did, too. Which is why I thought it stupid that you would say something as obviously incorrect as your first statement."
Whooooooooosssshhh. I'd be careful with intellectual insults. They have a tendency to make others laugh at your expense.
Cal: "Do you still think that reality is the subject of the First Way?"
And we come full circle. "Reality" is synonymous with "performing physics". With such a foundation, I can understand why your choices are to either be aggressive against Christians or to run screaming from them, because we are stepping on your deity. What is physics? I am that I am!
Cal: "Because when I asked you upthread if you would agree that this -- "Nothing is, in fact, [changed], unless it is [possible] to that towards which it is [changed]." --was part of what the First Way was saying, your one word reply was, "Good."
You guys are endless wonders. The whole point of that line (and the next) is to show that nothing has infinite potential and that nothing has infinite causal power. A rock has many potential states, but they are limited by the intrinsic physical properties of the rock. And those potential states can only be realized if acted upon by something in an appropriate realized state of its own - a light breeze can't move a rock but a tornado can.
Didn't realize it was possible to enter a comment without clicking "publish". Oops.
At any rate, the point is not just a tautology, but setting up the concept (and limitations) of potential and actual states so that the essentially ordered series will be understood. So basically, if you guys want to keep showing your hyper-ignorance and reducing it to "stuff can only do what stuff can do" or "stuff does stuff" then go right ahead, but it isn't the argument that is looking bad when you do so.
Legion of Logic said...
" And we come full circle. "Reality" is synonymous with "performing physics". "
--Of course. What other sort of reality could there be? If there is a god it must be made of something else god is nothing, literally not anything.
You can speculate some entirely unanticipated sort of godstuff, but it is still stuff, and thus a part of physics, else god is absolutely nothing at all, which is an incoherent notion.
" You guys are endless wonders. The whole point of that line (and the next) is to show that nothing has infinite potential and that nothing has infinite causal power."
--So god is finite.
" potential states can only be realized if acted upon by something in an appropriate realized state of its own - a light breeze can't move a rock but a tornado can."
--At least that statement provides a glimmer of meaning. It still reduces to only stuff that can do stuff does stuff, but you have made a baby step in the right direction.
May 20, 2017 6:16 PM
Stardusty: "Of course. What other sort of reality could there be? If there is a god it must be made of something else god is nothing, literally not anything."
Are you honestly saying that everyone and everything that exists is a physicist? Science has no meaning then.
Stardusty: "So god is finite"
I don't know who "god" is. I was referencing the oft-repeated assertion that we were saying "being actualized" was all that needed to be said on a thing's causal power, but that's not it at all. A thing's causal power is based on whatever actualized state(s) it is in. "Being actualized" doesn't mean it can cause any effect.
Stardusty: "It still reduces to only stuff that can do stuff does stuff, but you have made a baby step in the right direction."
It's hilarious that someone who has no idea what the argument is getting at is telling me I'm moving in the right direction. Thanks for the chuckle.
Anything can be reduced to "stuff does stuff" if you dumb it down far enough and ignore the point. Your insistence on doing so here is amusing, but not doing yourself any favors.
Legion: "Too bad the First Way isn't an A-T physics argument, as it accounts for all change and not just physical movement."
Describe a change in which there is no physical movement.
It's clear that you haven't thought very long or well about these topics before. I think that's because you haven't thought about these topics very much in the past (and you're discovering all these problems on the fly), and because when you do try and think about them you start with something as silly as the First Way. And that is why you appear so confused.
Legion: "You guys seem to not understand the difference between "theoretically testable by the science of physics" and "performing the science of physics"."
Me: Then you should elucidate. Because I think they should be the same thing. / Please explain what you think the difference is."
Legion: "Your definition of "performing physics" is indistinguishable from "existing".
I asked for you to explain what you think is the the difference between "theoretically testable by the science of physics" and "performing the science of physics".
Legion: "Here's a thought experiment (gasp physics): I'm 35 years old. Why can I not put "35 years experience in the field of physics" on a job application? Why can't my 10 year old claim to be a physicist of 10 years?"
I asked for you to explain what you think is the the difference between "theoretically testable by the science of physics" and "performing the science of physics".
Legion: "It means something to be a physicist. It means something to work in the scientific field of physics."
Sure. If by a physicist you mean it in the modern, trained sense of having passed a series of Math and contemporary Physics classes, and maybe even working in the field of study so as to oversee lab training, conduct experiments, or maybe even just ponder about the nature of things so as to maybe make more sense of our world (theoretical).
But I asked you to explain what you think is the the difference between "theoretically testable by the science of physics" and "performing the science of physics".
Legion: "Tripping over a Lego does not make me a qualified physicist, even if it's possible to predict my trajectory using physics. That's why there is a difference between "testable by the science of physics" and "performing the science of physics"."
This doesn't make sense. Do you mean that you think that you will trip differently if your fall is predicted based on the latest physical models? Your fall will be your fall, and modern physics can very closely describe it -- in ways that are testable, predictable, and productive.
Legion: "Simply existing does not make me a physicist performing physics, and neither does cooking. Otherwise science is a meaningless word."
Science can very precisely (more precisely than any other human process) describe the process of cooking. That you appear to think otherwise only indicates that you don't understand science, and haven't really thought about the philosophical underpinnings behind all this.
Legion: "Why? It's irrelevant. The First Way isn't an attempt at physics like "demons" are an attempt at psychological diagnosis or like phlogiston is an attempt at explaining why things burn. I'm no longer curious why you are struggling so much to understand this simple fact, as you apparently think everything that exists performs physics. By definition, any argument is therefore a physics argument. Unfortunately, your foundation is...flawed."
If the First Way isn't an attempt at physics -- meaning an attempt to describe reality -- then you have conceded that the First Way is not actually about reality. And that is another reason why it would be a silly argument.
Cal: "And you have yet to point out how it is that you can know anything about external reality that isn't better described by applying scientific principles, so your complaint seems fatuous and narcissistic."
Legion: "Your projection is not useful to this discussion. And how about this: My kids love me. Explain to me how using science is going to somehow deepen my knowledge that my kids love me."
Sigh.
Your knowledge that your children love you is based on physical reality.
The things they say to you occur in physical reality. The way they look at you, the way they interact with you, all of these things happen in physical reality. Your understanding of your children, and their affection for you, is entirely due to your physical interactions with them.
The way that YOU feel about THEIR affection for you is something you experience, but no one else can. It is introspective knowledge. But your introspective knowledge isn't part of external reality -- it's internal.
This is such basic stuff that the only explanation is that you simply haven't thought very much about it before. So maybe slow down, take your time, maybe do a little reading, think about things for awhile, and compose your thoughts before repeating yourself, again.
Legion: "Science isn't a bludgeon to be used in every occasion. Sometime's it's downright silly to use it."
Sure. But it's the best process we have for describing external reality. Unless you can propose something better.
Legion: "And we come full circle. "Reality" is synonymous with "performing physics". With such a foundation, I can understand why your choices are to either be aggressive against Christians or to run screaming from them, because we are stepping on your deity. What is physics? I am that I am!"
You are just ranting. I think you can be better than this.
Cal: "Because when I asked you upthread if you would agree that this -- "Nothing is, in fact, [changed], unless it is [possible] to that towards which it is [changed]." --was part of what the First Way was saying, your one word reply was, "Good."
Legion: "You guys are endless wonders. The whole point of that line (and the next) is to show that nothing has infinite potential and that nothing has infinite causal power."
Or, as Stardusty said, "Stuff can only do what stuff can do" Same same.
And if by "show" you mean "make a tautological claim," then sure.
"A rock has many potential states, but they are limited by the intrinsic physical properties of the rock."
Without describing those properties, in detail, then this claim is worthless. It's akin to stating, Stuff is made up of the stuff of which things are made.
Legion: "And those potential states can only be realized if acted upon by something in an appropriate realized state of its own - a light breeze can't move a rock but a tornado can."
At least you're starting to approach the question in a meaningful way -- presumably describing those properties (mass, and force) and their relationships.
@Legion,
Do you have any idea whether these guys hold the position that inanimate objects moves themselves? That seems to be Strawdusty's latest position.
>> "If the First Way isn't an attempt at physics -- meaning an attempt to describe reality -- then you have conceded that the First Way is not actually about reality."
What an ignorant thing to say. Philosophical arguments attempt to explain reality without being an attempt at physics. Arguments for an all-physical reality is one example of such a thing, the 5 ways arguments are another.
Legion of Logic said...
" Are you honestly saying that everyone and everything that exists is a physicist? Science has no meaning then."
--Everything that exists is a part of physics, including any god, if one exists.
Stardusty: "So god is finite"
" I don't know who "god" is. "
--Gee, you seem to make a great many arguments about something you know nothing about, then.
"I was referencing the oft-repeated assertion that we were saying "being actualized""
--You said "nothing has infinite potential and that nothing has infinite causal power.""
So, that means god has finite potential and god has finite causal power. Looks like god is finite by your own statement.
Thus, the notion that an infinitely existing god is the first mover is negated by your own statement.
" Anything can be reduced to "stuff does stuff" if you dumb it down far enough and ignore the point."
-False. Scientific theories define particular relationships, ratios, reactions, transformations of only particular sorts and by particular values of particular parameters.
A-T language is hopelessly vague, unspecific, and thus meaningless and true only in the sense that a tautology is true.
A-T language is not employed in any modern serious study of causality because it is so useless.
May 21, 2017 1:04 AM
bmiller said...
" Do you have any idea whether these guys hold the position that inanimate objects moves themselves? "
--Maybe you did not read my post about the various forms of "moves".
In the sense of "moves" meaning "changes position" then an object continues to change position without being acted upon by anything outside of the object, and in that sense "moves itself".
May 21, 2017 8:34 AM
Cal: "Describe a change in which there is no physical movement."
There is no relevant reason why I should do this.
Cal: "And that is why you appear so confused."
Not sharing your profound ignorance does not make me confused.
Cal: "I asked for you to explain what you think is the the difference between "theoretically testable by the science of physics" and "performing the science of physics".
Do you truly not get the point of my response? Incredible. Try thinking about it. I'm trying not to insult your intelligence by being forced to spell it out.
Cal: "Science can very precisely (more precisely than any other human process) describe the process of cooking. That you appear to think otherwise only indicates that you don't understand science, and haven't really thought about the philosophical underpinnings behind all this."
I'm beginning to suspect that you simply cannot comprehend anything you read.
Cal: "If the First Way isn't an attempt at physics -- meaning an attempt to describe reality -- then you have conceded that the First Way is not actually about reality."
According to Cal, when lawyers argue before a judge, they are presenting physics arguments.
Cal: "Your knowledge that your children love you is based on physical reality."
Physical reality is not synonymous with practicing the field of physics. You are beyond clueless about apparently everything.
Cal: "The way that YOU feel about THEIR affection for you is something you experience, but no one else can. It is introspective knowledge. But your introspective knowledge isn't part of external reality -- it's internal."
Why did you bring up how I feel about it? I didn't. I asked how science was relevant to that subject. I know how they feel without using science. Explain how using science improves my knowledge in that subject. No doubt you are going to use the "everything but religion" definition of science to determine they love me by using these nebulous "scientific principles" that rocks and river currents are using, since every subatomic particle is a physicist.
Cal: "Sure. But it's the best process we have for describing external reality. Unless you can propose something better."
Not in every situation. My experience with my kids is a far greater measure of how they feel about me than any scientific experiment could ever hope to approach.
Cal: "You are just ranting."
You misspelled "mocking foolishness". Because that's what I'm doing. Your insistence that everything that exists is practicing physics is laughably absurd. If you truly believe that, then I don't think your grasp of reality is strong enough to be able to engage in dialogue with someone who disagrees with you.
bmiller: "Do you have any idea whether these guys hold the position that inanimate objects moves themselves? That seems to be Strawdusty's latest position."
I'm too amazed at their position that inanimate objects are physicists to consider that, but it does seem to be the case based on what Stardusty has said.
Stardusty: "Everything that exists is a part of physics, including any god, if one exists."
"Testable by the field of physics" is not synonymous with "practicing physics".
Stardusty: "Gee, you seem to make a great many arguments about something you know nothing about, then."
I have never made an argument about "god".
Stardusty: "So, that means god has finite potential and god has finite causal power. Looks like god is finite by your own statement."
I said what I meant by that. If you insist otherwise, you're a liar.
Stardusty: "Scientific theories define particular relationships, ratios, reactions, transformations of only particular sorts and by particular values of particular parameters."
In other words, stuff does stuff.
I've been attempting to make a good-faith effort to discuss the First Way line by line, in the hopes that rather than jumping all over the place, there could be dialogue about what each premise is getting at, and then discussing the conclusion based upon understanding the premises.
What I'm getting in return is personal insults, strawmen, irrelevant tangents, lazy caricatures, and now delusions about inanimate objects practicing the science of physics. No worthwhile dialogue is possible when the skeptical side of the debate has abandoned any pretense of rationality or charity.
And while I'm perfectly comfortable returning the insults and laughing at the absurd "objections" being thrown at the First Way - and sometimes, there is no other reasonable response - that's not my motivation for still being here. The point was analyzing the First Way, which does not involve insults, strawmen, tangents, caricatures, and delusions about inanimate objects practicing the science of physics.
I'm not certain why Cal and Stardusty are still participating, since there is no evidence they have any interest in actually knowing what Aristotle and Aquinas were getting at. Insults and strawmen and tangents and caricatures and delusions are all fine, but they don't have the power to put a scratch on the First Way. It takes understanding of the argument to do that, but understanding is not possible when obliterated by proud ignorance.
When the skeptics are prepared to act like rational adults, hopefully they will let it be known. I'm not proceeding with the argument until the skeptics abandon all insults, strawmen, tangents, caricatures, and delusions.
I suspect it will be a long wait.
@Strawdusty,
--Maybe you did not read my post about the various forms of "moves".
Yes, I mentioned that you seem hold the position that things move themselves. You cited this as an example:
--A planet is moving through space, ideally in a circular orbit. Nothing is moving it, yet it is moving.
Cal hasn't given an unambiguous answer as far as I can tell.
Legion of Logic said...
" I have never made an argument about "god"."
--The first way is an argument for God, uppercase G, not just an unmoved mover, God.
I was genuinely surprised by the way theists run away from this simple fact.
Stardusty: "So, that means god has finite potential and god has finite causal power. Looks like god is finite by your own statement."
" I said what I meant by that. If you insist otherwise, you're a liar."
--You said "nothing". Nothing excludes god. If nothing has infinite potential and nothing has infinite causal power then god has finite potential and god has finite causal power.
Whatever you thought you had in mind at the time these are simple facts of the meanings of words. I suspect you equivocate internally without realizing it, hence your vociferous reaction when you get caught out in your own words as they limit god although you otherwise would deny such limits.
Theists typically get kind of snarky when their self contradictions are exposed.
Stardusty: "Scientific theories define particular relationships, ratios, reactions, transformations of only particular sorts and by particular values of particular parameters."
" In other words, stuff does stuff."
--No, in other words very specific sorts of stuff do very specific sorts of things.
A-T language lacks that specificity and is true only on the level of a tautology. A-T language is so vague by your reading that it is true for both Aristotelian and Modern physics!
@Legion,
I've been attempting to make a good-faith effort to discuss the First Way line by line, in the hopes that rather than jumping all over the place, there could be dialogue about what each premise is getting at, and then discussing the conclusion based upon understanding the premises.
But this would require your opponents to also argue in good faith. I'd given up on that a long time ago.
I'm not certain why Cal and Stardusty are still participating,
Maybe they just really enjoy insulting people to in order to provoke them. Maybe they've hung around here because they're lonely and you're the only one that will talk to them.
>> "No, in other words very specific sorts of stuff do very specific sorts of things. A-T language lacks that"
Read a book for heavens sake. You ought to be embarrassed.
Legion, " I've been attempting to make a good-faith effort to discuss the First Way line by line, "
--But you have not gone beyond 2d in your latest series.
"in the hopes that rather than jumping all over the place,"
--The language in the first few lines is already defective, but I am willing to speak in that primitive vernacular for the sake of communicating on that level.
" there could be dialogue about what each premise is getting at, and then discussing the conclusion based upon understanding the premises."
--Yes, and the premises as exemplified in 2d have some useful specificity. But you object to that specificity, preferring to reduce the argument to the level of saying that unreal stuff cannot make real stuff do real stuff. Only real stuff can make real stuff do real stuff.
Ok, fine, although some interpretations of QM suggest intrinsic randomness, the notion that things do change without external cause. That seems unreasonable to me so I think the materialistic determinism of your reading up to 2d seems to be the case.
" I'm not certain why Cal and Stardusty are still participating,"
--We are never justifiably certain of the motives of other posters.
May 21, 2017 12:31 PM
Stardusty: "The first way is an argument for God, uppercase G, not just an unmoved mover, God."
I knew you could do it.
Stardusty: "You said "nothing""
And if you ignore what I said I was getting at, you're a liar.
Stardusty: "A-T language lacks that specificity and is true only on the level of a tautology. A-T language is so vague by your reading that it is true for both Aristotelian and Modern physics!"
It's not vague at all to someone who has even an inkling of understanding. "Stuff does stuff" works equally well with science.
Stardusty: "But you have not gone beyond 2d in your latest series."
"Stuff does stuff" means you don't understand what everything up to (2)d is saying. Why proceed?
Stardusty: "The language in the first few lines is already defective, but I am willing to speak in that primitive vernacular for the sake of communicating on that level."
"Stuff does stuff" is not A-T language, nor is it an A-T concept. Nor is it what I'm saying. So you have yet to demonstrate that you can speak in that "primitive vernacular".
@Strawdusty,
--We are never justifiably certain of the motives of other posters.
We can if the posters honestly tell us. But of course that would require them to be honest.
Legion: "Legion: "Too bad the First Way isn't an A-T physics argument, as it accounts for all change and not just physical movement."
Me: "Describe a change in which there is no physical movement."
Legion: "There is no relevant reason why I should do this."
The relevant reason is that by not responding you are failing to do what you said you would do -- defend the First Way. The latest in your seemingly never-ending but always futile defense was what you wrote above -- that now there is some kind of change that doesn't involve physical movement.
In order for your words to have meaning, then you need to demonstrate what you say above -- that there is some other kind of change that the First Way now magically describes that doesn't involve physical movement.
Your failure to rise to this level, or admit that you were mistaken when you wrote that, is a telling example of why your "defense" is just so much flailing about.
As I have been saying over and over, it's pretty obvious you haven't thought very long or very deeply about the topic that you imagine to have such command over. It's really kind of painful to watch -- only because you sometimes are better than you have recently been. I can only suppose that the last few days have been more overwhelming for you, and rather than absorb some bit of it you have reeled and reverted.
I'm losing interest in this. I think you should take some time off, reread more carefully the last several days of comments, and see if you can offer some cogent responses and advance your own understanding of the failings of the First Way. If you're not going to advance your thinking as a result of these exchanges there's little reason for me (or Stardusty, I imagine) repeating the same things in slightly different ways, over and over and over again.
Cal: "The relevant reason is that by not responding you are failing to do what you said you would do -- defend the First Way."
The First Way requires no defense from irrelevant tangents, strawmen, caricatures, or delusions. But sure, I'll humor you. Since no one has put the tiniest dent in the First Way, I'll give you another chance.
According to A-T, there were different kinds of change other than physical location change, since atomic movement and things of that nature were impossible to know at the time. So, the point of the argument would not simply be about why something moves from one place to another, but why something grows, why someone changes their mind, why something fades in sunlight, etc. Obviously they were not arguing about subatomic motion, since they had no knowledge of it, but they do come right out and define what they mean by "motion" in the argument's premises. So you're wrong about what the argument is even about.
If we apply modern physics to the subject, we now know about subatomic particles, photons, and things of that nature. So we do know that indeed, there is possibly nothing consisting of the stuff of the universe that isn't in motion on some level. This does absolutely nothing to damage the primary premises of the First Way regarding potentiality and actuality, so you're wrong about the argument being flawed based on modern physics.
Either way, you're wrong. And since describing the mechanical processes by which a thing can move from one place to another is not the point of the First Way, it's an irrelevant tangent.
Cal: "admit that you were mistaken when you wrote that"
Baseless assertion.
Cal: "As I have been saying over and over, it's pretty obvious you haven't thought very long or very deeply about the topic that you imagine to have such command over."
Projection. The worse you perform, the more your profound and intentional ignorance are highlighted, the more delusional your "objections" become, the more condescending your responses get, as though the people familiar with the subject matter know less than the people who know nothing. A rational analysis might point to it being some sort of desire to avoid admitting how embarrassing your position has been, and how utterly ineffective your "objections" have proven, so you try to adopt an air of superiority in lieu of actual argumentation. However, you have been defending the position that inanimate objects perform physics, so the normal standards of motivations may not apply.
Cal: "I'm losing interest in this."
Common among people whose bluster can't overcome opposition. I made the offer to you, and you have proven incapable of overcoming your ideological shackles in order to analyze it. I'm not a psychologist or a trained educator, so I lack the tools to help you.
Cal: "If you're not going to advance your thinking as a result of these exchanges there's little reason for me (or Stardusty, I imagine) repeating the same things in slightly different ways, over and over and over again."
I don't have a single reason to suspect that a thinking person would believe me to be the one having difficulty understanding. The repetition of the same points trying to grant understanding of the actual subject matter has indeed been one of us...but not you.
I'll have to find other skeptics to attempt to refute the First Way. It appears to be the most ironclad logic in history from the responses I'm getting here.
Cal: "I'm losing interest in this."
Then stick to the argument itself and save the rabbit trails for later.
This comment from Feb 1st is worth repeating.
The point the argument makes is NOT the subject of physics, sequences, mathematics or the mechanisms of causality. Some of these subjects are interwoven into the discussion, yes, but these subjects are not the main point.
The main point the argument makes is the subject of ontology - the nature of existence - what kind of things actually exist. The argument attempts to work this out logically, starting with what we know. Boiled down to it's basic core, the argument says:
>> There are 2 kinds existence: (1) beings with potency, (2) one being with no potency
Legion: "According to A-T, there were different kinds of change other than physical location change, since atomic movement and things of that nature were impossible to know at the time. So, the point of the argument would not simply be about why something moves from one place to another, but why something grows, why someone changes their mind, why something fades in sunlight, etc. Obviously they were not arguing about subatomic motion, since they had no knowledge of it, but they do come right out and define what they mean by "motion" in the argument's premises. So you're wrong about what the argument is even about."
This is borderline incoherent. Which is why I'me getting so bored with this -- instead of carefully going through the argument, line by line, you respond to patient criticism with these (see, above) meandering non-answers.
Legion: "Legion: "Too bad the First Way isn't an A-T physics argument, as it accounts for all change and not just physical movement."
Me: "Describe a change in which there is no physical movement."
Legion: "There is no relevant reason why I should do this."
Like I said, pull yourself together.
And try to understand this:
When you
1) claim that a criticism is irrelevant because the argument addresses change where there is no physical movement,
2) are asked to describe what this means,
3) then say that what you just asserted in service of your defense is irrelevant,
4) you just seem confused and incoherent.
I can predict your response from the above:
You'll pretend that you are exasperated, and that I'm somehow not getting it -- as if your incomprehensible non-replies actually address the criticisms you've been asked to address, over and over.
On the contrary, I'm being patient, and asking you to be disciplined in your thinking, and your writing.
And it's apparent that the thing you're actually frustrated over is your inability to form a coherent defense, as you said you would, as evidenced by the growing silliness of your comments.
So why don't you try again -- since you raised this as part of your supposed defense of the First Way, can you describe a change in which there is no physical movement? (Legion: "Too bad the First Way isn't an A-T physics argument, as it accounts for all change and not just physical movement.")
Do you understand yet that arguments aren't judged by whether or not someone says they can magically apprehend the intentions of the arguer -- but by the actual standards by which arguments are evaluated?
Cal: "This is borderline incoherent."
Anyone familiar with A-T would disagree. Obviously the problem is not what I wrote.
Cal: "You'll pretend that you are exasperated, and that I'm somehow not getting it -- as if your incomprehensible non-replies actually address the criticisms you've been asked to address, over and over."
Somehow you aren't getting it. The reason it is incomprehensible to you is because you can't think your way past your ideological shackles. Anyone familiar with A-T would understand it easily. The worst criticism you could level at my replies would be that I'm still not dumbing it down enough, which is possible. I don't know how to dumb it down any further.
Cal: "And it's apparent that the thing you're actually frustrated over is your inability to form a coherent defense, as you said you would, as evidenced by the growing silliness of your comments."
This is the opposite of reality.
Cal: "So why don't you try again -- since you raised this as part of your supposed defense of the First Way, can you describe a change in which there is no physical movement?"
I already addressed the First Strawman in my previous response. Read it and respond to it. I'll put it here.
"According to A-T, there were different kinds of change other than physical location change, since atomic movement and things of that nature were impossible to know at the time. So, the point of the argument would not simply be about why something moves from one place to another, but why something grows, why someone changes their mind, why something fades in sunlight, etc. Obviously they were not arguing about subatomic motion, since they had no knowledge of it, but they do come right out and define what they mean by "motion" in the argument's premises. So you're wrong about what the argument is even about.
If we apply modern physics to the subject, we now know about subatomic particles, photons, and things of that nature. So we do know that indeed, there is possibly nothing consisting of the stuff of the universe that isn't in motion on some level. This does absolutely nothing to damage the primary premises of the First Way regarding potentiality and actuality, so you're wrong about the argument being flawed based on modern physics.
Either way, you're wrong. And since describing the mechanical processes by which a thing can move from one place to another is not the point of the First Way, it's an irrelevant tangent."
Remember, what I said means something specific - every sentence - so your task here is to read each sentence, one at a time if necessary, and point out either what you don't understand or point out where I'm wrong, but of course the latter requires understanding what I wrote.
Legion: "Remember, what I said means something specific - every sentence - so your task here is to read each sentence, one at a time if necessary, and point out either what you don't understand or point out where I'm wrong, but of course the latter requires understanding what I wrote."
Okay! Let's start with you first sentence!
Legion: ""According to A-T, there were different kinds of change other than physical location change, since atomic movement and things of that nature were impossible to know at the time."
What other kinds of change are there besides those that involve a change in physical location?
@Cal,
Maybe you missed this:
Strawdusty"--Maybe you did not read my post about the various forms of "moves"."
Me:"Yes, I mentioned that you seem hold the position that things move themselves. You cited this as an example:
'--A planet is moving through space, ideally in a circular orbit. Nothing is moving it, yet it is moving.'
Cal hasn't given an unambiguous answer as far as I can tell."
Strawdusty's position is that Newtonian physics states that things move themselves.
Is that your position too?
Cal: "What other kinds of change are there besides those that involve a change in physical location?"
There were several categories according to A-T, but one example would be qualitative change, such as leaves changing color. They did not think of that as physical motion.
Me: "Cal: "What other kinds of change are there besides those that involve a change in physical location?"
Legion: "There were several categories according to A-T, but one example would be qualitative change, such as leaves changing color. They did not think of that as physical motion."
Right. But A-T physics was wrong about that -- because we know that leaves changing color is only possible through changes in physical location. So, that's NOT an example of a change that doesn't involve a change in physical location.
I think you're defense is incoherent because you don't seem to know what it means to defend an argument. Here's the tactic you (consciously or subconsciously) employ:
1. Critics point out a problem in the First Way.
2. Apologists claim that critics don't understand the argument.
3. Critics ask for clarification based on the fact that part of the argument is defective, begs question, contradicts, etc.
4. Apologists retreat to pretending that they are only defending what Aquinas meant to say given the limitation of his time (no duh), not what the argument is, or (even worse) that an argument based on false premises is somehow still a good argument.
And that's the pattern throughout here. You've just been doing it longest. It's like waking up every morning to the same bad coffee.
Unlike most of the other apologists I come across you've demonstrated an ability to learn (and change). So I haven't given up on you, but for the moment you seem stuck in a groove. Seriously, I think you need to spend more time considering what we've written here throughout, instead of reflexively responding according to the script above.
Cal: "Right. But A-T physics was wrong about that"
Irrelevant. The First Strawman keeps popping up in this "name one thing that doesn't move" objection. As we have pointed out, the purpose of the First Way is not simply about physics, as in physical movement. How do we know this? Because Aquinas and Aristotle had no knowledge of subatomic particles or even cells - they couldn't know about motion at that level. A leaf changing color does not, upon study with the naked eye, move physically in order for the change to occur, so they placed it in a different category of change. Since the First Way covers every category of change that they had in mind - only one of which being physical movement - we know that they weren't just making a physics argument.
Cal: "I think you're defense is incoherent because you don't seem to know what it means to defend an argument."
Let's see if this has even the most remote resemblance to reality.
"1. Critics point out a problem in the First Way."
Most if not all of the problems proposed have been caricatures, strawmen, and tangents. My defense has been geared toward pointing that fact out.
"2. Apologists claim that critics don't understand the argument.
That is because I have no evidence that either of you understand the argument. I'd be thrilled for you to prove me wrong, because then I'd have qualified people who could tell me what the flaws are, if they exist.
"3. Critics ask for clarification based on the fact that part of the argument is defective, begs question, contradicts, etc."
The whole point of my exercise with going line by line was to show that those objections are baseless if you actually understand the point. Or, an equally desirable outcome, the First Way is shown to be flawed through argument based upon the actual argument and not strawmen, tangents, and caricatures.
"4. Apologists retreat to pretending that they are only defending what Aquinas meant to say given the limitation of his time (no duh), not what the argument is, or (even worse) that an argument based on false premises is somehow still a good argument."
This has zero resemblance to reality. Going to the source material and reading the writings of A-T philosophers, past and present, is the exact opposite of what you are accusing me of doing. I know that's what the argument means because no one knowledgeable of the argument has demonstrated otherwise. On the other hand, you have offered no evidence that your explanation of the argument is correct. I'm comfortable in the gap between our approaches.
Cal: "Seriously, I think you need to spend more time considering what we've written here throughout, instead of reflexively responding according to the script above."
I've been treating statements of this nature with the contempt they deserve, but here's a serious response. Neither you nor Stardusty has given me a single reason to suspect that I'm wrong. When I'm getting inundated with caricatures, strawmen, and tangents, I have no reason to believe anything except the First Way is a stronger argument than even I had suspected. What you call incomprehensible and unintelligible defense on my part is crystal clear and obvious to me, so that several people I've introduced to it - including a 10 year old - were able to understand it, so there's a huge disconnect in the way we are perceiving reality. If you truly believe you're the one with the clarity, feel free to try and demonstrate it, but I say that telling me I haven't thought about this subject (which is laughably false, if not provable) does nothing but lower your credibility. Try a new tactic, if you actually think you're right. I'll listen, but not to the same nonsense I've been getting. Either relevant arguments, or demonstrations that my understanding of the point of the argument is wrong.
@Cal
"But A-T physics was wrong about that -- because we know that leaves changing color is only possible through changes in physical location."
The leaf has not changed physical location so Legion's citation was accurate. Any location change that occurs at the molecular level is described accurately by the FW as far as I can tell.
Legion of Logic said...
" A leaf changing color does not, upon study with the naked eye, move physically in order for the change to occur, so they placed it in a different category of change. Since the First Way covers every category of change that they had in mind "
--Ok, fine, things change. Only a real thing can make something else change. An unreal thing cannot make a real thing change.
Is that supposed to be some sort of profound wisdom that will lead to a sound argument for a first mover?
Supposedly nothing changes itself. Maybe. That remains to be seen. Per the assertion of intrinsic randomness that is false. If you consider the position of a thing to be a property of a thing then it is false in the case of uniform motion.
We don't know the mechanism for the things we study with probability at the subatomic scale, so the jury is still out. That is one of the problems with trying to use macro level approximate observations to comment on the most fundamental structures of existence, such reasoning can be erroneous.
Further, the nature of infinity is itself mysterious to we poor little humans.
But, at the macro level of our naked eye observations it looks like nothing moves itself, if you don't consider position to be a property of an object.
May 23, 2017 6:31 AM
@Strawdusty,
If you consider the position of a thing to be a property of a thing then it is false in the case of uniform motion.
Does Newtonian physics hold that the position of a thing is a property of the thing?
"That remains to be seen
We don't know the mechanism
the jury is still out
is itself mysterious to we poor little humans"
That prior confidence is gone. Progress!
Stardusty: "Ok, fine, things change. Only a real thing can make something else change. An unreal thing cannot make a real thing change."
"Real" and "unreal" are not synonymous with actual and potential.
Stardusty: "Is that supposed to be some sort of profound wisdom that will lead to a sound argument for a first mover?"
Aristotle and Aquinas were actually rather clever people, so spouting off pointless inanities was probably not their purpose in talking about potential and actual states. Whether or not we can ever reach the purpose is an entirely different matter.
@Strawdusty,
Is that supposed to be some sort of profound wisdom that will lead to a sound argument for a first mover?
Aristotle proposed the act/potency distinction to answer the philosophical arguments of Parmenides and Heraclitus. It was an answer to how a thing could come to be, change without ceasing to be the same thing while it existed, and then go out of existence. One or more of those 3 propositions were denied by the other 2 philosophers who claimed that real world observations that conflicted with their theories were merely illusions.
So no, act/potency was not proposed to establish an argument for a first mover (first mover is not the end point of the First Way, Unmoved Mover is) but to defend our observations as reflecting reality.
Cal: "Right. But A-T physics was wrong about that"
Legion: "Irrelevant. The First Strawman keeps popping up in this "name one thing that doesn't move" objection."
You remain confused.
You are supposed to be defending THE ARGUMENT that is the First Way.
You are NOT supposed to be defending AQUINAS for thinking what he thought.
There's a difference. You seem to be able to understand it. I have allowed that this is because you are thinking hastily, but I'm losing faith that more time will do you any service.
If you can understand the above, maybe you can explain that when you claimed that there are:
Legion: "... different kinds of change other than physical location change..."
You need to demonstrate that there REALLY IS a kind of change other than physical location change.
Because you a) brought it up (which means YOU thought it was relevant to your "defense," of the argument, and b) defending the argument itself is what you are supposed to be doing here.
Someday.
@Strawdusty,
Per the assertion of intrinsic randomness that is false
This is a problem for determinism not AT causality. The very fact that QM measurements have a limited possible range of values that can be recorded makes experimentation possible. Otherwise QM experiments would just as likely produce no change at all as the limited range of expected values. AT causality allows for both deterministic or probabilistic effects.
Legion of Logic said...
Stardusty: "Ok, fine, things change. Only a real thing can make something else change. An unreal thing cannot make a real thing change."
" "Real" and "unreal" are not synonymous with actual and potential."
--Unreal things do not exist and are merely figments of our brain process. A potential thing is an unreal thing is a non-existent thing is not a thing at all is a mere figment of our brain process.
An actual thing is a real thing.
A potential change has no reality because it is a figment of our brain process imagining that there might be some sort of change as we perceive it.
An actual change is a change of a real thing.
Stardusty: "Is that supposed to be some sort of profound wisdom that will lead to a sound argument for a first mover?"
" Aristotle and Aquinas were actually rather clever people,"
--Just goes to show you how wrong clever people can be.
May 23, 2017 2:02 PM
Cal: "Because you a) brought it up (which means YOU thought it was relevant to your "defense," of the argument, and b) defending the argument itself is what you are supposed to be doing here."
Already addressed. I'll write it a third time. The first paragraph seems to be the only one you read - focus on the second paragraph.
""According to A-T, there were different kinds of change other than physical location change, since atomic movement and things of that nature were impossible to know at the time. So, the point of the argument would not simply be about why something moves from one place to another, but why something grows, why someone changes their mind, why something fades in sunlight, etc. Obviously they were not arguing about subatomic motion, since they had no knowledge of it, but they do come right out and define what they mean by "motion" in the argument's premises. So you're wrong about what the argument is even about.
If we apply modern physics to the subject, we now know about subatomic particles, photons, and things of that nature. So we do know that indeed, there is possibly nothing consisting of the stuff of the universe that isn't in physical motion on some level. This does absolutely nothing to damage the primary premises of the First Way regarding potentiality and actuality, so you're wrong about the argument being flawed based on modern physics.
Either way, you're wrong. And since describing the mechanical processes by which a thing can move from one place to another is not the point of the First Way, it's an irrelevant tangent."
As an aside, the point of the first paragraph is simply to demonstrate that we know the First Way isn't a mere attempt at physics. It's not "defending Aquinas".
Stardusty: "Unreal things do not exist and are merely figments of our brain process. A potential thing is an unreal thing is a non-existent thing is not a thing at all is a mere figment of our brain process."
Wrong. A potential state is something that, based upon a thing's inherent properties, will be realized under the correct conditions, such as water freezing into ice. Those inherent properties exist.
"Unreal things" could include nuclear-powered unicorns that eat nothing but room-temperature liquid diamond flyswatters and pee out invisible penguin robots who recite bad poetry on the eighth day of the week.
If you don't see the difference between the inherent capacity for water to freeze into ice given the correct conditions, and nuclear-powered unicorns that eat nothing but room-temperature liquid diamond flyswatters and pee out invisible penguin robots who recite bad poetry on the eighth day of the week, then you can't be helped on this subject. "Unreal things" doesn't cut it when describing potential states.
@Strawdusty,
" "Real" and "unreal" are not synonymous with actual and potential."
--Unreal things do not exist and are merely figments of our brain process. A potential thing is an unreal thing is a non-existent thing is not a thing at all is a mere figment of our brain process.
The physics concept of potential and kinetic energy is taught around the 8th grade in the US. As one can see from the link, potential energy is not described as "non-existent" but an existent part of a mechanical system. It is a historical fact that the concept of TE=PE+KE is a derivative of the Aristotelian act/potency theory. It's fine if you wish to claim potential energy is non existent, but then you're ignoring scientific definitions and apparently haven't opened a physics book.
Legion: "Since the First Way covers every category of change that they had in mind - only one of which being physical movement - we know that they weren't just making a physics argument."
Me: "Cal: "What other kinds of change are there besides those that involve a change in physical location?"
Legion: "This does absolutely nothing to damage the primary premises of the First Way regarding potentiality and actuality, so you're wrong about the argument being flawed based on modern physics."
How can you pretend to defend the First Way you won't explain exactly what you mean by change -- in particular, how it is that something can change without a change in physical position -- the kind of change that DOES NOT ACTUALLY involve a change in physical location.
Do you know what I think?
I think you realize that there's no such thing as a change without a change in physical position.
And because you were pretending before when you were trying to say that YOU were the one who TRULY understood the argument, you realize that to backtrack now would make you look even sillier than you've already made yourself appear.
Because without your tired, baseless assertion that you are the one who truly understands the First Way (despite your not even being aware of its shortcomings), you've provided nothing but shallow, poorly thought out refrains so typical of apologetics.
Litmus paper changes colors without changing physical position. A block of steel rusts without moving to some new location. Your body heats up without moving across the room.
stevek: "Litmus paper changes colors without changing physical position. A block of steel rusts without moving to some new location. Your body heats up without moving across the room."
Sigh. This is what Ancients thought. You are not an ancient.
Sad that you remain ignorant of modern understanding.
I have to say, as a coda, that these series of discussions have revealed how much dullness and ignorance lies at the heart of apologetics. I used to think it was more based on biases and cognitive dissonance, but that's true of only some, and to a lesser degree than I had imagined.
So, I have learned that much here.
The point being that oxidation doesn't result in a block of steel moving to a location from where it currently rests
Legion: "Since the First Way covers every category of change that they had in mind - only one of which being physical movement - we know that they weren't just making a physics argument."
Cal: "What other kinds of change are there besides those that involve a change in physical location?"
Legion: "This does absolutely nothing to damage the primary premises of the First Way regarding potentiality and actuality, so you're wrong about the argument being flawed based on modern physics."
A very fascinating select cut from my answer. Know what you left out from the second paragraph?
Legion: "If we apply modern physics to the subject, we now know about subatomic particles, photons, and things of that nature. So we do know that indeed, there is possibly nothing consisting of the stuff of the universe that isn't in physical motion on some level."
So, when you say
Cal: "I think you realize that there's no such thing as a change without a change in physical position. And because you were pretending before when you were trying to say that YOU were the one who TRULY understood the argument, you realize that to backtrack now would make you look even sillier than you've already made yourself appear."
Do you know what I think? I think you're lying.
Three times now I've addressed it, and three times you've ignored it. There is no excuse I can charitably come up with for this behavior. Why are you lying about what I've said?
The simple fact is that I understand the argument and you do not. There is no evidence otherwise for either of us. Sure, you can ignore what I write and claim I'm avoiding your questions that I have now answered four times. Sure, you can ignore my spelled-out motivation for noting that A-T believed in categories of change that didn't involve any physical movement. But ignoring what I write does not strengthen your baseless assertion that I'm the one lacking understanding of the argument - it just makes you look bad.
So why don't you address what I wrote? Here's the conversation:
Legion: "Since the First Way covers every category of change that they had in mind - only one of which being physical movement - we know that they weren't just making a physics argument."
Cal: "What other kinds of change are there besides those that involve a change in physical location?"
Legion: "There were several categories according to A-T, but one example would be qualitative change, such as leaves changing color. They did not think of that as physical motion."
Cal: "Right. But A-T physics was wrong about that -- because we know that leaves changing color is only possible through changes in physical location. So, that's NOT an example of a change that doesn't involve a change in physical location."
Legion: "Irrelevant. The First Strawman keeps popping up in this "name one thing that doesn't move" objection. As we have pointed out, the purpose of the First Way is not simply about physics, as in physical movement. How do we know this? Because Aquinas and Aristotle had no knowledge of subatomic particles or even cells - they couldn't know about motion at that level. A leaf changing color does not, upon study with the naked eye, move physically in order for the change to occur, so they placed it in a different category of change. Since the First Way covers every category of change that they had in mind - only one of which being physical movement - we know that they weren't just making a physics argument."
Cal: "You are supposed to be defending THE ARGUMENT that is the First Way...You need to demonstrate that there REALLY IS a kind of change other than physical location change."
Legion (part I've been trying to get you to respond to): "If we apply modern physics to the subject, we now know about subatomic particles, photons, and things of that nature. So we do know that indeed, there is possibly nothing consisting of the stuff of the universe that isn't in physical motion on some level. This does absolutely nothing to damage the primary premises of the First Way regarding potentiality and actuality, so you're wrong about the argument being flawed based on modern physics."
Your turn.
Legion: "So why don't you address what I wrote?"
I did.
You've been carrying on for awhile now about how our criticism of the First Way is based on the fact that we don't understand the First Way.
And then you wrote, "Since the First Way covers every category of change that they had in mind - only one of which being physical movement - we know that they weren't just making a physics argument."
So, seeing as how you think we are the ones who fail to understand the argument, I asked (in reference to your comment above), "What other kinds of change are there besides those that involve a change in physical location?"
Take your pick.
Tell us what you had in mind -- what you understand about the First Way and we do not -- that is a change that doesn't involve a change in physical location.
Or confess that you haven't really thought about this very well, and that your silly claim about understanding the argument better than those who recognize it's obvious flaws is the crock it's been throughout.
That's quite a little conundrum for you, I imagine.
@Cal,
Perhaps this section from SEP will help illustrate the broader metaphysical concept of change Legion is referring to.
6.1 Matter and Form
Thomas points out that the characteristic features of how we know some subject should not in general be attributed to that subject as if elements of what we know of it. So, although natural things are first thought of and analyzed in the most general of terms, there are not any general physical objects, only particular ones. Thus, in seeking to discern what is true of anything that has come to be as a result of a change and is subject to change until it ceases to be, Aristotle had to begin with a particular example of change, one so obvious that we would not be distracted by any difficulties in accepting it as such. “A man becomes musical.” Someone acquires a skill he did not previously have. Thomas pores over the analysis Aristotle provides of this instance of change and its product.
The change may be expressed in three ways:
A man becomes musical.
What is not-musical becomes musical.
A not-musical man becomes musical.
It's from Lecture 12 of Aquinas's commentary on Aristotle. Let me know if you want the link to the original commentary.
Now one won't find this kind of discussion of change in a physics course simply because it is in a different category than "matter and energy in motion" although both fall under the category of change.
Legion of Logic said...
" Wrong. A potential state is something that, based upon a thing's inherent properties, will be realized under the correct conditions, such as water freezing into ice. Those inherent properties exist."
--"Exist" where? How? What are properties made of? What is property stuff?
I have a cup of water, liquid water at 23C. Where is the ice? Where is the "ice property"? Can I find the "ice property" under a microscope?
Perhaps you are a Platonist? A believer in a world of forms, some ethereal parallel plane of existence where these mysteries have existent form?
"Unreal things" could include nuclear-powered unicorns that eat nothing but room-temperature liquid diamond flyswatters and pee out invisible penguin robots who recite bad poetry on the eighth day of the week."
--On an omnipotent god such unicorns are as likely as anything else.
" If you don't see the difference between the inherent capacity for water to freeze"
--The future does not "exist", and is thus unreal. Real objects in the present are what are real. Past and future are symbolized as analog processes in our brains, but have no actual realization.
""Unreal things" doesn't cut it when describing potential states."
--Right, we need fundamental physics to describe how things change.
May 24, 2017 6:55 AM
Cal: "Take your pick."
I choose the third option, which corresponds to reality - I understand the argument and you don't, which is why I keep repeating myself and rewording my statements in the hopes that you'll get the point of what I'm saying and why I'm saying it.
So, we can easily expose which of us is wrong. I'll go first.
The point of the First Way is not just a proto-scientific explanation of how things move around. We know this because A-T held that there were types of change that did not involve physical movement, and the First Way covers those types of changes as well. I and bmiller have both listed examples. Logically, if the First Way was only about how things move around, it would not cover other types of change, which would be irrelevant. So logically, the First Way is not a predecessor to Newton. It does not rise and fall with A-T concepts of movement, but rather with the A-T concepts of change - act and potency.
These days we know that possibly any time something in the universe changes, it involves a physical movement on some level, cellular, subatomic etc. This also does nothing to damage the First Way, as it is not a precursor of Newtonian physics. The three pillars of the First Way are act, potency, and the essentially ordered series derived from the former two which leads one logically to an unmoved mover (according to the argument), which is the First Way stripped down to its bare essence. Nothing in modern physics has refuted act, potency, or an essentially ordered series.
Your turn. You say you understand it better than I do, let's see it.
Explain the First Way in terms of its purpose for being presented and how the premises relate to physical movement, as well as demonstrating how those premises fail to hold up to Newton. I just did so, and you claim I'm wrong. Your explanation will decisively demonstrate that, if so.
Stardusty: "Exist" where? How? What are properties made of? What is property stuff?"
Am I to take this to mean that you deny water has the physical properties necessary to become ice? Well if that's true, then there should be instances where I put water in my freezer and come back the next day to find it has not frozen, but rather is still a liquid, or perhaps evaporated, or maybe even become steel or a Blu-ray disc.
While you ponder whether water will ever become a Blu-ray disc, here's an article for your perusal.
http://www.iun.edu/~cpanhd/C101webnotes/matter-and-energy/properties.html
Wikipedia also has an entry on physical properties you might find enlightening. If, after reading the articles, you still deny that things have properties, then I'm curious what magic it is that causes water to freeze into ice.
Or do you deny that water freezes into ice?
Legion: "We know this because A-T held that there were types of change that did not involve physical movement, and the First Way covers those types of changes as well. I and bmiller have both listed examples."
What other types of changes don't involve a change in physical location?
What example did you give earlier -- please cite it. Don't cite yourself saying you gave an example already. Provide the example for the argument you're defending. Be explicit. Be concise. Show some precision.
What other types of changes don't involve a change in physical location?
When a premise gives you this much trouble, and you can't quite find the words to explain what you're thinking, that should indicate to you that you're not thinking clearly.
And keep on trying to understand that you're defending the First Way -- the argument -- not excusing Aquinas for thinking what he thought. You still seem to be struggling with that distinction.
Cal, you're going to have to try.
Ignoring what I write and then responding to me as if I didn't write anything is not a valid tactic. You have to actually read what I write, attempt to understand it, and respond to what I wrote. That's how it works.
Perhaps a history lesson will shed some light on this subject. Back on May 16 (as far back as I went), there was a discussion going on, and as part of this discussion both you and Stardusty were by all appearances making an attempt to tie the First Way to A-T understanding of physics, to the extent that if Newtonian physics made A-T physics obsolete, it also destroyed the First Way.
All of my talking about the purpose of the First Way, and the types of change A-T believed in, was in response to that attempt. At no point have I asserted that one of the premises of the First Way is that there must be types of change that involve no motion.
So, now that you know why I have been talking about the various types of change, I'm sure you won't ignore what I write about it anymore.
You're at least going to have to put in a minimal attempt, Cal. You're still asking the stuff that I've addressed many, many times now.
Cal: "What other types of changes don't involve a change in physical location?"
Either explain how there being types of change that involve no physical movement is a premise of the First Way, or admit that you are engaging in the First Strawman.
Cal: "What example did you give earlier"
I gave the example of a leaf changing color. A-T did not hold that as an example of a change of physical location.
Your turn. You say you understand it better than I do, let's see it.
Explain the First Way in terms of its purpose for being presented and how the premises relate to physical movement, as well as demonstrating how those premises fail to hold up to Newton. I just did so, and you claim I'm wrong. Your explanation will decisively demonstrate that, if so.
>> I gave the example of a leaf changing color. A-T did not hold that as an example of a change of physical location."
You'll now get the same response I got to my example of the litmus paper, at which point you'll (again) tell Cal that his criticism is irrelevant because the FW isn't a physics argument. And around and around we go
>> "If, after reading the articles, you still deny that things have properties, then I'm curious what magic it is that causes water to freeze into ice"
Hopefully Dusty will come to his senses, but if not he'd also need to explain why the magic is powerless to cause water to become a blu-ray disc or a bag of oranges. If the reason can't be found inherently in the water, then it must be inherently in the magic.
Legion of Logic said...
" A-T held that there were types of change that did not involve physical movement,"
--Cover? Where? In what words? The examples are of physical motion, burning and a moving staff, both of which are obviously necessarily physically moving.
* In fact, to move is nothing else than to bring a thing from potency to act.*
You have made the basic grammatical and logical association error of reading this as"
XXX In fact, to bring a thing from potency to act is nothing else than to move. XXX
Further, Aquinas clearly does not equate "move" with "change", else he was uncharacteristically redundant.
"in this way the wood is moved and altered. "
So moved is considered as distinct from changed (altered).
Thus, the First Way is an argument from motion, specifically, not from change, generally. You have committed the classic association fallacy
All A's are B's, therefore a B is nothing else than an A.
May 25, 2017 1:22 AM
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