A Proof Of God Using Quantum Physics

[Geremia]

Archbishop Villeneuve and Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange forget that Thomism itself is eclectic in the same manner that they complain about. One of the Dominicans in Fr. Ashley’s priory pointed out to me that Thomism is not a “system”

Even Aeterni Patris calls it doctrina, not philosophia.

he did not take first principles and derive their conclusions irregardless of whether those conclusions seem true or not, and irregardless as to whether he was still being faithful to the heart of Aristotelian of Platonic philosophy. He simply took and borrowed truth from all over the place, from all the Greek and Arab philosophers at hand, whether they were Platonists or Aristotelian. That’s eclecticism. Eclecticism isn’t motivated by a “false idea of fraternal charity”, but rather by the fact that we see partial aspects of truth elucidated by lots of different schools.

He means that we shouldn’t try to reconcile muntally contradictory philosophies, like materialism with one that also assumes immaterial beings, in the name of “fraternal charity” because that is impossible. St. Thomas took what is true in other philosophies and rejected that which was false, leaving something pure like refined gold, so in a sense he was eclectic but not syncretic. He was also innovative; he is not just a rehashing of Aristotle.

 ...] to be a faithful disciple of St. Thomas today, it is not  enough to want to do in our time and with the means available today that  which he did in his. Contenting oneself with imitating him, like  walking on a parallel street without anything to draw from him, one would  with difficulty arrive at a positive result or, at least, offer to the  Church and to the world that contribution of wisdom which they need. One  cannot, in fact, speak of true and fecund loyalty if one does not  receive, almost from his own hands, his principles which also illuminate  the most important problems of philosophy and, to be more precise, to  understand better the faith in these our times and, similarly, the  fundamental notions of his system and the force of his ideas. Only so, the  thought of the Angelic Doctor, confronted always with new contributions  of profane science, will meet—through a sort of mutual osmosis—a new,  thriving, lively development.      [RIGHT]—Pope Paul VI's 1974 letter [*Lumen  ecclesiæ*](http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/apost_letters/documents/hf_p-vi_apl_19741205_lumen-ecclesiae_it.html) 29. [my translation][/RIGHT]

And, as I said, phenomenology in the manner of Sartre and Wojytla should be the groundwork and foundation of true philosophy (I’m a little skeptical of Husserl with his bracketing). I would like to re-derive Heidegger’s glorious metaphysic, the whole scholastic metaphysic, science viewed as the phenomenology of measurement, and Hegel’s grandiose vision all from phenomenology (transcendental philosophy should be perfectly possible and should complement natural philosophy, provided we don’t make Schelling’s silly mistake of confusing the transcendental ego with God; I would like to systematically re-derive Schelling’s system of transcendental philosophy preserving that distinction).

I take strong objection to Garrigou-Lagrange’s statement that “the Church has repeatedly declared that she holds to Thomism”.

Well, this is an historical fact.

Actually, the Church HAS declared that Thomists cannot declare non-Thomists to be heretics and vice versa

Are you referring to, e.g., Fides et Ratio 54.: “The Church has no philosophy of her own nor does she canonize any one particular philosophy in preference to others.”? I think he was referring to how theology and philosophy are autonomous even though there is overlap, such as when you have one premise of a syllogism being an article of faith and another drawn from philosophy or logic, but this would strictly belong to theology.

, and she has always permitted Scotism, Augustinianism, and other schools of theology. All the Church did is declare Thomism to be a suitable worldview to teach to seminarians to combat modern heresies. Only Roman Catholicism has adopted the Thomist worldview;

Again, sorry for the hackneyed example, but what about the Council of Trent’s definition of the transubstantiation? How do you even begin to make sense of it without the matter/form distinction?

the Eastern rites of the Church have our own theology which is not Thomist.

Also, what do you think about Humani Generis?

I also fail to see how Thomism can explain, as G-L says it can, such phenomena as electricity.

Really? He uses explicitly this example?

And saying that “extension has its source in matter” seems to fall back on the Cartesian idea of extension being the essence of matter, whereas in reality all matter consists of point particles.

Really? How can one have a continuum, then?

And, finally, Thomism cannot - without striking at the heart of the actual thought of St. Thomas - synthesize the transcendental approach to philosophy initiated by Kant.

So Kant is a priori true? How ironic…

 

[MikeSar]

There is a much simpler proof of the existence of God.
Everybody, or most everybody that has read Hawkins “A Brief History of Time” believes the Bing Bang Theory, including our current Pope Benedict XVI, who made a reference to the outline in his Preface in his 1986 book “In the Beginning… A Catholic Understanding of Creation and The Fall” Eerdmans Pub., 1996.
Dr. Hawkins elaborated on his theory by repeating that for a brief instant at the beginning there was nothing but Energy, no mass, no atoms, no electrons, only structureless Energy. And, from that, the rest is history.
But, we are left with a dilemma: Either:
**A. **Some believe, with no proof, that all the structures that followed, from the smallest sub-atomic particle to the atoms and molecules and DNA all came to be at random (and the rest?) or
B. An external agent (God) guided their evolution into all the (4?) Amino Acids found in the DNA of all living, material, creatures and, get this, ALSO FOUND IN OUTER SPACE!

But, of course, great many believe in randomness as the guiding logic (a bit of a contradiction, right?), I wonder what percent of them, on the average, also gamble regularly or only from time to time.

 

[itinerant1]

Anselm33;6984956:

These do not come into the mind from sense experience - though the mind initially learns how to understand mathematical entities from sense experience, from counting - since many mathematical entities are abstract and can’t be directly perceived in physical manifestations (imaginary numbers, for example - you can’t see the imaginary portion of a wave, and you have to square complex wavefunctions in order to get a measurable quantity [in this case, the probability of a particle appearing]).

That is correct. The senses only know or apprehend the particular. Mathematical concepts are not particular, eg. oneness, twoness, circleness, and so on. Maybe I will post something soon on the degrees of abstraction, to further clarify the matter.

 

[itinerant1]

There is a much simpler proof of the existence of God.
Everybody, or most everybody that has read Hawkins “A Brief History of Time” believes the Bing Bang Theory, including our current Pope Benedict XVI, who made a reference to the outline in his Preface in his 1986 book “In the Beginning… A Catholic Understanding of Creation and The Fall” Eerdmans Pub., 1996.
Dr. Hawkins elaborated on his theory by repeating that for a brief instant at the beginning there was nothing but Energy, no mass, no atoms, no electrons, only structureless Energy. And, from that, the rest is history.
But, we are left with a dilemma: Either:
**A. **Some believe, with no proof, that all the structures that followed, from the smallest sub-atomic particle to the atoms and molecules and DNA all came to be at random (and the rest?) or
B. An external agent (God) guided their evolution into all the (4?) Amino Acids found in the DNA of all living, material, creatures and, get this, ALSO FOUND IN OUTER SPACE!

But, of course, great many believe in randomness as the guiding logic (a bit of a contradiction, right?), I wonder what percent of them, on the average, also gamble regularly or only from time to time.

That is not strictly a proof or demonstration for the existence of God. The order and specificity in nature beginning with the Big Bang “points” the mind to a cause (God) outside of the universe, but it does not in itself prove His existence. It may be all the evidence one needs for Himself to know there is a God, and that is legitimate and good, but it does not rise to the level of a “proof”.

BTW, Hawking’s (spelled with a “g”) whole purpose in A Brief History of Time is to present a cosmos that has no need for God. Along these lines, physicist and theologian, Fr. Stanley Jaki says, “A Brief History of Time was not brief enough.”

 

[itinerant1]

I’m not sure that this “easy dismissal of Scholasticism as speculative” follows from the esse-essentia distinction. Any science, including mathematical physics, discusses essentia.

Scholasticism includes a number of diiferent philosophies. Thomism, one of the scholastic philosophies, is properly a “moderate realism”.

The natural sciences, mathematics included, do not deal with “essence” in itself. A mathematician will provide an essential definition of triangle, but he does not treat of esse or essentia as such.

The physical and life sciences provide descriptive definitions of their subject matter. Man is defined essentially as a “rational animal”. But we do not know enough about most things to even provide essential definitions. Who can provide an essential definitions that dinstinguishes a horse from a cow? Instead, zoologists use descriptive definitions of their phenomenal characteristics. Physics, the most mathematical of the sciences, creates mathematical formulas and equations that have a reference, hopefully, to the reality in question, but they do not reach to the ontological level of matter and energy to be considered so much as an essential definition.

The natural sciences, then, treat of the quantifiable aspects of things and their relations. On the other hand essence and existence, properly understood, are determinations of being, the meta-scientific or meta-physical aspects of things.

The proper scope and limit of the sciences is the phenomenal being. The sciences do not investigate or reason about the substance of things, that which sub-stands or stands-under the appearances, i.e. noumenal being.

 

[Cecilianus]

But this is usually called impetus, and it is different from a force that changes momentum. This distinction is encapsulated in Newton’s 1st law.

It is? How? By “impetus” do you mean Aristotle’s idea that something always has to be pushing a moving object in order for it to keep moving, whether this constant acceleration comes from the air (as Aristotle thought) or the mover (as Philoponus thought)? This is directly contrary to the First Law - as soon as the object is put in motion, there must be an inertial frame of reference, and therefore we can’t know that it was put into motion to begin with. From the inertial frame of reference there is no motion and therefore no “impetus”. Or do you mean something else? The first thing I thought of was impulse, which is precisely a change in momentum.

How so?So you are a Parmenidean?

No - change is obvious, but that doesn’t mean it’s correctly described in terms of act and potency. In the English that my mother taught me doing or “acting” means something different than “being” (whether you qualify it by the term “actus primus” or not), and the proper contrary of being/“act” would not be potency (which would never come to mind to me if I had to think of a contrary to being) but rather nothing. And “potency” is ambiguous with a dual meaning that Thomists constantly confuse - it is often used to mean “not-happened-yet” (which isn’t what the word means in ordinary usage), but more often to mean “has the seeds or roots of some sort of being”. In other words, to be potential is to be possible, but it’s left vague whether this possibility is intrinsic or extrinisic to the thing that we say has potency. And then Thomists will apply the term “potency” to refer to the past (something that HAS happened, rather than being possible to happen in the future), which is a further confusion of the term (and simply a misapplication, frankly - my historian friends will be rather surprised to hear that the past is non-existent, and I strongly agree with the Arab argument that there had to have been a beginning in time).

Specifically, locomotion. Calculus can describe change only analogically when describing qualities.

Change in qualities are only epiphenomena of quantitative changes - e.g. the color changes because a chemical process alters the difference in energy states of the valence shell of the molecule.

In certain inertial frames, yes, but not in all, e.g., not in the one affixed to the body considered in locomotion by another frame.

At any instant - the limit as delta t approaches 0 - any body still has an instantaneous velocity at a single place.

I think you are equivocating “matter” here. If you don’t believe in the potency/act distinction, then it seems you can’t believe there can matter nor form, either, since matter is that which is in potency.

Like the Franciscans I believe that matter is actual, and that there is no such thing as an Aristotelian “prime matter”. All matter is formed. I use the term matter univocally - matter as understood by modern physics. This “matter” does happen to have physical properties which we could call “form” if we wanted to - but I really don’t like using that term since I don’t mean to imply an Aristotelian concept of an irreducible, spiritual macroscopic explanation.

For beings that modern physics studies, matter and form are inextricably bound. It is only with beings like angels can one have form apart from matter, but this falls outside the realm of physics.

This would be another debate entirely, but here you and Aquinas ARE equivocating on matter and form - realizing that angels are immaterial (don’t have matter in the sense of physical matter) and therefore arguing they are pure form (don’t have matter in the Aristotelian sense). Angels are not physical, so the matter/form distinction simply does not apply to them. The only way I could find the notion of angels as pure form as being in any way useful for understanding is by considering the point (unfortunately from a bit of a disreputable source - Fr. Raimundo Pannikar) that angels are perfect, having chosen the “form” or telos that God made for them in a single act, realizing their complete identity or haeccity at once without needing room for self-improvement, growth in virtue, or self-creation in the Existentialist sense as we do, and arguably the reason why angels are like this is because they are simple beings, whereas we need to constantly improve and create ourselves because we are composed of matter which is always entering and leaving us and affecting our minds, and the fact that we are composite beings and have composite, complex psychologies means that we can be divided against ourselves. But I would still say that angels are pure haeccity, not pure form (haeccity here - unlike in the physical world - would not inhere in matter).

 

[Cecilianus]

Even Aeterni Patris calls it doctrina, not philosophia.

These are all statements that only apply to the Roman Church, not universally, and are therefore not infallible. The Orthodox Churches - including those that came back into union with Rome at the Union of Brest or at the various other unions - do not take a scholastic approach to theology. Furthermore, the Aristotelian framework that Thomas used was not what the Pope intended to impose on the Church, but rather the theological conclusions Thomas reaches. They can be explained in other ways, as the Eastern Churches do.

He means that we shouldn’t try to reconcile muntally contradictory philosophies, like materialism with one that also assumes immaterial beings, in the name of “fraternal charity” because that is impossible. St. Thomas took what is true in other philosophies and rejected that which was false, leaving something pure like refined gold, so in a sense he was eclectic but not syncretic. He was also innovative; he is not just a rehashing of Aristotle.

I am in complete agreement here.

Are you referring to, e.g., Fides et Ratio 54.: “The Church has no philosophy of her own nor does she canonize any one particular philosophy in preference to others.”? I think he was referring to how theology and philosophy are autonomous even though there is overlap, such as when you have one premise of a syllogism being an article of faith and another drawn from philosophy or logic, but this would strictly belong to theology.

Good example of what I meant, but I was actually referring to the decree - Pope Urban VIII, I think? - forbidding the the Thomists and Molinists from accusing each other of heresy in the dispute over predestination (the Molinists charged the Thomists with Jansenism, and the Thomists charged the Molinists with Pelagianism). I think that what the Pope meant in Fides et Ratio was exactly what he said - that philosophical constructs like that of Aristotle are not Catholic dogma, even though the Church in her wisdom may use philosophical systems to explain her dogma.

Again, sorry for the hackneyed example, but what about the Council of Trent’s definition of the transubstantiation? How do you even begin to make sense of it without the matter/form distinction?

I think that the prosphora was once bread and wine and through the grace of the Holy Spirit becomes the Body and Blood of Christ, even while retaining all the appearances and physical nature of bread and wine (this would include its chemical and physical properties, which are the cause of its “accidents”). Simply calling it “transubstantiation” (a definition of the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215) simply states the fact of what happens without shedding any light on it. If we whittle down the Eucharistic elements from all the accidents looking for the divine “substance”, we have nothing - the “substance” is simply the subject in which the accidents inhere, and there is no unknowable and occult “substance” apart from the accidents. The only way to make sense of the Eucharist is through the Byzantine understanding, which preserved the focus on the Eucharist as a symbol. In the East, a “symbol” is what the West calls a “sacrament” - a sign which makes the reality signified really present. This can occur at a number of different levels - the reality signified is really present in an ikon, and really present in the antidoron (the gifts before consecration - they are still so holy that one Melkite archbishop, Joseph Raya, prostrated himself on the floor during the Great Entrance and ordered that the prosphora be carried over his body, and when the faithful receive the antidoron at the conclusion of Liturgy they are instructed to be as careful about not leaving crumbs on the floor as Tridentine Catholics were about spilling the consecrated Host from their tongue). The manner in which the reality signified is made present in the Eucharist is infinitely deeper than anything else - the Eucharist really IS the Body and Blood of Christ, rather than just making it present in a consubstantialist sort of way.

Also, what do you think about Humani Generis?

It has been a while since I’ve read Humani Generis; anything special I should be looking for?

Really? He uses explicitly this example?

Yes.

Really? How can one have a continuum, then?

Continuum of what? Infinitely divisible matter?

So Kant is a priori true? How ironic…

No, just that a transcendental philosophy is a priori possible. Kant could have gotten his hopelessly screwed up (and, actually, I think he was downright wrong about a lot of things - for example, we know that non-Euclidean geometry is possible to reason about, even though it is still impossible to imagine; also many of his “categories” are a priori necessary in all of physical reality, not just the mind, and insofar as they are violable in the physical world they are also violable in the mind - best example being causality).

 

[Cecilianus]

Scholasticism includes a number of diiferent philosophies. Thomism, one of the scholastic philosophies, is properly a “moderate realism”.

The natural sciences, mathematics included, do not deal with “essence” in itself. A mathematician will provide an essential definition of triangle, but he does not treat of esse or essentia as such.

There is no essentia which is not an essence of something. To be sure, a mathematician does not deal with the essence of “essence”, but he does deal with an essence, and this is an essence as such, rather than dealing with triangles as they might actually exist in the physical world on blackboards.

The physical and life sciences provide descriptive definitions of their subject matter. Man is defined essentially as a “rational animal”. But we do not know enough about most things to even provide essential definitions. Who can provide an essential definitions that dinstinguishes a horse from a cow? Instead, zoologists use descriptive definitions of their phenomenal characteristics. Physics, the most mathematical of the sciences, creates mathematical formulas and equations that have a reference, hopefully, to the reality in question, but they do not reach to the ontological level of matter and energy to be considered so much as an essential definition.

Who are you to say that we don’t “reach the ontological level of matter and energy”? Sure we do. Mass-energy is a fundamental “undefinable” that we use as a basic concept - if we were to ask “what is mass-energy” I think that would properly be the phenomenology of measurement rather than physics per se, though it would still be a branch of philosophy that only physicists would be qualified to talk about (since they by definition are the ones who know the subject-matter). Physics is no more or less “descriptive” than philosophy - we start with data (sense-impressions, or observations) and deduce the essence of the object being observed from them (the mathematical formulas and equations you mentioned, and as you climb up the Porphyrian tree the chemical structure of the substance being discussed). The genius of modern science was that it was able to provide an essential description of physical reality whereas all previous philosophy had given up on it as being unknowable to our weak human minds (or even unknowable in principle, if you confuse matter in the physical sense with matter in the Aristotelian sense).

I do agree that zoologists MIGHT not reach at the heart of what makes a horse different from a cow - I chose physics over biology because it was a deeper and more direct way of learning the nature of reality (and also in order to avoid the difficult and currently insoluble problem of evolution) - but I see no reason to say that the difference of the essences is not simply the actual difference in anatomical structure and genetics.

The natural sciences, then, treat of the quantifiable aspects of things and their relations. On the other hand essence and existence, properly understood, are determinations of being, the meta-scientific or meta-physical aspects of things.

The quantifiable aspects of things are also determinations of beings.

The proper scope and limit of the sciences is the phenomenal being. The sciences do not investigate or reason about the substance of things, that which sub-stands or stands-under the appearances, i.e. noumenal being.

You talk as if there were a strict Kantian divergence between appearance and being. Science by contrast studies beings that appear. This is also the commonsense realist view of reality, and the Thomist one. We do study substances - and we can do so because they appear to us, as is also true with you. Do you think that substances are knowable? If so, they can only be so through their appearances. I dislike the term “appearance” because it can also mean “illusion”; I would prefer the term “observable”.

Also, I object to the fact that you are denoting the “proper scope and limit of the sciences”. Philosophers have no business telling us how to do science. In order to philosophize about something you have to know the subject you are philosophizing; i.e. the only person qualified to give a philosophy of science is an actual scientist. And scientists SHOULD draw whatever conclusions the “scientific method” gives us, whether it fits a pre-conceived notion on the limits of science or not. Regions outside our scope - such as the nature of God or the soul - simply will not be described by any conclusions from real science, and scientists are perfectly capable of seeing pseudo-science or seeing where the arguments in question have ceased to follow the reasoning and method of natural science. Science can have implications in regions outside of science - such as with evolution, or the well-established fact of the age of the universe at 13.74 billion years with a Big Bang - but what a scientific conclusion is is something that is determined by scientists, not by laymen who claim the right to judge things they know nothing about simply because they hold the title “philosopher”.

 

[itinerant1]

There is no essentia which is not an essence of something. To be sure, a mathematician does not deal with the essence of “essence”, but he does deal with an essence, and this is an essence as such, rather than dealing with triangles as they might actually exist in the physical world on blackboards.

I see that you confuse mathematical understanding with metaphysical understanding.

Who are you to say that we don’t “reach the ontological level of matter and energy”? Sure we do. Mass-energy is a fundamental “undefinable” that we use as a basic concept - if we were to ask “what is mass-energy” I think that would properly be the phenomenology of measurement rather than physics per se, though it would still be a branch of philosophy that only physicists would be qualified to talk about (since they by definition are the ones who know the subject-matter).

It appears that you do not understand the meaning of the word “ontological”. If you did know what it means then you would know that physics is limited to the quantitative aspects of things and their relations. Whatever a physicists thinks is fundamental about the universe, matter and energy in its various manifestions, whether atoms, sub-atomic particles, and so on, it is still comprised of the same determinations of being, as are all other things.

But physics as physics does not reach to that level, which should be obvious by looking through any physics text or book written by a physicists. Physicists do physics and philsophers do philosophy. I’m not sure what it is that you do.

A physicist as physicist has no training or knowledge that enables him, more than anyone else, to speak on philosophical matters. I know you do not understand this because you do not understand what distinquishes physics from philosophy. In fact, you appear to conflate physics and philosophy.

Furthermore, physics seems to be an impediment for many physicists to make sound philosophical judgements. Einstein correctly noted that “the man of science makes a poor philosopher”. Einstein had physicists in mind when he made that remark.

Physics is no more or less “descriptive” than philosophy - we start with data (sense-impressions, or observations) and deduce the essence of the object being observed from them (the mathematical formulas and equations you mentioned, and as you climb up the Porphyrian tree the chemical structure of the substance being discussed). The genius of modern science was that it was able to provide an essential description of physical reality whereas all previous philosophy had given up on it as being unknowable to our weak human minds (or even unknowable in principle, if you confuse matter in the physical sense with matter in the Aristotelian sense).

Here again you are confusing two very different disciplines. Physics, no more than any other natural science, can have the same material object (subject matter) as philosophy, but their formal objects (the aspect under which they are considered) differ remarkably.

The quantifiable aspects of things are also determinations of beings.

Only in regard to accidental determinations, not to what is substantial or essential. The quantifiable aspect of things are not what is not necessary to the being of a thing as being. The particular size, weight and color of an apple can be considered apart from the apple, and thus are not necessary to a thing being an apple.

You talk as if there were a strict Kantian divergence between appearance and being.

I used Kantian terms as apropro in this siutation, without any endorsement of Kantian philosophy.

CONT:

 

[itinerant1]

CONT:

Science by contrast studies beings that appear. This is also the commonsense realist view of reality, and the Thomist one. We do study substances - and we can do so because they appear to us, as is also true with you. Do you think that substances are knowable? If so, they can only be so through their appearances. I dislike the term “appearance” because it can also mean “illusion”; I would prefer the term “observable”.

Define “substance” as you are using it, and give some examples of the natural sciences studying substance. “Substance” or “ousia” in Aristotelian-Thomistic philosophy is not “substance” in the common English sense of the word.

We do not know substance because they supposedly appear to us or can be observed. We know them through the observable qualities they support. And this is very different than “observing” substance. If we could observe substance (in the sense of “ousia” ), then you should be able to take a picture of one and post it in this thread. I await your photo.

Also, I object to the fact that you are denoting the “proper scope and limit of the sciences”. Philosophers have no business telling us how to do science. In order to philosophize about something you have to know the subject you are philosophizing; i.e. the only person qualified to give a philosophy of science is an actual scientist.

Such attitude. Actual scientists have taught about the proper scope and limit of the sciences. For example, Aristotle, though he lived before the sciences separated from philosophy as distinct disciplines in their own right, his philosophy provides sound principles for demarcating the line between philosophy and science.

There is also Pierre Duhem, an outstanding physicist and historian of science, who clearly explains proper scientific method, and distinguishes it from philosophy.

And there is physicist, historian of science, philosopher, and theologian, Fr. Stanley L. Jaki, who has written much on the proper scope and limit of science and its abuses through time.

Some of the most un-qualified people to proffer a philosophy of science are scientists. Charles Darwin is a good example of someone who had not the least notion of the proper scope and limit of science.

And scientists SHOULD draw whatever conclusions the “scientific method” gives us, whether it fits a pre-conceived notion on the limits of science or not. Regions outside our scope - such as the nature of God or the soul - simply will not be described by any conclusions from real science, and scientists are perfectly capable of seeing pseudo-science or seeing where the arguments in question have ceased to follow the reasoning and method of natural science.

You do not know science very well yet, science as it is actually practiced and understood. I can name the authors of many dozens of books and provide references to as many prominent scientists who take their own ideology for science, when in fact they have abrogated methodological naturalism.

Science can have implications in regions outside of science - such as with evolution, or the well-established fact of the age of the universe at 13.74 billion years with a Big Bang - but what a scientific conclusion is is something that is determined by scientists, not by laymen who claim the right to judge things they know nothing about simply because they hold the title “philosopher”.

Or conversely, someone thinking they know something about philosophy just because they studied what is not philosophy – i.e. science.

 

[Cecilianus]

I see that you confuse mathematical understanding with metaphysical understanding.

They are the same, when the object being understood is mathematical.

It appears that you do not understand the meaning of the word “ontological”. If you did know what it means then you would know that physics is limited to the quantitative aspects of things and their relations. Whatever a physicists thinks is fundamental about the universe, matter and energy in its various manifestions, whether atoms, sub-atomic particles, and so on, it is still comprised of the same determinations of being, as are all other things.

This quantitative “determination of being” exhausts the nature of physical reality.

But physics as physics does not reach to that level, which should be obvious by looking through any physics text or book written by a physicists. Physicists do physics and philsophers do philosophy. I’m not sure what it is that you do.

Like all physicists, I study reality. The distinction between “physics” and “philosophy” is arbitrary and historical.

A physicist as physicist has no training or knowledge that enables him, more than anyone else, to speak on philosophical matters. I know you do not understand this because you do not understand what distinquishes physics from philosophy. In fact, you appear to conflate physics and philosophy.

We actually know the subject matter that we are philosophizing about. Nor are we less qualified to do philosophy than “philosophers”, since the faculty of reason is available to all humans, and we have no need to be well-versed in historical errors.

Furthermore, physics seems to be an impediment for many physicists to make sound philosophical judgements. Einstein correctly noted that “the man of science makes a poor philosopher”. Einstein had physicists in mind when he made that remark.

This is simply absurd. I don’t know the context of that remark, but Einstein was typically wrong about a lot of things - quantum mechanics being a prime example.

Here again you are confusing two very different disciplines. Physics, no more than any other natural science, can have the same material object (subject matter) as philosophy, but their formal objects (the aspect under which they are considered) differ remarkably.

But truth can’t contradict itself, and both aspects consider physical reality. Again, the difference is purely arbitrary regarding method.

Only in regard to accidental determinations, not to what is substantial or essential. The quantifiable aspect of things are not what is not necessary to the being of a thing as being. The particular size, weight and color of an apple can be considered apart from the apple, and thus are not necessary to a thing being an apple.

An apple only is what it is because of its chemical structure - the presence of carbon and so forth - which depend on the energy levels within molecules as I stated before. An apple isn’t essentially an “apple” if it’s made out of iron, for example. So quoting accidental determinations is not a refutation because you ignore plenty of quantitative essential determinations as I just gave an example of.

I used Kantian terms as apropro in this siutation, without any endorsement of Kantian philosophy.

CONT:

But your assumption that substances do not “appear” and are unknowable because they are logically (not really) distinguished from appearances is Kantian.

I will respond to the second post after classes are over with.

 

[itinerant1]

This quantitative “determination of being” exhausts the nature of physical reality.

You have just eliminated philosophy. Poor Aristotle wasted all that time writing the *Metaphysica. *

Besides, you ended up using my phrase “determination of being” without knowing what it means. I cut you some slack on your misuse by responding in a way that I thought you understood, or rather misunderstood, the phrase.

Like all physicists, I study reality. The distinction between “physics” and “philosophy” is arbitrary and historical.

Only as far as your unsubstantiated opinion is concerned. And that has no merit.

If you knew anything about history, which you obviously do not, then you would know the distinction is far from arbitrary.

We actually know the subject matter that we are philosophizing about. Nor are we less qualified to do philosophy than “philosophers”, since the faculty of reason is available to all humans, and we have no need to be well-versed in historical errors.

Apparently you have no need to be well-versed in truth either --just make it all up as it pleases you.

This is simply absurd. I don’t know the context of that remark, but Einstein was typically wrong about a lot of things - quantum mechanics being a prime example.

It is not absurd to those who understand it. And your argument is a non sequitur. You could use a little philosophy to brush up on your logic.

And no, Einstein was not wrong about quantum mechanics. He was trying to save science from an ideology of extreme idealism mixed with a rank pragamatism that destroys science and leaves man in a radical solipsism. For a number of reasons, Einstein could not make a convincing argument. Nonetheless, Neils Bohr, et al, opted for solipsism and the position that science is not about the world.

But truth can’t contradict itself, and both aspects consider physical reality. Again, the difference is purely arbitrary regarding method.

It’s not a matter of truth not contradicting truth, it’s a matter of different levels of truth complimenting each other.

However, you are not qualified to make a judgement on this matter since you clearly demonstrated you have no inkling about the methods of philosophy, especially of the philsophia perennis.

An apple only is what it is because of its chemical structure - the presence of carbon and so forth - which depend on the energy levels within molecules as I stated before. An apple isn’t essentially an “apple” if it’s made out of iron, for example. So quoting accidental determinations is not a refutation because you ignore plenty of quantitative essential determinations as I just gave an example of.

You think exclusively on the physical level, and with the lowest tier of abstraction, which is why you did not grasp what I was talking about, and your response is not to the point.

But your assumption that substances do not “appear” and are unknowable because they are logically (not really) distinguished from appearances is Kantian.

I will respond to the second post after classes are over with.

Gimme a break! I never said substances are “unknowable”, or that they are only logically distinguished. Check your reading glasses.

There is nothing Kantian in my statement. Kant would take exception to my position. You are reading what little Kant you might know into my posts. That problem will only keep you from understanding what I am talking about, as it has done so far.

 

[Cecilianus]

CONT:

Define “substance” as you are using it, and give some examples of the natural sciences studying substance. “Substance” or “ousia” in Aristotelian-Thomistic philosophy is not “substance” in the common English sense of the word.

“Thing”. That which we are speaking about. That which has properties, which in scholastic parlance we could call “accidents”. “Substance” the way chemists use it (not necessarily the vulgar use - I don’t mean to restrict it to refer to the object of “substance abuse”).

We do not know substance because they supposedly appear to us or can be observed. We know them through the observable qualities they support. And this is very different than “observing” substance. If we could observe substance (in the sense of “ousia” ), then you should be able to take a picture of one and post it in this thread. I await your photo.

Take a photo of anything you want to, and it’s a substance. If substance is unknowable, how do you know that it exists? How do you know that the observables that you see need an occult “substance” to support them if you have no way of seeing it?

Substance is subject.

Such attitude. Actual scientists have taught about the proper scope and limit of the sciences. For example, Aristotle, though he lived before the sciences separated from philosophy as distinct disciplines in their own right, his philosophy provides sound principles for demarcating the line between philosophy and science.

Aristotle was not a scientist.

There is also Pierre Duhem, an outstanding physicist and historian of science, who clearly explains proper scientific method, and distinguishes it from philosophy.

And there is physicist, historian of science, philosopher, and theologian, Fr. Stanley L. Jaki, who has written much on the proper scope and limit of science and its abuses through time.

Both of whom are regularly ignored by scientists. Chesterton wrote much on “scientism”, by which he referred to something that scientists would simply call pseudo-science, and Fr. Jaki of blessed memory was heavily influenced by him. I should note that, though Fr. Jaki cannot be accused of lack of education in his field, some other scientists have heavily criticized Fr. Jaki for introducing theological bias into his arguments. He frankly made a fool of himself at one conference when a biologist started pointing out his errors and he only responded by telling him to shut up.

Some of the most un-qualified people to proffer a philosophy of science are scientists. Charles Darwin is a good example of someone who had not the least notion of the proper scope and limit of science.

I have no idea whether that is true or not, but he is best known for the theory of evolution by natural selection, which is perfectly valid science.

You do not know science very well yet, science as it is actually practiced and understood. I can name the authors of many dozens of books and provide references to as many prominent scientists who take their own ideology for science, when in fact they have abrogated methodological naturalism.

Actually, the science I know is the science I have practiced and the science that is published in real journals (mostly astrophysics articles from the arXiv preprint). That is science. You are confusing science with the popular literature written on the subject, usually by people who have an agenda. If you want science, go to the Physical Review. Don’t go to Richard Dawkins’ popular writings.

Or conversely, someone thinking they know something about philosophy just because they studied what is not philosophy – i.e. science.

You don’t need to study philosophy in order to do it. When I say “philosophy” I do NOT mean the historical study of Aristotle and Aquinas - which of course one would need to study in order to say they know something about it - but rather the methodological practice of reasoning about the world.

 

[Cecilianus]

You have just eliminated philosophy. Poor Aristotle wasted all that time writing the *Metaphysica. *

Yes.

Besides, you ended up using my phrase “determination of being” without knowing what it means. I cut you some slack on your misuse by responding in a way that I thought you understood, or rather misunderstood, the phrase.

Feel free to enlighten me rather than insulting me. After all these years of philosophers telling me that I don’t understand what they mean while they consistently refuse to tell me, I can only think that they are as confused as I am.

Only as far as your unsubstantiated opinion is concerned. And that has no merit.

Your claim that you, a laymen, can say that all of physics has no connection with reality is unbelievable arrogant. Physics put men on the moon, and gave you the computer you are writing on. We do study reality. Your computer is how I substantiate that claim.

If you knew anything about history, which you obviously do not, then you would know the distinction is far from arbitrary.

There were good historical reasons for the difference, but the distinction is still based on historical contingencies rather than the actual facts about the subjects.

Apparently you have no need to be well-versed in truth either --just make it all up as it pleases you.

That was neither relevant to the statement you quoted or to the matter we were discussing, nor is it a logical argument in any fashion.

It is not absurd to those who understand it. And your argument is a non sequitur. You could use a little philosophy to brush up on your logic.

Same to you. Look at your last remark above.

I wasn’t presenting an “argument” in that remark. I had already given my argument when I said that physicists understand physics (minor premise) and are therefore the only ones qualified to philosophize about it (conclusion), since you aren’t qualified to philosophize about things you’re ignorant of (major premise). I have actually studied a lot of logic. Your quotation from Einstein was not a logical argument at all - just an assertion. I am still waiting for you to refute my syllogism.

And no, Einstein was not wrong about quantum mechanics. He was trying to save science from an ideology of extreme idealism mixed with a rank pragamatism that destroys science and leaves man in a radical solipsism. For a number of reasons, Einstein could not make a convincing argument. Nonetheless, Neils Bohr, et al, opted for solipsism and the position that science is not about the world.

Yes, he was wrong about quantum mechanics. We physically tested his “EPR” thought experiment, and it came out exactly the way QM said it should (which Einstein had posed as a reductio ad absurdum). And no, QM neither teaches solipsism nor the position that science is not about the world. Please at least learn a little about the subject before pontificating about it.

It’s not a matter of truth not contradicting truth, it’s a matter of different levels of truth complimenting each other.

Which they can’t do if they contradict each other.

However, you are not qualified to make a judgement on this matter since you clearly demonstrated you have no inkling about the methods of philosophy, especially of the philsophia perennis.

I have studied the so-called “philosophia perennis” (which is hardly perennial, since it only refers to the Hellenic tradition and the Islamo-Christian tradition that followed from it, while the vast majority of intellectual thought - Oriental, Byzantine, and post-medieval - has rejected it), and if I am confused about the methods of philosophy and you aren’t, then PLEASE tell me how it works. That’s not a difficult challenge. I’ve been making it for four years. Nobody seems to want to tell me, and I can only think it’s because scholasticism teaches them as little about the world as it teaches me.

You think exclusively on the physical level, and with the lowest tier of abstraction, which is why you did not grasp what I was talking about, and your response is not to the point.

Well, I’m only talking about physical reality, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that the description of it is physical. I’m not a German idealist. You really can tell me what you DID mean if I misinterpreted you.

Gimme a break! I never said substances are “unknowable”, or that they are only logically distinguished. Check your reading glasses.

There is nothing Kantian in my statement. Kant would take exception to my position. You are reading what little Kant you might know into my posts. That problem will only keep you from understanding what I am talking about, as it has done so far.

Yes you did. You said that you cannot see substances, that all you can see are accidents, and that they are an occult reality underlying accidents but which in and of themselves are unknowable. What I said was that substances are things, which appear to us through appearances, are observed through observables, and known through accidents (three ways of saying the same thing). You said I was using the term “substance” incorrectly. How should I have used the term?

 

[itinerant1]

…“Substance” the way chemists use it (not necessarily the vulgar use…

“Substance” in the chemico-physical sciences has a very different meaning than how I was using the term. Substance, as you are using it corresponds to Aristotle’s primary substance, "which is neither asserted of a subject nor present in a subject, such as a particular man or horse. Secondary substances, i.e. the species and genera in which primary substances are included, and are asserted of a subject but are not present in a subject. Primary and secondary substances are the difference between the universal and the particular.

The mind abstracts the universal from the particular, abstracting from all of the indivuidualizing notes contained in sense perception. The universal exists in the mind as a concept, or better said that the concept is universal, and that by which we know a thing. The object of knowledge, which has intentionalized existence in the mind as a universal, exists in nature but not as a particular or a universal.

Substances are composed of substantial form and substantial matter. Matter (hyle)and form (morphe; eidos) are the non-material components of every physical thing.

Take a photo of anything you want to, and it’s a substance.

Only in the first sense indicated above.

If substance is unknowable, how do you know that it exists?

Once again, I never said substance is unknowable. I’m not sure where you got that idea.

How do you know that the observables that you see need an occult “substance” to support them if you have no way of seeing it?

How do you know the spiritual soul exists, presuming you believe in the human soul, even though you have never seen it?

Life is full of intangibles. Have you ever seen justice or love?

Substance is subject.

Substance is the substratum presupposed by quantity, quality, relation, place, posture possession, action, and so on. But we must distinguish between primary and secondary substances.

Aristotle was not a scientist.

Well, I suppose if you read what he wrote on astronomy, there is little that is correct or useful there. However, in biology, in regard to his collation of the evidence of other observers, and his theoretical discussions, put him far ahead of his time. He was the greatest of ancient biologists. Charles Darwin said of Aristotle in his *Notebooks: “*Linnaeus and Cuvier have been my two gods, though in different ways, but they were mere schoolboys to old Aristotle.”

Aristotle recognised the mammalian character of the cetaceans, a fact overlooked by everyone until the 16th century. He distinguished the cartilaginous from the bony fishes, describing them with incredible accuracy. I could go on describing Aristotle’s awesome accomplishments in the area of biology, but this will suffice.

Both of whom are regularly ignored by scientists. Chesterton wrote much on “scientism”, by which he referred to something that scientists would simply call pseudo-science, and Fr. Jaki of blessed memory was heavily influenced by him. I should note that, though Fr. Jaki cannot be accused of lack of education in his field, some other scientists have heavily criticized Fr. Jaki for introducing theological bias into his arguments. He frankly made a fool of himself at one conference when a biologist started pointing out his errors and he only responded by telling him to shut up.

Chesterton, though not a scientist, clearly highlighted the ideological fallacies in Darwinian theory. Chesterton’s observations remain just as valid and true today.

One cannot respond to anything you said about Jaki since you did not present any details. It is of no value to say other scientists criticized Jaki for theological bias. Did they even understand Jaki correctly? What did they say? Are the scientists in question biased themselves toward metaphysical materialism, as so many are today?

If Jaki’s books have scientifc errors, I don’t know what they would be. And I am unaware of any scientist who has published anything pointing out his errors. That does not mean many scientists don’t disagree with him. But then again, the history of science is largely the history of scientists disagreeing with each other.

Jaki usually knows what he is talking about. And I have no doubt that some people need to be told to shut up, though I know nothing of the incident you allude to.

I have no idea whether that is true or not, but he is best known for the theory of evolution by natural selection, which is perfectly valid science.

The evolution science is valid, but the ideology grafted onto the science is not valid.

Actually, the science I know is the science I have practiced and the science that is published in real journals (mostly astrophysics articles from the arXiv preprint). That is science. You are confusing science with the popular literature written on the subject, usually by people who have an agenda. If you want science, go to the Physical Review. Don’t go to Richard Dawkins’ popular writings.

I read Dawkins, Gould, Darwin, Ernst Mayr, Michael Ruse, Ayala, Dobzhansky and many more.

You don’t need to study philosophy in order to do it. When I say “philosophy” I do NOT mean the historical study of Aristotle and Aquinas - which of course one would need to study in order to say they know something about it - but rather the methodological practice of reasoning about the world.

That is a philosophical attitude, though it is not philosophy.

 

[itinerant1]

Yes.

Feel free to enlighten me rather than insulting me. After all these years of philosophers telling me that I don’t understand what they mean while they consistently refuse to tell me, I can only think that they are as confused as I am.

I suppose philosophers would discuss with you, if you appeared open to discussion. But when you can say “Yes” to having summarily dismissed philosophy, what is there to discuss?

Your claim that you, a laymen, can say that all of physics has no connection with reality is unbelievable arrogant. Physics put men on the moon, and gave you the computer you are writing on. We do study reality. Your computer is how I substantiate that claim.

Hello! Reality check! Earth to Cecilianus. Where did I say that all of physics has no connection with reality?

I will discontinue replying to this post until you answer the above question.

 

[itinerant1]

Hello!
Reality check!
Earth to Cecilianus. Come in!
Where did I say that all of physics has no connection with reality?
Provide the quote and post number.

:juggle:
%between%

 

[Cecilianus]

“Substance” in the chemico-physical sciences has a very different meaning than how I was using the term. Substance, as you are using it corresponds to Aristotle’s primary substance, "which is neither asserted of a subject nor present in a subject, such as a particular man or horse. Secondary substances, i.e. the species and genera in which primary substances are included, and are asserted of a subject but are not present in a subject. Primary and secondary substances are the difference between the universal and the particular.

Primary substance is neither asserted OF a subject nor present IN a subject because it IS the subject. Saying that secondary substance is asserted OF a subject is Aristotle’s way of saying what I would phrase as the plurality of substantial forms.

Substances are composed of substantial form and substantial matter. Matter (hyle)and form (morphe; eidos) are the non-material components of every physical thing.

I wouldn’t separate form and matter as the two “parts” of a substance as Aristotle did, but rather say that a substance is formed matter. Form is something we can assert of a substance (as in when we say that object A is a B, where the predicate of the sentence is a noun [a substance] rather than an adjective [an accident]).

Once again, I never said substance is unknowable. I’m not sure where you got that idea.

I mean substance separated and abstracted from its accidents.

How do you know the spiritual soul exists, presuming you believe in the human soul, even though you have never seen it?

The immortality of the soul is an article of divine revelation; that is the only reason why I believe in it.

Life is full of intangibles. Have you ever seen justice or love?

Not the way I see substances - the word “see” is analogical here. Yes, I have seen justice. That’s an elliptical way of saying “I have seen just situations”.

Well, I suppose if you read what he wrote on astronomy, there is little that is correct or useful there. However, in biology, in regard to his collation of the evidence of other observers, and his theoretical discussions, put him far ahead of his time. He was the greatest of ancient biologists. Charles Darwin said of Aristotle in his *Notebooks: “*Linnaeus and Cuvier have been my two gods, though in different ways, but they were mere schoolboys to old Aristotle.”

Aristotle recognised the mammalian character of the cetaceans, a fact overlooked by everyone until the 16th century. He distinguished the cartilaginous from the bony fishes, describing them with incredible accuracy. I could go on describing Aristotle’s awesome accomplishments in the area of biology, but this will suffice.

I am more interested in his physics than his biology, obviously, but keep in mind he also said that women have more teeth than men, and a number of other silly claims.

Chesterton, though not a scientist, clearly highlighted the ideological fallacies in Darwinian theory. Chesterton’s observations remain just as valid and true today.

I disagree.

One cannot respond to anything you said about Jaki since you did not present any details. It is of no value to say other scientists criticized Jaki for theological bias. Did they even understand Jaki correctly? What did they say? Are the scientists in question biased themselves toward metaphysical materialism, as so many are today?

If Jaki’s books have scientifc errors, I don’t know what they would be. And I am unaware of any scientist who has published anything pointing out his errors. That does not mean many scientists don’t disagree with him. But then again, the history of science is largely the history of scientists disagreeing with each other.

Jaki usually knows what he is talking about. And I have no doubt that some people need to be told to shut up, though I know nothing of the incident you allude to.

I don’t completely remember the details since it was 8 years ago at the American Chesterton Society’s annual conference, but what he was given a hard time about had something to do with the empirical foundation of evolutionary theory, which he had minimized.

The evolution science is valid, but the ideology grafted onto the science is not valid.

True.

I read Dawkins, Gould, Darwin, Ernst Mayr, Michael Ruse, Ayala, Dobzhansky and many more.

I enjoyed Ruse’s book on evolution. Again, however, I’m less interested in biology than you are. It’s less mathematical.

 

[Cecilianus]

I suppose philosophers would discuss with you, if you appeared open to discussion. But when you can say “Yes” to having summarily dismissed philosophy, what is there to discuss?

Hello! Reality check! Earth to Cecilianus. Where did I say that all of physics has no connection with reality?

I will discontinue replying to this post until you answer the above question.

Here is the train of conversation:

Me: “Like all physicists, I study reality. The distinction between “physics” and “philosophy” is arbitrary and historical.”
You: “Only as far as your unsubstantiated opinion is concerned. And that has no merit.”

I understood your statement as a response to my first sentence.

 

[itinerant1]

Here is the train of conversation:

Me: “Like all physicists, I study reality. The distinction between “physics” and “philosophy” is arbitrary and historical.”
You: “Only as far as your unsubstantiated opinion is concerned. And that has no merit.”

I understood your statement as a response to my first sentence.

The first sentence is fine, though as we will see in one of my next posts, it must be qualified, because that view, unfortunately, is not shared by all physicists.

However, your second sentence is unsupported and unsupportable. But you are welcome to attempt a justification of your opinion. Opinion that remains without supporting evidence or argument, especially when challenged, is without merit.

You: “The distinction between “physics” and “philosophy” is arbitrary and historical.”
Me: