that’s only in the mind. If we were standing at the edge of the universe and pointed out towards “nothing”, would space be out there? The human mind can’t grasp that. Kant has some neat points with regard to the mind and space.Your common sense might be wrong here, because you can have infinite sequences extending both to the left and to the right.
You are assuming that the universe has an edge and that you can stand there.that’s only in the mind. If we were standing at the edge of the universe and pointed out towards “nothing”, would space be out there? The human mind can’t grasp that. Kant has some neat points with regard to the mind and space.
If there is infinite space, then why does Aquinas argue that there can’t be an infinite magnitude to fill it up? newadvent.org/summa/1007.htm#article3You are assuming that the universe has an edge and that you can stand there.
Limbo, or the hell of the unbaptised was supposed to be a place of natural (not supernatural) happiness, but not fire, as I understood it to be.Even if Thomas Aquinas was in a different state of mind when writing the Summa, in the Contra Gentiles he still says with seeming approval that Aristotle thought motion had to be eternal. And then in the Summa he tries to pooh pooh this away with saying Aristotle was merely stating what he thought was probable. In reading the Summa lately, I have a small notebook of examples of Aquinas trying to explain things away. Very interesting read though. I don’t know whey he has been held up as the theologian of the Church however. Even Augustine has been held up as THE Church Father. Huh? He thought innocent babies went to hell where they were tortured with fire for all eternity but not with sufficient intensity for them to want their non-existence? HUH?
Space may be coarse grained.**Is it in space still? How can there be space that is not divisible? **
Not true. There is a 1-1 onto correspondence between the points in the finite interval 0,pi/2) and 0, infinity). They have the same degree of infinity as anyone can see from the tangent function.Well, a finite line is not the same infinity as a point with an infinite line linked to it. ]
By “infinite movers” I take it you mean movers composed of an infinite number of parts. That would be the same as claiming the universe comprised of an infinite number of causes could be an “infinite mover.” How does that begin to explain its own existence except to offload the explanation to a logical “ad infinitum,” which explains precisely nothing?Parts moving parts? I’ve read that. Why isn’t that sufficient enough an explanation of the infinite movers? Its like a flame on a candle: one flame, many flames…?
The point is that with organic beings, the distinction between parts and whole is somewhat arbitrary from the point of view of physics. It is like saying each “house” in the neighborhood is a subsistent “whole” so that all the things that come and go out or happen within it are “self” caused so that if, for example, one of the inhabitants happens to accidentally burn the place down, you would claim the home being engulfed in flames was “self-caused.”But just as every whole depends on the motion of its parts to move, we can also consider the way in which some parts cause the whole to move. Here again there is a division between the organic and the inorganic: in the first the parts move the whole in the sense that a system carries out various processes for the whole living being: the circulatory system controls all the circulation for the animal; the nervous system carries out all of its information processing; the respiratory system governs its oxygenation, etc. To the extent that this system-part moves the whole, the whole is called “self-moving”. Even among the non-living, it’s still true that the parts of the thing are necessary to move the whole, and, since the parts of some whole count as its own, even the inanimate can be considered as a source of its own motion.
We look for a cause for the existence of the universe, but would that prove that there is such a cause. So far, we find in our small part of the universe that things have causes. But would that necessarily imply that the universe as a whole must have a cause?How does that begin to explain its own existence except to offload the explanation to a logical “ad infinitum,” which explains precisely nothing?