Infinite regress

[Blue_Horizon]

Yes, but there are a lot of changes taking place to give you the illusion that the speed is constant. When the car climbs a hill, there is a lag in speed that causes a reaction on the engine, and vacuum that causes other changes is mechanisms. As you said “close enough” but no constant speed.

If change can be had without an external agent (mover), then change must come from the internal, how would that be possible without being part of the nature of the thing is it not intrinsic? And if intrinsic, would not that thing always be moving And if it is always moving, how can it be stopped from moving? Friction? Friction would be an outside resistive force and only act when acted upon ,external,and not intrinsic The moving object does not depend on an outside force to move itself,to act, or to stop it, it has the power to move itself because motion is part of its nature, it couldn’t help but move If it can slow down, then it has the potential to slow down, meaning that it does not move itself but is moved by another The truth of the matter is that the universe is always experiencing changes, its in its nature, and that motion is not intrinsic to it, but external, acted upon. Name one thing in this universe that can move itself, and not be stopped It would have to be annihilated to stop it

I think your difficulty with my empirical observations is epistemological.

You seem so wedded to a flawed Aristotelian principle … that, to defend it, you must deny what is empirically true to 99% of people who don’t have an axe to grind. Namely, objects can be made to move at constant velocity AND an unaided moving object that encounters no friction will neither slow down nor speed up. It doesn’t matter if those experiments have only attained 99.999 percent frictionless perfection to date. The “error” (the object does stop after 500 years) is not an error, it identifies that there is still some friction which further vindicates the principle and indeed tells us how many friction atoms might be involved as well.

When you can get a non Aristotelian Scientist of standing to agree with you on this empirical point do come back.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

In a causal chain per se, the first cause must remain active in order for the causal chain to exist.

Vico i think we are looking for critical thinking rather than just repeated parroting of the ancients in a language they didn’t speak.

Are you able to reflect a little more on my question and actually address the two different cases distinguished.

eg given that we are at the end of a chain…how would we in practise know the effect we see is truly continuously activated rather than water dribbling out of a disconnected hose 50 km long?

 

[Vico]

Vico i think we are looking for critical thinking rather than just repeated parroting of the ancients in a language they didn’t speak.

Are you able to reflect a little more on my question and actually address the two different cases distinguished.

eg given that we are at the end of a chain…how would we in practise know the effect we see is truly continuously activated rather than water dribbling out of a disconnected hose 50 km long?

“We are looking” must mean pertaining to the original post that we are addressing:

So a lot of St. Thomas Aquinas’s arguments for God’s existence are based in part on the principle that there can’t be an infinite backward line of causes.

Post #131 addressed both cases. For per se, I repeat my own phrase rather than quote Aristotle or Aquinas.

In practice, it may or may not be possible to observe experimentally if a series is per se. Aquinas’s argument is an a posteriori argument based on empirical observation, so the conclusion is not claimed to be certain.

Aquinas holds that later members of causal series serve as causes only inasmuch as they have been caused by, and are effects of, the earlier members of the series.

Because intermediate causes possess only derived powers from all the preceding causes so they need a first and non-derivative cause as the source of their causal powers.

None of this pertains to the modern view of causality.

 

[ynotzap]

I think your difficulty with my empirical observations is epistemological.

You seem so wedded to a flawed Aristotelian principle … that, to defend it, you must deny what is empirically true to 99% of people who don’t have an axe to grind. Namely, objects can be made to move at constant velocity AND an unaided moving object that encounters no friction will neither slow down nor speed up. It doesn’t matter if those experiments have only attained 99.999 percent frictionless perfection to date. The “error” (the object does stop after 500 years) is not an error, it identifies that there is still some friction which further vindicates the principle and indeed tells us how many friction atoms might be involved as well.

When you can get a non Aristotelian Scientist of standing to agree with you on this empirical point do come back.

IMy former post has mysteriously disappeared: You said it your self, "It takes one non-conforming case to prove a theory /principle wrong. I find several things wrong with your presentation. You have not offered anything to counter the principle “motion is the actualization of potency” I believe it is you who has a “bone to pick”. Near enough is not good enough for the truth. We are dealing in metaphysics with the inclusion of empirical science, not to its exclusion. But we are not dealing with empirical science to the exclusion of metaphysics and epistemology. You haven’t offered any metaphysical proof to counter the metaphysical principle involved. When you get a non-empirical metaphysician of standing to agree with you on the metaphysical point of motion, you are always welcomed, even if you don’t agree.

 

[Richca]

I wholeheartedly agree. As I had alluded to in an earlier post, there’s a difference between the physicist’s understanding of "cause

", and the metaphysicist’s understanding of “cause”. A difference which is perfectly reasonable, and one which the analogy of the potter and the vase illustrates quite well. But a problem arises when one tries to reconcile these two disparate definitions of “cause”, with Aquinas’ First and Second Ways, and the idea of “per se” and “per accidens” causal series. The potter and the vase is a perfect example of a “per se” causal series, and seems to be what Aquinas is referring to in the Second Way. It’s reasonable to believe however that Aquinas’ First Way isn’t referring to the same type of “per se” causal series, both because it would be redundant, and because the First Way never uses the word “cause” at all. The First Way seems quite clear in describing a temporal causal series involving the process of changing potency to act. A process that is of necessity sequential in nature, whether it’s describing falling dominoes, or a stick moving a rock. And according to Trent Horn a sequential series is a “per accidens” series, and according to Aquinas, a “per accidens” series can be infinite.

In the first and second arguments for the existence of God in the Summa Theologica of St Thomas, St Thomas is arguing from what is observed in the world to arrive at a first unmoved mover and a first cause. What is observed in the world is temporal and in time, God alone is eternal. Both the first and second arguments involve temporality until we arrive at the first unmoved mover and the first cause.

Yes, St Thomas doesn’t mention cause in the first argument, but the movers in the first argument are efficient causes. In the first argument, St Thomas focuses on beings that undergo change or movement. In the second argument, cause and effect may be wider in scope than the first argument, but it would include beings that cause change. The second argument focuses on beings that are active and cause things. The first argument concerns beings that are passive. Action and passion are the two elements of change or motion.

The per se and the per accidens series are the only two kinds of series that are talked about in scholastic philosophy that I’m aware of ( at least the one’s most talked about I think). Being that St Thomas says in the first argument that one can’t regress to infinity, he can’t be talking about a per accidens series. He doesn’t mention anything here about a per se or per accidens series but makes his argument from the definition of motion. Being that he says that we can’t regress to infinity in the first argument as well as the example he gives of the staff moved by the hand, we can infer he is not talking about a per accidens series.

A per accidens series involves the same species of beings or movement such as falling dominoes. A hand and staff or stick are of two different natures. Sticks do not move by themselves and so we we must go outside the order of sticks to account for their movement. This is what is essential to a per se series. We need to rise above or step outside a particular species or order of things to account for the movement or cause. And so some say the per se series is vertical and the per accidens series is horizontal.

The use of the word ‘sequential’ that Trent Horn gives is kind of ambiguous for differing per se and per accidens series. In both series, you have an order of things and so it appears to me that the word sequential can be used in either series. However, if one uses this word it does not mean the same thing in either series. If sequential is taken to mean a per accidens series, than this involves the same order of things such as dominoes, counting numbers 1, 2, 3, etc, the generation of man, etc.

So how does one reconcile this seeming paradox, that in his First Way Aquinas describes a sequential series…a series which according to Trent Horn can be infinite, and yet Aquinas’ whole argument rests upon the fact that such a series can’t be infinite. The two positions seem contradictory.

 

[lmelahn]

Can you define simultaneous in this context?

Keeping in mind that time is the very measure of change, “simultaneity” would best be defined precisely in terms of interactions that are ongoing.

Two events are “simultaneous,” you could say, if and only if they are a pair of mutual interactions. (We can’t define simultaneity in terms of time, because time itself is relative to a lot of factors, like velocity, gravity, etc.)

I believe you will find that the pairings are not of whole agents/patients but only of the partial contact areas. Essentially a force wave is being propagated across the widths of each object and the macro effect may not be active or discoverable until well after the admittedly simultaneous micro level cause/effect interface. So there is a partial disconnect between what happens at the micro level areas and what happens at the macro level re motion.

Sure. It is a phenomenon not unlike an ocean wave or a sound wave. But at the point of contact, there is mutual interaction, hence simultaneity. (Each portion of the wave front is exerting a force on the next, and receives an equal and opposite force.)

By the time the macro measurable effect is detected the causal agent may no longer be acting, may be fleeing or may not even be in contact with the effected object at micro level.

Exactly. In which case, such an agent is no longer, strictly speaking, a causal agent. Aquinas’ term for an agent that is no longer causative is “per-accidens cause.”

So we are dealing with different understandings of what cause and effect means. Aristotle’s definition is the inferential micro level one which cannot actually be observed. Modern science and Newton deal only to what is empirically detectable. For this view cause and effect at that macro level need not involve simultaneity I am thinking.

I agree that in physical changes, simultaneity will generally be on the micro (quantum) level. But there are other, clearer examples. For instance, what holds the earth in orbit around the sun? The sun’s gravitational field. The earth makes a roughly elliptical orbit precisely because the sun distorts space-time (or, if you want to be Newtonian for a moment, because it exerts a gravitational force from a distance). If the sun were to disappear (I realize this is impossible, but let’s just make the thought experiment), the earth would immediately begin to travel in roughly a straight line tangential to the ellipse.

Here, the sun, and its mass distortion (or gravitational force) is a per-se cause of the earth’s orbit. (The earth’s own mass is another, as are the minor contributions of the other bodies.) If that cause could be removed, the effect would cease immediately.

Also, when we start to get to beings that have greater internal unity, such as living things, then it becomes easier to identify the agent-patient relationships. For instance, when a lion gives the coup de grâce to a gazelle, we can say that it is (at that moment) the per-se cause of the gazelle’s death.

I think this explains why, even if we did accept that single pairings are simultaneously existent over a cause effect motion…this does not necessitate all agents in a series must be.

I agree. I just call the ones that are currently in action “per se”*and the ones that have finished acting “per accidens.”

So it seems impossible to me to ever identify with certainty whether a given physical series is per se or per accidens or both.
Which means the First Way has no certitude.

Here I think I disagree. As I mentioned, there are clearer examples (e.g., the sun causing the earth’s orbit). Moreover, it is not necessary to observe something directly to be sure that it exists. (An epistemological criterion that strict would make most of modern-day physics and chemistry impossible. E.g., no one has ever observed an electron directly—not in the same way that we directly observe falling dominoes—but we can infer their existence based on their effects.)

Similarly, if there are per-accidens causes now, it means that there must have been per-se causes in the past.

For instance, if I am tracking deer in the woods, say, and I come across deer tracks, when I get there, the deer is no longer the (per-se) cause of those tracks. However, the deer was the per-se cause a few hours ago, when it tread on the soft ground.

So, from per-accidens causes, we can infer that per-se causes have existed in the past.*

 

[lmelahn]

I think your difficulty with my empirical observations is epistemological.

You seem so wedded to a flawed Aristotelian principle … that, to defend it, you must deny what is empirically true to 99% of people who don’t have an axe to grind. Namely, objects can be made to move at constant velocity AND an unaided moving object that encounters no friction will neither slow down nor speed up. It doesn’t matter if those experiments have only attained 99.999 percent frictionless perfection to date. The “error” (the object does stop after 500 years) is not an error, it identifies that there is still some friction which further vindicates the principle and indeed tells us how many friction atoms might be involved as well.

When you can get a non Aristotelian Scientist of standing to agree with you on this empirical point do come back.

I think I have to agree with the physics of Blue Horizon on this one, though I don’t think it fundamentally harms Aristotle’s notion of act and potency (once we distinguish the philosophical notions from purely physical considerations).

For instance, Aristotle thought that all (sub-lunar) moving objects would eventually stop, because he believed that each (sub-lunar) object had an inherent tendency, either to the center of the earth or away from it. (The moon and all other heavenly bodies, in his system, had an intrinsic tendency to circular motion around the earth.)

Obviously, we now know that Aristotle’s cosmology has long been superseded.

But I think act and potency still work as philosophical principles.

Let’s take an example of a satellite that has broken free of the earth’s (and the sun’s) gravitational field. It has, as Blue Horizon points out, essentially constant velocity. (It is technically acted upon by the very weak gravitational fields of distant bodies, but they are probably not measurable.)

Let’s look carefully at these notions. Velocity is precisely the rate of change in position (ds/dt, in the notation usually used in mechanics, where s is the three-dimensional position and t is time). But position itself is a strictly relative measure, as Aristotle himself recognized. An object only has a “position” insofar is it is in relationship with other objects.

It follows that velocity itself is a relative measure. When we say that an object has “constant velocity” with respect to other objects (e.g., our satellite with respect to the stars in the galaxy), we simply mean that the spatial relationships between those objects are in constant (non-accelerating) flux.

Even though velocity is relative, there is still a tendency being played out. There is continually a state that is now in existence, but tending to extinction (“act”), and a new one that is coming into existence (“potency”). Right now (or “actually”), the satellite is (say) 1 light-year from the sun; it is potentially 1.5 light-years away.

My point is, Newtonian (or even Relativistic) mechanics does not refute the philosophical notions of act and potency as such; we just have to apply those notions in a way that reflects the findings of modern science.

 

[Richca]

Still not quite sure of this.

I do not believe a per se series must have all involved agents existing simultaneously…for the ongoing motion effect to exist.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

“We are looking” must mean pertaining to the original post that we are addressing:

Post #131 addressed both cases. For per se, I repeat my own phrase rather than quote Aristotle or Aquinas.

In practice, it may or may not be possible to observe experimentally if a series is per se. Aquinas’s argument is an a posteriori argument based on empirical observation, so the conclusion is not claimed to be certain.

Aquinas holds that later members of causal series serve as causes only inasmuch as they have been caused by, and are effects of, the earlier members of the series.

Because intermediate causes possess only derived powers from all the preceding causes so they need a first and non-derivative cause as the source of their causal powers.

None of this pertains to the modern view of causality.

You seem to be going in circles…nothing new above other than an unproven principle re intermediary agents.
Yet it is clear to me that intermediary agents do have the power to separate efficeient cause and effect local motions not only re time but also re simultaneity. The latter is probably present between cause effect pairs…but more by inference than observation I m thinking.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

You have not offered anything to counter the principle “motion is the actualization of potency” I believe it is you who has a “bone to pick”. Near enough is not good enough for the truth. .

A proven quantitative algorithm (F=ma) daily vindicates the qualitative laws of Newton.
Algorithms, like principles, have predictive, inferential coercion. It doesn’t matter if limit scenarios re the (name removed by moderator)ut values (eg 0.0000000 friction) cannot yet be observed in nature or artificially created.

No doubt you would have disbelieved that Sir H Davies ever isolated elemental potassium (1807) which up to that time had never naturally existed on earth - despite the fact the fact of its elemental existence was inferentialy demanded by the otherwise well vindicated laws of Chemistry beforehand.

Nobody here understands why you believe that a planet that every year misses its starting point by 1 metre after travelling 1000,000,000 km is some sort of positive error that proves Newton wrong.

This is not an error in the law (which being not only qualitative but also quantitative defines an algorithm which gives correct answers over a range of mass, speed, duration and friction (name removed by moderator)ut scenarios).

All that 1 metre shortfall demonstrates is that the quantitative algorithm, based on the qualitative principle, correctly identifies the amount of space friction in the system causing the drop in speed.

As different friction scenarios can be simulated, always consistent with the algorithm, and a friction involved object’s travel distances can be accurately predicted before stopping…this continually proves the algorithm is as valid as any empirically based principle can be demonstrated to be valid (an infinite range of experiments being impossible).

If the algorithm is valid for all known cases to date then its inferred/extrapolated conclusions re pure (name removed by moderator)ut conditions, that we are not yet able to simulate and empirically verify, is not a reasonable objection. The pattern of valid experiments as we get closer and closer to the pure case alone is rationally coercive in vindicating the hypothesised principle…

Impossibility of validation of a pure case scenario of true zero friction (name removed by moderator)ut is not the same as finding a counter experiment in which the algorithm clearly fails.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

I think I have to agree with the physics of Blue Horizon on this one, though I don’t think it fundamentally harms Aristotle’s notion of act and potency (once we distinguish the philosophical notions from purely physical considerations).

I would really like to agree with this but I feel it is logically impossible.

If we agree that a change in position over time (of which constant velocity is an example) is a valid example of “motion” then we must invoke potency and act.

And if we invoke potency and act we must invoke an external mover or name the object an unmoved mover.

Aristotle (and Aquinas) were bound to consider the heavenly bodies to possibly have a “soul” (a spiritual cause of material motion), or be moved by an angel or another external invisible heavenly body (the clear crystalline sphere)

They could not accept that a material body in motion could not continually do so without being moved by another…as is the case with constant velocity.

Of course the heavenly bodies are being moved by interactions with the sun but that is only required because planets at constant speed are in fact considered to be accelerating due to their non linear paths. Even Newton accepts that.

But a meteor… once accelerated up to speed requires no further external mover despite the fact Aristotle would say it is changing (position).

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Well, I’ve never seen a dead person move a stick with their hand. If the ongoing motion effect is the continual motion of the stick and the hand, this is going to entail the simultaneous existence of the hand and prior body and soul agents (a living person actually) involved in the movement of the hand and the motion of the stick. If the hand stops, the stick stops.

The difficulty is you are mistaken.

Dead persons with still hands can hold moving sticks due to the inherent property of matters inertia. In a material universe delayed cause-effect motion is always the observed case, even if very short.

When you impose a force on another object it (ie the object as a whole) does not begin to move instantaneously but in fact resists movement and causes edge deformation only. Hence the stick actually bends from hand to tip because the end stays stationary for the smallest of instants.

And the reverse happens at the terminatiion of the cause.
When the hand stops the stick as a whole does not stop immediately.
Matter always opposes cessation of motion.

If there was no air resistance and the rotational speed was constant the tip would still be lagging behind and there would still be a slight bend in the stick. If the hand stopped instantly the stick would still keep moving for an instant, with the tip taking the longest to halt.

So if we can only see the final effect (the tip which effectively represents the final effect seen in a long chain of cause-effect relationships) then in fact the person with the hand could be dead yet we see continuing change all the same due to system delays.

However you are of course correct that continuously moving sticks require continuously moving hands.

The problem for a post medieval world is this…how long does the tip of the stick have to keep moving before we rightly conclude the person is still alive rather than dead?

 

[Blue_Horizon]

If the causal activity of the top of the series ceases, the effect will cease sooner or later.

Agreed except in the case of a body in local motion … where accelerated motion will stop but it will remain in constant velocity motion if no other outside causes are acting on it (like friction).

In the case of a man/woman moving a stick with their hand, if he/she stops moving their hand, the effect or movement of the stick ceases either instantly (this is what appears to the naked eye) or if not instantly, very rapidly such as in the next instant or so. If God’s action ceases who is the first unmoved mover and first efficient cause, all second causes and movements will cease instantly.

I believe not if any of the above chain involves materiality.

In a temporal series that regresses to infinity or eternity, I’m not sure we can speak of a final effect when in such a series there is no first.

Well, if it wasn’t for the First Way I would agree with you.
Aquinas (and Aristotle?) do seem to say exactly this even with per accidens series.
I am open tpo them being mistaken…or the “effect” of such a series means something different today than it did then.

Yes, the time lag in an infinite series would be very long, infinitely long which raises the question if one considered some final effect in such a series (which again raises the question whether a final effect can even be considered in such a series) whether this final effect would ever be reached.

But if we also have infinite time then the consideration is countered?

Then again this (ie Newtonian Physics) may be an aposteriori argument that proves the world cannot be eternal contrary to Aristotle/Aquinas.
I could go along with that…

The ripple in the series is a cause which at least in some cases we might call the proximate or immediate cause of the effect. If the ripple in the series ceases to exist, than the effect will cease immediately. An effect may depend or at least the continued existence of the effect on not just an initiating ripple but a continual influx of ripples which ripples would depend on the continual existence and causal activity of their cause.

Yes I agree that a continuously changing material effect (excluding constant velocity) requires the simultaneous existence of a continuously acting first cause.
The epistemological problem is that us suckers at the bottom might not live long enough, in some examples, to know if that continuously observed effect is actually longer than the time needed for water to dribble out of a possibly very long pipeline.
So simultaneity cannot always be discovered with certitude and the principle doesn’t really go anywhere practical even if true.

The first proof proves the existence of a first unmoved mover. You do not have a first in an infinite regression. The first unmoved mover who is God is not a part of the series of moved movers in the world but outside it, but not remote, and the cause of it. I’m not really sure what your getting at here.

I agree, but if thats the case why does Aquinas start out with what is clearly an aposteriori per accidens series,

Why not just argue from the last material effect directly to an unmoved spiritual principle (God)? How does the possibly infinite per accidens series add anything to the argument?

 

[lmelahn]

I would really like to agree with this but I feel it is logically impossible.

If we agree that a change in position over time (of which constant velocity is an example) is a valid example of “motion” then we must invoke potency and act.

And if we invoke potency and act we must invoke an external mover or name the object an unmoved mover.

Didn’t quite follow here. Why do potency and act invoke an external mover?

All that Aquinas says is that a being that is actual comes to be actual through an agent distinct from itself. (That is just a technical way of saying, things don’t magically arrive at the way they are—something has to make them that way.)

For example, suppose I gather the driest fuel to make a campfire. Right now, that fuel is a potential campfire only. The fuel is powerless to ignite itself. Generally, I have to ignite it with matches or something. I have to apply something “actual” (the lit match or other source of heat) to render the potential campfire (the unlit fuel) into an actual one. (This works even when there is spontaneous combustion—which is extremely unlikely with wood—because there it is the oxygen in the air that initiates the reaction.)

The concepts of act and potency just express in technical language what we all observe and experience every day.

In any case, the “agent distinct from itself” can be a part that affects a different part of the same object; it need not be external. That is the case with objects moving at constant velocity. In that case, you have a body with a particular quality—a momentum—that gives it the tendency to change its position at a certain rate and in a certain direction. (Position is strictly relative, so it is the same to say that the object is moving toward a frame of reference, as to say that the frame of reference is moving toward it.)

But in any event, this intrinsic quality of the body, which is actual, is causing the body to change position (to alter its spatial relations with respect to other bodies). So, you have a active principle (the momentum) that draws something from potency (the body’s future position) to act (the body’s position once the change has taken place). No contradiction there, and no need for an extrinsic mover.

Aristotle (and Aquinas) were bound to consider the heavenly bodies to possibly have a “soul” (a spiritual cause of material motion), or be moved by an angel or another external invisible heavenly body (the clear crystalline sphere)

Just FYI, Aquinas did not think the heavenly bodies had souls. That is more of a Neoplatonic idea. He did think they were moved by angelic beings.

They could not accept that a material body in motion could not continually do so without being moved by another…as is the case with constant velocity.

Not exactly. They both thought that bodies had an intrinsic tendency either to the center of the earth or away from it. (Basically, it depended on how much of each element was included: air and fire, according to them, tend away from the center, and water and earth to the center.)

Moreover, they thought that the earth was the center of everything. (They had no idea, of course, that the sun was the center of the solar system, and that other stars could be the center of other stellar systems.) The heavenly bodies, they thought, had an intrinsic tendency to circular motion.

For this reason, they never considered the possibility of constant velocity. But there is nothing in their philosophy that contradicts the idea of constant velocity.

Of course the heavenly bodies are being moved by interactions with the sun but that is only required because planets at constant speed are in fact considered to be accelerating due to their non linear paths. Even Newton accepts that.

But a meteor… once accelerated up to speed requires no further external mover despite the fact Aristotle would say it is changing (position).

I agree that a meteor does not need an external mover (in the sense that some kind of angelic being needs to guide its path), and I see no reason why Aristotle or Aquinas would disagree, supposing they could have been made to understand the findings of modern science.

 

[ynotzap]

A proven quantitative algorithm (F=ma) daily vindicates the qualitative laws of Newton.
Algorithms, like principles, have predictive, inferential coercion. It doesn’t matter if limit scenarios re the (name removed by moderator)ut values (eg 0.0000000 friction) cannot yet be observed in nature or artificially created.

No doubt you would have disbelieved that Sir H Davies ever isolated elemental potassium (1807) which up to that time had never naturally existed on earth - despite the fact the fact of its elemental existence was inferentialy demanded by the otherwise well vindicated laws of Chemistry beforehand.

Nobody here understands why you believe that a planet that every year misses its starting point by 1 metre after travelling 1000,000,000 km is some sort of positive error that proves Newton wrong.

This is not an error in the law (which being not only qualitative but also quantitative defines an algorithm which gives correct answers over a range of mass, speed, duration and friction (name removed by moderator)ut scenarios).

All that 1 metre shortfall demonstrates is that the quantitative algorithm, based on the qualitative principle, correctly identifies the amount of space friction in the system causing the drop in speed.

As different friction scenarios can be simulated, always consistent with the algorithm, and a friction involved object’s travel distances can be accurately predicted before stopping…this continually proves the algorithm is as valid as any empirically based principle can be demonstrated to be valid (an infinite range of experiments being impossible).

If the algorithm is valid for all known cases to date then its inferred/extrapolated conclusions re pure (name removed by moderator)ut conditions, that we are not yet able to simulate and empirically verify, is not a reasonable objection. The pattern of valid experiments as we get closer and closer to the pure case alone is rationally coercive in vindicating the hypothesised principle…

Impossibility of validation of a pure case scenario of true zero friction (name removed by moderator)ut is not the same as finding a counter experiment in which the algorithm clearly fails.

You have never critiqued my post #139 directly and showed me where I erred and proved what I stated illogical, or countered my concepts. I do not deny what is empirically correct if I can understand that it is true, especially in principle. What would you say to the statement that "God is the source of all motion, any passage from potentiality to actuality, any reception of a perfection? Also (the real kicker) that God sustains motion (change), and that change is intrinsic to creation, everything is subject to change, it is part of the nature of things. Can you counter directly, metaphysically these concepts?

What appears to be the problem is that you are in the second degree of abstraction, abstractions proper to mathematics, arithmetic, and Euclidean geometry in which the mind disregards both identified and sensible matter, but retains intelligible matter while attaining to the concept of abstract quantity eg. abstractions pertaining to or from concepts of circle, plane, angles etc.

the third degree of abstraction: more properly called a separation or judgement peculiar to metaphysics in which the mind disregards all matter and grasps its object without any necessary relation to matter, eg. man’s knowledge of being, existence, substance, unity etc.

Also there is total abstraction: the intellectual representation of the universal or absolute nature taken from particulars in which the nature exists, the abstraction of the whole nature or essence from all accidental elements in the concrete object.

Its like I stated from time to time Empirical science remains in the physical, and the quantitative state of measurement, it uses the principles of math, which deals with the ideal, perfection never achievable, but not the real objective world whose nature in part is made up of “change” And this change affects the whole universe motion is change. Scientists have imposed on matter mathematical measurement, an ideal reality, because of its principles and designed a clock to give some practical way of measuring change in nature, but even the clock is suffering change because in its use, it is wearing out. The clock is close (atomic clock) but does not represent the ideal perfection found in the mathematical design of the clock, it is close, for all practical purposes, but it will never be perfect but subject to constant adjustments (change) We must make these distinction if we want to get at the truth, and I don’t see that being done. Empirical science, and physics need to transcend to the metaphysical plane, and not remain “earth bound”

 

[Vico]

You seem to be going in circles…nothing new above other than an unproven principle re intermediary agents.
Yet it is clear to me that intermediary agents do have the power to separate efficeient cause and effect local motions not only re time but also re simultaneity. The latter is probably present between cause effect pairs…but more by inference than observation I m thinking.

If it not per se if the first cause is not needed to be active in order for the causal chain to continue.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Didn’t quite follow here. Why do potency and act invoke an external mover?

Isnt it basic hylomorphism?
All change has four causes, one of them being an efficient cause.
If an object moves from one position to another then an accidental potential is being actualised. A thing changing from potency to act can only change so by another already in act.

Yet this is not actually true for a meteor - no agent is responsible for this continual change in position it seems to me.

In any case, the “agent distinct from itself” can be a part that affects a different part of the same object; it need not be external.

Granted…but what part of a meteor causes it to keep moving forever.

That is the case with objects moving at constant velocity. In that case, you have a body with a particular quality—a momentum—that gives it the tendency to change its position at a certain rate and in a certain direction.

I do not believe this is not Aristotelian philosophy sorry.
Change in the accident called “position” yes.
But no change in the accident of “quality” (specifically momentum)… I don’t think so.
Aristotle had no such “quality”, let alone a concept thereof.
Such a concept would be impossible for him because it would necessitate he agree with you that rectilinear movement does not involve change…which for him it clearly does. Its a change in the accident called “position”.

So I don’t believe this proposition can be used to resolve Aristotle’s inconsistencies with the true nature of the material world discovered since Newton/Hume.

Also, does Aristotle ever say that an accident of a substance (your alleged quality of momentum) can properly be called a “part” in this context.
I think Aquinas would say such a “part” has to be a primary part of the substance - and an accident doesnt look to qualify.

In fact motion is a change in an accident not an accident itself!

But in any event, this intrinsic quality of the body, which is actual, is causing the body to change position (to alter its spatial relations with respect to other bodies). So, you have a active principle (the momentum) that draws something from potency (the body’s future position) to act (the body’s position once the change has taken place). No contradiction there, and no need for an extrinsic mover.

I am not familiar with Aristotle speaking of an “accident” as an active agent of change in the same being. Can you provide a quote and reference it?

Just FYI, Aquinas did not think the heavenly bodies had souls…

From memory he certainly did accept the possibility in SCG. He could not make up his mind between various options and throughout his whole Corpus he regularly switched from one preference to another.

Not exactly. They both thought that bodies had an intrinsic tendency either to the center of the earth or away from it. (Basically, it depended on how much of each element was included: air and fire, according to them, tend away from the center, and water and earth to the center.)

Moreover, they thought that the earth was the center of everything. (They had no idea, of course, that the sun was the center of the solar system, and that other stars could be the center of other stellar systems.) The heavenly bodies, they thought, had an intrinsic tendency to circular motion.

For this reason, they never considered the possibility of constant velocity. But there is nothing in their philosophy that contradicts the idea of constant velocity.

Not sure whence my inexactitude. I am clearly speaking of the element earth. For Aristotle it always moves downward until impeded. Therefore unending unaided motion by definition is not possible because such distances are finite.
Nor have I seen anyone clearly explain his “generating cause” which always ends up sounding like a philosophic singularity just to explain the unexplainable - gravity and inertia of which the ancients had no real grasp.

I see no reason why Aristotle or Aquinas would disagree, supposing they could have been made to understand the findings of modern science.

An oxymoron methinks. If they could be made to understand the findings of modern science some of their Natural Philosophy would have to be jettisoned.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

If it not per se if the first cause is not needed to be active in order for the causal chain to continue.

Yes, irresistable forces cannot be overcome - thats true too.
The question is…how does one recognise whether the real world force I am dealing with is resistable or irresistable .

That’s a different sort of truth isnt it.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

You have never critiqued my post #139 directly and showed me where I erred and proved what I stated illogica

If you go back to the original post you commented on you will find I presented two competing hypotheses: Aristotle and Newton.

In my discussion with you I am mainly intending to defend the logicality of the Newtonian one against one of your criticisms - which I find erroneous.

I am not so concerned (with you at least) to critique your Aristotelian position and I do not believe I said your Aristotelian account was illogical?

Your main proposition was:
“If change can be had without an external agent (mover), then change must come from the internal”

I am further observing that if Newton is correct then:
(a) some changes may not need “another” (whether external or internal) OR
(b) in the Aristotelian system “change” of position does not seem to be the same as other changes he philosophises about.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

What appears to be the problem is that you are in the second degree of abstraction, abstractions proper to mathematics, arithmetic, and Euclidean geometry in which the mind disregards both identified and sensible matter, but retains intelligible matter while attaining to the concept of abstract quantity eg. abstractions pertaining to or from concepts of circle, plane, angles etc.

the third degree of abstraction: more properly called a separation or judgement peculiar to metaphysics in which the mind disregards all matter and grasps its object without any necessary relation to matter, eg. man’s knowledge of being, existence, substance, unity etc.

Also there is total abstraction: the intellectual representation of the universal or absolute nature taken from particulars in which the nature exists, the abstraction of the whole nature or essence from all accidental elements in the concrete object.

Of course.
The problem is that if we are to avoid getting blinded by tautological, non-falsifiable apriori propositions (the constant nemesis of metaphysicians) then we must take the empirical world seriously including falsifiability and induction.

The examples of both Aquinas and Aristotle to explain alleged metaphysic principles simply fall over when closely scrutinised or at the very least are ambiguous and so non-coercive. For example noone has yet provided a clear real world material example of a chain of per se movement causality or even a clear definition of how we would recognise one yet.

Nor is it at all clear that simultaneity of all agents in such a series is even certain if we admit that instantaneous “first cause to last effect” never happens.