No Prime Mover? -- Kaku

[JDaniel]

This is great. More excellent questions.

JDaniel;5400198:

Then how would one classify the difference between matter

and form, both of which end up in the effect, and privation, which does not end up in the effect?

• Is the cause the same as the effect? No, because then there is no causation since the effect already exists.
• Is the cause different from the effect? No, because then there is no connection between cause and effect, and there must be a connection because neither can exist without the other.

Matter/form cannot be the same as the effect because then there is no need to cause an already existing effect. Privation cannot be different from the effect because then it has no impact on any causative action.

What you are saying is still the result of the confusion brought about by making “simple” causation the same as ontological (and physical coming-to-be) causation. According to Aristotle and Aquinas, there are three basic parts of any kind of change: subject (primary or secondary matter), form and privation. The matter, or subject, is that which persists through the change in the same way that the clay persists through the molding of a statue.

As a lump of clay, the clay is not in possession of the form it will ultimately possess as the finished statue. In this situation, the lump of clay is said to be in privation (of the form). Once the clay is molded and the statue emerges as the effect, the effect (or result of the action) is the combination of the form and the matter. At the termination of the change (motion), the privation is gone. The privation no longer exists, but, the matter and form are still present.

On a conventional level you are correct. However, there cannot be parental gametes until there is a child. The gametes require the prior existence of the child in order to be properly described as “parental”. I agree that if you take away the parental gametes then there can be no child, but also if you take away the child then there can be no parental gametes. Not all gametes result in a child.

It would seem that you are correct, because, definitionally it seems strange to call something by a particularly definitive name before it has earned that name. But, in the real action of motion, change and becoming, the effect is the termination of the motion, or action. So, the real efficient cause (and the real material cause, by the way) are in fact prior to the effect, which, when the effect becomes, further refines the definition given to efficient and material causes. Furthermore, in one way, one could call them “parental” insofar as they are that which has the potentiality of becoming “parental.” In fact, it would be proper to do so as these gametes have no other purpose while alive.

Why is life different? The removal of essential parts can destroy life - heart, brain etc. Buddhism does not recognise a soul, which is part of the general tendancy of Buddhism to avoid reification. I cannot live without a heart, but I can live without an arm. Is my life then present in my heart but not in my arm?

The point that I was making by using the analogy of the TV set is that each of its parts is in fact a per se efficient cause. In efficient causality, there is no limitation to just one cause. Obviously, there are at least two (and perhaps many more) efficient causes in the coming to be of a child. So, in the TV set, in order for it to be a TV set, all efficient causes must be in simultaneous action; unlike a man whose parts - at least the majority of them - are not efficient causes of his being, parts can be removed and the man lives. In fact, a defective heart can be replaced by another, better heart, or aided by something that supplies an electric pulse to stimulate the muscles of the heart to contract and expand, thus fulfilling its purpose.

With regard to the TV set, each and every part of a TV set is critical to the TV set being a TV set being. Remove any part and there is no being - just a box of parts that have no purpose except to get in our way. Now, as in life where we can replace a defective heart, also in art, we can replace a defective part. The difference is, the TV part is an efficient cause because without exactly that part, or its exact duplicate, there is no being. A heart, on the other hand, can be replaced by an electrical replica of a heart, and life goes on.

continued . . .

 

[JDaniel]

part 2 from last “continued . . .”

On a practical level we do not need to know about initial causes, we merely need to know about present causes and what the results of our present actions are likely to be.

But, at what place would you propose to stop looking at “initial causes?” Remember, in the case I am speaking of, “initial cause” means initial in terms of place, not time. So, one must look at all of the parts of a TV set at the same locus as the prime-mover part. Everything that happens happens simultaneously. All of the TV sets efficient causes must be acting at the same time. There is no jump-start; there is no lag. Time is not relevant in the same way time is not relevant to the Now.

On a philosophical level, Buddhism is agnostic on the origin of the universe and would have no problem with a beginningless universe. Beginningless cyclic universes are not uncommon in Indian philosophy.

That is a problem, as I see it, because everything that is physical has a beginning and an end. It is illogical to posit one, single case of a “beginningless physical thing” when everything else we experience, in the physical realm, has a beginning and an end. I understand that terms like “beginning” and “end” are somewhat ambiguous, but, I mean them as “generation” and “corruption”, in the current explanation.

As I mentioned earlier, coming to be is the movement from privation in matter, and the exiting of the privation, to form in matter. And, corruption is the exit of the form from matter. How can a physical thing not participate in these primary principles of being regardless of its size?

Regarding cyclic universes: how can a physical thing come to be without an efficient - and thus, extrinsic - cause? By postulating an infinite regress, where there is neither efficient cause nor privation in matter, there can be no action whatsoever. There is no agent, no thing that makes action happen, and there is no deficiency in matter, nothing that the matter does not already possess. So, motion is impossible.

Time is dependent on change and change is dependent on time. Neither makes sense without the other. It is another of those mutually dependent pairs.

I don’t think so. While time is the measure of motion, in the sense of a continuum so long as there is motion, motion is not dependent upon time. At any termination of a time-slice, no matter how small, abutting the principle of the ensuing time-slice, motion is still going on, no matter how imperceptibly to us. So, motion moves through the Now, as it must else at any Now, motion would cease. But, the Now is the terminus of the a priori slice of time and the principle of the a posteriori time-slice. It is not part of the continuum as is even the smallest time-slice one could conceive of. Continuous motion cannot have termini, but, the continuum of time can.

All I am saying is that you are not a father until your son exists. He is not a son unless you (or the milkman ) is a father.

See above. If the son pre-exists the father, we have a problem. In motion of this sort, the son cannot pre-exist the father. The father must pre-exist the son, although, on some level there will be concurrence. The efficient cause must be prior to the effect no matter what it is called.

We can all see what is happening on the surface, but on a deeper philosophical analysis there are problems with the simple view. That is not a problem with reality, but a problem with the view we take of it.

I don’t think that this is a “simple view” by any means. I think that most of us are so bound up with positivism - even though we seem to be killing it off slowly - that we simply find it hard to understand the reality of motion and causation because of positivistic presuppositions.

Men do indeed abstract, and rightly so. However there is a distinct tendancy to reify those abstractions which is to take an incorrect step.

You are correct here. There have been philosophical schools of thought where men have made the abstraction real, and, as you point out, that is wrong.

We can say “Jane is beautiful” or “Jack is handsome”; what we should avoid is to then reify that concept into an unattached “Beauty” (capitalised) which floats around unattached to other objects and is philosophised about.

But, I’m not so sure you are correct here. As St. Thomas said, we can reify to the species man from this flesh and these bones, but, not from flesh and bones. Our minds go from individual sensible matter, in the reification process, to common sensible matter, but not vice versa. So, while we can go from “Jane is beautiful” or “Jack is beautiful” to “Beauty”, we cannot go from “Beauty” to “Jane is beautiful” or “Jack is beautiful.”

Humans seem to want to look for hidden depths beneath (or above) reality; that is a mistake.

When I used to teach English Literature I used to hear people say, “You have to read between the lines.” I tried, on several occasions, but all that I could see was paper.

Enlightenment seems to be a realisation that what you see is what you get - nirvana is samsara and samsara is nirvana. Ordinary life is enlightenment; looking for enlightenment elsewhere is a mistake.

Exactly. And, that’s why I think Aristotle, Aquinas and Suarez have it quite right. They neither look above, below, or between the lines, but only at reality.

jd

 

[MindOverMatter]

God & causality

God is, by definition of its being, perfect act, pure actuality, which is synonymous to pure existence; because pure existence is by definition the eternal expression of that which is being, and is so by its very nature of being existence. Pure act and pure being are one and the same, and are inseparable. For God to be, is to express being. God is perfect expression, because God does not receive its being, act, or nature, potentially. Existence, by its nature, cannot receive anything; it can only give. God simply is. God is the timeless giver of being.

***The Hierarchy Of Being ***

Anything that comes to exist is by definition receiving existence and also it’s fundamental nature, and has a nature only because it exists. Existence, that which is realty, is the cause, for a thing cannot act in this way or that if it does not participate in reality. Thus created things cannot have either nature or existence without their being such a thing as a reality in which things come to be and have natures. In other-words, ultimate truth cannot be a passive subjective observer of things. Things come to exist and have natures because it’s an eternal truth that things come in to being and have natures. In this fact you should see that “Truth” becomes identical with being in the ultimate reality. If there is no eternal being, then there is no eternal truth, because there is no existential truth in that which doesn’t exist. Thus truth must precede change; thus also being must precede it also. Given that there is no such thing as non-existence, it therefore follows that anything that begins and changes, is coming “into” existence and participates through an ultimate timeless and all embracing being, and is sustained in being by that separate thing that is existence; that which ultimate truth is.

Existence is the root of all things that participate in the eternal truth; and must exist purely and ultimately before all things that change and begin. But when I say before, do not think that I am speaking in the same sense of time; rather I am speaking in the sense of hierarchy, a necessary hierarchy of being which exists irrespective of time. Things only have behavior when they come into existence, and so, anything that changes, is not and cannot be the cause of its own nature. If all natures in a chain are received or potentially changing, then none of the members in the chain are identical with existence because they are constantly receiving existence, and so they do not have the fullness of being. Thus it cannot be true in the ultimate sense that a thing will come to exist or potentially exist or change by receiving existence from that which ultimately exists potentially, because none of the potential realities, finite or infinite, are the givers of reality in themselves. It must follow therefore that the chain ought not to exist; infinite or finite. Or, the infinite chain does exist, but not by its own nature.

A thing becomes or changes necessarily because of the nature of that which is pure existence and cannot be existence in itself, for a thing that begins or changes is forever receiving potential being, and its mode of expression is forever dependent on the reception of being and is thus dependent on there being ultimately such a thing as pure existence. There is no point in extending potential beings infinitively back in to time, since it is always receiving its being and nature, and in order for there to be possibilities and potentialities, and for it to be true that there are causal possibilities and potentialities, there has to be that which eternally gives rise to all causal possibilities and potentialities; by definition transcending all that which is potential and causally possible.

God does not begin or change. This is an illusion of time, which makes it seem as if existence changes. But existence is the ground of change.
*
By M.A.J Linton*

 

[rossum]

Again, as I explained before, God has done one thing, and this thing manifests differently as time passes. Imagine it like a book; the book is a single object, a single whole, but as we turn the pages we come upon new aspects of this one thing.

A single object cannot have opposed properties. An object can be a sphere and blue as those are not opposed properties. It cannot be both a sphere and a cube because those properties are opposed - a sphere is a non-cube and vice versa. Since the different pages of your ‘book’ have different properties you need to be very careful that none of the different pages have opposed properties. However, this is not the case. Pages from 10 billion years ago have “no planet earth”; pages from now have “planet earth”. Those are opposed properties so what you call “a book” is actually not a single object but an assembly of different objects. Hence the creation of the book requires a number of separate different actions and so cannot be a single action.

“Creating” or “moving” do not enter into the definition of God, but rather are mental descriptions based on God’s effect on creatures, just as “twig breaker” is a mental, imposed description upon the animal, and not a property of the animal.

A non-creating God, or one to whom the act of creation is not fundamental seems to me to be a very different God to the usual God of Christianity.

This is illogical. There is no reason to suppose that change propagates backwards up the chain of causation, even in changing things like ourselves.

It is illogical not to suppose that change propagates along the chain.

I am the cause of my child, my child grows and changes, but I do not change with every change that my child undergoes; a coin that corrodes does not change the minting stamp it was pressed from.

Before your child was concieved you were not the cause of your child. You changed from “potential-cause-of-Ghosty’s-child” to “actual-cause-of-Ghosty’s-child” when your child was conceived. That means that you had to change from “potential-cause” to “actual cause”. The other possible scenario is that the cause did not exist before the effect, but came into existence directly as an actual cause. In that case the change is from non-existent to existent.

In either case the cause has changed from some sort of inactive state to an active state. The same argument can then be applied to the cause of Ghosty, the cause of the cause of Ghosty and so on up the chain. All causation requires the cause to change from an inactive/nonexistent state to an active/existent state; it is that change which propagates back up the chain.

This is even more true for beings who do not exist in the same manner, and God trancends the manner of existence of creatures.

If time existed before creation/cause then God had to change from “potential-creator” to “actual-creator”. If time did not exist before creation then there was no change, but there could also be no creation since creation/causation requires the presence of time to be able to separate cause from effect. In the absence of time we cannot determine whether God created the universe or the universe created God since we are then unable to determine which came before the other.

You are actually correct, to a degree. Through worldly knowledge we can’t truly know God. Through rational inquiry we can never observe the Divine Nature. Scripture is written in human language and perspective, even when Inspired by the Holy Spirit, and therefore the descriptions are infinitely removed from a real knowledge of God, even though they are magnitudes of order greater than anything we find apart from Scripture.

The Buddhist equivalent is “all descriptions of nirvana are false.”

rossum

 

[rossum]

Part One of Two.

This is great. More excellent questions.

Most of the thanks are due to Nagarjuna, not to me.

What you are saying is still the result of the confusion brought about by making “simple” causation the same as ontological (and physical coming-to-be) causation. According to Aristotle and Aquinas, there are three basic parts of any kind of change: subject (primary or secondary matter), form and privation. The matter, or subject, is that which persists through the change in the same way that the clay persists through the molding of a statue.

Buddhist philosophy in general, and Nagarjuna in particular, reject ontological causation. All reification is rejected, and this is just a reification of simple causation. Most other religions see the world as fundamentally unchanging with a veneer of change over the surface. Buddhism sees things the other way round; the world is fundamentally changing, with a veneer of apparent stasis over the surface. Buddhism rejects Thomist “substance”. In terms of Plato’s analogy, there are only the shadows on the cave wall without any ‘real’ objects to cause those shadows. That is what is meant by “nirvana is samsara”; conventional reality is also the ultimate reality - what you see is really what you get. Part of not being enlightened is to look for hidden depths where there are none:Some people come to Zen expecting that Enlightenment will be the Ultimate Peak Experience. The Mother of All Peak Experiences. But real enlightenment is the most ordinary of the ordinary. Once I had an amazing vision. I saw myself transported through time and space. Millions, no, billions, trillions, Godzillions of years passed. Not figuratively, but literally. Whizzed by. I found myself at the very rim of time and space, a vast giant being composed of the living minds and bodies of every thing that ever was. It was an incredibly moving experience. Exhilarating. I was high for weeks. Finally I told Nishijima Sensei about it. He said it was nonsense. Just my imagination. I can’t tell you how that made me feel. Imagination? This was as real an experience as any I’ve ever had. I just about cried. Later on that day I was eating a tangerine. I noticed how incredibly lovely a thing it was. So delicate. So amazingly orange. So very tasty. So I told Nishijima about that. That experience, he said, was enlightenment.

Source: Zen is Boring

It would seem that you are correct, because, definitionally it seems strange to call something by a particularly definitive name before it has earned that name.

That is indeed Nagarjuna’s point of attack; if the name is not actually earned then it is nugatory.

But, in the real action of motion, change and becoming, the effect is the termination of the motion, or action. So, the real efficient cause (and the real material cause, by the way) are in fact prior to the effect, which, when the effect becomes, further refines the definition given to efficient and material causes.

How can the “real efficient cause” be prior to the effect? If it exists and the effect does not then it is not a “cause”. If the effect does not exist then nor can it be “efficient” either since it has not yet had its effect. All that is left is the “real”, and that is looking pretty shaky with the other two gone.

Furthermore, in one way, one could call them “parental” insofar as they are that which has the potentiality of becoming “parental.” In fact, it would be proper to do so as these gametes have no other purpose while alive.

Purpose is external to the gametes - gemetes do not have brains as they are single cells. I will grant you the designation “potential cause”. However there must be a change from “potential cause” to “actual cause”, and naturally that change must have a cause somewhere.

End of part one.

rossum

 

[Ghosty]

A single object cannot have opposed properties. An object can be a sphere and blue as those are not opposed properties. It cannot be both a sphere and a cube because those properties are opposed - a sphere is a non-cube and vice versa. Since the different pages of your ‘book’ have different properties you need to be very careful that none of the different pages have opposed properties. However, this is not the case. Pages from 10 billion years ago have “no planet earth”; pages from now have “planet earth”. Those are opposed properties so what you call “a book” is actually not a single object but an assembly of different objects. Hence the creation of the book requires a number of separate different actions and so cannot be a single action.

If God, in His single manifold act, says “Humans will exist 4 billion years into the timeline of the universe”, it is not a contradiction of them not existing only 1 billion years into the timeline. As time progresses humans will come into being where they weren’t there before, but it is still from the same act that also said “Let there be light”, it just happens billions of years later in time.

What you have done is introduced a contradiction that is not necessary, so what is really shown as flawed is your approach. There is no contradiction in saying that God, with one act, can make the universe at the beginning of time, and humans much later in time, since God’s single act abuts all moments. Again, His word did not change over 4 billion years, but rather time merely reached the point where the Word manifests in a new way. This is a change in creation, not a change in the Word.

A non-creating God, or one to whom the act of creation is not fundamental seems to me to be a very different God to the usual God of Christianity.

Nothing in Christianity says that God must create. On the contrary, it is heresy to suggest that God created by necessity of nature, as opposed to by a free act of will. I recommend reading some Catholic theologians and their works regarding God creating. Another good place to read is the Catechism, starting at paragraph 295.

Before your child was concieved you were not the cause of your child. You changed from “potential-cause-of-Ghosty’s-child” to “actual-cause-of-Ghosty’s-child” when your child was conceived. That means that you had to change from “potential-cause” to “actual cause”. The other possible scenario is that the cause did not exist before the effect, but came into existence directly as an actual cause. In that case the change is from non-existent to existent.

You’re still confusing non-essential changes with essential changes, and as long as you do so your understanding won’t develop. Another example, beyond the foot in the sand, would be me moving next to a tree. The tree could now be said to be “the tree next to Ghosty”, but the tree hasn’t actually changed at all, only our description of it. Before I moved next to it you could say that the tree is “potentially the tree next to Ghosty”, but you’re still only describing a non-essential, extrinsic characteristic that doesn’t actually belong “in the tree”, but only in our minds. Hence it is a mental relation, and not a real relation.

If time did not exist before creation then there was no change, but there could also be no creation since creation/causation requires the presence of time to be able to separate cause from effect.

Time is not required to seperate cause and effect. Again, the eternal foot is the cause of the footprint underneath it, even if it never moved, and time never passed.

The Buddhist equivalent is “all descriptions of nirvana are false.”

Yes, apophatic (description of negative properties, “it is not like”) is a common human philosophical tool.

There is a key difference, however. Nirvana fundamentally doesn’t exist, at least according to traditional Therevada Buddhism, and therefore can’t be described because there is no property to describe. God can’t be described because He exists more fully than creatures, and we are unable to use our broken words to describe His unity.

Peace and God bless!

 

[JDaniel]

Buddhist philosophy in general, and Nagarjuna in particular, reject ontological causation.

As you no doubt know by now, Christian philosophy, in general, and Scholastic Philosophy, in particular, accept ontological causation, and reject pantheism and panentheism of any sort. There is a difference between the Eastern beliefs and the Western beliefs. Buddhism, and some other Eastern belief systems flatly reject God and the concept of God. We, of the West, accept God and the concept of God. As I see it, there can be no reconciliation between these religions. One accepts one or the other, unless one or the other is convinced somehow.

All reification is rejected, and this is just a reification of simple causation.

I’m sure that you mean “reification” in the sense of abstracting cause from that which we experience, not, a total rejection of all abstracting.

Most other religions see the world as fundamentally unchanging with a veneer of change over the surface. Buddhism sees things the other way round; the world is fundamentally changing, with a veneer of apparent stasis over the surface.

Very interesting.

Buddhism rejects Thomist “substance”.

In what sense do you mean “substance”? That is, as “matter” or “material substance”, or, as “substantial”, i.e., “fundamental”, such as power might be considered? Or, perhaps both?

In terms of Plato’s analogy, there are only the shadows on the cave wall without any ‘real’ objects to cause those shadows. That is what is meant by “nirvana is samsara”; conventional reality is also the ultimate reality - what you see is really what you get.

However, for Plato’s version, there was always the rumor of a “true outside world”. A place that, from time to time, the people watching the shadow-play could or would escape to. It was also known that some in fact did escape to this true world. Plato’s purpose for this allegory was to show that the world of ideas, idealism, was the true world and the material world was not. The material world was nothing more than the image of the mind’s ideas.

Further, the Sun, for Plato, was the image of the “substantial Good”. That is to say, the highest good. Without this substantial Good, all of the striving here on earth would be for naught. The Sun was the “end” of our being; the purpose for which we were here; the “final cause”.

That is indeed Nagarjuna’s point of attack; if the name is not actually earned then it is nugatory.

I am having lots of trouble understanding this. In other words, if I build a movie theater, until I show a movie in it, we can’t call it a Movie Theater? If I plant a rose bush, we can’t call it a Rose bush until it bears roses? If they build a new type of airplane, we can’t call it an airplane until it has left the ground - at least once? We can’t call a snake poisonous until it has killed (or poisoned) at least one person with its bite?

This could go on for ever. Am I thinking about this wrongly?

How can the “real efficient cause” be prior to the effect? If it exists and the effect does not then it is not a “cause”.

We see, on the physical level, things coming to be. We see oak trees spring out of acorns. We see children born of two human beings we call parents. We see a painting emerge on canvas from a painter. All of which are efficient causes and all of which preceded the effects, on the physical level, even if ever so slightly in temporal terms. Sequentially, however, the efficient cause(s), the material cause and the final cause must all precede the effect. Only the formal cause does not, as it is only present at the end of the change.

If we see a pregnant woman with her husband, we can still call him a “father” even if the baby is killed in its final trimester of life before birth. Can we not? Or, is even that nugatory?

If the effect does not exist then nor can it be “efficient” either since it has not yet had its effect. All that is left is the “real”, and that is looking pretty shaky with the other two gone.

This bit of tete a tete appears to be merely argumentative to me. Please pardon me if I am wrong. I mean no disrespect in saying this.

Purpose is external to the gametes - gametes do not have brains as they are single cells.

So, purpose is external to a new set of billiard balls? Purpose is external to a cue stick? Purpose is external to a new house? Would you say that, “Purpose was extrinsic?” Or, do you think “external” and “extrinsic” have two very different meanings?

Purpose is extrinsic to the gametes, with respect to them being final causes. But, purpose is intrinsic to each of them with respect to their coming to be. Without the purpose of being able to bring forth new life, they have no razon d’etre. They would be no different from any other cell in a body. Because aberrations occur in nature and the world, does not remove the end for which the gametes were made.

I will grant you the designation “potential cause”. However there must be a change from “potential cause” to “actual cause”, and naturally that change must have a cause somewhere.

And so it does. Each of, say, 500 parts in a TV set are the potential causes of its ensuing part, which, in turn is the potential cause of its ensuing part. Here, we have a simultaneous action. All of its efficient causes are causing an ultimate effect. The ensuing part is not the effect. They are a series of causes. In the same way, the gametes of a male and a female are a series of causes, at its simplest.

jd

 

[Ghosty]

JDaniel:

In what sense do you mean “substance”? That is, as “matter” or “material substance”, or, as “substantial”, i.e., “fundamental”, such as power might be considered? Or, perhaps both?

One thing to keep in mind is that in Buddhist philosophy there is no “reality”. It not only rejects Realism, it even rejects Nominalism. There is no underlying “being” that is actualized, but only processes of change that are experienced as if they were “real”. There is no being, only becoming.

It is the philosophical equivalent of quantum physics which shows us that physical matter is not actually physical at all.

The flaw in this philosophy is fairly obvious; “becoming” can only be a property of things that are, and can’t be said of something that is insubstantial in every sense. With no underlying being, there is no way for observable properties to emerge in the first place; there is no hook for observable properties to “hang their hat” on, so to speak. Since true nothingness can lead only to true nothingness (nothing makes nothing), even observable effects and change are impossible if Buddhism is taken to its logical foundations.

It is one thing to say that our eyes deceive us, another entirely to say that nothing exists to be deceived or to deceive, but the deception is the only reality. The latter is the premise of Buddhism. It must be remembered that Buddhism arose in response to the Realism of Hinduism, and it arose as a rejection of it. In Hinduism, everything exists as a real manifestation of Brahma, who himself is “All-in-All”. Buddhism cuts the root out of Brahmic belief, saying that there is no underlying reality behind what we see.

Rossum may give you more of an answer, but it might be helpful to read his posts with this much in mind.

Peace and God bless!

 

[JDaniel]

Sorry for the butt-in.

It is illogical not to suppose that change propagates along the chain.

What is illogical is to think that every single precedent must have a single antecedent. In the real world, the sub-builders and sub-contractors are not each one of them precedents or antecedents, or, effects of the builder-as-efficient-cause. They are each (sub-) efficient causes. They work simultaneously, or in succession, to bring about the effect: the House. How do you propagate back to the builder from the effect? If he didn’t put his name on it, or wasn’t an integral part of a construction company, you might never know who the builder was. You can only propagate to an efficient cause that happens to be a plural efficient cause, in this case. If you work really hard at trying to find it out, you might be told who the builder was. But, if you’re happy with the house, there is no need to work so hard and the existence of the house does not necessitate knowing it.

Before your child was conceived you were not the cause of your child. You changed from “potential-cause-of-Ghosty’s-child” to “actual-cause-of-Ghosty’s-child” when your child was conceived. That means that you had to change from “potential-cause” to “actual cause”. The other possible scenario is that the cause did not exist before the effect, but came into existence directly as an actual cause. In that case the change is from non-existent to existent.

Again, you make the mistake that so many make, by conceiving of the chain of efficient causality as some proximity of loose, simple causes and effects. To consider an existing being as that which is caused simply, i. e., by one simple external cause is to have an invalid and illogical view of being as being. Also, you are supplying the simple “potency to act” local motion explanation to the much more complicated action of becoming and being. In the act of local motion, I move my arm from left to right across my chest. Same arm, IOW, same “substance”, but, per accidens change. When Primary Matter is supplied with Form, Primary Matter which has no distinction, no differentiation from all other Primary Matter, no this or that human being, no species, naught but privation of these things, immediately takes on distinctiveness, human being-ness, species. If you give it some more thought, you must see this.

In either case the cause has changed from some sort of inactive state to an active state.

Yes; now we are in action. Now there is motion. Now there is change taking place. But, it is more of a “local motion” type of action.

The same argument can then be applied to the cause of Ghosty, the cause of the cause of Ghosty and so on up the chain. All causation requires the cause to change from an inactive/nonexistent state to an active/existent state; it is that change which propagates back up the chain.

But, only for definitional purposes. It just seems irrational to call a movie theater a movie theater before it has shown its first movie. But, that is no more than the irrationality of language, not the irrationality of the action.

There is no such thing as propagating up the chain from Effect, through all of the Efficient Causes of Being, to another effect. I am a being in being. My being in being is dependent upon a myriad of efficient causes, only one of which is my parents, sort of. As a being, I am only dependent upon my parents for the start of the action of coming to be. As a being, currently in being, I am dependent upon a tremendous number of other efficient causes, such as, the order of my parts, the relation of my parts to that which is outside of me, and the harmony of my parts, to name a few.

If time existed before creation/cause then God had to change from “potential-creator” to “actual-creator”. If time did not exist before creation then there was no change, but there could also be no creation since creation/causation requires the presence of time to be able to separate cause from effect. In the absence of time we cannot determine whether God created the universe or the universe created God since we are then unable to determine which came before the other.

You see it this way because of positivist presuppositions as well as an adherence to a panentheistic philosophy. I could simply say that God’s first creations - in sequence rather than in time - were Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Thus, He was a Creator at His outset. And, be done with it. But, that would be to take the easy way out, although do we believe the Holy Creations happened in that sequence.

Rather, I must emphasize that our experience of change is very grounded in reality, as opposed to a grounding in a system of thought. We know that with respect to the four causes, three have concurrence before the effect, at the start of the action, and one has concurrence at the end of the action, the emergence of the effect. And, so, we ground our philosophy and our general science in that reality.

The Buddhist equivalent is “all descriptions of nirvana are false.”

Do you accept the concept of nirvana?

jd

 

[JDaniel]

JDaniel:

One thing to keep in mind is that in Buddhist philosophy there is no “reality”. It not only rejects Realism, it even rejects Nominalism. There is no underlying “being” that is actualized, but only processes of change that are experienced as if they were “real”. There is no being, only becoming.

It is the philosophical equivalent of quantum physics which shows us that physical matter is not actually physical at all.

The flaw in this philosophy is fairly obvious; “becoming” can only be a property of things that are, and can’t be said of something that is insubstantial in every sense. With no underlying being, there is no way for observable properties to emerge in the first place; there is no hook for observable properties to “hang their hat” on, so to speak. Since true nothingness can lead only to true nothingness (nothing makes nothing), even observable effects and change are impossible if Buddhism is taken to its logical foundations.

It is one thing to say that our eyes deceive us, another entirely to say that nothing exists to be deceived or to deceive, but the deception is the only reality. The latter is the premise of Buddhism. It must be remembered that Buddhism arose in response to the Realism of Hinduism, and it arose as a rejection of it. In Hinduism, everything exists as a real manifestation of Brahma, who himself is “All-in-All”. Buddhism cuts the root out of Brahmic belief, saying that there is no underlying reality behind what we see.

Rossum may give you more of an answer, but it might be helpful to read his posts with this much in mind.

Peace and God bless!

Ghosty:

Yes, of course, you are absolutely correct. I do recognize that Rossum would not conceive of change having an underlying substrate. I can see that he is saying things that betoken an adherence to “idealism.” Interestingly, while I am giving example after example of experience from reality, I am not getting the same in return. I am getting statements of belief only. It would be nice to actually understand how a being is being, or becomes, from his perspective.

In my previous post, I spend a little time explaining Plato’s allegory of the people in the cave. It is interesting that Plato held to idealism yet created the scenario of the rumor by which people could leave the cave for the actual world outside. However, many kept their eyes open and once on the outside, lost their vision because of the sun’s brightness. That’s how Plato undid the necessity of reality.

jd

 

[Ghosty]

Yes, of course, you are absolutely correct. I do recognize that Rossum would not conceive of change having an underlying substrate. I can see that he is saying things that betoken an adherence to “idealism.” Interestingly, while I am giving example after example of experience from reality, I am not getting the same in return. I am getting statements of belief only. It would be nice to actually understand how a being is being, or becomes, from his perspective.

I would like that too, but I’m afraid that such a thing isn’t forthcoming from a Buddhist perspective. The presuppositions prevent any talk of “being” as a reality.

Peace and God bless!

 

[JDaniel]

I would like that too, but I’m afraid that such a thing isn’t forthcoming from a Buddhist perspective. The presuppositions prevent any talk of “being” as a reality.

Peace and God bless!

You’re probably right. However, I like Rossum. He is intelligent which makes it enjoyable to debate with him. It is kind of like how I’d like to see these forums go: Catholics debating Catholics, for example. There’s so much to discuss within our religious group. Rossum actually debates on that level, in my opinion.

By the way, it’s good to see you there and know you’re still out there discussing the things that need discussion!

jd

 

[E_F_G]

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lll

 

[rossum]

If God, in His single manifold act,

Look at the word “manifold”. Manifold = “many fold” = multiple = more than one. An act cannot be both single and manifold. That is equivalent to saying 1 = 2; and given that you can logically prove anything.

What you have done is introduced a contradiction that is not necessary, so what is really shown as flawed is your approach.

It is you who have introduced the contradiction be asserting that 1 = 2. A single act cannot be manifold. The act of making a universe without planet earth is not the same as the act of making a universe with planet earth.

You’re still confusing non-essential changes with essential changes, and as long as you do so your understanding won’t develop.

I have said that I deny all reifying. The difference between “essential” and “non-essential” change is a form of reification. There is only change.

Another example, beyond the foot in the sand, would be me moving next to a tree. The tree could now be said to be “the tree next to Ghosty”, but the tree hasn’t actually changed at all, only our description of it.

Your movement takes place in time, so the tree is older. Some of its cells have died; some of its cells have divided into new cells. Some fuel has been burned; some new fuel has been photosynthesised. Of course the tree has changed. Everything changes all of the time. One of the Three Marks is change - it applies to everything.

Time is not required to seperate cause and effect. Again, the eternal foot is the cause of the footprint underneath it, even if it never moved, and time never passed.

In the absence of time how do you know which came first? Was the footprint present before the foot? You have no way of knowing. You might make an assumption but that is a very insecure basis for a philosophical argument.

There is a key difference, however. Nirvana fundamentally doesn’t exist, at least according to traditional Therevada Buddhism, and therefore can’t be described because there is no property to describe.

On the contrary, nirvana exists. The Buddha attained nirvana at age 35 and he died age 80. That is 45 years of living and existing in nirvana. To quote from Theravada scriptures:[The Buddha said:] “There is an Unborn, a Not-become, a Not-made, a Not-compounded. If there were not, this Unborn, Not become, Not-made, Not-compounded, there could not be made any escape from what is born, become, made, and compounded. But since there is this Unborn, Not become, Not-made, Not-compounded, therefore is there made known an escape from what is born, become, made, and compounded.”

Udana 8.3

rossum

 

[rossum]

Buddhism, and some other Eastern belief systems flatly reject God and the concept of God. We, of the West, accept God and the concept of God. As I see it, there can be no reconciliation between these religions. One accepts one or the other, unless one or the other is convinced somehow.

On the practical level of morality and behaviour there is a great deal of overlap:To avoid all evil,
to cultivate good,
and to cleanse one’s mind.
This is the teaching of the Buddhas.

Dhammapada 14:5
On a theological level, I agree the approaches are too different to be easily reconciled.

I’m sure that you mean “reification” in the sense of abstracting cause from that which we experience, not, a total rejection of all abstracting.

Correct. In simple terms I am happy with “beauty” as a concept. As soon as it is capitalised to “Beauty” and talked about in isolation from anything else I start objecting.

In what sense do you mean “substance”? That is, as “matter” or “material substance”, or, as “substantial”, i.e., “fundamental”, such as power might be considered? Or, perhaps both?

I obviously accept the existence of material substance. I reject that kind of “substance” that changes in transubstantiation - the material atome are still those of bread but the “substance” has changed to human flesh.

However, for Plato’s version, there was always the rumor of a “true outside world”. A place that, from time to time, the people watching the shadow-play could or would escape to. It was also known that some in fact did escape to this true world. Plato’s purpose for this allegory was to show that the world of ideas, idealism, was the true world and the material world was not. The material world was nothing more than the image of the mind’s ideas.

The material world probably does exist, however we can never actually know it. When I see a horse in a field all that I actually sense is electrical impulses coming down my optic nerves from my eyes into my brain. My brain uses these impulses to build a model of what is actually out there. Different people build different models - a colour blind person will build a different model to me. A bee can see polarised light, while I cannot, so a bee’s model will incorporate elements that my model does not.

One mistake people can make is to mistake that internal model of reality for actual reality. There is a good talk on this by Professor Lewis Lancaster at youtube.com/watch?v=cX2f6QHkU-I (starting at 25:20).

Further, the Sun, for Plato, was the image of the “substantial Good”. That is to say, the highest good. Without this substantial Good, all of the striving here on earth would be for naught. The Sun was the “end” of our being; the purpose for which we were here; the “final cause”.

Buddhism has the same idea - see the quote from the Udana in my previous post, #52.

I am having lots of trouble understanding this. In other words, if I build a movie theater, until I show a movie in it, we can’t call it a Movie Theater? If I plant a rose bush, we can’t call it a Rose bush until it bears roses? If they build a new type of airplane, we can’t call it an airplane until it has left the ground - at least once? We can’t call a snake poisonous until it has killed (or poisoned) at least one person with its bite?

For ordinary purposes of daily conversation you are right. It is a “Movie Theater” (in the US) and a “Cinema” or “Film Theatre” (in the UK). In normal conversation everything is fine and the philosophical nuances are not important. In discussing philosophy those nuances are important. It is “a building designed for showing movies” whether or not a movie has been shown. It is not “a building in which movies have been shown” until a movie has actually been shown.

We see, on the physical level, things coming to be. We see oak trees spring out of acorns.

An excellent example, and one which Indian philosophers also use - the seed and the sprout.

When we look at an acorn it is obviously an acorn and not an oak tree. When we look at an oak tree it is obviously an oak tree and not an acorn. However there is a continuum of intermediates between them; the two are connected. Nagarjuna analyses the connection between the acorn and the oak tree:* are they the same? No.

• are they different? No.
• are they both the same and different? No.
• are they neither the same nor different? No.

In Indian philosophy there are two modes of arguing, positive and negative. In positive mode each side puts forward a positive argument and attempts to establish that what they say is correct. In negative mode one opponent merely says “you are wrong”, without putting forward any positive argument of his own. This is the mode which Nagarjuna uses; it has been described as “philosophical ju-jitsu”, using the opponents own arguments to show that he is wrong. From Nagarjuna’s point of view all philosophical descriptions of reality are incorrect.

Purpose is extrinsic to the gametes, with respect to them being final causes. But, purpose is intrinsic to each of them with respect to their coming to be. Without the purpose of being able to bring forth new life, they have no razon d’etre. They would be no different from any other cell in a body. Because aberrations occur in nature and the world, does not remove the end for which the gametes were made.

In this context “purpose” is separate from the gametes. It is something assigned to them by us, not something that the gametes possess. They themselves are far too simple to have anything as complex as purpose.

rossum

 

[rossum]

One thing to keep in mind is that in Buddhist philosophy there is no “reality”. It not only rejects Realism, it even rejects Nominalism. There is no underlying “being” that is actualized, but only processes of change that are experienced as if they were “real”. There is no being, only becoming.

Not strictly correct. Reality may well exist, it is just that we can never get hold of it. All we can actually sense is electrical impulses arriving in our brains from out ears, eyes etc. Those electrical impulses are not reality. Nor are the models we build inside our brains of what we think that external reality is. All attempts to directly sense reality are doomed because all we can ever sense are electrical impulses in our sensory nerves.

It is one thing to say that our eyes deceive us, another entirely to say that nothing exists to be deceived or to deceive, but the deception is the only reality. The latter is the premise of Buddhism.

Mahayana Buddhism uses the word sunyata - emptiness - to describe reality. It also warns very strongly against mistaking emptiness for “nothingness” - it is compared to grasping a snake by the tail rather than by the head. Emptiness is compared to a mirage. A mirage looks like water, but it is not. Just so, emptiness looks like one thing but is is actually not that thing but something else; it is not what we think that it is. Nothingness on the other hand is not like a mirage. Nothingness does not look like water, it looks like nothingness.

The fundamental error that people make is to mistake the models we build inside our heads for actual reality. It is an easy mistake to make, because we generally build very good models, but we always need to remember that they are only models and not the real thing.

When I was young I was badly frightened by a large dog. Since then whenever I see a large dog, I am wary of it - even if it is well behaved. I know that this part of my internal model of reality is due to me alone and is not present in other people’s internal models of reality. I do not deny reality, I do deny that our respective internal models are that reality. Emptiness does not apply to reality, it applies to our internal models. The model is different from the object modelled.

rossum

 

[JDaniel]

[The Buddha said:] “There is an Unborn, a Not-become, a Not-made, a Not-compounded. If there were not, this Unborn, Not become, Not-made, Not-compounded, there could not be made any escape from what is born, become, made, and compounded. But since there is this Unborn, Not become, Not-made, Not-compounded, therefore is there made known an escape from what is born, become, made, and compounded.”

Udana 8.3

Interesting. The Buddhist equivalent of God. Seems as though Buddhism picked up some of the awareness of God, along the way, but, didn’t receive any Revelation, as did the Christians.

jd

 

[JDaniel]

Look at the word “manifold”. Manifold = “many fold” = multiple = more than one. An act cannot be both single and manifold. That is equivalent to saying 1 = 2; and given that you can logically prove anything.

My Dear Rossum:

Envision me holding 15 marbles in each of my hands then, suddenly, in what is a single act, tossing all of the marbles into the air with both hands. At the simplest level, I have caused two acts just by thrusting both of my hands upward at the same moment, both acts emanating from the same being. But, secondly, each of the marbles sent skyward is a separate act. Each will fly in a different direction, impact different parts of space and land in a difference place. So, essentially, one act has multiplied into 32 acts. One act can be manifold.

Another example: I pick up a glass of water to take a drink. In so doing, I jostle the water. I have thus, in one act, effected the movement of the order of the molecules of water in the glass. My singular, manifold act has increased on an immense scale.

Since our God can do anything, He can perform a “manifold” act as one act. That is not illogical at all. He envisions the entire universe at one time, every single part of it, and makes it so.

I have said that I deny all reifying. The difference between “essential” and “non-essential” change is a form of reification. There is only change.

I must respectfully deny your denial of induction. I think that reification is essential to the inductive (reificative) methods of scientific investigation. Reification is the taking of a snapshot, by the mind, and becoming aware of regularities in mobile being by that act of immobilizing it. The idea of an exterior object, immobilized by our minds, may easily be as precise as the reality, minor changes notwithstanding. And, may be so on the quantum level. That it is immobilized does not take away our abilities to reify genus-place, or species, or summary actions from our object.

Further, we fully understand the difference between fundamental changes and inconsequential changes, just as we fully understand the difference between that which is fundamentally painful and that which is minor, or inconsequential and temporary pain, for example.

It would seem to me that the Buddhist must always turn on every light in the house so he can see his way to the bathroom in the middle of the night. That would have to make for a rough night’s sleep, since light photons striking our skin has the proclivity of waking us up. Of course, if the Buddhist did not turn on all of the lights, he might stub a toe on an unseen reality. Of course, he could just keep telling himself over and over that there is no pain; it’s all in his mind.

Your movement takes place in time, so the tree is older. Some of its cells have died; some of its cells have divided into new cells. Some fuel has been burned; some new fuel has been photosynthesised. Of course the tree has changed. Everything changes all of the time. One of the Three Marks is change - it applies to everything.

Replace “the tree” with a piece of petrified wood. What changes are taking place in petrified wood? At a Mohs hardness of 7, there’s little out there that can scrape any of it away. And, neither does it continuously change. Or, perhaps she could move next to a diamond? To say that, “Everything changes all of the time.” is illogical and unreal.

In the absence of time how do you know which came first? Was the footprint present before the foot? You have no way of knowing. You might make an assumption but that is a very insecure basis for a philosophical argument.

I disagree. The passion is from the action, not the other way around. That this is so is logical. The true and proper causal locution is, “Because the agent acts, the matter receives.” It is a false and improper locution to say, “The agent acts because the matter receives.”

jd

 

[rossum]

Interesting. The Buddhist equivalent of God. Seems as though Buddhism picked up some of the awareness of God, along the way, but, didn’t receive any Revelation, as did the Christians.

If there is a truth behind the universe, and that truth is not hidden then there are ways to access that truth. Whether it is called “God” or “nirvana” is not terribly important.

I am reluctant to rely on Revelation, as there are many to pick from, and a lot of them tell me that some, or all, of the others are wrong. No revealed religion can show me someone here and now who is in heaven. Buddhism can show me people here and now who have attained enlightenment. Even someone in a revealed religion can attain enlightenment:[At Polonnaruwa] I am able to approach the Buddhas barefoot and undisturbed, my feet in wet grass, wet sand. Then the silence of the extraordinary faces. The great smiles. Huge and yet subtle. Filled with every possibility, questioning nothing, knowing everything, rejecting nothing, the peace not of emotional resignation but of sunyata, that has seen through every question without trying to discredit anyone or anything - without refutation – without establishing some argument. For the doctrinaire, the mind that needs well established positions, such peace, such silence, can be frightening.

I was knocked over with a rush of relief and thankfulness at the obvious clarity of the figures, the clarity and fluidity of shape and line, the design of the monumental bodies composed into the rock shape and landscape, figure rock and tree. And the sweep of bare rock slopping away on the other side of the hollow, where you can go back and see different aspects of the figures. Looking at these figures I was suddenly, almost forcibly, jerked clean out of the habitual, half-tied vision of things, and an inner clearness, clarity, as if exploding from the rocks themselves, became evident and obvious. The queer evidence of the reclining figure, the smile, the sad smile of Ananda standing with arms folded (much more “imperative” than Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa because completely simple and straightforward).

The thing about all this is that there is no puzzle, no problem and really no “mystery.” All problems are resolved and everything is clear, simply because what matters is clear. The rock, all matter, all life is charged with dharmakaya… everything is emptiness and everything is compassion. I don’t know when in my life I have ever had such a sense of beauty and spiritual validity running together in one aesthetic illumination. … I mean, I know and have seen what I was obscurely looking for. I don’t know what else remains, but I have now seen and have pierced through the surface and have got beyond the shadow and the disguise. …

It says everything, it needs nothing. And because it needs nothing it can afford to be silent, unnoticed, undiscovered. It does not need to be discovered. It is we who need to discover it.

From: The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton
Buddhism focuses on a goal that is attainable here and now, albeit with difficulty. I am sure that I exist; I am not so sure about God. If I have to rely on one or the other, then I will rely on the one I know exists to reach a goal I know is attainable.

rossum

 

[rossum]

Envision me holding 15 marbles in each of my hands then, suddenly, in what is a single act, tossing all of the marbles into the air with both hands.

Moving your hand is not a single action. It moves the first 0.001 mm, then it moves the second 0.001 mm at a different speed (as it is accellerating) and from a different starting position. You are not making a single action, but a multitude of separate actions. This is inherent in any action taking place inside time and space. Even if God wants to act inside time and space then His actions will be similarly broken down into Planck Times and Planck lengths. When He parted the Red Sea He first had to move the water the first 0.001 mm, and then the second 0.001 mm and so on.

While we can conventionally speak of throwing marbles in the air as a single action, that is only a convention and does not fully reflect the underlying reality.

Since our God can do anything, He can perform a “manifold” act as one act. That is not illogical at all. He envisions the entire universe at one time, every single part of it, and makes it so.

All descriptions of God limit God, so He cannot do everything. If God is omniscient then He can never learn anything new because He would already know it. He can never move because He is omnipresent; He cannot leave the departure point and He cannot arrive at the destination because He is already there.

I must respectfully deny your denial of induction. I think that reification is essential to the inductive (reificative) methods of scientific investigation. Reification is the taking of a snapshot, by the mind, and becoming aware of regularities in mobile being by that act of immobilizing it.

Science is in the business of making models and testing those models against reality. Scientists are well aware that they are working with models, and the fact that they test those models against reality also means that they are aware that their models are not in themselves reality. I can see no problem there. Problems arise when we think that our internal model of reality actually is reality; it is not.

Further, we fully understand the difference between fundamental changes and inconsequential changes, just as we fully understand the difference between that which is fundamentally painful and that which is minor, or inconsequential and temporary pain, for example.

Again, I have no problems with this in ordinary life; a stinging nettle causes less pain and is less serious than a broken leg. It is the reifying of such concepts into philosophy which I dislike.

It would seem to me that the Buddhist must always turn on every light in the house so he can see his way to the bathroom in the middle of the night.

No, we set light to a statue of the Buddha

Replace “the tree” with a piece of petrified wood. What changes are taking place in petrified wood?

It is interacting at its surface with molecules in the air. It is expanding or contracting as the ambient temperature and windspeed change. Any radioneuclides inside it may decay. It is moving on a path around the Sun and around the centre of the galaxy. It is getting older. It may not be changing as fast as it did when it was a tree, but it is still changing.

To say that, “Everything changes all of the time.” is illogical and unreal.

On the contrary, it is true. Everything inside time gets older at 60 seconds every minute. Not all change is immediately observable but the change is always present:“Impermanent are all compound things.”
When one realises this by wisdom,
then one does not heed ill.
This is the Path of Purity.

Dhammapada 20:5
Here impermanence equates to change. Yesterday’s petrified tree stump is not here any more, what we have today is today’s petrified tree stump. In a million years time it may well have eroded away completely or been subducted and melted.

Every morning you get up to walk to the bus stop. On the corner is a local cat sitting on the wall. Because you are mildly allergic to cats you sneeze every morning as you pass it. Is it the same sneeze every day? Is it the same cat every day? Is it the same you every day? Is it the same wall every day? To a Buddhist none of them are the same. To quote Borges:Not only was it difficult for him to comprehend that the generic symbol dog embraces so many unlike individuals of diverse size and form; it bothered him that the dog at three fourteen (seen from the side) should have the same name as the dog at three fifteen (seen from the front).

Funes the Memorious - Jorge Luis Borges

rossum