Teleology important for science

[Peter_Plato]

If someone says a ball is round, there is an ambiguity here. To describe the ball with roundness sounds to put the ball and roundness in two categories. Just as to say the ball has existence, as Thomists do. The ball can’t own existence because that separates the ball from some ephemeral “existence”. A ball exists, a ball is a particular roundness.

Does an imaginary ball exist? Does it have roundness?

In the same respect as an actual, existing ball?

If not, how can we speak coherently of an imaginary BALL?

Or how can we speak coherently to each other about “balls” to begin with?

(This thread has lost its teleology. I would suppose that is proof that teleology is important for science – or any endeavour, such as this thread, for that matter.)

 

[thinkandmull]

This explains dogginess:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog

 

[Peter_Plato]

This explains dogginess:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog

Yeah, I see…

One unusual characteristic of dogs…is that they very widely vary in shape, size and colours, which are disposed in breeds.

Narrows down “dogginess” to…

Dog or what?

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Dog or not?

https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/...CzV9eFn2tdA8F_2XiFFUUI55ZY1dDhNi_DWOT1t-_CqFZ

Dog or sheep?

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/...I217RgNyqjCLpfndkNTKoiUX6bu7AMh4QM0Sog8KW2J8A

Or lamb?

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A dog is just a dog, like we all knew growing up. There is no need to postulate prime matter + a form, or a combination of 7 principles made up by someone else

How many principles would be required to include all these as “dogs?"

 

[thinkandmull]

Do they have the form of a dog, I ask you. I think its just a biological question. A species is that which can breed among themselves and have offspring that can reproduce. DNA tests show that some animals that seem different are really quite similar on the molecular scale

 

[Peter_Plato]

People who study Aquinas, I have noticed, get very confused by matter and form. Form is not the shape something is in. Take a brick. It has a shape but its “form” is supposed to be its brickness plus its prime matter. Two principles converging to make the brick. Most people just think its a brick and I think that is correct. One can get used to thinking that Aquinas’s view is correct, but although there is a lot of ink spilt talking about it, there is no demonstration of its truth. In fact, I think the opposite can be proven. Take a building. If people live in it it has “houseness”, then if animals move in instead it has “barness”. It is not reasonable to say the form can flip back and forth depending on what is in it. A more cogent argument is as follows. Take a metal ball. How many forms does it have? Split it in two. Are there now two forms? Hold the two pieces together. One form? These questions are ridiculous so the conclusion must be that a ball is a ball. It doesn’t have ballness connected to a prime matter-only-in-potentiality or whatever it is. It IS a ball, it IS its own ballness.

Are you not saying about balls, above, precisely what Feser said about oranges in the quote I posted in 105?

The materialist, meanwhile, lops off the one abstraction (the thinking substance), keeps the other (the mathematicized redefinition of matter), and insists that only what is reducible to the latter is real. He is like the man who says “No, no, an orange is just the dried out skin by itself,” considers this a great advance in understanding (backed by Ockham’s razor, no less), and accuses those who disagree with him of holding that an orange is an unwieldy composite of dried skin and glass of juice. The right view, of course, is that an orange is what you had before the juice and pulp were squeezed out, and for the Aristotelian what a human being is (and indeed what natural substances in general are) are what we had before Cartesians and materialists got hold of them. (Contemporary property dualism is essentially a middle ground position between materialism and Cartesianism, accepting their desiccated view of matter, and tacking on to it the “juice” but without the “glass.”)

And aren’t you proving my point correct, that “you are supposing that what people think is what endows form onto things. That isn’t, as far as I understand, the view that either Thomas or Aristotle present.”

In other words, Thomas agrees with you that the form of the thing is what makes it what it is, which if apprehended properly and directly gives us a glimpse into what it is. But its essence is not how we define or depict it, but which we “grasp” to the extent that we do, although words and images will always fall short of properly and fully realizing because they are mere representations.

 

[thinkandmull]

Galileo and Descartes both said that the idea of form+prime-matter was a figment of peoples imagination. To prove otherwise I don’t believe is possible, and it leads to absurdities such that a gun has the form of a deadly weapon and a paper holder (if there are no bullets and its used to keep papers from flying off the desk by the wind), that wind has the form of being a deadly weapon (hurricanes) or a friend (gentle breeze), or that an orange has one form for us (food) and another for the plant it comes from. I don’t know why Aristotle got into these questions the way he when we are dealing, simply, with material things (what they are made of) and their uses. Maybe forms have a good phenomenological use but I don’t see it as ontology

 

[Wesrock]

Galileo and Descartes both said that the idea of form+prime-matter was a figment of peoples imagination. To prove otherwise I don’t believe is possible, and it leads to absurdities such that a gun has the form of a deadly weapon and a paper holder (if there are no bullets and its used to keep papers from flying off the desk by the wind), that wind has the form of being a deadly weapon (hurricanes) or a friend (gentle breeze), or that an orange has one form for us (food) and another for the plant it comes from. I don’t know why Aristotle got into these questions the way he when we are dealing, simply, with material things (what they are made of) and their uses. Maybe forms have a good phenomenological use but I don’t see it as ontology

None of that is what Aquinas meant by form.

 

[inocente]

What do you believe?

As I said, RIP substance dualism.

 

[inocente]

Aquinas says they are two different substances. So does the Church.

That’s not my understanding, and a number of Catholic posters would disagree with you.

 

[tonyrey]

As I said, RIP substance dualism.

Do you believe **all **our mental activity has physical causes?

 

[inocente]

Do you believe **all **our mental activity has physical causes?

Yes, there’s no evidence for telekinesis or clairvoyance, etc.

Interesting how you phrased your question, as if you agree it’s mostly beyond reasonable doubt but hope some bit we don’t yet know might have a paranormal cause.

 

[Wesrock]

I don’t believe he was inquiring about clairvoyance or ESP, only normal intellectual activity. Nor was he implying anything supernatural or paranormal.

 

[inocente]

I don’t believe he was inquiring about clairvoyance or ESP, only normal intellectual activity. Nor was he implying anything supernatural or paranormal.

He said mental activity.

Mental activity which doesn’t have physical causes won’t have to obey the laws of nature, so there’s then no logical reason a priori to rule out paranormal mental activity like clairvoyance and ESP.

If you wish to only allow causes which obey the physical law, they will be by definition physical.

 

[Wesrock]

He said mental activity.

Mental activity which doesn’t have physical causes won’t have to obey the laws of nature, so there’s then no logical reason a priori to rule out paranormal mental activity like clairvoyance and ESP.

If you wish to only allow causes which obey the physical law, they will be by definition physical.

Well, are our “normal” intellectual operations entirely explainable by quantifiable means? I prefer quantifiable to physical.

And your affiliation says Baptist, but just to confirm, do you believe in God and angels?

 

[MPat]

People who study Aquinas, I have noticed, get very confused by matter and form.

As opposed to people who do not study…?

I’m afraid it is far more likely that you are confused here…

Form is not the shape something is in.

Correction: form is not just the shape something is in.

Take a brick. It has a shape but its “form” is supposed to be its brickness plus its prime matter.

No. Prime matter is matter, not part of form.

Matter and substantial form together result in a substance. Matter and accidental form result in, let’s say, an artifact.

Most people just think its a brick and I think that is correct.

No. “Most people” are quite capable of taking just the form of the brick into account when calculating its volume. And they are capable of taking just its matter into account while checking if it can float in water.

I will note you have also ignored my point about isomers…

One can get used to thinking that Aquinas’s view is correct, but although there is a lot of ink spilt talking about it, there is no demonstration of its truth. In fact, I think the opposite can be proven. Take a building. If people live in it it has “houseness”, then if animals move in instead it has “barness”. It is not reasonable to say the form can flip back and forth depending on what is in it. A more cogent argument is as follows.

It doesn’t have ballness connected to a prime matter-only-in-potentiality or whatever it is. It IS a ball, it IS its own ballness.

Yes, looks like you are confused…

Take a metal ball. How many forms does it have? Split it in two. Are there now two forms? Hold the two pieces together. One form? These questions are ridiculous so the conclusion must be that a ball is a ball.

What exactly is supposed to be “ridiculous” here?

 

[Bradski]

I prefer quantifiable to physical.

I think we should leave the goalposts right where they are.

 

[inocente]

Well, are our “normal” intellectual operations entirely explainable by quantifiable means? I prefer quantifiable to physical.

And your affiliation says Baptist, but just to confirm, do you believe in God and angels?

I don’t know what an intellectual operation is or why you prefer quantifiable activity to physical activity.

As for your last sentence, Gal 1:10.

 

[thinkandmull]

As opposed to people who do not study…?

I’m afraid it is far more likely that you are confused here…

Correction: form is not just the shape something is in.

No. Prime matter is matter, not part of form.

Matter and substantial form together result in a substance. Matter and accidental form result in, let’s say, an artifact.

No. “Most people” are quite capable of taking just the form of the brick into account when calculating its volume. And they are capable of taking just its matter into account while checking if it can float in water.

I will note you have also ignored my point about isomers…

Yes, looks like you are confused…

What exactly is supposed to be “ridiculous” here?

I think the isomer comment shows you don’t understand matter vs form. Matter is the combination of form and matter (prime matter). A piece of matter like clay is not just matter (prime matter), but form. The way you phrased it shows what I meant on this. An isomer refers to different arraignments of compounds. This has nothing to do with prime matter being formed by a form. Let me solidify my previous argument though. Take a ball. It can be played with, so does it have the form of a ball? Cut it in half. Let’s say it can be used as breast implants. So are they breast implants or a ball cut in half? This is reduction to absurdity. So the Cartesian position that matter is extension, which everyone believes growing up, wins the day

 

[thinkandmull]

Feel free to respond, but addressing a larger question (maybe the atheists will comment again), scientist Steve Weinberg says “If that’s true, what explains that? Why is there such a God? It isn’t the end of the chain of whys, it just is another step, and you have to take the step beyond that.” Maybe he sort of has a point in the sense of “why is God good when we have to chose good and He doesn’t”. I think the moral argument is the best argument, at least for me, because there is no way in my mind I could have a conscience unless there is a God. Our sense of right and wrong is not just a sense of being good for our own safety, but it has an **eternal element

 

[tonyrey]

Do you believe **all **

So there is no spiritual aspect to our mental activity? We never receive supernatural guidance, inspiration or grace in our daily lives? God never gives us any help whatsoever? Free will is an illusion and we’re not responsible for our choices or decisions but simply the most intelligent members of the ape family?