The First Way Explained

[inocente]

I am not nitpicking over translation really, but indicating that “put in motion” does not really have the sense you need it to have, given Aquinas’s broader metaphysics (since it is translated, it naturally has to be taken in context, rather than as it might be idiomatically taken in English). “Put in motion” simply does not necessarily imply a prior state of non-motion.

The issue is the word motion had a different meaning to Thomas, so it needs to be given a technical definition for us, and if you interchange it with the verb to move, you have to redefine that as well, so best not.

*There are a number of interpretations consistent with the first way.
*

The number of interpretations of the first way is proportional to the number of Thomas fans multiplied by the number of times questions are asked.

Well, their velocities are always changing. There is no genuine inertial motion, so the situation you propose is vacuous.

If there is “no genuine inertial motion” then it is only due to multiple other simultaneous influences on a real object. Thus the change of velocity relies on other bodies existing and therefore cannot be not fundamental. Thus the argument fails.

But you do not seem to show that the collision is handled by Newton’s laws. I agree that it is described by them. But there is a long history of laws that describe without fully explaining, so your objection needs to be spelled out in more detail.

The comment on Newton’s laws was just an aside, that motion is explained and can be predicted without any need for the first way, which brings absolutely nothing to the party. There is a long history of clinging to vacuous hypotheses, so your objection needs to be spelled out in more detail.

Your extrapolation from inertial motion to all other types of change is a bit quick here. Can you expand?

You are saying that velocity (first derivative with respect to time, LT[sup] -1[/sup]) is not change but change of velocity (aka acceleration, second derivative with respect to time, LT[sup] -2[/sup]) is. I am saying (a) that is arbitrary, and (b) you cannot apply that same rule to other types of change.

Why would the fixed, static temperature need to be absolute zero? It could just be some temperature x[sub]0[/sub], which increases to x[sub]1[/sub]. Certainly at any non-absolute zero there is molecular motion occurring, but there is still a change in temperature from one state to another.

But it isn’t fundamental, it is simply a convenient point you chose. You just tried to argue that inertial velocity is an abstraction we must discount, now you argue that temperature is an abstraction we must not discount. You may not realize you’re doing it, but every Thomas fan does this ducking and diving business.

I think you and Linus need to agree precisely and exactly what you think Thomas means by motion in the context of the first way, and test your agreed definition. I think you’ll find it’s like trying to grab hold of a bar of wet soap until you accept the inevitable, that the first way fails.

(Similarly, imagine everything is in motion, and inertial motion is construed as rest, ie. non-change. That is fine; then changes in inertial motion still are not uncaused.)

Que? How did everything get there in the first place? Didn’t you just disprove the argument?

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Is inocente trying to defend fideism with reason?

No, has nothing to do with fideism because it has been pointed out to her that the ones she is defending laugh fideism to scorn. She just has a " thing " about Thomism and his proofs for the existence of God. She would rather defend the atheists and agnostics. Go figure. Her arguments are false of course.

Linus2nd

 

[polytropos]

The issue is the word motion had a different meaning to Thomas, so it needs to be given a technical definition for us, and if you interchange it with the verb to move, you have to redefine that as well, so best not.

Erm, of course the definition of motion applies to its verb form, to move. Neither are being used in the idiomatic sense required for your argument.

If there is “no genuine inertial motion” then it is only due to multiple other simultaneous influences on a real object. Thus the change of velocity relies on other bodies existing and therefore cannot be not fundamental. Thus the argument fails.

The idea that “motion” requires the change to be “fundamental” or “absolute” (a term you’ve used previously) is yours, not St. Thomas’s. The point I am making is that even if uniform linear motion is not real change because it can be construed as rest in another reference frame (a point I concede just for the sake of argument), it would not follow that changes of velocity do not satisfy the principle. (Newtonian physics centrally claims that changes in velocity must be caused, so contra your later claim, no, using change of velocity as the standard is in no way ad hoc, but is consistent with Newtonian physics.) No one said it needs to be “fundamental.” It’s a causal principle; of course the changes rely on other bodies.

that motion is explained and can be predicted without any need for the first way, which brings absolutely nothing to the party.

You make a few claims here:

1. Motion is explained without any need for the first way.
2. Motion is predicted without any need for the first way.
3. The first way does not add to the explanation or prediction of motion.
   The first is false; use Newton’s laws to non-circularly explain why linear motion behaves as it does. You’ll find that you can’t, since they don’t explain motion. They describe motion. Their circularity is not a strike against them, for they are just meant to be a descriptive theory.

The second and third are irrelevant, since the first way does not claim to explain or predict motion.

You are saying that velocity (first derivative with respect to time, LT[sup] -1[/sup]) is not change but change of velocity (aka acceleration, second derivative with respect to time, LT[sup] -2[/sup]) is. I am saying (a) that is arbitrary, and (b) you cannot apply that same rule to other types of change.

How is it arbitrary? Newton’s laws can construe changes in location as states of rest, but changes in velocity require external force.

But it isn’t fundamental, it is simply a convenient point you chose. You just tried to argue that inertial velocity is an abstraction we must discount, now you argue that temperature is an abstraction we must not discount. You may not realize you’re doing it, but every Thomas fan does this ducking and diving business.

It doesn’t need to be fundamental; that is your own requirement. When an object goes from one temperature to another, has it changed? I don’t need to identify an “absolute” or “fundamental” temperature. I’m not considering temperature in the abstract.

Que? How did everything get there in the first place? Didn’t you just disprove the argument?

No, I’m saying even if it were conceded that local motion is the same as a state of rest, the first way wouldn’t be forestalled.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

I can’t find that translation anywhere. The one I used (“whatever is in motion”) is at New Advent. Google’s machine translator also has “whatever is in motion”. So your translation might be a bit off .

Sorry, the translator is wrong. " …Certum est enim et sensus constat aliqua moveri in hoc mundo. Omne autem quod movetur ab alio movetur…" Literal translation is: " …For it is certain and evident to the senses that some things in this world are moved. Everything then which is moved is moved by another…" Fr. James A. Weisheipl, in Nature and Motion in the Middle Ages, claims that playing fast and loose with the passive voice of the verb " to move " here has lead to numerous errors in misinterpretation of the First Way.

In any event, are you suggesting that local inertial motion is ruled out? That would mean we discount change of location as motion and only include change of velocity, so anything moving at constant velocity escapes your “everything which is moved” clause. But that would mean that if two such objects are on a collision course, yon unmoved mover is only required to step in to alter their velocities. Not needed before or after (nor during, Newton’s laws of motion take care of it fine).

Local motion should be ruled out by those, such as yourself, who find it a great obsticle to understanding or accepting the first way. I have explained in my earlier posts #s 49, 52, 53, and 54 that the word " motion, " as used in the First Way, is validly applied to all types of change. It is not limited to local motion.

And FYI, local motion, would include both constant velocity, and change in velocity, and change in direction. All are covered under Thomas’ concept of causality. That is the point I have been trying to make all along. If a body is moved, it is moved by something. Either by its inner nature, through which one part moves another part, as in the example of animals who move themselves. Or by constant velocity, in which an incidental agent has propelled an object ( into space or on earth ) and imparted to its nature a modification we may call impetus. And once received, the body moves at a constant velocity, naturally by the impetus of its modified nature. This is the explanation offered by both Fr. James A. Weisheipl in Nature and Motion in the Middle Ages and by William A. Wallace in From a Realist Point of View, 1979 ed. I offered a similar explanation early on in this thread in posts 13 and 17. And ST. Thomas explained the motion ( pumping ) of the heart in similar terms. ( post 52 and * De Motu Cordis dhspriory.org/thomas/DeMotuCordis.htm )

Of course a change in velocity and a change in direction or a halt to velocity would require the immediate action of an external cause. At that point the modification to the body’s nature, by which it had been moving at a constant velocity ,would recede back into the potentiality of the bodie’s matter.

Newton was concerned with measuring forces and determining and predicting the direction and speed of moving body.

Thomas was only in demonstrating that there was a cause of any motion or change and in showing how an analysis of these causes would lead to an Unmoved Mover.

So I think you cannot ignore constant velocity and my objection is still good to go (and ditto for all other types of change).

Just addressed that.

I said “we can only claim B wasn’t in motion if we can identify a physically fixed point from which to measure its lack of motion”

Sophistry pure and simple. You are equivocating. Motion on a graph, if it does not translate to reality, does not deny reality. Such mathematicl-physical explications are meant for the convenience of prediction. But they are not intended to falsify the facts of common everyday experience. To imply otherwise is sophistry.

Here is your fixed point. A boy is standing here with a rope tied to a wagon. Now he is pulling the wagon, there is your motion. Do you deny that? And that is all Thomas is saying about the First Way, in so far as local motion is concerned. Now we can drag out dozens of other examples, even of the launching of a space ship. We can even give you pictures of all that. Do you deny that we can?

i.e. we can only claim B wasn’t changing if we can identify a physically fixed point from which to measure its lack of change. Can you give examples of physically fixed points? For instance, as the argument talks of hot and cold, you might think of absolute zero temperature. But of course that’s only a theoretical value and even if it could be reached, the electrons in the atoms are still in motion, so it’s not a fixed point in the real world.

I have just given you concrete, physical examples, take your pick. Newton would never have denied our examples. He didn’t dream anyone would. Ha, ha, he never envisioned the sophestry of the modern age!

Get your team cracking.

Linus2nd

 

[catholictiger]

this doesn’t exactly apply to the first way but applies to all the ways so I do keep my comments to the first cause.

I think one of the overlooked issues in this argument is that people don’t use the principle of sufficient reason in their explanation. What I think this adds to the argument is the idea that these demonstrations of God’s existence tries to explain the sufficient reason. This also strengthens the argument because it necessitates that a God must exist.

Let’s examine the first way with adding the understanding of the principle of sufficient reason

1. it is evident from the cosmos that things are in motion. (it is important to note that motion for thomas means change)
2. something that is in motion must be put in motion by something else. When something is in actuality it can become active only by something that is already active.
3. this cannot go on for infinity because there would be no first mover.
4. therefore there is a first mover who we called god.

Let’s rephrase it

1. It is evident from reason that everything has a sufficient cause (maybe from observable evidence too) This means that everything must have a reason for its existence either in itself or in another
2. Those things that are finite have their sufficient reason in something else.
3. if everything is finite if everything has the sufficient reason in something else nothing can exist, a infinite regress of these types of beings cannot explain their existence.
4. therefore there must be something that is infinite and has the sufficient reason in itself. This is what we call God.

A few comments on the 5 ways

I think people incorrectly use this idea of infinite that is used in these arguments. Thomas Aquinas says that it cannot be demonstrated that the world is finite or infinite. Aquinas believes that it can be held by reason alone that the world is infinite. I think some people don’t know this about Aquinas and incorrectly say that Aquinas is arguing that the world can’t be infinite from the five ways. The problem is that this cannot be demonstrated, and assuming Aquinas believes this the infinite regress is being used in another way than what most people see.

What I believe aquinas is saying when he is talking about an infinite regress is the idea that the world cannot only consist in an infinite regress of secondary causality. That is absurd, if you saw a long line of dominoes causing each other to fall you wouldn’t say that the ultimate reason that the dominoes are falling can’t be found in the dominoes itself. Let’s assume you could somehow set up an infinite process of falling dominoes, it would still not explain why those dominoes are there instead of not there or why they are falling instead of not falling.

so in order to fully understand the 5 ways you must understand primary and secondary causality. God is the primary cause and secondary causality has to have the primary cause in order to exist. It is absurd to argue other wise.

Again I believe that many people are misapplying the 5 ways (I haven’t watched your videos so I’m not sure if they do this) they say that the 5 ways argues that the universe is finite, but they don’t. They are rather explaining primary and secondary causality.

 

[catholictiger]

So, let’s suppose there is an unmoved mover. Why did the very first actualization of potency happen? The unmoved mover couldn’t have moved itself, since–as Aquinas says–self-motion is impossible. Nothing could have moved the unmoved mover, since then, it wouldn’t be an unmoved mover.

But, if the unmoved mover didn’t move itself, and neither did anything external to it, then the very first actualization of potency occurred without any cause whatsoever. That is, it was a completely random event, an utterly brute fact.

However, part of the reason Aquinas said nothing can move itself is because potency cannot be actualized without any cause whatsoever: it requires something already in motion.

Thus, the argument seems internally inconsistent.

Further, if it’s not internally inconsistent, we can make far better sense of an unmoved mover that behaves randomly if we identify it as some natural state of the universe than as a personal being.

as I explain there is a misrepresentation of these ways by many modern thinkers. I don’t think Aquinas is necessitating that there is a first movement a going from non motion to motion. What he is explaining is that motion in itself cannot explain the reason there is motion. There must be an unmoved mover or primary cause who can explain the existence of the motion in the cosmos.

I think what people are doing is looking at it in this way

X0 is God’s first cause or moving without moving than X1 happens X2 X3 X4 X5 X6 X7 . . . . . . . X579325. But this is the wrong way to look at it and not what Aquinas is arguing in the first way

rather you must look at it like this

lets say the world is finite

X0 is the beginning of time and it goes through lets say X2million

looking at a random point is this string of movement from potentiality to actuality God relates to it in this way

God sustaining God Sustaining etc.
X300 X301 X302 X303 . . . X400

It is hard to demonstrate this on a form but let me try

God
God
God
God
God
God
Motion Motion Motion Motion Motion Motion Motion
God
God
God
God
God

The idea I’m trying to get at here is that we should understand God as vertical causality in relation to a timeline and motion (as potentiality become actuality) as horizontal causality.

God as unmoved mover is not X0 on a timeline rather he is causing motion equally at all times. god is in a perpetual state of causing potentiality, he is in constant potentiality.

This is why I said we should approach it with sufficient reason instead of motion, or contingent beings, because people incorrectly play God at the start of the timeline, but Thomas is arguing that this chain of causality cannot be explained by itself there must be a God who is the sufficient reason for its existence.

 

[catholictiger]

The issue is the word motion had a different meaning to Thomas, so it needs to be given a technical definition for us, and if you interchange it with the verb to move, you have to redefine that as well, so best not.

a different meaning of things moving from potentiality to actuality? he isn’t talking about motion as like a car moving down the street, even though the movement from potentiality to actuality is occurring there.

The number of interpretations of the first way is proportional to the number of Thomas fans multiplied by the number of times questions are asked.

this could be the case but seeing Augustine in light of Aristotle we can understand that motion is the movement from potentiality to actuality. This doesn’t even get into science in any sense of the word.

If there is “no genuine inertial motion” then it is only due to multiple other simultaneous influences on a real object. Thus the change of velocity relies on other bodies existing and therefore cannot be not fundamental. Thus the argument fails.

this is not addressed to me so I will not comment

The comment on Newton’s laws was just an aside, that motion is explained and can be predicted without any need for the first way, which brings absolutely nothing to the party. There is a long history of clinging to vacuous hypotheses, so your objection needs to be spelled out in more detail.

I realize that things can move without needing something to cause its motion, but that doesn’t disprove Aquinas’s argument. There must be a reason there is potentiality moving to actuality at all.

I think you and Linus need to agree precisely and exactly what you think Thomas means by motion in the context of the first way, and test your agreed definition. I think you’ll find it’s like trying to grab hold of a bar of wet soap until you accept the inevitable, that the first way fails.

I think applying the principle of sufficient reason helps describe this argument.

Keep in mind tha these are not proofs of God’s existence they are demonstrations of why God must exist.

Note: i didn’t respond to lots of this because it wasn’t addressed to me but I felt like I should join in this discussion.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

this doesn’t exactly apply to the first way but applies to all the ways so I do keep my comments to the first cause.

I think one of the overlooked issues in this argument is that people don’t use the principle of sufficient reason in their explanation. What I think this adds to the argument is the idea that these demonstrations of God’s existence tries to explain the sufficient reason. This also strengthens the argument because it necessitates that a God must exist.

Let’s examine the first way with adding the understanding of the principle of sufficient reason

1. it is evident from the cosmos that things are in motion. (it is important to note that motion for thomas means change)
2. something that is in motion must be put in motion by something else. When something is in actuality it can become active only by something that is already active.
3. this cannot go on for infinity because there would be no first mover.
4. therefore there is a first mover who we called god.

Let’s rephrase it

1. It is evident from reason that everything has a sufficient cause (maybe from observable evidence too) This means that everything must have a reason for its existence either in itself or in another
2. Those things that are finite have their sufficient reason in something else.
3. if everything is finite if everything has the sufficient reason in something else nothing can exist, a infinite regress of these types of beings cannot explain their existence.
4. therefore there must be something that is infinite and has the sufficient reason in itself. This is what we call God.

A few comments on the 5 ways

I think people incorrectly use this idea of infinite that is used in these arguments. Thomas Aquinas says that it cannot be demonstrated that the world is finite or infinite. Aquinas believes that it can be held by reason alone that the world is infinite. I think some people don’t know this about Aquinas and incorrectly say that Aquinas is arguing that the world can’t be infinite from the five ways. The problem is that this cannot be demonstrated, and assuming Aquinas believes this the infinite regress is being used in another way than what most people see.

What I believe aquinas is saying when he is talking about an infinite regress is the idea that the world cannot only consist in an infinite regress of secondary causality. That is absurd, if you saw a long line of dominoes causing each other to fall you wouldn’t say that the ultimate reason that the dominoes are falling can’t be found in the dominoes itself. Let’s assume you could somehow set up an infinite process of falling dominoes, it would still not explain why those dominoes are there instead of not there or why they are falling instead of not falling.

so in order to fully understand the 5 ways you must understand primary and secondary causality. God is the primary cause and secondary causality has to have the primary cause in order to exist. It is absurd to argue other wise.

Again I believe that many people are misapplying the 5 ways (I haven’t watched your videos so I’m not sure if they do this) they say that the 5 ways argues that the universe is finite, but they don’t. They are rather explaining primary and secondary causality.

I recognize the value of the argument from sufficient reason but I would disagree that it can be inserted into the First Way or that the First Way can be construed to accomodate it. Go back and look at all the objections raised and you will see what I mean.

As to your other points, They have all been covered in the earlier history of this thread.
See my posts, called Lessons, 13, 16, 17, 18, 24, 49, 52, 53, & 54. Inserted between these my posts 6, 21, 22, 23, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 36, 62, 92, 101, 108, 117, 122, and 139 are important to the complete unfolding of the discussion.

Linus2nd

 

[catholictiger]

I recognize the value of the argument from sufficient reason but I would disagree that it can be inserted into the First Way or that the First Way can be construed to accomodate it. Go back and look at all the objections raised and you will see what I mean.

As to your other points, They have all been covered in the earlier history of this thread.
See my posts, called Lessons, 13, 16, 17, 18, 24, 49, 52, 53, & 54. Inserted between these my posts 6, 21, 22, 23, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 36, 62, 92, 101, 108, 117, 122, and 139 are important to the complete unfolding of the discussion.

Linus2nd

this is a lot to look at when I have time I will go look at those posts individually if I feel like I need to bring them up again I will.

 

[inocente]

Sophistry pure and simple. You are equivocating.

Sophistry is defined as the use of clever but false arguments, especially with the intention of deceiving.

Erm, of course the definition of motion applies to its verb form, to move. Neither are being used in the idiomatic sense required for your argument.

Due to the constant unprovoked lack of charity from Linus, this thread is at the absolute bottom of my priorities, so I will eventually respond but it may take several days, sorry, it’s not your fault.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Sophistry is defined as the use of clever but false arguments, especially with the intention of deceiving.

To me it means offering endless objections and strawmen with the sole intention of obfuscating and clouding the issues, with the sole intention of " throwing stones in the road…" Do you realize you have not agreed with anything I or anyone else on this thread or on " Could the World have Created Itself?, " have said, although I have been willing to agree with you from time to time, as have others, and have even admitted that I was wrong on a couple of occassions? So, who is being the sport here?

One of your big problems is that you love to dish it out, but you can’t take it.

Due to the constant unprovoked lack of charity from Linus, this thread is at the absolute bottom of my priorities, so I will eventually respond but it may take several days, sorry, it’s not your fault.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Sophistry is defined as the use of clever but false arguments, especially with the intention of deceiving.

Due to the constant unprovoked lack of charity from Linus, this thread is at the absolute bottom of my priorities, so I will eventually respond but it may take several days, sorry, it’s not your fault.

O.K. Inocente, I apologize. My remarks were unkind and I should not judge your motives and think the best. I will try to be better in the future.

Linus2nd

 

[polytropos]

Due to the constant unprovoked lack of charity from Linus, this thread is at the absolute bottom of my priorities, so I will eventually respond but it may take several days, sorry, it’s not your fault.

No worries, take your time.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

A question was raised about " gravity waves. " No evidence has yet been found that these exist, though it seems that they are predicted by Einsteins General Theory of Relativity - I’ll accept expert opinion on that. Scientists are working hard to find them but have not succeeded so far. Although, gravity itself does exist.

Linus2nd

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Twas phrases like “enthusiasts have chosen”.

It’s hard to believe you said that. Did you even bother to look it up?

Try seeing how many papers are cited on google scholar when you (name removed by moderator)ut words such as space-time, gravity, curve, geometry.

Try GB-P at Stanford University.

I appreciate that physics might be a shock to your system, just as Galileo was a shock to some people in the past, but serious question: do you think you’re helping or hurting the First Way with these knee-jerk reactions to things you admit are new to you?

Good grief, that would be a shock to anyone’s system. What was the name of that error in logic where the trick is to overwhelm your opponent with data? According to your references there is no end to the data and information one would have to master in order to satisfy " doubters " that one is giving a reasonable answer. The other error is that the truth about creation could only be determined by highly trained, highly educated scientists. I don’t think reasonable people will accept that.

However, as I have said before, nothing here disproves anything in the First Way. Thomas is not teaching science. He is arguing from the common experience of movement, i.e. two boys playing catch, a rock rolling down a hill, birds flying, people walking. From there he gets into philosophy.

Futher, the theories discussed in the referenced links are mathematical tools useful, if they have a use, for making predictions. The mathematics do not reflect actually as it exists. Whatever the case, space and time do not exist without substances to which space and time are natural concomitants. So there can be no " bending " of space or time, and there certainly is no physical reality we can point to which is " space-time. "
Gravity is a real property of ponderable objects. So called " gravity waves " have never been confirmed and if they are proven to exist, so what? Their actual existence would disprove nothing about the First Way. ( I hope we do not have to defend the First Way against every theory, every hypothetical that can be dreamed up by physics.)

Finally, to insist that the First Way applies only to local motion is the opinion primarily of those who think that such a restriction would doom the First Way. Many well known philosophers, some of whom I have mentioned, do not share that opinion. Fr. William A. Wallace, a scientist, philosopher, and scholar of the highest rank thinks that the First Way accomodates local motion without any problem and that is my own opinion as well and that is what I am attempting to prove in this thread.

Linus2nd

 

[inocente]

O.K. Inocente, I apologize. My remarks were unkind and I should not judge your motives and think the best. I will try to be better in the future.

OK, thanks, I was hoping you’d do that. Matter closed.

 

[inocente]

Is inocente trying to defend fideism with reason?

No, sometimes it seems I’m the only person on this thread who knows the difference between a priori and a posteriori, and therefore the difference between induction and faith.

Unless, that is, John meant to say For the Deduction so loved the world that he gave us a bunch of calculations that whoever reads said bunch of calculations shall not perish but have eternal life.

 

[inocente]

No, has nothing to do with fideism because it has been pointed out to her that the ones she is defending laugh fideism to scorn. She just has a " thing " about Thomism and his proofs for the existence of God. She would rather defend the atheists and agnostics. Go figure. Her arguments are false of course.

My username is the male version of a popular girl’s name here, inocenta. It is a tribute to your skills of deduction that you think I’m a girl. But as you’re wrong on so many subjects tis but a drop in the ocean.

Thomas specified that he was making an empirical argument for his unmoved mover, an argument from experience. Just as Paul’s far more precise, rigorous and comprehensive argument for God in Romans 1:20 is too.

Pope Francis’ recent interview was in Italian, and I translated part of it which didn’t appear in English news reports. The Pope says empirical in as many ways as he can think to say it, then he warns that without meeting God, without a relationship, “faith becomes an ideology among other ideologies”.

Is the Pope a woman? Are her arguments false of course? Or might (s)he be on to something?

 

[inocente]

Erm, of course the definition of motion applies to its verb form, to move. Neither are being used in the idiomatic sense required for your argument.

If motion is to be read as “the act of changing” rather than “the act of changing position” then the verb is to change, not to move.

I’m really taken aback that you guys can’t even agree the wording, let alone the meanings of the words. Forget the emperor’s new clothes, we don’t even have an emperor here, we have a bunch of guys wistfully imagining an emperor who is wistfully imagining some clothes.

Can someone give an academically unambiguous English rendering of the First Way, replete with technical definitions if necessary? otherwise we’ll be here forever trying to grab hold a ferret.

The idea that “motion” requires the change to be “fundamental” or “absolute” (a term you’ve used previously) is yours, not St. Thomas’s. The point I am making is that even if uniform linear motion is not real change because it can be construed as rest in another reference frame (a point I concede just for the sake of argument), it would not follow that changes of velocity do not satisfy the principle. (Newtonian physics centrally claims that changes in velocity must be caused, so contra your later claim, no, using change of velocity as the standard is in no way ad hoc, but is consistent with Newtonian physics.) No one said it needs to be “fundamental.” It’s a causal principle; of course the changes rely on other bodies.

I misled you. I mean that if the change of velocity would not happen without the presence of the other bodies, then the change depends on their prior existence and so is not fundamental.

*You make a few claims here:

1. Motion is explained* without any need for the first way.
2. Motion is predicted without any need for the first way.
3. The first way does not add to the explanation or prediction of motion.
   The first is false; use Newton’s laws to non-circularly explain why linear motion behaves as it does. You’ll find that you can’t, since they don’t explain motion. They describe motion. Their circularity is not a strike against them, for they are just meant to be a descriptive theory.
   The second and third are irrelevant, since the first way does not claim to explain or predict motion.

Never sure about this use of semantics, as if how is not enough, and why is somehow part of objective reality, and it sounds like you’re saying that the unmoved mover explains because otherwise the unmoved mover wouldn’t explain.

Also “to explain” means to make plain or understandable, so an argument where even the wording is up for grabs, let alone the meaning of the words, cannot fairly be described as an explanation.

*How is it arbitrary? Newton’s laws can construe changes in location as states of rest, but changes in velocity require external force. *

I’m thinking that if you didn’t understand then you didn’t learn calculus at school. Calculus is the language of change, so if you guys, even unto Fesser, can’t speak calculus, that would explain a lot.

But OK, try this. The First Way is about change over time. Velocity is the rate of change of position over time. Acceleration is rate of change of velocity over time, in other words the rate of change of the rate of change of position.

Now, if you discount constant velocity to avoid any issues with inertia, then to be logically consistent you must also discount every other type of change of the “rate of change of x” type, and only include those of the “rate of change of rate of change of x” type.

But you can’t do that without doing great violence to Thomas’ argument. Ergo you cannot discount inertial velocity.

(btw this would also apply to instantaneous change, since that’s what calculus is about).

It doesn’t need to be fundamental; that is your own requirement. When an object goes from one temperature to another, has it changed? I don’t need to identify an “absolute” or “fundamental” temperature. I’m not considering temperature in the abstract.

You misunderstood. Temperature is only a statistical measure, by which we measure average kinetic motion. It’s like a Pointillist painting, from a distance you see shades, close up the shades don’t exist, there are just colored points. Neither the shades nor temperature are fundamental, they are about how we see the world at a distance, not how the world is close up.

No, I’m saying even if it were conceded that local motion is the same as a state of rest, the first way wouldn’t be forestalled.

See above.

 

[inocente]

a different meaning of things moving from potentiality to actuality? he isn’t talking about motion as like a car moving down the street, even though the movement from potentiality to actuality is occurring there.

Agreed, but until someone provides a self-contained unambiguous version of what the First Way is supposed to say, all we have is a vague list of opinions about what it isn’t saying, and no agreement on what it actually says.

Perhaps you can bring some academic rigor to this hall of mirrors.

*this could be the case but seeing Augustine in light of Aristotle we can understand that motion is the movement from potentiality to actuality. This doesn’t even get into science in any sense of the word. *

Imho just as we try to understand scripture by asking what the author intended, how did his original audience understand it, and so on rather than subjectively reading what we want it to say, so we should read anything from a past age.

I think Thomas made the argument based on the best science available to him, but the science turned out to be wrong.

*I realize that things can move without needing something to cause its motion, but that doesn’t disprove Aquinas’s argument. There must be a reason there is potentiality moving to actuality at all. *

The objection is that different observers won’t agree on whether the supposed potentiality exists, that on the face of it, it’s just a way of being wise after the fact.

Can you give it a formulation that is absolute, non-trivial and quantifiable?

*Keep in mind tha these are not proofs of God’s existence they are demonstrations of why God must exist. *

Agreed, although I think only you and I see it that way. But until there is agreement amongst its supporters of what the First Way actually says, it’s not even a demonstration.

Note: i didn’t respond to lots of this because it wasn’t addressed to me but I felt like I should join in this discussion.

In this sea of troubles perhaps you can be the rock on which to build a case, and the gates of inocente will not overcome it.