Monday, November 23, 2020

Church and Culture radio interview

Last week I was interviewed by Deal Hudson for his show Church and Culture on Ave Maria Radio.  The interview lasts an hour and ranges over my work in general.  You can listen to it here.

You can find links to other radio interviews and the like here.

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75 comments:

  1. AnonymousNovember 23, 2020 at 2:54 PM

    Interesting comments about how much of your reading was extracurricular. It amazes me that in my philosophy program everything pre-1600 was considered a dead end. Even if we read something from the ancients or the medievals, there wasn't even a hint that our professors took it seriously or expected us to.

    It's sad. I wonder what it would be like if these things were taught much more widely. It might not produce more theists, but you have to imagine people would be a bit more reflective, right?

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    1. DanielNovember 23, 2020 at 3:28 PM

      At the very least, you would have better metaphisics that makes it possible to have something called natural theology. And to be sure, that does provide fertile ground or prerequisits for theistic religions.

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  2. JoeDNovember 24, 2020 at 12:49 AM

    Since this seems like it's open topic, I'll go ahead and ask about the Kalam argument:

    One philosophical argument for the finite age of the universe that I've been thinking about is that if the past were infinite, and time is passing, then it would imply a linear series that applied to infinitely many terms, which is impossible.

    Basically, an infinite past where an infinity of days has passed is impossible for similar (though not the same) reasons as to why it's impossible to count to infinity - it would imply that an infinity (or infinitely many terms) has passed which is impossible.

    What do you think?

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    1. reasonableNovember 24, 2020 at 3:34 AM



      You wrote: “ Basically, an infinite past where an infinity of days has passed is impossible for similar (though not the same) reasons as to why it's impossible to count to infinity - it would imply that an infinity (or infinitely many terms) has passed which is impossible.”

      Yes, this is correct.

      In order to reach today, the condition of having completed yesterday must be fulfilled, the condition of having completed the day before yesterday must be fulfilled, and so on. So we have a series of conditions that must have already been fulfilled when we reached today.

      If the past is infinite, then we would have a never-ending series of conditions to be fulfilled. A never-ending series is impossible to be fulfilled; it is a never-ending task to fulfill a never-ending series. So if it is a never-ending series, then today would never be reached because the conditions (needed to be fulfilled in order to reach today) would not be fulfilled.

      Hence having reached today, that series would not be a never-ending series, but a series with an ending (which means the series terminates in a beginning day).

      :)

      Cheers!
      johannes y k hui



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    2. ArchphilarchNovember 24, 2020 at 6:48 AM

      I'm certain that the argument has been formulated this way before. Maybe Immanuel Kant?

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    3. GoneFishingNovember 24, 2020 at 6:14 PM

      JoeD, reasonable:

      This is the fallacy of taking something infinite, applying conditions which apply to the finite, showing they aren't met by the infinite, and then concluding the infinite can't exist.

      You can't be really arguing that an infinite set is impossible? Or even a countably infinite set, like all positive integers?

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    4. reasonableNovember 25, 2020 at 12:11 AM

      Hi GF,

      1. Not all that which is applicable to the finite is inapplicable to the infinite. The principle of non-contradiction (being cannot be non-being in the same sense at the same time) is an example.

      2. Some concepts exist abstractly in the world of mathematics but they do not exist extra-mentally and non-abstractly in the actual world. One example would be imaginary numbers (mutilples of the square root of negative one). Another example would be the set of infinite numbers. There are independent reasons why the quantitative infinite (which is different from qualitative infinite) does not actually exist extra-mentally.

      :)

      Cheers!

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    5. JoeDNovember 25, 2020 at 6:19 AM

      @reasonable,

      Agreed, though the argument I'm making is that the particular infinite in question - in connection with and through a linear series - is impossible, not that all infinities are impossible.

      Whether or not actualised simultaneous infinite quantities are possible doesn't touch on this particular argument.

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    6. AtnoNovember 25, 2020 at 11:13 AM

      That would be the argument that you cannot form an actual infinite by successive addition. I do think it is sound, and David Oderberg defends it very aptly. Check out his papers on the subject.

      Whatever you do, just stay away from the aristotelian and thomistic objections - they are trash and misunderstand the argument completely. Which is odd since in general everything A-T tends to be great. But in this case, it's a blunder. Saint Bonaventure was right.

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    7. Dominik KowalskiNovember 25, 2020 at 12:57 PM

      My favourites on the Kalam are either Alexander Pruss or Andrew Ter Ern Loke, the former having produced the most interesting paradoxes and their assessments in his book "Infinity, Causation and Paradox", the latter having brought in new arguments as well as interesting routes for the gap problem.

      Loke has a free academia page, and this is one paper I think is a good existence of his work:

      https://www.academia.edu/700254/Loke_Andrew_2012_IS_AN_INFINITE_TEMPORAL_REGRESS_OF_EVENTS_POSSIBLE_Think_11_pp_105_122_Cambridge_University_Press_doi_10_1017_S1477175612000061

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    8. JoeDNovember 26, 2020 at 10:06 AM

      @Dominik,

      The paper you liked to has an interesting argument - that numbers are formal causes that are efficiently inert of themselves, yet infinite sets cause weird results which depend on the abstract cardinality being efficiently causative.

      But I think one response to this would be that it's not the infinite cardinality of the set that causes this - it's the collective set of concrete things that does that.

      The entire infinite set of presents is concrete, so the concrete and physical infinite set is what causes the weird results - not the abstract cardinality of it.

      One could also say that the cardinality works through the physical objects, but numbers in this case don't seem to be essences or forms - and even essences and forms are formal causes and aren't esoteric forces that make physicla objects do their bidding - so another way of saying things is that the cardinality is the formal cause of the infinite set.

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    9. AnonymousNovember 28, 2020 at 9:38 PM

      There is no problem in accounting for how we arrived at the present moment if the past is temporally unbound , counting in increments of one year say. We arrive here from a point n yeats ago in n yearly steps, and that is so for all n in an infitute past. We only have to explain how we arrived here from particular times, not from one an infimite time ago, which of course does not exist concretely. Saying that there has been an infinite past just means that the past is temporally unbound , not that things started at a point an infinite time ago!

      So if the past is temporally unbound, the past contains an infinite number of years. So what?

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    10. JoeDDecember 1, 2020 at 6:25 AM

      @Anon,

      Except this would mean a linear series applied concretely to an infinite amount of steps, which is impossible.

      It's not that things started at a point an infinite time ago - among other things, it means an infinity has been finished or counted, which is impossible.

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    11. One BrowDecember 1, 2020 at 11:35 AM

      JoeD,

      Why do you think that is impossible?

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    12. AnonymousDecember 1, 2020 at 1:45 PM

      Yes JoeD, with respect to your first paragraph, why ( other than simple repetition of a learned formula ) do you think this is impossible?

      With respect to your second, infinity has not been counted at all, as on a temporally unbound past there was no starting point to count from. We are still adding years, even though per hypothesis there are an infinite number of them in the past,but so what? As years are added the number of years in the past remains ......infinite.

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    13. JoeDDecember 2, 2020 at 12:46 AM

      1) For similar reasons as to why you can't count to infinity - a linear process can't apply to infinitely many members by nature.

      Also, it's more often atheists who parrot the house of bricks they built to resist claims they don't like. But that's beyond me.

      2) I guess I should've been more precise - it's not that there was a starting point, but that every single member of an infinity has been the subject of a linear process of counting.

      Which, again, is impossible.

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    14. One BrowDecember 2, 2020 at 6:00 AM

      JoeD,

      While "count to infinity" is meaningless, the only thing preventing a person from reciting every counting number is the finite time of their lifespan, and the inability to use infinitesimal units of time within which to count numbers.. Infinity is an actual concept that is different from the unboundedness of the real number line. Such a thing would not be beyond the reach of a putative omniscient, omnipotent deity, so it is not impossible.

      So, again, why do you claim it is impossible that time stretches back in an unbounded fashion?

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    15. JoeDDecember 2, 2020 at 6:11 AM

      @One Brow,

      I already gave some reasons, at least implicitly. You keep asking as if I haven't given any reason at all, instead of just trying to tackle the arguments and show why they are wrong.

      As for the rest - this just begs the question of possibility. If a linear process can't apply to infinitely many terms, then not even God could accomplish this like that because it's logically impossible.

      Counting is accomplished through finite terms, and finite terms by themselves can never become infinite. An eternal past requires a truly infinite amount of time behind it, not just looking forward to infinity without actually having passed it like counting forwards.

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    16. StardustyPsycheDecember 2, 2020 at 6:25 AM

      "why do you claim it is impossible that time stretches back in an unbounded fashion"

      The future time is unbounded and will always be finite with respect to now.

      There is no upper limit on future time, and so future time is unbounded, but will never be infinite. One cannot count up to infinity. There is no upper limit on the number of future seconds to come, but the number of future seconds will never count up to infinity.

      Infinity is not a number, it is a concept. No real process can progress to infinity. To think that there can be a real process that progresses to infinity is to misunderstand the concept of infinity as opposed to unbounded counting or progressing.

      The same is true about the past.

      An infinite past time is just as irrational as an infinite future time.

      Something from nothing is also irrational.

      That is why the origin of existence remains a mystery, an unsolved riddle.

      The speculation of god does nothing to solve that riddle. No real being can rationally do what can't be done. All the same questions apply to any speculated god, and thus there is no speculated god that solves the problem of this ancient riddle, the irrationality of both and infinite past time, as well as the irrationality of something from nothing.

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    17. One BrowDecember 2, 2020 at 11:28 AM

      JoeD,

      I saw this point:

      Basically, an infinite past where an infinity of days has passed is impossible for similar (though not the same) reasons as to why it's impossible to count to infinity - it would imply that an infinity (or infinitely many terms) has passed which is impossible.

      To which I would question why it is impossible for infinitely many terms to have passed.

      Perhaps there is some sort of proof lyung around I have not been exposed to, that is, something a little more sophisticated and knowledgeable than 'you can't count from infinity to 0'. I would be curious to see it.

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    18. JoeDDecember 2, 2020 at 12:16 PM

      @OneBrow,

      Oh, don't be a snob. Appealing to peer-review or complaining about simplicity of intuition won't get you any points.

      It's not that hard to see why infinitely many terms can't pass - because infinity isn't something that can pass in its entirety. Passing is relevant to finite sets or terms, while infinity isn't something that can in any way have been finished or perfected - that's just incoherent.

      An infinity can't have passed because passing requires that it has applied to infinitely many members - which is analogous to saying you've counted an entire infinity because you're saying you linearly applied something to infinitely many members.

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    19. One BrowDecember 2, 2020 at 1:49 PM

      JoeD,

      I'm not looking for anything peer-reviewed, just something that doesn't try to defeat the notion by definition (to count assumes a starting place where the counting begins).

      Passing is relevant to finite sets or terms, while infinity isn't something that can in any way have been finished or perfected - that's just incoherent.

      I'm not talking about finishing or perfecting anything, and infinitely is not an object "can pass" (neither it time, for that matter).

      There are no "members" to the passing time stream. There is no counting. Simplicity is great, but when one simplifies to the point that one distorts, you can lose the thread.

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    20. JoeDDecember 3, 2020 at 12:16 AM

      @OneBrow,

      1) Definitional arguments (and conclusions derived thereof) are a legitimate form of argument, in case you didn't know. And again, the reason counting is brought up isn't because there must be a starting point between infinity and now, but precisely because counting is inherently finite and can't have encompassed infinitely many terms.

      2) Except that's what's required by an infinite past - an infinite amount of time or days has in fact passed or been finished. But an infinity of things can't have passed by nature, so an infinite past is impossible.

      3) Doesn't matter if there's no counting - in an infinite past it's perfectly possible to count or to have a concrete linear series working through each day. Which is impossible, so an infinite past is impossible. You also don't have to be an object to pass or be linear - as time clearly does.

      It seems you're just tying yourself in knots with all the casual dismissals you're making just to avoid the argument.

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    21. One BrowDecember 3, 2020 at 5:52 AM

      JoeD,

      Thank you for pointing out why a definitional argument can fail so spectacularly. If counting is inherently finite (using your definition), than it can not be used to described an unending past at all, so an attempt to use it to refute an unending past is doomed to failure.

      I'm still waiting for you to justify 2). Repetition is not proof. I'm still waiting for you to justify the "impossible" part of 3).

      I'm not aware of any knots. I find it odd that you agree with me that there are no "members" to the time stream, and yet have convinced yourself that I made that error. I agree time passes and is linear. Now, what's the proof for it not to extend backwards without limit?

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    22. JoeDDecember 3, 2020 at 7:33 AM

      @OneBrow,

      1) Wow, way to misunderstand things. Counting cannot apply to infinitely many things since it works through linear finite terms which applies to any linear series, and in an infinite past there would be or could be infinitely many events or days, so the past can't be infinite.

      An eternal past by definition would entail a linear series in time, which can't be infinite.

      2) That's really not that difficult to see - an infinity by nature isn't something that can be completed. You can't work through finite terms and have them apply to infinitely many members / an infinity.

      An infinite past necessarily by definition means that an infinite series is behind us, so an infinity has passed. But that contradicts the nature of infinity which can't have been finished, counted or linearly fulfilled.

      3) Already explained above. And you again misunderstand what I said - there can be members in a time stream, just not infinitely many of them.

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    23. One BrowDecember 3, 2020 at 11:12 AM

      JoeD,

      Counting cannot apply to infinitely many things since it works through linear finite terms which applies to any linear series,

      I accepted this as your definition. However, that means it has no relation to the clause that follows it.

      2) That's really not that difficult to see - an infinity by nature isn't something that can be completed.

      I don't necessarily agree that it true (else Zeno's paradoxes would make motion impossible), but more importantly, I don't see why you think this applies to an unbounded past. What do you think is being "completed"?

      You can't work through finite terms and have them apply to infinitely many members / an infinity.

      Why not? You keep repeating the claim over and over, but so far, you are only offering an argument from incredulity. Do you have an actual proof to offer?

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    24. TalmidDecember 3, 2020 at 7:24 PM

      @One Brown

      "don't necessarily agree that it true (else Zeno's paradoxes would make motion impossible),"

      I don't think that Zeno paradoxes fail because we can complete infinities. To me, they fall because there is not really a infinite number of parts, these are only mental abstractions we form.

      The arrow paradox, for instance, has a similar problem. Time is not a bunch of instants joined together like we do on cinema or stop-motion, rather it is continous. Zeno more rationalistic method betrayed him, for he looked to much to abstractions and forgoted about the real thing.

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    25. One BrowDecember 4, 2020 at 6:16 AM

      Talmid,

      I agree regarding Zeno at least in part, and in part because we know of things like the finite sums of a series with infinite parts. Completing infinite parts in an infinitesimal time is also not a barrier.

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  3. ficino4mlNovember 24, 2020 at 6:05 AM

    An interesting interview. In addition to discussing Aristotle's Revenge, Hudson also interviews Prof. Feser about his (Feser's) intellectual/spiritual journey and his book on capital punishment.

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  4. Cairo AyresNovember 24, 2020 at 8:55 AM

    Keep doing this great work!

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    1. HectorNovember 25, 2020 at 11:50 AM

      Cairo, I replied to your comment on the Maverick Philosopher blog, but I'm not sure if you saw it! :)

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    2. Cairo AyresNovember 26, 2020 at 11:58 AM

      Thank you! I've responded

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  5. T NNovember 24, 2020 at 6:11 PM

    I loved the interview, and I love the book. I haven’t seen Deal Hudson for some time; he has slowed down some. Time flies.

    The reason I think the subject matter is important is because, yes, it’s true that the Aristotelian worldview hasn’t been disproven and is still valid, but more than that it is essential to move beyond the (in my opinion) somewhat stultified state of human endeavor. Nagel was mentioned as a contemporary intellectual who muses about the need for teleology in Mind and Cosmos, and Sabine Hossenfelder’s Lost in Math comes to mind as someone calling for a different approach on how think about particle physics so it can move beyond its current stalemate. Surely a long list of other examples can be made.

    One problem is so many people misinterpret these types of statements as claims that Aristotle was a particle physicist or something like that. Obviously not. The point is that the Aristotelian worldview and all its accoutrements undergird all our presumptions about how we look at the world, evaluate and interpret evidence, and so much more.

    Correcting our mistaken understandings of what type of creatures we are and how we interact with the world is how we move on from the mistakes of the modern project. And to that end Aristotle’s Revenge is a worthy contribution.

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    1. GoneFishingNovember 24, 2020 at 6:23 PM

      Yeah, but for this to go forward there needs to an honest reckoning about why Aristotelian thinking went wrong, when it did, instead of facilely bashing all who point it out as "materialists" and "mechanists", or pretending that (true) Aristotelian philosophy is so neatly separable from (false) Aristotelian science, whose conclusions were based on philosophical claims.

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    2. T NNovember 24, 2020 at 6:48 PM

      Wow, anyone that snippy must be right.

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    3. FreeThinkerNovember 24, 2020 at 11:13 PM

      Don't be a total jerk ( yet again ) TN.

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    4. TimNovember 25, 2020 at 3:14 AM

      GF, that all sounds very vague. Were the conclusions of Aristotelian science based on philosophical claims? That seems like a statement both sweeping and largely wrong. Why would claims about such things as potency and act or the categories require the specifically scientific claims of Aristotelian science. There might be parts of the Aristotelian philosophy of nature that rely on Aristotelian scientific notion, like natural place, but Feser does a good job of showing that Aristotelian philosophy of nature is largely salvageable. But to be honest anyone who reads the Physics and Metaphysics with proper attention and an understanding of the different categories knowledge/science will see that the claim that the key aspects of Aristotle's philosophy are bound up with his science is false. Have you read these works?

      Finally, did Aristotelian thinking go wrong? What does that mean here?

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    5. JoeDNovember 25, 2020 at 6:27 AM

      @T N,

      I myself prefer not to call it Aristotelianism or to appeal to the specifc system, because the underlying principles aren't even that disputable when you detach them from it's background association with Aristotle - things like act/potency, ends in tendencies, natures etc. are all easily understandable and are even a part of common sense.

      While it's fine in itself to collect them together and give them a name, it can also backfire in that people tend to think its one disputed view among others or has its own distinctive peculiarities which make it non-universal and non-common.

      Kinda like (but of course not exactly the same as) the whole idea of worldviews and the non-realist baggage that carries.

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    6. TonyNovember 25, 2020 at 7:27 AM

      There might be parts of the Aristotelian philosophy of nature that rely on Aristotelian scientific notion, like natural place,

      Weirdly enough, there is even a place for "natural place" in modern cosmology, especially if the universe is "closed" (still an open question). If the universe is tending (eventually) toward a future re-aggregation of all stuff toward one point, arguably that one point would constitute a natural place of all mass. Sure, it would no longer be "down" in terms of Earth, but that's just a trivial revision in the theory.

      I don't insist on it. I am just pointing out that even this Aristotelian scientific point isn't completely out to lunch.

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    7. T NNovember 25, 2020 at 8:12 AM

      JoeD,

      True enough. Aristotle's Revenge has plenty of examples of academics arguing for distinctly Aristotelian concepts without knowing that's what they're doing.

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    8. AnonymousNovember 25, 2020 at 9:22 AM

      Tony 7.27am

      Talk about desperately reading aspects of a philosophy into a place where it does not belong! Your unconstrained imagination is running away with you. In any case, it is not an open question as to whether the universe is closed- all the evidence indicates that not only is it expanding, but that the rate of exoansion is increasing! So that puts paid to this particular example of reading Aristotelian concepts into the ink blots.

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    9. Dominik KowalskiNovember 25, 2020 at 12:53 PM

      "In any case, it is not an open question as to whether the universe is closed- all the evidence indicates that not only is it expanding, but that the rate of exoansion is increasing!"


      ?????
      That doesn't have anything to do with it. And I mean both the second part of your sentence with the first one, as well with Tony's point.

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    10. GoneFishingNovember 25, 2020 at 1:08 PM

      Tim,

      Sorry I didn't make myself clear enough. I didn't mean that Aristotelian science errors logically follow from the basics of Aristotelian philosophy and concepts like act/potency, essence/substance/accident, and so on. Nevertheless, what I am saying is that Aristotle made philosophical claims over and beyond the basics, which were in fact erroneous, and led to erroneous conclusions in the domain of science. These conclusions did not come about to errors in doing science, but philosophy.

      The view that the universe has a corruptible terrestrial sphere and uncorruptible celestial spheres is essentially philosophical. The view that all bodies have a "natural place" is essentially philosophical. The view that the four basic elements are fire, air, water, and earth is essentially philosophical. These views are a priori to observation and experiment and are therefore not scientifically based. These lead to the erroneous scientific conclusions of geocentrism, heavy objects falling faster than lighter ones, natural vs. violent motion, and so on.

      So, I maintain it is necessary to make a distinction between things which are required by the basics of Aristotelian philosophy, and those which are not but are just extraneous extras.


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    11. AnonymousNovember 25, 2020 at 1:33 PM

      Dominik 12.53pm

      The contention ( 'wierdly' of course ) is that there is even a place for 'natural place' in modern cosmology , if the universe is tending towards a reaggregation of stuff at a point. But it is not. Even if it was though, that is completely different from'natural place' as used by Aristotle.

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    12. TonyNovember 25, 2020 at 3:54 PM

      Anonymous,

      To my count, over the past 50 years, the bulk of scientists seem to have flipped two or three times on the question. I am not a physicist, and don't try to "keep track" of the current score. I just went to the top three sites that popped up on google, and they seemed to say it was an open question: one said the matter would re-aggregate, one said it would not, and one said "it's an open question". I can't help it that the material out there is futzy.

      Even if it was though, that is completely different from'natural place' as used by Aristotle.

      "completely different"? Really, completely? As in, not having ANY points of similarity? Let me ask you: supposing that Aristotle had learned from Eratosthenes that the Earth is round like a sphere, and posited that "all things naturally move center-ward", meaning toward the center of the Earth. Would that have been "completely different"? What if, having discovered that gravity pulls the Earth to the Sun, and the Sun to the Earth, and all of the things on the Earth also pull at the Sun, Aristotle had posited that "all things naturally move toward the "center of gravity". Would that, too, have been "completely different"?

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    13. AnonymousNovember 26, 2020 at 9:37 AM

      Don't be a pedant. You would be hard pressed not to find some point of similarily between any two random things you might choose.

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  6. MizéNovember 24, 2020 at 11:46 PM

    Professor Feser, can you recommend good book/s on the subject of transhumanism and human enhancement? Thank you.

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  7. AnonymousNovember 25, 2020 at 4:26 AM

    Since this ranges all your work, I suppose it would be on topic to ask if you have seen the series The Young Pope and its sequel The New Pope? I think there is both a lot to like and a lot to dislike there. I was wondering if you had any views on it.

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  8. AquinianNovember 25, 2020 at 5:14 AM

    You can jettison Aristotle and you’ll still need to describe what is, categorise it, set it off from what isn’t, account for causality, contingency, etc. And when you do, if you do so in any way adequately, you will find that the old Greek bloke did it exceptionally well already, and people will call you an Aristotelian...

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    1. StardustyPsycheNovember 25, 2020 at 8:40 PM

      Aquinian,
      You clearly have not studied causality in any serious way, or do you suppose you have?

      Aristotle got causality wrong, as he got change wrong, as he got physics wrong, and so much more that Aristotle got so very wrong.

      "The old Greek bloke" got causality, change, and physics wrong, so of course he got the first mover wrong as well.

      For example, on modern understanding, causality, to the extent that one would refer to it at all, is mutual, wherein the assignment a X as cause and Y as effect is arbitrary, and thus meaningless and false.

      There is only the mutual interaction process, not cause and effect, as Russell explained using the example of gravity, over 100 years ago.

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    2. AnonymousNovember 26, 2020 at 8:25 AM

      So StarDusty, if I throw a brick at a window and the pane smashes, are you saying that calling the impact of the brick the cause of the pane smashing, and the pane smashing the effect, is arbitrary, and that we could just as well say that the fragmenting glass is the cause of the impact? Is that what you think?

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    3. StardustyPsycheNovember 26, 2020 at 10:37 AM

      Anon,
      The glass and the brick are our macro level abstractions for systems of vast complexity, each component of which was in a multibody interaction process over time.

      At each moment of time, sometimes described as “the limit of t as t goes to zero” an “infinitesimal” mutual interaction occurs involving, somewhat locally, perhaps a trillion trillion trillion localized field oscillation concentrations (particles).

      There is, in reality, no single event called “breaking the glass”. That description is just a human abstraction of an aggregate process over an arbitrarily specified time period.

      Or, as Russell more poetically summarized causality using the example of gravity “there is merely a formula”. Of course, Russell went into a very great deal more detail on the subject in “On the Notion of Cause, with Applications to the Free-Will Problem" more than 100 years ago.

      But from our human abstraction sensory perspective we perceive the glass as having a purpose, and as in the case of window it seems to be a rather static and pre-existing object. The brick is also abstractly assigned a purpose in our brains, that of being the instrument of destroying the structure of the glass as it was humanly intended.

      So, from the abstracted perspective of a typical human being who assigns purposes to perceived objects the brick seems to be the cause of the breaking of the glass.

      But what if nobody manufactured the glass, and nobody installed the glass? Then the brick would not break anything, just fly through the air and land on the ground. To begin the process of analyzing the collision at any particular time is arbitrary. The glass is just as much the cause of the collision as the brick, since without the glass there would be no collision.

      It is a bit like a fielder running to catch a fly ball. Was the catch caused by the batter hitting the ball, or due to the fielder running toward the anticipated future location of the ball in flight? And what of the pitcher, the bat boy, the ball manufacturer, and on and on? If we are going to consider the aggregate occurrences over some period of time the designation of that time period is arbitrary.

      Or, if all that is a bit too esoteric for you then we could also say that the glass caused the brick to slow down just as much as the brick caused the glass to speed up (in terms of net kinetic energy transfer).

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    4. AnonymousNovember 26, 2020 at 10:55 AM

      Interesting. Much to think about.

      But does not the movement of the brick towards the glass invariably preceed the shattering of the glass , which would not occur by itself? Isn't there an asymmetry there, which means that here cause and effect are not interchangeable on a macroscopic level?

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    5. StardustyPsycheNovember 26, 2020 at 2:41 PM

      Anon,
      “Isn't there an asymmetry there, which means that here cause and effect are not interchangeable on a macroscopic level?”
      From our point of view of human abstraction, yes. That is how we function. So, for trying to make sense of the ordinary world, as we perceive it assigning purpose and cause and effect makes sense.

      But what is it that we are trying accomplish by analyzing causality in detail? Just live day to day? I don’t think that is a reasonable philosophical or analytical goal, particularly if one is attempting to reason toward the origin of our perceived existence and claiming to have a logical proof of the existence of a particular deity.

      To reach such fundamental conclusions yet to employ such simplistic and demonstrably wrong concepts of change, causality, and physics described by Aristotle is a fundamental analytical mistake.

      Attempting to reason your way to a first mover using Aristotelian concepts is like trying to measure a grain of salt with a yardstick, just hopelessly the wrong tool, incapable in principle of validity on a scale capable of realistically analyzing how the universe actually works.

      Realistic philosophy requires modern concepts of causality, change, and physics. That is why cosmology is so closely linked with modern physics on the finest scale. The way the almost inconceivably small works tells how the almost inconceivably large works.

      Aristotelian analysis is hopelessly unable to even begin the task of reasoning our way to ultimate origins.

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    6. AnonymousNovember 27, 2020 at 6:33 AM

      'Or, if all that is a bit too esoteric for you then we could also say that the glass caused the brick to slow down just as much as the brick caused the glass to speed up.'

      How exactly does this disprove causality? Just because change is bidirectional, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. A caused a change in B while at the same time B caused a change in A. I'm not quite sure what the problem is here.

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    7. StardustyPsycheNovember 27, 2020 at 10:21 AM

      Anon,
      “How exactly does this disprove causality? Just because change is bidirectional, doesn't mean it doesn't exist.”
      Indeed.

      “A caused a change in B while at the same time B caused a change in A. I'm not quite sure what the problem is here.”
      Indeed, there is no problem for the modern understanding of causality. In reality change is mutual, fundamentally circular, and occurs in the present moment at the finest scale of material reality, which we abstract in the aggregate at our macro scale of human perception

      The problem is that Aristotelian accounts of change and causality are fundamentally linear and anti-realistic.

      In Aristotelian accounts there are asserted to be 4 sorts of causality, material, formal, efficient, final. Causation is analyzed as 2 sorts of linear series, per se and per accidens. Change is also imagined to come in various sorts such as substance, in quality, in quantity and in place.

      Motion is thought to require change such that each moving thing must require a mover in the present moment, else the object would slow and stop and its motion would be lost.

      A teleological aspect to change is also imagined, such that the Aristotelian-Thomistic believer imagines change as being somehow directed to some imputed purpose.

      Those Ancient ideas turn out to be all wrong in reality. The reason so many people believe in that way of thinking is that at our macro level of human perception such ideas seem to pretty much describe our personal experiences with the world around us.

      I could go on for hours picking apart exactly why the First Way is both logically invalid and based on false premises, as well as showing how wrong all the A-T notions about change and causality are, but I will leave you with one simple and obvious example, the differentiation between change in quantity and in place.

      Obviously, change in quantity is always a change in place. I am sure that Aristotle realized that if he had 5 pebbles in his hand previously and now he had just 3 pebbles in his hand that 2 of the pebbles changed place.

      Perhaps less obvious is that if one has a bowl of water its quantity will spontaneously decrease with no apparent change of place, rather, the water just seems to disappear, and thus the quantity of water in the bowl changes without any apparent change of place.

      Now, of course, with the aid of modern science, we all know that the water is merely changing place, from the bowl to the air, where it is no longer visible to the human eye.

      And so it goes with every Aristotelian assertion of change, causation, motion, and arguments for the first mover. By modern understanding such Aristotelian accounts are all simply ancient nonsense.

      Delete
    8. BillyNovember 27, 2020 at 12:12 PM

      SP,

      Causation cant be fundamentally circular. I'm sure even you can notice the obvious problem with that. If X causes Y, then there is no Y until X causes it. But if Y causes X, then there is no X to cause Y until Y causes it. So there is no X or Y until they cause each other. If that's the case, then they will be waiting forever to be caused by each other.

      What is perfectly fine is a part of X causing part of Y, which in turn causes another part of X, which in turn causes another part of Y, etc. There is no problem there, and that is perfectly in line with Aristotle.

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    9. StardustyPsycheNovember 27, 2020 at 5:33 PM

      Billy,
      “Causation cant be fundamentally circular. I'm sure even you can notice the obvious problem with that”
      There is no problem with mutual causality, which is fundamentally circular. That is how modern physics is formulated. Russell used the example of gravitation wherein motions in the simplest case, a two body system, progress according to mutual interaction such that the designation of X as cause and Y as effect is arbitrary, meaningless, and false.

      “If X causes Y, then there is no Y until X causes it. But if Y causes X, then there is no X to cause Y until Y causes it. So there is no X or Y until they cause each other. If that's the case”
      That analysis neglects the case of mutual simultaneous interaction, which is in fact how modern physics is formulated, except propagation time is also a factor, which complicates the notion of simultaneity.

      “What is perfectly fine is a part of X causing part of Y, which in turn causes another part of X, which in turn causes another part of Y, etc. There is no problem there, and that is perfectly in line with Aristotle.”
      You seem to be thinking of a sort of alternating incrementing time sequence of causes and effects that is fundamentally linear and thus in line with Aristotle. But that is not how the universe actually works.

      Causality is mutual, and thus fundamentally circular, as Russell described over 100 years ago in On the Notion of Cause, with Applications to the Free-Will Problem, famously stating, somewhat poetically, “there is merely a formula”.
      http://www.hist-analytic.com/Russellcause.pdf

      For example the now simple Newtonian formula for force between 2 masses X and Y.
      F = GXY/rr
      (force equals the gravitational constant times mass1 times mass2 divided by the distance squared)

      X and Y are mutually both the causes and effects of the force between them. There is no logical distinction such that one would somehow designate X as the cause, and Y as the effect at all.

      Delete
    10. BillyNovember 27, 2020 at 11:03 PM

      Your addition of force doesnt change anything,

      "X and Y are mutually both the causes and effects of the force between them"

      You are just adding another variable. X and Y both cause Z (the force between them), which is fine if left there. But if X and Y are also the effects of Z, then X and Y will be waiting around forever for Z to cause them, and Z will be waiting around forever for X and Y, which have not been caused yet, to cause it. Thus, none of them get caused, and thus none of them can cause each other.

      None of this shows any fundamentally circular causation, which is fundamentally incoherent as I explained.

      Delete
    11. BillyNovember 27, 2020 at 11:08 PM

      Just saying "this is how it is done these days" doesnt cut it, if you arent making any coherent sense.

      Mutual causation cant be anything more than part of X causing part of Y, and another part of Y causing another part of X. The idea that something can cause it's own cause, logically prior to itself being caused, is simply incoherent.

      Delete
    12. StardustyPsycheNovember 28, 2020 at 9:32 AM

      Billy,
      “The idea that something can cause it's own cause, logically prior to itself being caused, is simply incoherent.”
      Right, attempts to map linear causal thinking onto reality will result in incoherent statements.

      It is true that if you reword what I have said into a strawman characterization, apply that to reality, the result is incoherent.

      Suppose Alice is standing alone on ice so slippery she can’t move from her spot, only slip about with her feet or wave her arms around. Then suppose Bob is standing right next to her in the same predicament.

      Now suppose Alice and Bob each put a hand up and push against each other. What happens? Clearly they will move each other away from each other and keep moving away from each other even when they move out of reach of each other.

      Did Alice cause Bob to move or did Bob cause Alice to move?` If both are true then Alice and Bob mutually caused each other to move, but when?

      Did Alice cause Bob to move a little while she remained stationary? Did Bob then, at a later time, cause Alice to move while he remained at a constant velocity?

      If we plot the velocity and position of Alice and Bob do the plots have a staircase shape?

      There is a much simpler, realistic, and elegant solution, but first you must clear your mind of the old linear way of thinking. Russell considered this linear way of thinking you presently labor under to be so pernicious that the very terms “cause and effect” should be purged from our philosophical dialog, since there “is merely a formula”.
      http://www.hist-analytic.com/Russellcause.pdf

      When Alice and Bob push on each other there is no time when they each are subjected to a force different in magnitude from the other. The force between them first occurs simultaneously for them both. There is never a time when either Alice or Bob feel a force of a different magnitude from the other. That force will vary in magnitude over time but that variation of force is simultaneous (neglecting field propagation time)for Alice and Bob.

      Indeed, how else could their interaction progress? Surely, at the moment Alice’s hand contacts Bobs hand they must feel the same magnitude force. How could Alice somehow feel a greater or lesser force than Bob?

      Their interaction can only be mutual and simultaneous.

      It turns out that every particle in the universe is an Alice or a Bob, because every particle in the universe is in space. You are in space. Everything is in space. Space is, for every particle, a frictionless and lossless medium.

      No individual entity can change its motion through space. Every particle in the universe is like Alice and Bob on the totally slippery ice, only able to change motion by a mutual simultaneous interaction with another particle.

      So long as you persist in attempting to map the reality of mutual causation onto the anti-realistic Aristotelian linear stepwise models you will always arrive at incoherent results.

      Delete
    13. AnonymousNovember 29, 2020 at 7:25 AM

      Billy, I think you got that right. "Mutual" could be the problem here. Even if Alice and Bob push against each other, it still seems to be linear as Alice needs Bob to move her body and vice versa. That doesn't change the fact, that Alice affecting Bob also indludes Bob affecting Alice ("part of X causing part of Y, and another part of Y causing another part of X"). If I hit a stone with my hand, the stone also affects my hand (bleeding..), even if I was the one, initiating the "change".

      Delete
    14. One BrowNovember 29, 2020 at 8:35 AM

      Causation, as StardustyPsyche describes it, is not circular, which implies A -> B -> A. The better term is "symmetric", A <--> B. "Circular" is a relic of the notions of unaffected cause that StardustyPsyche wishes to discard.

      Also, symmetric causation does not prevent the existence of causal chains. When A <--> B and then later B <--> C, the mutual interaction of A and B obviously affects the later interaction of B and C.

      When one side is arguing for a causal chain, and the other for symmetric causation, they are truly arguing past each other.

      Delete
  9. FredNovember 28, 2020 at 10:05 AM

    SP, Might I suggest reading “Aristotle’s Physics” by Carlo Rovelli. Unfortunately, I can’t provide a link directly to the article, but there is a very good summary of it here: https://letterstonature.wordpress.com/2015/08/09/what-aristotle-got-right/. Here is the abstract:

    I show that Aristotelian physics is a correct and non-intuitive approximation of Newtonian physics
    in the suitable domain (motion in fluids), in the same technical sense in which Newton theory is an
    approximation of Einstein’s theory. Aristotelian physics lasted long not because it became dogma,
    but because it is a very good empirically grounded theory. The observation suggests some general
    considerations on inter-theoretical relations.

    So your argument that Aristotle’s metaphysics is vitiated by his faulty physics fails even on its own terms. Aristotle’s physics is not, in fact, faulty in the domain for which it is intended any more than Newton’s physics is faulty in the domain for which it is intended, even though it only approximates Einstein’s more complete physics. Rovelli is a theoretical physicist, who founded quantum loop gravity theory. He is also an agnostic with no religious axe to grind. Of course, I suppose you, being The Great and Powerful StardustyPsyche, know a lot more about physics than the mere founder of quantum loop gravity theory.


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    1. StardustyPsycheNovember 29, 2020 at 8:53 AM

      Fred,
      “there is a very good summary of it here: https://letterstonature.wordpress.com/2015/08/09/what-aristotle-got-right/”
      Luke Barnes did a good job of showing what a dishonest writer Lawrence Krauss is. He has enough physics background that more accomplished physicists will at least attend and listen, skeptically, to Barnes. But his arguments are ultimately fallacious and unconvincing.

      “Aristotelian physics is a correct and non-intuitive approximation of Newtonian physics”
      Not it isn’t. Newton does not reduce to 4 causes, 4 sorts of change, 2 sorts of series, or teleology.

      Aristotle didn’t even write equations for Newton to reduce to. All Aristotle did was write philosophical words about his observations, and those words turn out to be wrong in nearly every respect.

      “in the same technical sense in which Newton theory is an approximation of Einstein’s theory.”
      Einstein’s equations reduce to Newton’s equations when velocity goes to zero. There is no analogous reduction from Newton to Aristotle at least because Aristotle didn’t write equations at all, so there is nothing by Aristotle for Newton to reduce to.

      “Aristotle’s physics is not, in fact, faulty in the domain for which it is intended”
      Yes it is. The domain it is intended is to accurately describe how the universe works in order to reason back to a first mover. In that intended domain Aristotle fails.

      “I suppose you, being The Great and Powerful StardustyPsyche, know a lot more about physics than the mere founder of quantum loop gravity theory.”
      Argument from authority. Being an expert on quantum loop gravity theory does not make one necessarily correct generally.

      Aristotle reasoned back to a first mover based on his fundamental errors. Aristotle failed to provide a realistic theory.

      The reasons people followed Aristotle for so long are that his descriptions somewhat describe our day to day perceptions of the immediate world around us, and people generally did not do the experiments needed to show that Aristotle was fundamentally wrong.

      Once people like Copernicus and Galileo started using careful observations, experiments, accurate instruments, and real mathematical calculations we found out that Aristotle had been very wrong all along, and the universe does not work the way simple naked eye observation tends to indicate.

      Since that time the logical errors and false premises of the arguments for a first mover have been identified so all reasonable people stopped believing in that ancient misapprehension about how the universe came to be.

      Delete
    2. FreeThinkerNovember 29, 2020 at 9:05 AM

      Quite right. Good response. The claim that Aristotelian physics is an approximation to Newtonian mechanics, in the same technical way in which the latter is an approxion to Einsteinian relativity- despite not even being expressed in mathematical language - is utterly bizarre. This 'Fred' is obviously scientifically very limited, hence his need to appeal to authority and insult you along the way.

      Delete
  10. TalmidNovember 28, 2020 at 7:23 PM

    Pretty interesting interview. But it is a shame thatvi did not talk much about your conversion to Catholicism, Dr Feser, i'am still curious of how it happened. The way you talk about that does sound like you did not spend much time, if any, as a protestant, and this does not seems that common.

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    1. BillyNovember 29, 2020 at 9:10 PM

      Read his essay in the book Faith and Reason.

      Delete
    2. TalmidNovember 30, 2020 at 7:40 PM

      Thanks for the tip! I did google the book and Ed essay can be read online.

      Pretty cool history. Dr. Feser case fits exactly with this Blessed Fulton Sheen quote: There are not one hundred people in the United States who hate The Catholic Church, but there are millions who hate what they wrongly perceive the Catholic Church to be.”

      And to think this man only started this path because his classes where boring :)

      Delete
    3. FreeThinkerNovember 30, 2020 at 11:00 PM

      Talmid 7.40pm

      Regarding your final paragraph, this only goes to show the extreme contingencies of life, and how unfair THE SYSTEM is with regards to salvation. An omnipotent being might be expected to implement a vastly fairer system than the acceptance of certain purported theological truths revolving around Jesus. I appreciate of course that 'solutions' have been proposed to address this problem - eg Molinism, the transworld depravity of unbelievers in the Christian world view etc - but forgive me for observing that they are not exactly convincing!

      Delete
    4. TalmidDecember 1, 2020 at 8:35 PM

      @Unknown

      "Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation.337"

      Which is just the same as saying:
      "They would not be guilty if I had not come and spoken to them. But now they have no excuse for their sin."
      (John 15:22).

      Maybe "the system" is injust but the Judge is not, so do not despair! no one will be screwed by geography or history!

      You can give a read on the catholic view of salvation if you want: https://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s1c3a2.htm

      I'am offering it to you because you seems to have a twisted idea of how it works. You say:

      " An omnipotent being might be expected to implement a vastly fairer system than the acceptance of certain purported theological truths revolving around Jesus"

      Do you believe that salvation is like passing on a oral test? Not really, faith alone is a dead faith! What saves is union with God by grace where He transforms you by the power of the Holy Spirit and adopts you as His spiritual child.

      Think of it like that: you heard there is this person that loves you but you do not know how the person is, you guys were never introduced. It turns out though that you and this person pick up the same bus everyday and actually you guys talked a lot before. So, even if you do not know that person on a way, you guys are friends!

      This probably is like how the situation would be with unbelievers. Some probably have some union with the Holy Spirit that they themselves do not know. I tell you: they will be pretty suprised someday!

      I mean, i suppose that seeing this talk about this God that wants all to be faithful while not being faithful is pretty weird, but you should give it a shot. Edward essay for instance is pretty cool, if you look at the book you can read it online.

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    5. StardustyPsycheDecember 2, 2020 at 5:35 AM

      Talmid,
      " But now they have no excuse for their sin"

      God has no excuse for my sin.

      My sin is god's fault, because, you say, god is omniscient, omnipotent, has free will, and is the creator of all other than itself.

      God knew, you say, every detail of the universe for all time to come before he even created the universe in the beginning.

      Therefore, god knew I would act according to my nature, and god created my nature, and god could have created me otherwise, so it is gods fault I fell, just as it is the fault of a negligent building constructor who knew the building would fall due to its weak structure, and then the building fell.

      You want to blame the building for falling. You are blaming the victim.

      The perpetrator is god. All the sin of the world is gods fault because he created everything, he could have created otherwise, he freely chose with malice of foresight to create sin, so god is to blame, not me or you or any human being.

      If the glory belongs to god so does the blame.

      Delete
    6. TalmidDecember 2, 2020 at 7:26 PM

      A building can't choose to fail or not fail, so this comparison makes no sense.

      Sure, in a way you are sinning on the way you are because God, if He exists, created you. In the same way, you are sinning on the way you are because your parents got together. In the same way, you are sinning on the way you are because some friend in fourth grade invited you to play(If he did not your life would be a diferent one, this example is less clear). That is all true.

      Does all that takes away the fact that you can refuse to sin and live a virtuous life? Is God, fate, destiny or anything like that altering your brain to make you incapable of living the good life? No.

      As Satre would say, you are free to do it or not. Trying to shift the blame to God or determinism etc is bad faith and nothing else. No one can decide for you what to do, only yourself.

      You can write what you want, we both know that you can do it if you try.

      Delete
  11. AnonymousNovember 28, 2020 at 7:55 PM

    Does anyone here still believes that Donald Trump actually won the election?

    ReplyDelete

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