tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post3716017111750548487..comments2024-03-28T03:20:15.940-07:00Comments on Edward Feser: Brungardt on Aristotle’s RevengeEdward Feserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13643921537838616224noreply@blogger.comBlogger104125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-61672688270087523842019-12-20T17:50:18.169-08:002019-12-20T17:50:18.169-08:00It doesn't even mean anything to say an object...It doesn't even mean anything to say an object is infinitely divisible but not actually divided, because it's the same size whether it's divided or not. A smallest length is a contradiction in terms. What Aristotle thought is irrelevant. George Berkely in the Analyst refuted the idea that a point is actually zero as well. Zero can't add up to anything spatially. <br /><br />Kant was a smart guy and believed that Zeno's paradox was unsolvable (second antimony). Have a good Christmas. I've written enough on this blog.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-92165986490394551732019-12-20T05:12:57.154-08:002019-12-20T05:12:57.154-08:00"Calculus says infinite series can have a fin..."Calculus says infinite series can have a finite sum. But I don't think it has explained how this works in space; how the unlimited can be in the limited, spatially."<br /><br />Mathematics, as it relates to physics, is an abstract formalism to get predictions out of a theory. The deeper story, the metaphysical entailments (if any) cannot be read off fro the formalism.<br /><br />In general relativity, space-time is modeled as a "classical" 4d Lorentzian manifold. But there are other ways to do differentiual geometry which do *not* involve points (or even set theory) -- e.g. topos theoretic models of synthetic differential geometry. But in a somewhat technical sense, this is irrelevant (basically, under some hypothesis and/or restriction, they all prove the same statements, at least as it regards your garden variety physics which can, for the most part, be formalized in fragments of second order arithmetic).<br /><br />But this is all pointless, because not even a single one of my points was addressed, so here is my last word: fortunately what a random internet know nothing "thinks" is irrelevant to how mathematics or physics works.grodrigueshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12366931909873380710noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-67692915999057190862019-12-20T00:44:35.014-08:002019-12-20T00:44:35.014-08:00Marx contributed nothing to metaphysics. He just a...Marx contributed nothing to metaphysics. He just assumed materialism. He also was learning calculus when he died, so hardly seems to have pushed out the frontiers of mathematics.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-46925500874968936062019-12-19T22:36:59.957-08:002019-12-19T22:36:59.957-08:00Of course math applies to the material universe! I...Of course math applies to the material universe! It is abstracted from it in the first place. Marx’s mathematical studies compose 1,000 pages. Engels said Marx knew more than most about math, and Marx said Hegel knew more than most about it. I've read a lot of philosophy of nature from Marxists. "The turning point in mathematics was Descartes’ variable magnitude. With that came motion and hence dialectics in mathematics ..." (Dialectics of Nature, Engels)<br /><br />If you take a string that is a foot long and make it into a circle, miraculously the length can be then found through pi. That number goes on forever though. It's rounded one way or another to a foot long, but this shows that 12 inches can be subdivided infinitely. I do not have a PHD in mathematics. I took pre-calculus in high school (16 years ago) and geometry in college. But I know that there is no answer to Zeno's riddle. When I say that 1 foot is equal to the sum of its parts, I mean that every term in the amount of parts represents something in space. If a length were found by an irrational number, the decimal series correlates to space. Mathematics that starts with a contradiction is actually a thing:<br /><br />"The first to suggest paraconsistency as a ground for inconsistent mathematics was<br />Newton da Costa in Brazil in 1958. Since then, his school has carried on a study of<br />paraconsistent mathematics. Another school, centered in Australia and most associated with the name of Graham Priest, has been active since the 1970s. Priest<br />and Richard Routley have forwarded the thesis that some inconsistent theories are<br />not only interesting, but TRUE; this is dialetheism... A systematic study of these<br />(inconsistent) pictures is being carried out by the Adelaide school..." Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy<br /><br />Also, Hume essentially replaces Allah in the Islamic occassionalist system with matter as the prime mover. With an infinity of possible forces involved in any action, science seems to be rather occultic. This is because it's not about truth. <br /><br />I'll read with interest your guys responses, but this is all I wanted to sayAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-84813243182896892852019-12-19T19:13:04.029-08:002019-12-19T19:13:04.029-08:00"Pierre Bayle’s 1696 article on Zeno drew the..."Pierre Bayle’s 1696 article on Zeno drew the skeptical conclusion that, for the reasons given by Zeno, the concept of space is contradictory... In the early 19th century, Hegel suggested that Zeno’s paradoxes supported his view that reality is inherently contradictory." Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy<br /><br />Calculus says infinite series can have a finite sum. But I don't think it has explained how this works in space; how the unlimited can be in the limited, spatially.<br /><br />I'll let you guess of the last words. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-39696490552249022212019-12-19T18:46:57.688-08:002019-12-19T18:46:57.688-08:00I think it's obvious that geometry applies to ...I think it's obvious that geometry applies to volume and volume applies space, and space applies in principle to objects. Regardless of what Aristotle thought. If all objects have an infinity of points, Banack-Tarski makes a lot of sense. In fact, you can take two lines, one longer than the other. Put the longer one as the hypotenuse and a one to one correspondence suddenly happens between the points. All objects have an uncountable amount of points forming the. If you cross a bridge, you don't just cross a bridge. You cross every plank and it's half.<br /><br />Russell's "The Principles of mathematics":<br /><br />"Leibniz’s—and his successors’—attempts to save infinitesimals were bound to come to naught, because 'infinitesimals' as explaining continuity must be regarded as unnecessary, erroneous, and self-contradictory" <br /><br />Hegel, btw, thought the world contained a contradiction. It's like an Escher painting<br /><br />Here's an article for those who have a PHD in math: https://www.academia.edu/343657/Inevitability_of_infinitesimalsAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-25761179305950021592019-12-19T14:57:31.668-08:002019-12-19T14:57:31.668-08:00"Here's the relevant information. The las..."Here's the relevant information. The last one is from a mathematician fascinated by Zeno. Get educated. There some koans for you Thomists!"<br /><br />I do not know if this, as well as the previous post, was intended as a reply to me. Well, if it was, it is a complete failure because it does not address any single point I made.<br /><br />And I have a phd in mathematics and a solid education in physics, so I do know what I am talking about. For example, the Banach-Tarski paradox is only a paradox in an informal sense as it is a theorem of ZFC. So unless you are claiming you have found a contradiction in ZFC (in which case what are you doing here? write that paper, get the accolades. And the chicks), just shut up about it. And about the purported inconsistency with Aristotle -- nah, not going down that hole with you, just not worth it.<br /><br />It is also completely irrelevant to the reality of matter as we know it: not only is the partition of the ball non-constructive (the degree of non-constructiveness can be made very sharp), but to repeat myself, matter is *not* viewed as solid continuum bodies, so it is not made up of points, infinite or otherwise.grodrigueshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12366931909873380710noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-24675268296013325162019-12-19T12:16:32.032-08:002019-12-19T12:16:32.032-08:00But, as I said, there is no problem with an infini...But, as I said, there is no problem with an infinite number of spatial points in a finite space precisely because there simply isn't a infinite number of actual spatial points. That is where Zeno goes wrong.<br /><br />As an analogy, this would be like claiming a circle is composed of an infinite number of straight sides, then saying its a paradox because those sides won't have any length. The answer to that paradox is to point out that a circle simply isn't composed of an infinite number of straight sides in the first place.Billyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14579200479132033014noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-15962186487790771472019-12-18T20:48:09.232-08:002019-12-18T20:48:09.232-08:00But you're clearly a dunderhead. You're su...But you're clearly a dunderhead. You're summary of the history of philosophy reads like a C grade high school junior's.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-12020198731495004912019-12-18T17:15:55.524-08:002019-12-18T17:15:55.524-08:00Geometry seems to support nominalism, since every ...Geometry seems to support nominalism, since every form is an indeterminate form (as seen from its parts). The value is infinite. Zeno, through history's Pyrhonnians, probably led to Spinoza, which certainly was the downfall of the scholastic edifice. Kant turned Spinoza's God into the unknowable, and Marx demystified the world by taking out anything that wasn't based, in principle, on matter. Then came Einstein who said there is no time without motion (much like there is no will without reason and no reason without will). And finally there is Hawking, who points out there is no eternity outside of this universe for God to even act in. That seems like the truest position to me Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-29303013561411072722019-12-18T16:54:51.135-08:002019-12-18T16:54:51.135-08:00What you said Billy has support in that the quantu...What you said Billy has support in that the quantum realm things seem less real. But this is about geometry and the paradox that was found in itAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-22931905970886136042019-12-18T15:22:30.366-08:002019-12-18T15:22:30.366-08:00Aristotle's answer to Zeno explains that parts...Aristotle's answer to Zeno explains that parts of things are only virtually there, not actually there, so there is no need to explain an infinite number of actual parts. From an aristotelian point of view, hydrogen and oxygen only exist virtually, not actually in water, which is why the properties of hydrogen and oxygen dont arise, so there is no need to explain those parts since what exists actually is only the water itself.Billyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14579200479132033014noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-40034807559851632942019-12-18T14:03:53.596-08:002019-12-18T14:03:53.596-08:00Believe it or not, this is addressed in the introd...Believe it or not, this is addressed in the introduction to Aristotle's Revenge. Pl0noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-53942767516521810462019-12-18T09:42:47.978-08:002019-12-18T09:42:47.978-08:00Here's the relevant information. The last one ...Here's the relevant information. The last one is from a mathematician fascinated by Zeno. Get educated. There some koans for you Thomists! Aristotle was a moron on this question, as most modern thinkers admit<br /><br />https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s86-Z-CbaHA<br /><br />https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffUnNaQTfZE<br /><br />https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=numberphile+zeno&&view=detail&mid=547ECDB7884F7787FB08547ECDB7884F7787FB08&&FORM=VRDGAR&ru=%2Fvideos%2Fsearch%3Fq%3Dnumberphile%2520zeno%26qs%3Dn%26form%3DQBVDMH%26sp%3D-1%26pq%3Dnumberphile%2520zeno%26sc%3D3-16%26sk%3D%26cvid%3DACA787C05E424FDD9BE14BAA2FC924B0Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-17033886380213346752019-12-18T08:37:50.356-08:002019-12-18T08:37:50.356-08:00Most mathematicians consider Zeno refuted by sayin...Most mathematicians consider Zeno refuted by saying an infinite sum can equal a finite amount. Most philososphers disagree. How is it possible for an infinite sum of spatial parts to equal an finite part of spatial reality? I've never seen answer to this from mathematics. They even get into Banach-Tarski from this. Zeno's cube is interesting too. Aristotle's answer was literal nonsense. It is potentially infinitely divisible? Does it have infinite parts or not? Aristotle had no answer so he mumbled rubbish. <br /><br />Of course if Christians get on atheists forums "in the name of the Lord" they aren't jackasses. Oy veyAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-57467667594659397622019-12-18T05:12:55.262-08:002019-12-18T05:12:55.262-08:00"The guy is clearly a jackass, who doesn'..."The guy is clearly a jackass, who doesn't know what he's talking about."<br /><br />The second sentence must be stressed. As far as physics or mathematics (which is what I can assert a modest acquaintance with), it is nothing but pure unmitigated rubbish. And just so that this is not mere whining, here is an example:<br /><br />"On the other hand, for me to believe objects are both finite (limited) and infinite (endless points), I need to posit other dimensions."<br /><br />This is absolute, complete crap uttered by someone who does not have the least clue about mathematics. Not to mention physics (hint: matter is *not* conceived as "infinite (endless points)").<br /><br />And another:<br /><br />"Aristotle believed forms to be undividable. A simple pointing out of the parts refutes this."<br /><br />Huh... forms do not have parts...grodrigueshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12366931909873380710noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-2419601419191975812019-12-17T22:05:36.140-08:002019-12-17T22:05:36.140-08:00Why do you bother with these doofuses (doofi?)? Th...Why do you bother with these doofuses (doofi?)? The guy is clearly a jackass, who doesn't know what he's talking about. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-75117641299104502272019-12-17T19:19:30.649-08:002019-12-17T19:19:30.649-08:00"There are costs to the Aristotelian view too..."There are costs to the Aristotelian view too", of course (though not those associated with your somewhat bizarre comment), especially since it involves commitment to a pretty robust metaphysics. I am willing to pay that price, in view of the arguments.<br /><br />"The world has al the reality it needs to exist on its own" to me that is impossible unless "the world" is modally necessary; its essence is existence; it is purely actual, and so on. Because I believe strongly in a PSR which requires external causes for all modally contingent things, things which are mixtures of act and potentiality, essence and existence, etc. The rational costs of not accepting this PSR are too high in my estimation. And it seems to me that attributing this kind of robust existence to "the world" is too high a cost, one I cannot take. <br />And necessary first cause (whatever it is; there must be one, in my estimation) must be in an important sense Personal and Intelligence, since it is the cause of personhood and intelligence and these are perfections/purely positive. And because of teleological arguments and other arguments. Again, I am forced into my own views because of the costs of denying them. <br /><br />You are free to have your fideism, but I and many others cannot follow you. It seems clear to me God's existence can be rationally established, because the costs of rejecting the arguments are way too high. If you're fine with those costs and with biting the bullets, good for you, but don't try to speak for me or others or lecture us on how we (supposedly) cannot show God exists or anything. We can. To ourselves, because we see the costs of rejecting such and such arguments, and they are way too high for our minds. And you're really in no authority to tell us we should be okay with incurring such high, extreme costs such as thinking intelligence is not a perfection or that it can derive from a first cause with no intelligence, or whatever. It's almost as if you're annoyed at the fact that people see God's existence as being rationally demonstrable to themselves. <br /><br />You accept your costs and we'll accept our costs. Atnohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13138424784532839636noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-84192447467890730022019-12-17T19:13:57.272-08:002019-12-17T19:13:57.272-08:00So it seems to me that the works of Aquinas are ju...So it seems to me that the works of Aquinas are just all mysticism. On the other hand, for me to believe objects are both finite (limited) and infinite (endless points), I need to posit other dimensions. So at the end of the day maybe I need my mysticism as well. But don't you judge mine? GregoryAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-57118522485477365652019-12-17T18:56:07.307-08:002019-12-17T18:56:07.307-08:00There are costs to the Aristotelian view too. Besi...There are costs to the Aristotelian view too. Besides being influenced by Plato, Aristotle didn't believe in the reality of matter. He essentially agreed with Parmenides via Zeno except that for him the One was multiplied according to form. There is an absurdity in this, namely, that things have parts only potentially. The fact that the parts are infinite are besides the point. That's a question for math to answer. Aristotle believed forms to be undividable. A simple pointing out of the parts refutes this.<br /><br />The world is fundamental. I has all the reality it needs to exist on its own.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-18853295843830692122019-12-17T15:10:17.646-08:002019-12-17T15:10:17.646-08:00Look, we can put it all in much simpler terms. Eve...Look, we can put it all in much simpler terms. Every position that one takes comes with some costs. You cannot reject Aquinas's proofs for God without incurring in some costs. That is the whole point of arguments. It is not possible to simply float above them and fail to accept Aquinas's reasoning without somehow committing oneself to a position which will have costs. It is up for every rational person to assess the costs and see whether they are willing to accept them.<br /><br />The totality of dependent, contingent things needs a cause or explanation. <br />Either you accept this, OR you incur the cost of being open to the possibility that a totality of contingent things can just exist inexplicably. Personally, the idea that a totality of contingent things can exist without an external cause is absurd to me. I am not willing to pay that cost. The fact that you might be willing to pay it, or that some people are okay with it, doesn't change that for me. It is not a cost I am willing to pay. Suspending judgment is not a position I am willing to take seriously here - it strikes me as irrational. <br /><br />Then the same goes for the arguments that establish the First Cause, or the Necessary Being that is the cause of the totality of contingent things, is God. It's all about assessing positions and their costs.<br />The idea that the universe might be necessary is not a cost I am willing to pay. You may be fine with it; good for you, but I cannot commit myself to such a possibility. <br /><br />The First Cause must have the powers/perfections of all things it produces, since nothing comes from nothing. That includes intelligence. The first cause must therefore have intelligence.<br />I could reject this, but in doing so I would have to open myself to the possibility that either intelligence is not a perfection, or that it can arise from nothing and not be traced back to the First Cause. Can you or an atheist accept this cost? Good for you! I can't. A lot of people can't. <br /><br />And so on.<br /><br />At the very least, presenting such arguments shows people what costs they have to incur for holding (or withholding) the positions in question. Wanna be a non-theist? You gotta be able to pay the price, then; accept possibilities such that PSR might be false, or that the order in the universe might be a result of chance, or that intelligence might have come from nothing, or whatever. <br /><br />So whenever you say "there is no evidence that such and such", you are just biting a number of bullets and accepting some costs. That's your choice, man. Not everyone is willing to bite the same bullets you do, or to pay the same costs. That's what this is about. One could go on and on about what really is public evidence and what people "must" believe or what people don't have to believe. But whatever the case, none of that changes the fact that arguments for God's existence (including Aquinas's) present us with a series of COSTS that someone must be willing to incur in if they wanna remain unconvinced. <br /><br />I don't care whether you think or say "there is no evidence the world is contingent in the sense that it needs a necessary being". What I care about is assessing the costs and rationality of such a view for myself. And I (and many people) find out that I cannot take seriously the possibility that a contingent universe exists with no explanation; or that intelligence is not a perfection or it came from nowhere; or that the order in the universe is not the result of an intention, or whatever. <br /><br />At the end of the day everyone has to adopt some positions and their epistemic costs (including the radical skeptic). You are not in a position to pontificate on what my positions should be. And that's all. We're not gonna drop our arguments, because all we're doing is showing the costs involved in rejecting their conclusions - and if you might be okay with these costs, other people might not be. Who are you to criticize any of this?Atnohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13138424784532839636noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-20248417323181362962019-12-17T13:04:40.542-08:002019-12-17T13:04:40.542-08:00How many times must Galileo drop the balls before ...How many times must Galileo drop the balls before he knows he found a universal law? There is no answer to the question because everything in science is about contingent knowledge. Only philosophy is about absolute truth. Hawking's position on there being no time before the big bang is a hypothesis, one that gives an alternative to theism. It doesn't say the world was eternal because there is no before the big bang. If the world is eternal, there would be absolute time, and therefore God. But change doesn't prove there is a God. Things change and we can draw the line of causality, hypothetically, to the first motion at the big bang. Any attempt beyond this is right brained fantasy. You think God must exist because I can paint a chair? What utter nonsense! There is no evidence the world is contingent in the sense that it needs a necessary being. Aquinas thinks change and division of matter is the evidence, but he is wrong. There are holes in all his reasoningAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-54351882932932978422019-12-17T09:58:26.350-08:002019-12-17T09:58:26.350-08:00Anonymous,
First, there is nothing mystical about ...Anonymous,<br />First, there is nothing mystical about the teleological cause. Aristotle clearly accepted that living beings have a teleological cause and that is all that is needed for Aquinas's "Fifth Way" argument to proceed--that argument does not depend on non-living things also having a teleological cause.<br />Second, in his Five Proofs of God's Existence book, Ed Feser does not employ the "Fifth Way" argument. None of his arguments in that book depend on there being a teleological cause.<br />Third, and this dovetails with Dominik Kowalski's reply, there are many people for whom the key Christian claim "God raised Jesus from the dead" is a non-starter unless one has reason to believe in the existence of God. Thus theistic arguments can play an important role in bringing people eventually to Jesus.<br />Fourth, it is a non sequitur to draw from the premise "X was mean to Y" the conclusion "X does not have a relationship with Jesus." And you and I should both be grateful that it is a non sequitur.Tim Finlayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04201408382802035324noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-65721123223817088062019-12-17T09:49:06.449-08:002019-12-17T09:49:06.449-08:00"If Aristotle is right and there is no absolu..."If Aristotle is right and there is no absolute time and space, than we can say time started from motion. The first cause would be gravity and there would be no before the big bang or whatever you want to call it."<br /><br />This is complete, utter rubbish, from the point of view of physics (it is even more idiotic, if that is possible, philosophically speaking).grodrigueshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12366931909873380710noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-28452716595164187152019-12-17T09:42:58.199-08:002019-12-17T09:42:58.199-08:00Anon,
you started promising in the first three sen...Anon,<br />you started promising in the first three sentences. Then you fell off a cliff.<br /><br />Let´s grant something to you at first. Let´s assume that the universe is indeed eternal. We don´t need the premise of the Kalam argument that there was a beginning. For the sake of argument we can assume that it fails.<br /><br />We haven´t made any loss here. Aristotle believed that the universe was eternal. Aquinas assumed it for the sake of argument. And Avicienna, people are free to correct me here, catergorically denied that God was the efficient cause of the universe. Fesers argument, or rather the "Aristotelian proof" only relies on the reality of change, which cannot be coherently denied even if space of time were absolute. The idea is that everything with potencies is dependend on something more actual, which leads us to pure actuality, from which the divine attributes can analogically be derived from. Space is an abstraction, what time is I don´t know, but neither have the required attributes. The idea that gravity brought everything about is derived from Hawking and Krauss and if you take the time to look it up, you´ll see that even secular physicists (David Albert for example) tore them apart.<br /><br />As to your very first part, it is true that science and philosophy are distinct. But every time you go beyond "Molecule A moved B to C" you quickly enter the realm of philosophy. Fesers thesis is that science can´t be made sense of, if final causality isn´t presupposed. A denial of it would really leave regularities to become "happy accidents". The constant of the electric charge would thus become no constant at all. The sentence "The heart is for pumping liquids" or "The testicles are for reproducton" would become no objective fact, but rather a statement which can´t be said to be true for even the next individual you study. It is clear that this has nothing to do with with scientific practice, where regularities are the core of every progress.<br /><br />For the last part, many people, me included couldn´t think about accepting truth claims of religions, without having a strong metaphysical backbone. After all, if I wasn´t sure or even negative about the existence of God, what would I care for Jesus (Except of course I had an experience, but that is a different category? So before even thinking about having a relationship, many need a rational foundation for theistic convictions first. This is what Fesers proofs are for. Nothing more, nothing less.Dominik Kowalskihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14634739012344612398noreply@blogger.com