Friday, August 4, 2023

Open-minded open thread

It’s time for an open thread.  So dust off those otherwise off-topic comments you’ve been aching to post.  Because from M.C. Escher to MC Hammer, from pick-up sticks to Kubrick flicks, from panpsychism to pan pizza, everything is now on-topic.  Just keep it civil and in good taste, as always.  Previous open threads archived here.

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329 comments:

  1. ShirewriterAugust 4, 2023 at 1:44 PM

    I'm currently writing a fantasy novel that has Christian underlying moral premises. Within the confines of this world, there is a mineral that, when it comes in contact with a person's skin, will give off a smoke that indicates their moral status. White smoke indicates someone in (essentially) a state of grace, i.e. someone who has truly and perfectly repented of all evils. Black or grey indicates the opposite.

    An organization of travelling headsmen investigate heinous crimes and, when the likely perpetrator is found, use this mineral to determine the status of that person's soul. If the smoke is white, they let them go. If the smoke is black, they give them a short window to confess their sins and then execute them.

    My question is this, what are the different ethical dilemmas such a system entails? I could only think of two.

    1. If you let all criminals who have truly repented of capital crimes go, it seems justice isn't served.
    2. If a man is forced to confess his sins at the moment before punishment, it seems he cannot possibly make a good confession and so would invariably be damned. (It is necessary to add here that these travelling executioners have state sanction but no priestly faculties).

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    1. AnonymousAugust 4, 2023 at 5:38 PM

      There are also the various logistical concerns that would arise that you can pull from real world policing:

      -what happens if there are two suspects for a crime that is known to have been perpetrate by a single individual and their smoke both turns up black?

      -seems likely that try is organization would have some members use this mineral to preemptively "fish" for people to punish, without first having any good reason to suspect them

      -how does this organization treat its own members whom it is known are of bad moral character?

      -it seems like if there is a punishment associated with known crimes that can be "confirmed" of sufficient gravity, that it's almost superfluous to go through the whole criminal process for anyone. Why not just have a system where periodically everyone has to submit to take the test, and either repent or be punished even if it is not known what their offense was?

      -as a matter of justice, it might be argued (particularly by someone claiming false accusation) that it is unjust for anyone to be convicted without this process. Which makes things awkward if this mineral is in short supply. How does your society handle having to house indefinitely a bunch of accused criminals that it can't complete the trials for because a shortage?

      You may also want to look up the custom of "trial by ordeal" which was popular up through the Middle Ages for other ideas.

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    2. AnonymousAugust 4, 2023 at 6:16 PM

      There is some ambiguity in your synopsis. Do people exude black smoke for ANY mortal sin? For example, will a murder suspect exude black smoke for having masturbated or detracted against his neighbor even if he was innocent with respect to the murder itself?

      As to your points:

      1) Confession does not remit the temporal effects of sin, so it seems contrary to justice and the common good to not at least put the most serious offenders (the Ted Bundy’s of the world) to death. Ted Bundy seemed to repent before his execution but was nevertheless executed. To execute murderers also demonstrates the value of the lives of the victims.

      2) Confession cannot be forced, but a valid confession need not have perfect contrition. A man may confess before his execution simply for fear of going to Hell, and his confession will be efficacious. He might be in Purgatory for a while, but he will have sanctifying grace. If he is forced to confess by violence on the other hand, the confession will be invalid because it will be insincere (he will not even have imperfect contrition).

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    3. StardustyPsycheAugust 4, 2023 at 8:54 PM

      "White smoke indicates someone in (essentially) a state of grace, i.e. someone who has truly and perfectly repented of all evils. Black or grey indicates the opposite."
      Racist.

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    4. CosmicCatAugust 4, 2023 at 9:10 PM

      The problem with all precrime systems is that Our Lord explicitly forbade it:

      "But he replied, 'No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. Let both of them grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.'" (Matthew 13:29-30, NRSVCE)

      The reason why all precrime systems are forbidden is because people do not live their lives as a story (unless they choose to live their life as a story, but that is extremely artificial) and so it's not possible to type a person just by examining their mind as a hero or a villain.

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    5. UncommonDescentAugust 5, 2023 at 6:49 AM

      @StardustyPsyche:

      Racist.

      Lady Evolution condones oppression. And Lady Evolution is our 'creator' (your pagan deity).

      So, nothing 'wrong' with 'racism'.

      And Lady Evolution said: let there be racism and any kind of animalistic behavior.

      What's the problem?

      Delete
    6. CosmicCatAugust 5, 2023 at 11:10 PM

      @UncommonDescent

      You are correct that racism is animalistic.

      Delete
    7. StardustyPsycheAugust 6, 2023 at 8:21 AM

      Is a black person who associates white with death or evil a racist?

      Is Shirewriter a racist for associating black with evil?

      Delete
    8. AnonymousAugust 6, 2023 at 12:37 PM

      The problem with all precrime systems is that Our Lord explicitly forbade it: [Matthew 13:29-30]

      The problem with this is that the parable is a parable and is NOT laying out a definitive political program. That is to say: Christ is not explicitly saying you can't use "precrime systems" or other general systems to reduce evil actions.

      Furthermore, the system depicted is not a "precrime" system, it operates after the fact. Security systems are non-specific precrime systems intended to reduce evil actions (without being directed at specific individuals). Moral training is a precrime system with the same intent, directed at the individual BEFORE he formulates a criminal intention. DUI checkpoints are post-crime systems not directed at individuals intended to sift individuals criminals out of the general population with broadcast (rather than narrowly targeted) effort. None of these are per se disordered approaches.

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    9. TonyAugust 6, 2023 at 12:54 PM

      As mentioned above, since the method only identifies moral condition, and not guilt for specific events, it cannot be very useful: most people will be in the black or gray smoke condition, much of the time. Furthermore, the actual criminal might emit white smoke while being under the mistaken impression that his action was morally upright, if he has invincible ignorance of its proper status. Also: what if the actual criminal who did the deed has since fully repented and now is pure enough to generate white smoke?

      As to objections to the idea not merely from practical problems, it might be worrisome to force a person to "testify against themselves", through the medical/magical means of the skin test. (Blood tests, breathalyzer tests, and DNA tests are subject to similar legal/moral issues.)

      Overall, in a condition where humanity has suffered the Fall of original sin, where all people are born in the state of sin, the sinful condition of everyone is more or less the default for political / legal purposes, and it is the incidence of crimes against human law that states need to address for the sake of the common good, not all sin. So a system geared toward the detection of moral condition is not all that helpful.

      What if, when a person committed a mortal sin, the name of the sin magically appeared on their forehead, with the date?

      In other news:
      From the fact that dry wood generally produces white smoke when burned, whereas rubber produces black smoke, we can infer that dry wood is racist against rubber. Rubber should be awarded reparations.

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    10. UncommonDescentAugust 6, 2023 at 1:55 PM

      @Stardusty:

      Shirewriter doesn't have free-will. Calm down and please keep enlightening us with your 'circular motion' joke.

      Delete
    11. AnonymousAugust 7, 2023 at 7:33 AM

      "Is a black person who associates white with death or evil a racist?"

      If that person universally associates white with evil/death, including white people, yes.

      Colors can have different associations in different contexts.

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    12. UncommonDescentAugust 7, 2023 at 1:58 PM

      @'Progressives' in general:

      Are black people who stand against same-sex marriage 'evil'? Namibia has just recently passed legislation against homosexual marriage.

      And remember that you can't say anything negative towards black people, because then you'll be labeled as 'racist', which is a a mortal sin in the progressive religion.

      Are those people 'evil' or not?

      Delete
  2. Confused PersonAugust 4, 2023 at 2:10 PM

    I've recently been reading into behavioral genetics (I read all of Steven Pinker's The Blank Slate), and one of the things that really strikes me is the idea that parents have very little influence on how their kids turn out. I'm kinda worried that this undermines some of the natural law arguments for marriage. If kids don't really need fathers (or even mothers) to turn out alright, why would parents necessarily have obligations to their kids? What would be wrong with, say, a rich woman who decides to become a single mother via sperm donation?

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    1. AnonymousAugust 4, 2023 at 5:54 PM

      I would reject that premise whole-heartedly. Parents have massive effects on their children’s well-being. Of course it isn’t infallible, but it is there. And that is in our extremely decadent, pluralistic, relativistic society. If we had tightly knit communities where people more or less believed the same thing and were taught by society at large to honor their parents, then the influence would be even greater.

      Libs like Bertrand Russell have been saying the family is superfluous for centuries. If you think society is headed in the right direction with drag-queen story time and so-forth, maybe you ought to believe them. If you think our society is largely degrading, then maybe the fact that the family has been so eroded might have something to do with it.

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    2. DNWAugust 5, 2023 at 9:47 AM

      As you already know from reading biographies of Russell, he tried living his progressive family ideas, and it didn't work.

      Now one might say that the surrounding society, and past cultural baggage contributed to the failure of any free love utopia to survive and endure in every case where it has been tried.

      That somewhat reminds me of the complaint of Marxists that the failure of socialism was due to the residual capitalists on earth not cooperating with them economically.

      The buggers had it all their own way with a third of the world, and it was not enough apparently.

      That said, I suppose human beings are mutable enough that one could develop another and alien moral species within some number of generations through selective or assortative breeding.

      It is possible we are already incipiently there and our politics are an expression of it.

      It tentatively appears that some portion of the human species is already genetically disposed toward collectivism as a means of reducing their feelings of anxiety. It might not seem like much, but if you are not content to 'munch grass' and self-sacrifice as part of a herd, living in association with people having those needs might be unpleasant at best.

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    3. Journey 516August 5, 2023 at 4:06 PM

      The carpenter who was taught carpentry by his father would have been a carpenter if he was born to a baker? You never looked up to your dad? Quoted your dad? You’ve in no way been influenced by your parents? If they beat you you’d still be the exact same person you are today? If they slept around would you have confidence in monogamy? Questions to think about before giving Steven Pinker a second thought.

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  3. StardustyPsycheAugust 4, 2023 at 2:25 PM

    The First Way is logically invalid, suffering from false dichotomy, begging the question, and non-sequitur. This argument also suffers from several false premises. My source for text is referenced by Dr. Feser to the right on this page.
    iteadthomam.blogspot.com/2011/01/first-way-in-syllogistic-form.html

    False dichotomy arises due to the failure of Aquinas to argue for the clear third case, that of circular causation. Scotus, writing later, recognized this defect of Aquinas and included a denial of circular causation. That denial is unsound because it relies on the notion of a one-way causation. In fact, at base, all causation is mutual, and thus fundamentally, in a broad sense, circular.

    "Now whatever is in motion is put in motion by another"
    This is clearly false, as indicated by inertial motion. Recall, Aquinas is not making a temporal argument, so he is not saying whatever is presently in motion was put in motion in the past by another.

    Aquinas is stating that whatever is in motion now is being put in motion now by another. This follows from the erroneous Aristotelian notion that all sublunary motion is in a lossy medium such that an object will slow and stop and its motion will disappear from the cosmos in every respect.

    Recall also "Therefore it is necessary to arrive at a first mover". Claiming compatibility won't do, because the First Way is not an argument for compatibility, rather, necessity.

    "But nothing can be reduced from potentiality to actuality, except by something in a state of actuality. Thus that which is actually hot, as fire, makes wood, which is potentially hot, to be actually hot, "
    This is clearly false on the scale of objects such as a piece of wood. Examples abound of self movers at that scale of organization.

    "It is therefore impossible that in the same respect and in the same way a thing should be both mover and moved, i.e. that it should move itself"
    False, self movers on that scale abound, because at base particles move each other.

    "But this cannot go on to infinity, because then there would be no first mover"
    Begging the question by introducing the conclusion as a justification for a premise.

    "; and this everyone understands to be God."
    Non-sequitur. This logical fallacy is blatant that Francisco J. Romero Carrasquillo and his commentator David Haines both omit this phrase from their syllogistic analysis. Koons calls this the gap problem, acknowledging this as invalid logic.

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    1. AnonymousAugust 4, 2023 at 6:09 PM

      Stardust,

      I don’t have time to rebut all of your points, but I would encourage you to read Aquinas’ short work De Motu Cordis (link below). I think you are getting Aquinas wrong when he says whatever is moved is moved by another.

      Remember, he does not say a thing cannot move itself absolutely speaking. He merely says that a thing cannot move and be moved in the same respect. So for example, in De Motu Cordis, Aquinas ascribes the motion of the heart to the substantial form of the animal (the soul). Remember Aquinas also believed that the heavenly spheres had unending motion. So Aquinas is well aware of these problems posed by inertia (heavenly spheres being a medieval analogue) and quantum field theory (spontaneous animal motion being a medieval analogue).

      I think that is why ultimately the Five Ways have to be read in light of De Ente et Essentia as existential arguments for God’s existence. The various ways are merely various modes of existence that act as a springboard for getting to the sheer existence of things.

      If you want additional context, I found De Ente et Essentia and Questions three and five in De Potentia Dei to be very illuminating as well.

      But check out De Motu Cordis. A LOT of bang for your buck in that little work.

      God bless!

      https://isidore.co/aquinas/DeMotuCordis.htm

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    2. StardustyPsycheAugust 4, 2023 at 8:45 PM

      Thanks for the link, Anon. Quite interesting, in particular noting that nearly everything Aquinas said was demonstrably wrong, much of it depending on the words of the philosopher, also demonstrably wrong.

      "Thus, the motion of the heart is a natural result of the soul, the form of the living body and principally of the heart."
      The motion of the heart is due primarily to electrostatic attractions and repulsions, as explained in the sliding filament theory of muscle contraction.

      The heart moves itself because at base charged particles move each other. There is no call for a hierarchical regression of movers toward infinity because the regression of movers terminates finitely with the mutual motions of charged particles.

      "He merely says that a thing cannot move and be moved in the same respect."
      He was wrong about that. In the case of 2 charged particles both are movers of themselves and the other mutually. The distinction between self moving and moving the other is arbitrary and therefore meaningless. There is only the mutual interaction between the 2 particles.

      All causation is mutual at base, thus eliminating the call for a causal regression toward infinity.

      "Remember Aquinas also believed that the heavenly spheres had unending motion. So Aquinas is well aware of these problems posed by inertia"
      Which is why Aquinas did not argue from the motion of heavenly spheres.

      One cannot soundly argue from the motion of heavenly spheres to the necessity of a first mover.

      The mistake of Aquinas is the mistake of Aristotle, differentiating sublunary motion as in a lossy medium such that motion will slow and stop and the object's motion will be lost from the cosmos entirely.

      If that view of sublunary motion were correct then the First Way would be sound.

      That view of sublunary motion is false and thus the First Way is unsound.

      What the philosopher, and thus Aquinas, did not realize is that all motion is heavenly, that is to say, all motion is in space. You are in space. Space, for motion, is a lossless medium. Motion is never lost from the cosmos, rather, motion, or what we would now call kinetic energy, is only transferred or transformed.

      The First Way is logically invalid and employs multiple false premises.

      "God bless!"
      Thank you, same to you.

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    3. Paper BagAugust 5, 2023 at 2:39 AM

      No the first way os valid. Feser in this blog death with the circular causality many times.

      In short you fail to understand yhe difference between per se and per acc8dens causality, thay leads to these errors.

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    4. UncommonDescentAugust 5, 2023 at 5:37 AM

      @StardustyPsyche:

      This is clearly false, as indicated by inertial motion.

      Newton's findings support the act/ potency division.

      Newton’s First Law states that “every body continues in its state of rest or of uniform motion in a straight line, unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed upon it.”

      Which means that bodies are in a state of potentiality with respect to the moment in which those forces "impressed upon them" will force them to abandon said trajectory. Or else no body could ever change their state, you nutty. Act/ potency again. Newton and Aristotle --> friends.

      You fool no-body with your philosophical ignorance and sophistry.

      Quite interesting, in particular noting that nearly everything Aquinas said was demonstrably wrong, much of it depending on the words of the philosopher, also demonstrably wrong.

      Quite interesting that you have proved none of that and that science contradicts your non-sense.

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    5. UncommonDescentAugust 5, 2023 at 6:03 AM

      @StardustyPsyche:

      Recall, Aquinas is not making a temporal argument, so he is not saying whatever is presently in motion was put in motion in the past by another.

      There can't be 'present' and 'past' if there's no change. And there's no change if there is no act/ potency division.

      Your attempts at 'debunking' Aristotle and Aquinas are really lame. You sure you are not a clown who wants to entertain us for free?

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    6. UncommonDescentAugust 5, 2023 at 10:13 AM

      @StardustyPsyche:

      The heart moves itself because at base charged particles move each other. There is no call for a hierarchical regression of movers toward infinity because the regression of movers terminates finitely with the mutual motions of charged particles.

      Self-motion is restricted to life forms (immanent causation). Hearts are not animals, hearts are parts of animals. You are an exceedingly ignorant individual. No part of any animal exhibits self-hood (and that includes the brain, which is NOT the self, the whole person is the self/individual).

      Neither the heart moves 'itself' nor the brain thinks about 'itself' (but the person does move and think).

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    7. MartinAugust 5, 2023 at 11:02 AM

      Stardustypsyche,

      circular causation

      Since the First Way is arguing about the cause of something existing, circular causation IS impossible because that would entail that a thing causes itself to exist, which entails that it exists prior to itself.

      "Now whatever is in motion is put in motion by another"
      This is clearly false, as indicated by inertial motion.

      Inertial motion is not only compatible with Aquinas, it actually just proves his premise all the more. There are two kinds of "act" in Aristotle's thought: act-at-rest and act-at-work. A thing is acting-at-work when it's being the kind of thing it is and doing the kind of thing it does, for example an oak tree is in act-at-work as it produces new leaves, grows acorns, takes in sunlight, etc. And a thing is in act-at-rest when it is completed transitioning from one state to another, for example when the oak tree completes is maturity from seedlinghood. So a mature oak is both at rest (mature), and at work (producing leaves, etc).

      An object moving through the vacuum of space is at rest (in a stable state) and at work (doing the kind of things an object in motion in a vaccuum does, which is move forward). For the object to transition into a different state, such as moving a different direction, it requires some other object to act upon it.

      "But nothing can be reduced from potentiality to actuality, except by something in a state of actuality. Thus that which is actually hot, as fire, makes wood, which is potentially hot, to be actually hot, "
      This is clearly false on the scale of objects such as a piece of wood. Examples abound of self movers at that scale of organization.

      The principle here is that a cause can only act as a cause if it actually exists. A potential thing is not actual, and therefore non-existence, and cannot act upon anything.

      Begging the question by introducing the conclusion as a justification for a premise.

      There's no question-begging at all in this premise.

      Non-sequitur.

      The text was written for and to priests, not for atheists and especially not for fundamentalist evangelical atheists of your stripe.

      You are so far out of the ballpark with your comments that you're just attacking an argument of your own fevered imagination. All of my above points come from reading Feser, which you clearly haven't done otherwise you would not have made such obvious errors.

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    8. StardustyPsycheAugust 5, 2023 at 12:25 PM

      Paper Bag
      "No the first way os valid. Feser in this blog death with the circular causality many times."
      Not soundly.

      Dr. Feser repeats the error of Scotus by imagining there is some sort of one-way causation at base. There isn't. All causation is mutual at base.

      For example, here is an error Dr. Feser has made:
      "Consider the causal sequence: x → y → z. "
      edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2015/06/cross-on-scotus-on-causal-series.html

      There is no such causal sequence at base. Every causal sequence is mutual at base.

      There is no such thing as a one-way push or pull.
      Aristotle was wrong.
      Aquinas was wrong.
      Scotus was wrong.
      Dr. Feser is wrong.
      You are wrong.

      "In short you fail to understand yhe difference between per se and per acc8dens causality, thay leads to these errors."
      There is no such thing as a one-way causal series. Scotus at least realized that omitting a denial of circular causation would render his arguments logically invalid by false dichotomy. Instead, by including such denial Scotus avoided the error of Aquinas that makes the First Way logically invalid.

      Unfortunately, Scotus and and Dr. Feser employ the false notion of one-way causation at base, making their arguments unsound.

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    9. UncommonDescentAugust 5, 2023 at 2:51 PM

      @StardustyPsyche:

      Aristotle was wrong
      Nope. But Darwinism is wrong regarding human nature.

      Aquinas was wrong
      Nope. But materialism is a wrong worldview.

      Scotus was wrong
      Who cares? We are not Scotists. We are Thomists. And you are a dunce.

      Dr. Feser is wrong
      In your dreams. You know your life is pointless and your fantasy about 'debunking' great philosophers is the way to give it some meaning.

      You sound like and old crank.

      Delete
    10. Journey 516August 5, 2023 at 4:01 PM

      Physics book III ch2:
      “For to act on the moveable as such is just to move it. But this it does by contact, so that at the same time it is also acted upon.”

      Aquinas’s commentary upon this:
      “This must be understood when contact is mutual as happens in those things which share in matter. Each of which is acted upon by the other while they touch each other.”

      I’m sorry but you’re out of line.

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    11. StardustyPsycheAugust 5, 2023 at 6:38 PM

      Martin,
      "Since the First Way is arguing about the cause of something existing,"
      Wrong, the First Way is arguing about the cause of Motion, which Aristotle and Aquinas considered to be a species of Change.

      Dr. Feser attempts to argue elsewhere to leverage the First Way into an argument from existence, but that requires a separate argument.

      Have you read the First Way? You have made a very fundamental error, which raises the question of your familiarity with the subject.
      iteadthomam.blogspot.com/2011/01/first-way-in-syllogistic-form.html

      "Inertial motion is not only compatible with Aquinas,"
      Compatibility is irrelevant. The First Way is an argument for Necessity. Fairies are compatible with inertia, so what?

      "For the object to transition into a different state, such as moving a different direction, it requires some other object to act upon it."
      That is Change, which is always mutual at base, not motion, which is not change, even though Aristotle and Aquinas argued that Motion is a species of Change.

      Aquinas was wrong that Motion is Change.

      Aquinas was wrong that change can be one-way.

      "There's no question-begging at all in this premise."
      Mere denial without evidence or analysis. I pointed out specifically where the question begging occurs.

      "The text was written for and to priests, not for atheists and especially not for fundamentalist evangelical atheists of your stripe."
      Then the text is logically invalid generally. There is no logical connection between the last clause after the last semicolon and the rest of the argument. That is why Carrasquillo did not even attempt to include a syllogistic line including that last clause, because there is no logical connection between the last clause and the rest of the argument. It is a non-sequitur, invalid logic, well known to analysts as the gap problem.

      "All of my above points come from reading Feser,"
      That's why they are wrong, because Dr. Feser is wrong. Go to Thomas, think for yourself.


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    12. StardustyPsycheAugust 5, 2023 at 6:43 PM

      Journey,
      Unfortunately, there are instances where Aristotle had certain insights at his fingertips, as it were, but failed to grasp them and build upon them.

      The First Way is built on the notion of one-way causation, for example, that a hot thing makes a cold thing hot.

      Scotus later repeated that same Aristotelian error.

      Dr. Feser in the 21st century is still repeating that error!

      For example, here is an error Dr. Feser has made:
      "Consider the causal sequence: x → y → z. "
      edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2015/06/cross-on-scotus-on-causal-series.html

      There is no such causal sequence at base. All causation is mutual at base.

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    13. bmillerAugust 5, 2023 at 8:32 PM

      Stardusty,

      No false dilemma. Circular causation is impossible.

      The principle that a thing in motion is due to something other than itself does not rely on "a lossy medium".

      Yes it is necessary that one arrives at a first mover.

      Fire makes wood hot.

      False, self movers on that scale abound, because at base particles move each other. You just agreed that a particle cannot move itself and be moved by itself in the same respect at the same time.

      Yes there must be a first mover in a series of things being moved, no matter how extensive the series.

      Everyone understands the Unmoved Mover to be God. Even you.

      That was easy.

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    14. StardustyPsycheAugust 5, 2023 at 11:22 PM

      "And you are a dunce."
      I have already told you I am not a devotee of Scotus, so please refrain from that repeated attribution.

      It is true that the First Way is logically invalid for several reasons including the use of a false dichotomy, namely, omitting the clear third case of circular causation.

      It is also true that Scotus, writing later, corrected that invalid logic of Aquinas by addressing circular causation in his own arguments for the existence of god. So, in that respect, Scotus learned from the mistake of Aquinas and repaired that glaring defect of invalid logic used by Aquinas in the First Way.

      However, unfortunately, Scotus used the unsound argument from one-way causation to argue against circular causation.

      So, even though Scotus removed that invalid logic that the First Way suffers from Scotus employed an unsound argument against circular causation by using a false premise.

      So, I remain very much not a devotee of Scotus, please refrain from such attributions in the future, thanks in advance.

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    15. UncommonDescentAugust 6, 2023 at 2:22 AM

      @StardustyPsyche:

      It is true that the First Way is logically invalid for several reasons including the use of a false dichotomy, namely, omitting the clear third case of circular causation.

      Assertion =/= 'proof'. You sound like a 9/11 crank.

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    16. UncommonDescentAugust 6, 2023 at 2:47 AM

      @StardustyPsyche:

      The Saint: "But this cannot go on to infinity, because then there would be no first mover"
      The Dunce:"Begging the question by introducing the conclusion as a justification for a premise".

      Nope --> logical entailment, which you don't understand how it works.

      If something is infinite --> then there's no first term. Therefore --> he was just stating the obvious. An infinite chain has no beginning and no end.

      A fundraiser to buy you a dunce cap will start tomorrow.

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    17. Journey 516August 6, 2023 at 5:59 AM

      SP, no he understood full well that when an ice cube is dropped in a hot drink the drink is made cold by the ice while the ice is made hot by the drink. Only a fool could overlook that and he explicitly affirms that any material object is somewhat acted upon as it contacts the thing it’s causing to change by the very thing it’s exercising it’s power upon. You just believe that this circular, or mutual, causation is doing something for your argument that it’s not. Insofar as the ice cube is being heated, it’s being heated by the drink. That’s linear. Period.

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    18. StardustyPsycheAugust 6, 2023 at 7:40 AM

      bmiller,
      "No false dilemma. Circular causation is impossible."
      All causation is mutual at base, which leads to causation being fundamentally circular.

      Scotus argued against circular one-way causation. But there is no such thing as one-way causation at base.

      For example, here is an error Dr. Feser has made:
      "Consider the causal sequence: x → y → z. "

      There is no such thing at base of X causes Y, Y causes Z. Therefore, to try to close the circle to then say Z causes X leads to irrational assertions.

      Actually X, Y and Z cause each other mutually and the whole circle of causation changes mutually. That is how causation works in the real cosmos.

      There are ways to understand this, but you have to be willing to think carefully and study physics carefully.

      Consider a sealed jar of air such that the air is at 25C, the jar is at 25C, and the outside environment is at 25C. The air in the jar does not fall to the bottom of the jar and stop moving, yet no net energy is transferred into or out of the jar.

      No energy comes into the jar to sustain the motions of the molecules, yet they continue to cause each other to move in myriad different directions as they bounce off each other.

      Although complicated, the causation of the motions of the molecules in the jar is fundamentally circular, in simple terms, everything is bouncing off everything else.

      Mutual causation is fundamentally circular.
      All causation is mutual at base.
      Therefore all causation is circular at base.

      Delete
    19. StardustyPsycheAugust 6, 2023 at 7:53 AM

      bmiller,
      "The principle that a thing in motion is due to something other than itself does not rely on "a lossy medium"."
      You do not understand the errors of Aristotelian sublunary physics.

      For Aristotle the motions in the heavens were continuous.

      For Aristotle motion in the void is ad infinitum (if there could be a void)

      For Aristotle sublunary motion is in an impeding medium.

      The Aristotelian argument for a first mover (The First Way) is not based on motion in the heavens or motion in the void. One cannot argue for the necessity of a first mover in the case that motion continues ad infinitum.

      The First Way is based on sublunary motion, as Aristotle thought of it.

      The reasoning is simple and would be sound if it were true.
      Objects slow and stop if not moved by another mover.
      We see around us continued motion.
      Therefore there is an external mover.

      That argument works, logically, if the motion of objects that slow and stop were lost from the cosmos entirely, but that is the key point where Aristotle was mistaken.

      Motion, or what we now call kinetic energy, in never lost from the cosmos, only transferred or transformed. The structure of these ad infinitum transfers and transformations is fundamentally circular and net lossless.

      That is why the argument for the necessity of a first mover fails, because motion is never lost from the cosmos, therefor there is no necessity for a first mover to account for the observation of continual natural motions.

      Delete
    20. StardustyPsycheAugust 6, 2023 at 8:09 AM

      bmiller,
      "You just agreed that a particle cannot move itself and be moved by itself in the same respect at the same time."
      Particles move each other.

      Each other.

      Mutually.

      The distinction between mover and moved is arbitrary and therefore meaningless.

      There is only the mutual interaction that moves each other concurrently and equally in magnitude.

      Force is proportional to the charge of this object times the charge of that object divided by the distance times the distance.

      Force is proportional to the mass of this object times the mass of that object divided by the distance times the distance.

      There is no designation of mover or moved.

      You can say this object is the mover and that object is moved, or that object is mover and this object is moved, or this object is mover and this object is moved, or that object is mover and that object is moved.

      The language of mover and moved is arbitrary and therefore meaningless. There is only the mutual causation as both objects move each other.

      That mutuality is fundamentally circular, not linear. There is no beginning and no end as one moves around a circle.

      Delete
    21. AnonymousAugust 6, 2023 at 11:19 AM

      Stardusty,

      Scotus argued against circular one-way causation. But there is no such thing as one-way causation at base.

      Circular causation is impossible period. I can't help it that you don't know what words mean.

      You do not understand the errors of Aristotelian sublunary physics.

      You haven't taken (or passed) even a high school physics course have you? The concept of an object in motion needing something other than itself to change it's motion is what is taught in that course. Friction force is also. Please no more red herrings.

      And BTW, motion may be what you call kinetic energy but people who have taken (and passed) a physics course do not.

      Particles move each other.

      So you're saying a particle doesn't move itself. You agree with TFW. Can't you even understand what you yourself write? Forget about Aquinas. Fix yourself first.

      Delete
    22. UncommonDescentAugust 6, 2023 at 2:10 PM

      @Stardusty:

      You can say this object is the mover and that object is moved, or that object is mover and this object is moved, or this object is mover and this object is moved, or that object is mover and that object is moved.

      So if I stab a person, then the person being stabbed is exercising 'circular causation' and then we can't discriminate that I am the stabber.

      Thanks Stardusty. You are 100% a crank. But you make us laugh, so your existence is not totally purposeless.

      Delete
    23. UncommonDescentAugust 6, 2023 at 2:32 PM

      @StardustyPsyche:

      There are ways to understand this, but you have to be willing to think carefully and study physics carefully.

      There were no 'selective pressures' for us to achieve 'truth'. So why bother studying anything at all? Your goddess forgot that part, the 'select for scientific success' box was never checked.

      Dude, you are a total dunce . A massive clown.

      Delete
    24. UncommonDescentAugust 6, 2023 at 3:26 PM

      @StardustyPsyche:

      but that is the key point where Aristotle was mistaken.

      What does it mean being 'mistaken' if we weren't selected for truth? How could we discriminate? Is truth circular?

      Delete
    25. StardustyPsycheAugust 7, 2023 at 5:59 AM

      "Circular causation is impossible period."
      At base mutual causation is the only sort of causation there is. There is no such thing as on-way push, or one-way pull.

      The notion of a one-way causation is characterized as linear.
      The notion of mutual causation is characterized as circular.

      Those characterizations are not so very important, they just describe concepts of causation. No reasonable person thinks there literally is a straight line versus a circular line somehow in the causal process.

      "high school physics course have you? The concept of an object in motion needing something other than itself to change it's motion is what is taught in that course."
      High school physics is a start, and I greatly appreciate the work high school teachers do in general, but they don't always get the ideas across accurately.

      When the course of an object in motion is changed mutually with another object then its motion is also changed by equal magnitude.

      Such changes are always mutual and net lossless.

      "Friction force is also."
      Friction is the fundamental error of Aristotle upon which the First Way rests, and fails.

      At base there is no such thing as friction. Friction is an apparent force.
      Friction is an aggregate process.
      Friction is net lossless.

      Aristotle and Aquinas did not realize that friction is net lossless. Engineers commonly speak of frictional losses, and it seems that all real moving objects on Earth suffer frictional losses.

      To account for those apparent frictional losses the First Way concludes god keeps nudging things along.

      That is what the First Way argues.
      Stuff is moving.
      Moving stuff need something to move it because friction makes moving stuff stop.
      But we see that lots of stuff keeps moving.
      Therefore there must be some invisible force that keeps everything moving.
      That force is god.

      The First Way is an argument from friction.

      The error of Aristotle and all the rest of you folks is failing to understand that friction is net lossless. What we think of as frictional losses are actually not losses at all, just transfers and transformations.

      "So you're saying a particle doesn't move itself. You agree with TFW."
      The First Way suffers from a false dichotomy.
      1.One-way causation proceeds to infinity.
      2.One-way causation regresses to a first mover that is itself not moved.

      The First Way fails to account for the obvious third case, the case Scotus unsoundly argued against.
      3.Causation is never one-way, rather, objects move each other, terminating every causal regress finitely and mutually.



      Delete
    26. bmillerAugust 7, 2023 at 12:25 PM

      Stardusty,

      No reasonable person thinks there literally is a straight line versus a circular line somehow in the causal process.

      No knowledgeable person thinks circular causation is possible.

      High school physics is a start, and I greatly appreciate the work high school teachers do in general, but they don't always get the ideas across accurately.

      But since you obviously didn't take a course you don't know anything about it, much less "a start". Proven by the following statement.

      Friction is the fundamental error of Aristotle upon which the First Way rests, and fails.

      At base there is no such thing as friction. Friction is an apparent force.

      TFW does not "rest" on frictional forces but your statement explains why you wouldn't pass an introductory physics course if they ever let you in. Do you really think you understand what you're writing or that you can fool people who know what they're talking about?

      The First Way suffers from a false dichotomy.

      Once again. You yourself just stated that a particle cannot move itself. You agree with TFW. You've twisted yourself into knots.

      Delete
    27. UncommonDescentAugust 7, 2023 at 2:32 PM

      @Stardusty:

      The error of Aristotle and all the rest of you folks is failing to understand that friction is net lossless.

      Yes, ok, ok, the 9/11 was an internal affair. You're right, grandpa.

      Causation is never one-way, rather, objects move each other, terminating every causal regress finitely and mutually.

      That would make change impossible, because if one object changes, then there would no longer be 'mutual' causation, because one of those objects would have ceased to exist, and then the initial 'mutual causation' would have been halted (something new came into existence and the initial 'mutual' aspect becomes then irrelevant).

      Your childish arguments are funny, but they do not pose any challenge to A-T.

      A-T is a serious system (contrary to materialism).

      Delete
    28. UncommonDescentAugust 7, 2023 at 3:42 PM

      @Stardusty:

      The notion of a one-way causation is characterized as linear.

      Oh dude, but if linear causation is not ok, then Newton's law of inertia would be impossible. The object following a linear trajectory would be then exercising 'circular causation' upon that which gave it its first impulse and linear trajectory even if that object were no longer in existence.

      Those characterizations are not so very important, they just describe concepts of causation. No reasonable person thinks there literally is a straight line versus a circular line somehow in the causal process.

      They are not so 'very important' but you keep repeating the terms 'circular' and 'linear' obsessively, so it seems they are important after all. Maybe you could change them to 'triangular' and 'rectangular' to make the joke even funnier. Is there 'rectangular' causation, Stardusty?

      Your Sixth Way is unsound and logically invalid.

      Now Aristotle, St. Thomas, Feser, Oderberg and Klima shall bow before you and your philosophical genius.

      From now on, you will be known as 'The Philosopher'. I swear.

      Delete
    29. UncommonDescentAugust 8, 2023 at 2:05 AM

      @Stardusty:

      "Argument from Friction". Roflmao.

      Aristotle and Aquinas did not realize that friction is net lossless.

      Ari and Aquinas had brains and senses that were created by the same evolutionary process that all of us have undergone.

      So, according to you, our senses cheat on us all the time and don't apprehend reality as it is, but mathematics 'reveals us the truth' about the world. There were no selective pressures for mathematics and yet they are correct, but there were tons of selective pressures for our senses to be fine-tuned to our environment, and yet they have failed.

      Those same senses that 'cheat on us' are the senses on which we depend to gather information from the objects in the external world that serve as the basis to make mathematical calculations.

      In the end, our brains both cheat on us and they don't cheat on us (they make us believe there's friction and at the same time they make us believe that there's no friction after all).

      And since we are our brains, it's us in the end who both cheat and don't cheat on ourselves at the same time, both willingly and unwillingly being the cheater and the cheated.

      These are the sorts of incoherencies naturalists want to force upon us. No thanks.

      Naturalism has to go and has to be scorned.

      Delete
    30. UncommonDescentAugust 8, 2023 at 2:24 AM

      @Stardusty:

      Against evolutionary epistemology, Putnam objects that natural selection favors survival value rather than truth or even rational acceptability, and that there is no essential connection between the former and the latter. A belief could be true or rational and yet be the opposite of conducive to survival, and it could facilitate survival while being false and contrary to canons of rationality. Hence appeal to natural selection cannot suffice to explain our capacity for knowledge. Variations on this sort of objection have been developed by Alvin Plantinga and others...

      - Prof. Feser

      'Natural Selection' is not a good explanation. It's a pseudo-explanation. 'Natural Selection' could not communicate to our ancestors the 'mathematical truth about reality' but our ancestors survived and thrived nonetheless.

      Your side has nothing of value to offer, neither to science, nor to philosophy and also not to humans regarding our ethical behavior. Time to get rid of such non-sense.

      Delete
    31. David McPikeAugust 8, 2023 at 11:02 AM

      "TFW does not 'rest' on frictional forces but your statement explains why you wouldn't pass an introductory physics course if they ever let you in."

      Groundless speculation. It's possible that SP could quite easily write down the expected answers in response to questions involving the force of friction while retaining his own view about the unreality of that force. Just because he likes posing as a boldly narcissistic gnostic idiot savant online doesn't mean he would behave the same way as a student in a real physics course.

      Delete
    32. StardustyPsycheAugust 8, 2023 at 9:07 PM

      ""TFW does not 'rest' on frictional forces"
      Have you read the First Way?
      Are you aware of Aristotelian sublunary motion in a medium?

      Apparently not.

      The core error of TFW is the failure to realize that frictional "losses" are not actually net losses. Engineers still speak of frictional losses, but at base all apparent frictional processes are net lossless.

      Aristotle failed to understand that fact.

      It is that failure of Aristotle that TFW is founded upon. TFW is founded upon a fundamental mistake, that frictional processes result in real net losses.

      As Aquinas pointed out, we observe motion. Yet, if friction results in losses it would seem reasonable that everything would grind to a halt. But given that things are still moving it would then make sense that something keeps them moving, a first mover that does not need to be moved.

      What Aquinas did not realize is that all motion is in space, you are in space, Aquinas was in space, and space is a lossless medium for motion, and collisions are always net lossless.

      So, to explain motion ad infinitum we just need to realize that causation is fundamentally circular and net lossless at base. Broadly speaking, everything just keeps bouncing off of everything else, ad infinitum.

      Of all the physics books I have read the only time Aristotle is mentioned is as an example of what sorts of errors people used to believe and still make. Those are typically low level physics books or conceptual physics books.

      The typical university calculus based physics book does not bother to mention Aristotle at all because his ideas are just a waste of ink in any mid to advanced 21st century physics text.

      Delete
  4. AnonymousAugust 4, 2023 at 3:43 PM

    Hi Ed, just a question out of curiosity: in your upcoming book on the soul will you address the criticisms of Aristotelian-Thomistic hylomorphism that W. Jaworski presents in his "Structure and the Metaphysics of Mind"?

    Cheers,
    Frantz

    ReplyDelete
  5. MichaelAugust 4, 2023 at 3:44 PM

    What genres of music (or specific bands/singers) do people here like listening to?

    I mainly listen to different subgenres of metal, but I do listen to other stuff. Along with metal, I also enjoy classical music and Irish folk music (among other things).
    2 sub-genres of metal that I have found fascinating are Symphonic Metal and Viking Metal.
    Symphonic Metal is essentially a fusion of the Classical and Metal genres. Some songs in this genre can sound really good. Generally speaking, the person who starts these sorts of bands usually had some sort of Classical music training when s/he was younger. (Interestingly, a lot of these bands tend to have female lead singers). Unfortunately, there are very few Christian bands that play within this genre; hardly any bands actually.
    Viking Metal is metal that primarily focuses on the history, customs, and mythology of the Vikings. Some of these bands will have songs about having courage in the face of death, and similar themes. One issue with this genre is that a lot of these bands will have songs where they attack Christianity. (Obviously, there are no Christian bands that play this genre).


    If anyone here is interested, below is one song recommendation within each of these 2 genres. (If, for whatever reason, the links don't work, the names of the band and song are included. Also, the length of each song is included next to the names).

    Stream of Passion - Exile (5:10) (verses are in Spanish, the chorus is in English).
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fbpm3XCNbNg&ab_channel=HekateL.

    Amon Amarth - Embrace of the Endless Ocean (6:21)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5l36biSLcuY&ab_channel=EmmaRose

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. KevinAugust 4, 2023 at 7:32 PM

      I tend to listen to a wide variety of genres, but a narrow range of bands within them. Favorite genre of metal is thrash, with Metallica, Testament, and Flotsam & Jetsam being the go-to bands.

      With rock I typically like the so-called "grunge" music, with Alice in Chains and Stone Temple Pilots being the favorites. For modern bands I love Alter Bridge.

      Country music, favorites are Colter Wall, Goodnight Texas, and an odd Christian group called 16 Horsepower, who later became Wovenhand.

      I have no use whatsoever for hip hop, unless it is a Weird Al parody, and 80s pop is still the best pop.

      Delete
    2. AnonymousAugust 4, 2023 at 8:07 PM

      WCB

      Music.

      Early Krautrock. Neu. La Duseldorfia, Rheinita. Electronic. Vangelis. Christopher Lebled, Sauvage Et Beau.
      Ambient electronic stuff. Classical, Thieving Magpie, Polenc.

      WCB

      Delete
    3. UncommonDescentAugust 5, 2023 at 6:57 AM

      @WCB:

      Your musical taste and your philosophical taste are equally horrid.

      Delete
    4. CosmicCatAugust 5, 2023 at 10:35 AM

      @Michael

      Recently I've been listening to utaite singers on YouTube, in particular Amatsuki and Mafumafu. Generally they do covers of Japanese music, but occasionally they compose original compositions.

      Amatsuki: https://youtu.be/GfYgr711vjA

      Mafumafu: https://youtu.be/qpd5vGLVHnw

      But these two songs don't encapsulate all their work: they have a great diversity.

      Delete
    5. FreeThinkerAugust 6, 2023 at 4:44 PM

      Punk rock in all its multitudinous manifestations, but especially UK anarchopunk like Crass, Zounds, Electro-Hippies, Conflict and Rudimentary Peni. For an exciting current young punk band check out Amyl and the Sniffers. I also love Sleeford Mods.

      Delete
    6. FreeThinkerAugust 6, 2023 at 11:29 PM

      To continue from 4.44PM, can't beat UK Subs from the early days of punk and Bad Religion from the '90s explosion ( spearheaded by Green Day, Offspring and Rancid ). They have just announced a big North American tour - go see 'em if you can!

      Delete
    7. AnonymousAugust 7, 2023 at 12:50 AM

      Kevin 7.32PM and other metal fans.

      I love this actually quite varied genre too. Plenty here for the religiously inclined. Check out 'Holy Diver' by Dio example.

      Delete
    8. MichaelAugust 7, 2023 at 5:47 PM

      Do any of the metal fans on here like listening to Folk Metal?

      If you're interested check out these 2 songs. Both songs are each around 10 minutes long.

      "Kiss My Ashes Goodbye" by Woods of Ypres.

      "Hallways of Enchanted Ebony" by Agalloch
      (the lyrics in the second song are pretty dark; listen to this one primarily for the music, not the words).

      Delete
    9. grodriguesAugust 8, 2023 at 10:04 AM

      My tastes are fairly wide, ranging from Arvo Part to Captain Beefheart. I have always hated heavy metal with a passion; having said that, a relatively recent album that veers (dangerously) close to it is We Lost the Sea's "Departure Songs" from 2015. It is a little musical miracle.

      Delete
    10. AnonymousAugust 8, 2023 at 3:02 PM

      Hey Grodrigues, didn't you once say that you were into The Butthole Surfers ( Caprine )?

      Delete
  6. RomanJoeAugust 4, 2023 at 5:10 PM

    Just wanted to let everyone know that the Classical Theism Forum of old has resurrected itself here:

    https://discord.gg/SHdJu5QAz

    Always looking to have some great discussions regardless of where you fall religiously :)

    ReplyDelete
  7. JoshAugust 4, 2023 at 6:56 PM

    I have a question about the distinction between classical theism and theistic personalism. What to make of personalist philosophers like Von Hildebrand or Norris Clake--are they classical or theistic personalists? They refer to God as "person" though I would count their philosophies of God as classical. (Even though Clarke entertains the process theologians, he does not adopt their position.) When they refer to God as person, they don't mean it in the way Swinburne does--God as disembodied person, but I think in the way Aquinas does at ST 1. q.29. a3. Where would you locate these philosophers? Classical or personalist?

    ReplyDelete
  8. PrestonuteAugust 4, 2023 at 9:13 PM

    Any plans to respond to Schmid's critique of the Neo-Platonic proof?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Geekiness and PhilosophyAugust 4, 2023 at 10:33 PM

      I'll have to look into it... I think I did see that video, but it's been a while!

      Delete
    2. Geekiness and PhilosophyAugust 4, 2023 at 10:40 PM

      (I guess I'm saying that WE can respond ourselves... but maybe waiting for Feser to respond would be cool too!)

      Delete
    3. StardustyPsycheAugust 5, 2023 at 8:10 AM

      ". This composition of parts requires a concurrent cause."
      philarchive.org/archive/SCHSUT-9
      False. If there can be a necessary being then the nature of its necessity can be whatever it in fact is. Dr. Feser is not the final arbiter of how the material of the cosmos may arrange itself.

      Material has properties. It is necessary that those properties are inseparable from the material. An electron must necessarily exist with charge, mass, and spin, for example.

      There is no such thing as charge separated from charged material, by necessity.

      "Only something absolutely simple or noncomposite could be the first
      member of such a series"
      The notion of something perfectly simple, static, and immutable then creating and sustaining all existence is incoherent.

      It changes but does not itself change.
      It acts over time but is outside time and has no temporal extent.
      It acts throughout space but is outside space and has no spatial extent.

      Material would intrinsically change itself from being to non-being absent the continuous sustaining changes of the unchanged changer so that material only appears to be unchanged in its existential respect, while in fact an unchanged changer is continuously changing material back to existing lest material should change itself from existing to not existing.

      Those are the sorts of incoherent assertions Dr. Feser has imagined for himself and all of us. No thanks.

      Delete
    4. UncommonDescentAugust 5, 2023 at 6:03 PM

      @StardustyPsyche:

      The notion of something perfectly simple, static, and immutable then creating and sustaining all existence is incoherent.
      "Natural Selection".

      It changes but does not itself change.
      It acts over time but is outside time and has no temporal extent.
      It acts throughout space but is outside space and has no spatial extent.
      "Natural Selection".

      Natural Selection doesn't change itself, and yet it affects its creatures, which would fail to exist if 'NS' didn't act upon them.
      Because Natural Selection --> pagan goddess.

      Those are the sorts of incoherent assertions Naturalists have imagined for themselves and all of us. No thanks.

      Delete
  9. CosmicCatAugust 4, 2023 at 9:55 PM

    A video by Rabbi Manis Friedman on the root problem behind gender dysphoria.

    Rabbi Friedman points out that the root behind the transgender man's gender dysphoria is doubt, namely, that there is nothing transcendent behind that person, and so that person's identity completely 100% coincides with being a man. Rabbi Friedman points out that the idea that his person completely coincides with being a man is just as offensive and dehumanizing as secular liberals who thought that Terri Schiavo's personhood completely coincided with her consciousness. But Terri Schiavo was still a person even when she lost her consciousness, which is why killing her was murder. Similarly, the transgender man's personhood transcends his gender.

    So why does the transgender man try to use chemical and surgical means to recreate himself into a woman? Because he needs empirical evidence that he has a transcendent self. If he can successfully recreate himself into a woman--so he reasons--then that means that he is more than just a man or a woman.

    The key to curing gender dysphoria is imparting knowledge that he is, in fact, more than a man or a woman, and so he does not need to recreate himself to prove to himself that he is more than a man or a woman.

    ReplyDelete
  10. EPAugust 4, 2023 at 11:06 PM

    Has anyone noticed the excess deaths, cancer, and sundry horrors since we were coerced to participate in medical experiments involving gene therapy? Scroll for a few links. This week the WHO (not the band) estimated 14.9 million excess deaths.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. David McPikeAugust 7, 2023 at 4:17 PM

      Nobody was under the impression that "safe and effective" had any particular precise meaning, were they?

      Delete
    2. AnonymousAugust 8, 2023 at 7:08 AM

      I have followed the "alt-vax" media for a some time now (unfortunately, I only found it after I had received the vax). My general take is that some of the claims are more demonstrable than others. For example, the claim that the vax does not stop you from getting or transmitting covid seems beyond reproach at this point. Similarly, it is pretty well documented that it causes clots/heart issues/etc.

      However, some of the other claims like what Steve Kirsch makes seems more speculative, e.g. "The vax has killed more people than Covid" and "vax causes cancer" and so on. I think a big issue with this is precisely the fact that these things are being ignored. That doesn't mean we know these claims are true, but rather, we can only speculate.

      Another thing to keep in mind is that a lot of the alternative media has its own panic narratives just like the MSM. E.g, right-wingers have been anticipating a total system failures for decades. Preppers seem to me to be the conservative equivalent of NPCs who got 4 booster shots. You're allowing the doom narrative to control how you think.

      The fact that I haven't seen any people in my own personal life (work, church, family, etc) have serious vax injuries (death stroke, etc) makes me suspicious. Again, the issue isn't that the alt-vax stuff is false, but that we don't really have any clear idea.

      Delete
  11. Geekiness and PhilosophyAugust 4, 2023 at 11:23 PM

    (I've probably made a similar comment on other open threads... I just wanna find other people with other POVs than mine- and get some help along the way!)

    What do people think of Feser's version of Aquinas' 5th Way?
    From what I'm remembering... (I should probably look it up but... it's late & I'm tired), it could be put in something like the following Argument:
    1) Predictable actions come from... moving things from one state to a foreseeable Final State. (the Final Cause, End or Good of the thing... at least that's how Feser interprets Aquinas' Argument)
    2) Non-living things don't have their Final State in themselves.
    3) Therefore, in-and-of themselves, non-living things should be entirely unpredictable
    4) This is absurd; so there must be something causing these things to behave consistently; and that can only be God.

    Now, it seems to me that we could posit a sort of Prime Efficient Causality on the Analogue of Prime Matter- and say that that's what the Laws of Nature are that (I think there's a number of reasons to say that's a good idea); as such, there's good reason to doubt Premise 1, above, but maybe a good retreat would be to say: "If things tend to behave in accordance with Prime Efficient Causality, then the behavior of LIVING things becomes inexplicable w/out God, since nothing would, then, act with purpose, but Life DOES behave w/ purpose, by definition- so God Exists; but if we say there IS no Prime Efficiency, than the argument above holds, and there'd be no explanation for the behavior on non-living things!"
    Which is all well-and-good, but... shouldn't you then put in some doubt as to premise 4? Since the thing is that plenty of things give non-living things their... foreseeable final state; i.e.: the sun gives the Earth the final state of plunging into its firy embrace, which the Earth counteracts w/ its velocity- thus, orbit. So then... couldn't we say that God is unnecessary?
    I think there could be a reply (such as: "Why should the Sun remain predictable in what Final Causes IT gives"... though that feels a bit week, somehow); but... I'm not sure what that reply should. Any ideas? Or do you think we have a refutation of Feser's argument, here? Or did I totally misunderstand it!?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Geekiness and PhilosophyAugust 6, 2023 at 1:14 PM

      On further reflection, I think I should clarify what Feser says about Teleology: he's thinking of a Final Cause not as (necessarily) the result of... some sort of Personal Intelligence working on things, but rather as the completion of some sort of action. Think of the Potential Energy of... say, a toilet paper roll that I might drop (for... unknown reasons), from a helicopter that's flying over, say, New York City. One moment, it has one potential energy, since we're only over the street, the next it has significantly less, since we're over the Empire State Building; that is to say that the impact on whatever it falls on will be less in one case than the other- as the end of this particular action, the falling out of my hand and onto... whatever it is, will be different at one moment rather than another. This is the Final Cause or "Good" of which Feser and (according to him) Aquinas are speaking- the completion of the action.
      What we call usually "Purpose" is added as Will and... well, general awareness are added to the picture; and... the whole notion is that living object are oriented towards states that will complete THEMSELVES rather than anything else- dogs eating to keep themselves alive, etc. ...This MIGHT help you understand what I wrote, above; it's rather complicated and obscure, and I'm not sure I understand it myse!

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  12. FranzenAugust 5, 2023 at 1:34 AM

    The private life of european medieval kings was absolutely outrageous: infidelity to their spouses was the rule; they had multiple concubines and often fathered several children with them. And yet, their power was supposed to come directly from God, the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire was crowned by the Pope, and so on. How did the Church justify this? Did it even address the issue or it just pretended to not see? I am not aware of any public discussion on this from that time, so I am genuinely curious.

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    1. AnonymousAugust 6, 2023 at 8:24 AM

      Really, that was not ignored. Do not forget that David was seen as the type of those whose kingship came from God. I honestly don't know why this question arises. Have you ever really looked into the history? Such denunciations were not uncommon.

      And I'm curious why, as so often happens, you are singling out medieval kings. Do you really think that, either before or after that era, rulers were any different? Just looking at modern England, from 1500 on, before the 20th C only 2 kings could be called good husbands. (Charles I and George III.)

      I will also point out that, when Paul refers to those in authority having their authority from God, he didn't think that, at the time, he was referring to kings. Today we might not see a difference between Roman Emperors and kings; in the 1st C they certainly did.

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    2. TonyAugust 6, 2023 at 1:20 PM

      I will add on to Anon's reply. St. Paul's point is that ALL authority is from God, it applies to kings, presidents, barons, aldermen, mayors, etc. That doesn't mean that these men were free from reproach in their misdeeds - it actually means that their actions are held to a higher standard (by God, if not by men). But it is not the order of things that God immediately removes the authority from the one placed into a position of authority whenever he commits a serious sin: he didn't do that to David even though He sent the prophet Nathan to upbraid David for his combined adultery and murder.

      Also, the theory that kings get their power directly from God, without the intermediary of man's agency in any way, was more typical of the period of "divine right of kings", which actually followed the medieval period. During the medieval period, most kings generally had significant constraints on their power. And the Holy Roman Emperors were selected by Electors, which means that more or less by definition, they got their power at least in part through the action of human agents.

      One might note that the private life of US presidents (and senators) is also pretty disgusting, and some of them have had multiple infidelities even if we don't call them "concubines". And certainly the life of kings before Christianity tended toward horrible abuses, which is why the prophet Samuel, when the Israelites wanted a king, warned them that kings will take away their sons and daughters.

      If you look, you will find plenty of popes and bishops speaking out against abuses by ruling monarchs throughout the centuries, including the medieval times. But you will also find plenty of kings (and lesser officials) who simply did not care, and since remonstrations by the Church fell on deaf ears, at times they stopped bothering.

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    3. FranzenAugust 8, 2023 at 2:35 AM

      @Anonymous
      I focus on medieval kings because middle age was the time when the bond between temporal and spiritual power was the strongest, and christianity is the strictest religion ever in terms of sexual morality. Charlemagne had five wives and at least five concubines (probably more). He fathered tens of children from all those women. I'm not aware of any official complaints from the Church about this. But maybe they did and I just do not know. That's why I asked.

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  13. AnonymousAugust 5, 2023 at 3:31 AM

    Can one rationally and theologically profess young earth creationism as a Catholic?

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    1. DanAugust 5, 2023 at 7:46 PM

      Only by assuming God so created the universe that it appears to us to be billions of years of years old when it fact it is young. Then fossils would not represent actual life in previous epochs but creations of God to give the appearance of such early life. Creation is therefore God's grand deception, the reasons for which would be the subject of endless speculation. A commitment to a young earth would seem to imply the end of much scientific investigation of the earth itself. As Catholics we believe in the integrity of scientific research to give real answers to explain the physical world/universe and particularly we believe there is ultimately no conflict between faith and science. Such would not be the case if we held to a young earth.

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    2. AnonymousAugust 6, 2023 at 7:34 AM

      One doesn’t have to think fossils are rocks created by God to appear animal-like or organic-like, one can very well accept their organic origins and still be a creationist. He/she would just need to hold the fossilisation process happened much faster than what is assumed (and, to be fair, fossilisation can indeed happen in relatively short spans of time, in the order of hundreds or thousands of years, which would be consistent with a young Universe). Evolution is far less ‘obvious’ than many would argue, the standard ‘proofs’ are not as decisive as common wisdom assumes (the theory by the way seems to me a glaring proof that ‘falsifiability’ is not the defining attribute or most fundamental criteria used to judge a theory as ‘scientific’ in the modern sense). The real issues are the fact that (1) the Universe indeed looks quite old (meaning here that the implications regarding star lifetime we can derive from our understanding of the nature of the nuclear reactions that sustain them as stable physical systems implies many stars we observe should be very old to reach their current appearance; and obviously the fact we know light has a measurable speed limit and it still seems to have crossed vast distances in space, much larger than what a young Universe would seem to allow), and (2) I haven’t so far found a convincing account of why the Uranium-based rock dating system delivers such old ages. It is not known to mankind any natural process that can result in a universal acceleration of the rate of decay of Uranium, and the ‘miracle’ explanation seems very unconvincing. But I think we should be open to any reasoned account of both facts if there is one.

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    3. CosmicCatAugust 6, 2023 at 7:14 PM

      It is actually a de fide doctrine of the RCC that the Universe was created ~6000 years ago (we can't get the exact year down because the chronogeneologies in Genesis don't give us the exact day in the calendar month so-and-so begat, so we can only get an upper bound and a lower bound on the year of creation).

      Creation Ministries International does a very good job reinterpreting the science so that it is consistent with Genesis. They also address the distant starlight problem and big bang cosmology.
      See their work.

      The idea that evolution and an old universe are admissible is just part of Official Theology™, just like the idea that unbaptized babies don't go to Limbo. :)

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    4. StardustyPsycheAugust 7, 2023 at 5:29 AM

      "The 66 books of the Bible are the written Word of God. The Bible is divinely inspired and inerrant throughout."
      https://creation.com/what-we-believe
      That is an expression of a sort of primitive text fetish, For some reason, a great many people find some old story in a pot in a cave and for some bizarre reason feel a compulsion or urge to worship some story or other as if it were somehow realistically true.

      The web site sells some nice DVDs, so that indicates a likely motive, money. Cranks like Kent Hovind have made millions peddling such nonsense to the credulous.

      The amazing thing for me is not that there are folks who package and sell lies, since there are liars and frauds of many sorts, unfortunately, many of whom gravitate toward positions of religious "authority" as a target rich environment to profit from fraud.

      The continually amazing thing to me is that so many people actually send such folks their money.

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    5. AnonymousAugust 7, 2023 at 6:41 AM

      No, HK, creationism is absolutely *not* a “de fide” doctrine, and, as you already know, Limbo itself was only an article of “official theology.” Please, do the Church the courtesy of accurately representing her position.

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    6. Son of Ya'KovAugust 7, 2023 at 10:35 AM

      I can't find the teaching the Earth was created 6000 years ago in either Ott or Dengzinger?
      Pius XII taught it was permissible.

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    7. AnonymousAugust 7, 2023 at 2:43 PM

      Och aye the noo Jimmy!

      Where is the Chupacabra?

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    8. UncommonDescentAugust 7, 2023 at 4:20 PM

      @StardustyPsyche:

      The amazing thing for me is not that there are folks who package and sell lies, since there are liars and frauds of many sorts, unfortunately, many of whom gravitate toward positions of religious "authority" as a target rich environment to profit from fraud.

      Are you referring to types like Dawkins, whose garbage philosophy and pseudo-science have profited him well? We do agree, those kinds of priests need to go.

      The continually amazing thing to me is that so many people actually send such folks their money.

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    9. CosmicCatAugust 8, 2023 at 8:01 PM

      @Son of Ya'kov

      I can't find the teaching the Earth was created 6000 years ago in either Ott or Dengzinger? Pius XII taught it was permissible.

      I decided to double-check the Summa Theologica on an example of St. Thomas Aquinas citing a seemingly trivial instance of geneology to illustrate on how scripture is inerrant not only on all things it expounds on, but even on all things it touches on. The argument would have went on to say that because the chronogeneologies date back to the creation of the universe, and because scripture is inerrant not only on all things it expounds on but also on those things it touches on, therefore scripture teaches that the universe is ~6000 years old, thereby making it a de fide doctrine of the RCC.

      But I cannot seem to find where Aquinas says that (Was it the Summa Theologica or some other work?) so the correctness of that argument hinges both on whether Aquinas actually said that (i.e. that somebody didn't put words in Aquinas's mouth on the Internet) and on Aquinas' authority as a doctor of the church.

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  14. Paul D. Van PeltAugust 5, 2023 at 4:30 AM

    Things are pretty busy here, as usual. I have something else I will shop elsewhere, only for that reason.

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  15. UncommonDescentAugust 5, 2023 at 6:27 AM

    Since it's an open-mind thread, some words from Kenny:

    I believe as a matter of fact, that the clearest insight into the nature of the mind is to be obtained from the Aristotelian viewpoint.

    - Kenny, Aquinas on Mind.

    True, because materialism has nothing to offer us. Philosophy of mind + materialism = intellectual cul-de-sac.

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  16. StardustyPsycheAugust 5, 2023 at 7:50 AM

    Geek,
    "2) Non-living things don't have their Final State in themselves."
    Dr. Feser is wrong. Non-living things have properties that give rise to teleonomy.

    Teleology is thus illusory. A snowflake looks designed. Such an arrangement seems like it was designed with an end goal or purpose in mind.

    In truth, intermolecular forces were such that molecules attracted each other in submicroscopic ways a trillion trillion times to give rise to the arrangement we call a snowflake.

    Teleology is equivalent to the sun god, the wind god, and the host of superstitious attributions of gods to attempt to account for apparent design.

    Teleonomy is what actually happens.

    Nature seems designed top down. Actually, arrangements are resultant from the bottom up.

    The Fifth Way is nonsense.

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    1. UncommonDescentAugust 5, 2023 at 1:07 PM

      @Stardusty:

      Teleology is thus illusory.

      Then 'Natural Selection' is illusory, because it's a teleological process, directed towards --> making organisms well adapted to their niches.

      In truth, intermolecular forces were such that molecules attracted each other in submicroscopic ways a trillion trillion times to give rise to the arrangement we call a snowflake.

      And that arrangement flows from water's essence, which makes possible that snowflakes can acquire such structure, but not possible that they could acquire others (for example snowflakes in the form of a hot-dog). Water is a real substance and then its molecules are composites of matter + form. Form determines what it can do and what it can't do (for example water can't think, like most materialists).

      Teleology is equivalent to the sun god, the wind god, and the host of superstitious attributions of gods to attempt to account for apparent design.

      Ditto for Natural Selection, your pagan god.

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    2. Geekiness and PhilosophyAugust 5, 2023 at 5:22 PM

      @Stardusty; I think a part of this boils down to a difference in Intuition: I think it self-evident that Life IS teleological oriented, you do not. The closest I can get to defending MY view, I think, would be to give examples: the heart is ORIENTED towards pumping blood, legs are ORIENTED towards locomotion, living things ORIENTED towards survival, etc.; if you don't see that, I don't have anything more to say to you- that just seems to be what Life is... at least as far as I can see!

      However, as to the claim that Teleology is an Illusion... I think that that amounts to a sort of Skepticism- and we can reply to it the same way we do towards other Skepticisms; i.e.: "What about YOUR statements? If there's no Purpose in them, then how can we say they are oriented towards Truth? If they are no more oriented towards Truth than is the sound of a yawn, why should we pay attention to them? And if they are, then there is Teleology, somewhere!"
      It also seems to me that to deny Teleology on such a fundamental level- to say that it's ALWAYS an illusion, implies that it's somehow incoherent as an Idea... but surely it's not, is it? There COULD be teleology... even if we've never seen it; but then, how could we be SURE we've never seen it?

      Oh- another point: from what I can understand, according to Feser's argument, predictability in things become inexplicable insofar as they LACK teleology; so- if he's right- denying it in living things means that EVERYTHING needs to have God... bringing it to some... sort of predictable state, in order to explain it! (I think he might be wrong in that- see my original comment).

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    3. Geekiness and PhilosophyAugust 5, 2023 at 5:23 PM

      @UncommonDescent: Surely we don't need to insult Stardusty's pagan gods; c'mon man!

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    4. StardustyPsycheAugust 5, 2023 at 6:13 PM

      "Ditto for Natural Selection, your pagan god."
      Ok, so you acknowledge as valid the characterization of teleology as an ancient superstation that attributes observed phenomena to imagined spirits.

      Good to know, at least you are making a little progress.

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    5. StardustyPsycheAugust 5, 2023 at 6:18 PM

      "Then 'Natural Selection' is illusory, because it's a teleological process, directed towards -->"
      No, natural selection is teleonomical not teleological.

      Natural selection works from the bottom up, not the top down.

      There is no direction to biological evolution, it just ends up wherever the bottom up processes result in the aggregate.

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    6. StardustyPsycheAugust 5, 2023 at 11:05 PM

      Geek,
      "I think it self-evident that Life IS teleological oriented, you do not. "
      It is self evident that the Earth is stationary and the lights in the sky orbit the Earth. Proving that self evident assertion to be incorrect is actually not so very easy to do, rather, it requires a great deal of study and scientific investigation.

      "ORIENTED"
      That is just a label you give to your superficial top down impression of how life works.

      "that just seems to be what Life is... at least as far as I can see!"
      Right, it seems that way to the casual observer, just like it seems the Earth is stationary to the casual observer.

      "If there's no Purpose in them, then how can we say they are oriented towards Truth?"
      What does purpose have to do with truth? Truth is what actually is. Truth has no need of purpose.

      "why should we pay attention to them?"
      Up to you. There is no objective "should".

      "There COULD be teleology"
      Your personal goals can result in a sort of limited and personal and nominal and relative teleology.

      You experience the feeling of doing things for a purpose, say, in making a tool. You form a temporal and spatial model in your brain and perform motor actions to realize or synthesize an external object that is similar in shape to your internal model, and in the process you have the experience of having created something for the purpose you had in mind.

      Seeing life in general and the arrangement materials in the cosmos in such teleological terms is a psychological projection of your personal experiences onto the materials in the cosmos in general.

      "Feser's argument, predictability in things become inexplicable insofar as they LACK teleology"
      Assuming you are paraphrasing Dr. Feser accurately then he is conflating teleology with teleonomy. He is projecting a top down directedness to materials that actually progress from the bottom up.





      Delete
    7. UncommonDescentAugust 6, 2023 at 2:15 AM

      @StardustyPsyche:

      Ok, so you acknowledge as valid the characterization of teleology as an ancient superstation that attributes observed phenomena to imagined spirits.

      That's not the definition of 'teleology'. Teleology means 'directed towards certain outcomes and not others'. No mention of any 'spirit'. Form =/= spirit (the former is a principle of organization and the latter is an immaterial substance, for example Descartes's res cogitans.) Or, for example, your pagan goddess Natural Selection, of which we can only observe her workings but never can observe herself in all her glory (we need priests like you to tell us how her divine mind works).

      But wait, your goddess is not even a substance, it's a process, so --> no causal powers. Therefore, we're back to form --> the only logical explanation. (And essences are knowable and can be defined. Natural Selection can not. Natural Selection is that 'something that selects' but no one has ever provided an explanation of the mechanism* by which it selects --> so Natural Selection lacks explanatory value).

      *What an irony, because your side is the 'mechanistic' one. But materialism is silly, so your explanations are --> useless.

      No, natural selection is teleonomical not teleological.

      Nope. It's directed towards a certain outcome (making organisms well adapted) and not towards others (for example making the moon revolve around the Earth). Therefore --> fits the definition --> teleological. But you don't understand definitions, even the most basic ones.

      Natural selection works from the bottom up, not the top down.

      'Natural Selection' is the result/ expression of there being forms and act/ potency. Like 'vapor' is the result of there being the form of water and act/ potency.

      There is no direction to biological evolution, it just ends up wherever the bottom up processes result in the aggregate.

      Darwin would not be pleased. Evolution is directed towards --> multiplicity of species and making those species well adapted to their niches. You're a bad pupil.

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    8. Geekiness and PhilosophyAugust 6, 2023 at 1:07 PM

      @Stardusty: First off, I think I should clarify what Feser says about Teleology: he's thinking of a Final Cause not as (necessarily) the result of... some sort of Personal Intelligence working on things, but rather as the completion of some sort of action. Think of the Potential Energy of... say, a toilet paper roll that I might drop (for... unknown reasons), from a helicopter that's flying over, say, New York. One moment, it has one potential energy, since we're only over the street, the next it has significantly less, since we're over the Empire State Building; that is to say that the impact on whatever it falls on will be less in one case than the other- as the end of this particular action, the falling out of my hand and onto... whatever it is. This is the Final Cause or "Good" of which Feser and (according to him) Aquinas are speaking- the completion of an action. What we call usually "Purpose" is added as Will and... well, general awareness are added to the picture; and... the whole notion is that the final state towards which a living object is oriented will be one in which completes ITSELF rather than anything else. ...This MIGHT help you understand what I wrote, above; it's rather complicated and obscure, and I'm not sure I understand it myself. (I'll copy this as a reply to my 1st comment, since it might help clarify it... for anyone who happens to run across that statement).

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    9. Geekiness and PhilosophyAugust 6, 2023 at 1:41 PM

      @Stardusty: (1st off, I published my "clarifying" comment, impulsively, before I edited it for grammar & clarity- you might want to look above to see it clearer and better)

      I wanna say a few things to what you replied to my reply, in particular: Yes, I agree that working towards something- whether we represent that something through images, words, or something else- however we represent it-that is what we call doing something with purpose... but how does that refute this ordinary notion of Purpose?

      I love that line of yours: "Your personal goals can result in a sort of limited and personal and nominal and relative teleology"- great rythm, and it's mostly right; but how "Nominal"? Don't we have to say, for example, when I say say: "I'm coding a random number generator with Python" that I genuinely AM aiming for a random number generator? That's not just a name- it's what I actually WANT... how else could you put it?

      "Truth has no need of purpose," you say; I agree that Existing things have no need of OUR purpose (whether or not they need God's Purpose is another question), but Honesty and Rationality do need our purposes! We need to be very clear here: what I'm saying is that you are either trying to be Honest and Rational or not- and that Rationality and Honesty are "Aimed" at Truth. If you're not... well: shut up and get out of here; but if you are... well, you have your own purposes; and that would "result in a sort of limited and personal and relative teleology"- even if not exactly a Nominal one (since if it wasn't Actual & not Nominal there wouldn't be any sense in saying you were being Honest & Rational, would there?)- and therefore there IS Teleology in the Universe, right?

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    10. StardustyPsycheAugust 6, 2023 at 10:40 PM

      Geek,
      "it's rather complicated and obscure, and I'm not sure I understand it myself."
      When you figure out how to describe it more clearly then let me know.

      The notion that nature is somehow moving toward a design is just human projection.

      Teleology is top down, an intelligence had foresight and designed a system to realize that goal, or that purpose.

      Teleonomy is bottom up. Material progresses the way it does from the bottom up without any overall design and the aggregate of all those small progressions has the superficial appearance of design.

      "I genuinely AM aiming for a random number generator? That's not just a name- it's what I actually WANT... how else could you put it?"
      That's debatable depending how one defines terms like "really" or "actually".

      If we define "really" to be particles in motion then particles in motion "really" want xyz to happen. If one insists that particles in motion cannot "really" want anything the our desire is just a name we give that set of particles in motion.

      I am not hung up on one language versus another.

      "Honesty and Rationality"
      Now you are getting into epistemology as opposed to ontology, how we reason about what we think we have learned to be true, versus what actually is ontologically the case.

      "and therefore there IS Teleology in the Universe, right?"
      Intelligence can have and act upon what it considers a purpose, and we are intelligent, and we are in the universe, so to that extent, yes.

      The Fifth Way is an argument for the necessity of god based on the appearance of design generally in the universe, and is thus unsound.

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    11. UncommonDescentAugust 7, 2023 at 1:54 AM

      @StardustyPsyche:

      The notion that nature is somehow moving toward a design is just human projection.

      The Fifth Way doesn't state any 'design' in any of its premises. It's based on the scientific fact that Nature exhibits divisions (or else Nature would be un-intelligible). Water does certain things, trees do other ones, dogs do other ones and humans do other different ones.

      If you want to deny that Nature has been carved up, then you'll be denying science and all its achievements. That would not surprise me, since your side is fideistic and anti-reason.

      If we were 'deluded' by Evolution to think that Nature is heterogeneous instead of homogeneous --> then Darwin was wrong, 'adaptation' becomes superfluous. Whatever we believe is ok, 'selective pressures' are redundant and we can call Ockham boy to lend us his powerful razor.

      If Nature has been carved up on different 'packages', then Nature could not have given itself those rules, or else Nature would have had to exist before it existed, which is impossible.

      That includes your 'deity°of-the-mud', Natural Selection. For it to have given to 'itself' knowledge about how to 'select', it would have had to exist before it existed, which is impossible. --> 'Something' had to pass that information from the outside.

      And if you try to smuggle your second-order-gods 'The Laws of Physics', the same rules apply to them.

      Your side tries to smuggle 'knowledge' onto Nature by assigning to 'Natural Selection'/ 'The Laws of Physics' the powers that ancient civilizations assigned to any other sort of spirit. And you fail. Again.

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    12. UncommonDescentAugust 7, 2023 at 5:12 AM

      St. Thomas Aquinas wrote his five ways to God’s existence in the very first pages of his Summa Theologiae (1265-1274), the finest, most mature synthesis of his philosophical and theological thought – a work designed both for educated laity and seminarians*. Since God’s existence is the foundation on which logically rests the entirety of his multiple volume masterpiece, giving but a short paragraph’s treatment to each “way” clearly signifies that no complete scholarly demonstration was ever intended. Rather, the “ways” are merely short summaries of St. Thomas’ take on classical arguments his students already knew well.

      *(That does not include evangelical materialists/ neo-pagans or clerics of other irrational beliefs. Clarification mine).

      Hence, expecting fully developed philosophical proofs in the five ways is a major error.

      - Prof. Dennis Bonnette

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    13. UncommonDescentAugust 7, 2023 at 5:34 AM

      @Stardusty:

      Crucially, the quinta via (fifth way) is not an argument from design, like that of William Paley (1743-1805), who reasoned from extrinsic finality that, like a watch, the world exhibits deliberate design because of perfect coordination of its parts. Rather, St. Thomas argues from intrinsic finality that all natural bodies lacking knowledge act for an end, thereby revealing that they are moved by an intelligent agent, whom we call God.

      Nonetheless, maintaining that natural bodies attain “that which is best” is not essential to his argument, since, as will be shown, it is rationally demonstrable that natural bodies attaining merely definite ends require an intelligent director.

      - Prof Dennis Bonnette

      Your 'Natural Selection' is your personal version of "attaining that which is best for every organism"/ "maximum fitness". So Darwinists and materialists keep copy-catting the Saint, because their system is intellectually bankrupt.

      And, at the same time, you are Paleyians, because you want to make it "extrinsic" to organisms. But both positions are logically contrary. It's an either/ or disjunctive.

      The only solution to this intellectual cul-de-sac
      (like that of materialist phil of mind) is to allow the form as an intrinsic co-principle of organization along with prime matter.

      Materialism --> has failed. Proper place --> Dustbin of History, along with phlogiston, leeches, phrenology and Marxism.

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    14. UncommonDescentAugust 7, 2023 at 6:04 AM

      @Stardusty:

      And what Dawkins was trying to do with his silly The Selfish Gene, was to make ADN into FORM, intrinsic to the individuals. (Contra Paley).

      So now we have the form 'inside' each organism, and from there they 'direct' them to their outcomes.

      But it can't work either, because ADN/ genes mutate a lot, and FORMS never mutate, they are fixed. A 'mutating form' is incoherent.

      That's why understanding evolution under materialism is impossible. Because without act/ potency and form/ matter, it's impossible to give a coherent account of change (which is exactly what 'evolution' is, a process of change).

      Another materialist mess that has to be corrected by the A-T duo.

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    15. Geekiness and PhilosophyAugust 7, 2023 at 3:13 PM

      @Stardusty: "Design"- that's the sort of word I was thinking of! We can say that something is Designed as its foreseeable end if Intelligence and Will are involved (at least, some of the time)- but non-intelligent objects might have some intrinsic purposes, but not Designed ones.

      All that I mean be "End" or "Purpose" here, all that (I think) Feser sees in it, would be the completion of an Action. Feser/Aquinas sees Living Things as completing actions that... enhance themselves, that are- so to speak- foreseen by their own nature (i.e., stalking prey so as to eat it, signing songs so as to mate, etc.)- and that completes that nature- fulfills it, enhances it, etc. (Or at least that tries to). Hence comes the predictability of their behavior- but whence comes the predictability of non-living things? To explain that... at least according to Feser & Aquinas- assuming I'm understanding Feser/he's understanding Aquinas -we have to bring God in. (I'm doubtful of that- see my original comment).

      As for your top-down vs. bottom-up thing: yes, this is seeing things in a human way- but then, so is the bottom up thing. The top-down version sees things on the analogue of something like a painting, where every feature exists for some sort of purpose- intrinsically; the bottom-up/materialist version one sees things on the analogue of a machine- where nothing has an intrinsic purpose of its own and could be replaced at any time- possibly by a better version of itself (say, by a better graphics card or whatever). Both are very human ways of looking at the world; the question is: which is better supported by the evidence, which makes more logical sense, and how do they fit in with the rest of what we know about the Cosmos?

      Briefly, my answer is that while there is something to be said for the Bottom-up/Materialistic/Mechanistic worldview- it can't be the ultimate explanation because it cannot answer the question: "WHAT is doing the cause/effect we're studying?" If everything can be swapped out for something else- if nothing causes or effects anything else BY ITS NATURE... than its actual identity completely drops out of the picture, and we're left with the question: "What are we talking about again?" -And, no real way of answering that question.

      But that's just my view! Anyway: delightful conversation! Hope this stuff helps!

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    16. David McPikeAugust 7, 2023 at 4:51 PM

      Setting aside SP's idiosyncratic uses of the terms 'teleology' and 'teleonomy,' he asserts the following apparently inconsistent propositions:

      All causality is circular.
      All causality is bottom-up.
      No causality is top-down.

      I'd have thought that if all causality were circular, then if causality goes up, it would have to come down, and vice versa (rather as Aristotle maintained).

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    17. StardustyPsycheAugust 8, 2023 at 8:23 PM

      "Both are very human ways of looking at the world;"
      To "look at" requires a complex analytical system. That is what "looking at" is. So of course the simplest systems do not look at the world top down or bottom up.

      "it can't be the ultimate explanation because it cannot answer the question: "WHAT is doing the cause/effect we're studying?""
      Fundamental forces and material.

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    18. StardustyPsycheAugust 8, 2023 at 8:45 PM

      "I'd have thought that if all causality were circular, then if causality goes up, it would have to come down, and vice versa (rather as Aristotle maintained)."
      Such simplistic assertions neglect escape velocity.

      The ignorance of Aristotle was employed by Aquinas in the First Way, which is why the First Way is logically invalid and also suffers from several false premises.

      Most of what Aristotle maintained regarding motion and causation is wrong.

      Since we now know it is not necessary "whatever is in motion is put in motion by another", then the conclusion "Therefore it is necessary to arrive at a first mover" is false.

      But, ignorant people who still think what goes up must come down are also the ignorant sort who still cling to Aristotelian nonsense.

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  17. Michele ArpaiaAugust 5, 2023 at 9:35 AM

    Has anyone seen Oppenheimer yet? Still not out in my country but I welcome any insightful take on it.

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    1. AnonymousAugust 5, 2023 at 6:11 PM

      What is your country, Michele?

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    2. AnonymousAugust 6, 2023 at 4:23 PM

      https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/06/business/oppenheimer-surpasses-500-million-at-box-office/index.html

      Delete
  18. AlfonsoAugust 5, 2023 at 10:04 AM

    Ed, the way you expose and defended the real distinction between essence and existence in Five Proofs seems to oddly imply that some form of the ontological argument is valid, since knowing God’s essence while thinking he doesn’t exist would be, per your own definition, misconceiving God (in the same way that “if we suppose that you judge that lions don’t exist (...) then while you have judged falsely, you have not misconceived what it is to be a lion. Yet if the existence of a lion were not distinct from its essence, this would not be the case. Judging it to be nonexistent would be as much to misconceive what it is as judging it to be a noncat would be.” (Five Proofs, p. 118))

    That this is heavily implied in your reasoning can also be seen, for example, in lines like this one: “But then the existence of the creatures that do exist must be really distinct from their essences, otherwise one could know of their existence merely from knowing their essences” (p. 118)

    To be clear, I still think your other arguments do establish decisively that there is indeed a real distinction between essence and existence, and hence the proof as a whole still works. But this issue is nevertheless a weakness that leaves your defence open to attack (considering that, as a Thomist, you reject the Ontological argument)

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    1. Journey 516August 5, 2023 at 3:55 PM

      St. Thomas actually uses your exact point in his critique of the argument. He says that while knowing God’s essence would make it obvious that God necessarily exists, we don’t have access to knowing His true essence as we do with objects available to the senses.

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    2. Walter Van den AckerAugust 6, 2023 at 1:53 AM

      Of course one could know of a thing's existence merely from knowing its essences. Existence is part of the essence of a thing.
      There is no real distinction between essence and existence, there is, however, a distinction between a concept of a thing and the thing itself. What Ed calls an essence is in fact a concept or a mental image. Mental images exist, but not in the same way as real objects.
      Hence one can have a mental image of a unicorn and, agreeing for the sake of the argument that such mental image would suffice to judge what it is to be a unicorn, the mental imgae only tells you what a unicorn would be like if it existed. The eesence of a mental image of a unicorn is not the same as the essence of a real unicorn. You cannot ride on a mentat image, e.g.
      Just take a look a René Magritte's famous painting "La trahison des images". Magritte doesn't think images capture the entire essence of a thing, because, "ceci n'est pas une pipe".

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    3. AnonymousAugust 6, 2023 at 1:27 PM

      Existence is part of the essence of a thing.

      Like dinosaurs. The essence of dinosaurs once existed, but that essence is nothing now. There is no "kind" to dinosaurs because there are no dinosaurs.

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    4. BillAugust 7, 2023 at 3:43 PM

      No, Walter, essence and existence are clearly distinct, except in God. Whatever a thing’s essence is is essential to its being the kind of thing that it is. A triangle’s essence is three-sidedness. If a geometric figure doesn’t have three sides, it’s not a triangle. A triangle necessarily has three sides. Thus, if existence were the essence of a thing, then it would necessarily exist. The fact that some things which once existed no longer exist demonstrates that existence was not part of their essence. Thus, possible existences do not have existence in themselves; they have their existence in another. In other words, it is a received existence.

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    5. StardustyPsycheAugust 8, 2023 at 6:57 AM

      "The essence of dinosaurs once existed, but that essence is nothing now."
      Nope, dinosaur "essence" lives on in every bird.

      Delete
    6. Walter Van den AckerAugust 8, 2023 at 11:25 AM

      Bill

      Things that once existed but no longer exist do not have an essence anymore.
      Possible existences do not have existence anywhere except as concepts or mental images.
      Existence precedes essence, not the other way round.
      A concept of a unicorn has existence as a mental image, a 'real' unicorn has no existence and no essence.
      Having one horn is a necessary 'essence' of a mental image of a unicorn, but it is not a necessary essence of a 'real' unicorn.

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    7. BillAugust 8, 2023 at 3:01 PM

      @Walter, you're missing the point. Of course one cannot speak of something that no longer exists as "having" an essence. Something that doesn't exist doesn't have anything.

      Existence is either derived or it is intrinsic. If it is derived, then it is given by another along with the essence which limits the actuality of the thing in question. If existence is one's essence, then nothing can be added to it because existence covers everything. Pure existence is unspecified existence which makes it unlimited. Specified existence is limited by definition, which means that its existence is derived. If existence were its essence, its existence would be inherent and not derived.

      As Feser and others have pointed out, the reason there can be many men and individual men is because that by which any man is human is distinct from that by which the same man is this particular individual. Thus, Walter's humanity (essence) is communicable to many whereas Walter's "Walter-ness" (particular act of existence) is incommunicable. Were they the same, there could be many Walter Van den Ackers. Indeed, were they the same, then everybody would be Walter Van den Acker. The fact that they aren't clearly demonstrates the real distinction between essence and existence.

      Again, what is essential to a thing is its essence. As three-sidedness is essential to a triangle, three-sidedness is the essence of a triangle. All triangles necessarily have three sides. And if existence were the essence of a thing, then it would necessarily exist. Since some beings do not necessarily exist, their essence must be distinct from their acts of existence.

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    8. UncommonDescentAugust 8, 2023 at 3:31 PM

      @Stardusty:

      Nope, dinosaur "essence" lives on in every bird.

      Nope, because if that were true, then dinosaurs and birds would be the same species.

      When a man that lived 700+ years ago had more common sense than the average 'modern, scientifically oriented' materialist zealot has today, then the materialist is in real trouble.

      Now go re-watch Jurassic Park. Or should its title be instead Ornithological Park?

      Are birds 'net lossless' Stardusty? Do linear -circular dino-birds exist and Darwin accidentally missed them?

      You materialists need the Saint like a fish needs water. His substrate theory to account for change in nature is fascinating. And it's coherent, contrary to your materialist delusions.

      Delete
  19. AnonymousAugust 5, 2023 at 1:35 PM

    Feser, what have you written on topics regarding the veneration of the saints, particularly Mary? I would love to hear your response from common objections to common defenses of the doctrine. Thank ya, sir!

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  20. AnonymousAugust 5, 2023 at 1:42 PM

    I’d like to get an explanation, similar to Ed’s recent Stone/Searle article, of the ENTHYMEME as a rhetorical device. I’ve read umpteen descriptions, and as far as they go they seem understandable. But I’m still at a loss as to the *point* of the bloom in’ thing; *why* can it it be rhetorically effective to suppress a premise? A chunky practical explanation, with examples — ideally currently relevant; and ideally ideally drawing those from woke-dom — would be wonderful. Anyone? Ed?

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    1. David McPikeAugust 7, 2023 at 3:31 PM

      If I always spell out every single proposition of an argument for you, then I am treating you as too stupid to fill in the blanks, as incapable of grasping logical implications for yourself. Enthymemes are more efficient and imply a recognition that you are/invitation for you to be an actively intelligent fellow-reasoner, an intelligent partner in conversation. And suppression of the explicit can also be an effective in-group/out-group identity signifier.

      "Donald Trump!"
      "Ugh. I know."
      "Putin. Ukraine."
      "Right?"
      "Trans rights."
      "Yes. Exactly."

      Delete
  21. Chris WolfeAugust 5, 2023 at 3:11 PM

    From what this article says, Erik Hoel's new book, the World Behind the World, argues for the same conclusions as Nagel in Mind and Cosmos, but from the perspective of neurobiology rather than philosophy. That is- against the reductivism concerning consciousness https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-world-behind-the-world-review-what-the-brain-scan-misses-6033e7ad

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    1. StardustyPsycheAugust 5, 2023 at 6:09 PM

      Yes, a brain scan has limited usefulness. Still, a great deal can be learned from fMRI, but no serious scientist believes that fMRI somehow images the totality of how the brain works.

      Using the lack of resolution of fMRI to argue against reductionism is like saying your car is not made of atoms because the automotive diagnostics equipment at the dealership cannot detect atoms.

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    2. UncommonDescentAugust 6, 2023 at 2:41 PM

      @Stardusty,

      If we are our brains, should we use fMRI images in our driver's licenses?

      Delete
  22. DougAugust 5, 2023 at 4:03 PM

    Hey philosophically-inclined folks, help me with an oddment of moral philosophy? Is utilitarianism tautological? That is, does it just hold that "beneficial is beneficial", or does it somehow obtain "beneficial is moral" by means other than the equivocation on the word "good"? If so, please explain that means to me?

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    1. AnonymousAugust 6, 2023 at 9:08 PM

      I don’t see the tautology. Most forms of utilitarianism involve maximizing some function of “utility”, and it’s not obvious that is semantically equivalent to “good”. Rather, the proponent would be arguing that maximizing the utility function *meets the criteria* for the pre-existing notion of goodness.

      For example, one utilitarian might argue that we maximizing the total happiness of everyone is The Good; a second might disagree and say that what needs maximized is the *average* happiness; while a third, non-utilitarian person, might reject both positions and argue that goodness consists of following the will of a deity, regardless of how that impacts the happiness of humans here on earth.

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    2. DougAugust 7, 2023 at 8:29 AM

      The distinction between "*meet[ing] the criteria* for [a] pre-existing notion of good" and being "semantically equivalent to 'good'" is subtle :-D

      Whichever "utility function" a utilitarian advocates, it represents The Good (i.e., the beneficial), and the move to turn it into an ethic is to say "it is good (i.e., moral?) to be directed toward the good (i.e., beneficial)". My question is: surely the only claim that the utilitarian can legitimately make is "it is good (i.e., beneficial) to be directed toward the good (i.e., beneficial)" -- which smacks of tautology.

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    3. David McPikeAugust 7, 2023 at 3:44 PM

      The utilitarian maxim is "always act so as to maximize the good." Not "beneficial is beneficial" but "maximizing the good is what is right" or "maximum beneficence is the master precept for moral action."

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    4. DougAugust 8, 2023 at 10:53 AM

      The difficulty with utilitarianism is that the *obligation* or *responsibility* to "always act" isn't given. Nobody loses sleep from the ghost of Jeremy Bentham. I recognize that the maxim is to "always act so as to maximize The Good (i.e., benefit)", but *in order to get there* they need to engage in sleight-of-hand. First, "those acts that maximize The Good are good (i.e., beneficial)" [what I'm missing] Finally, "those acts that maximize The Good are good (i.e., moral -- your 'maximizing the good is what is right')". Please explain that missing step.

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    5. David McPikeAugust 8, 2023 at 4:38 PM

      First, "those acts that maximize The Good are good (i.e., beneficial)" [what I'm missing] Finally, "those acts that maximize The Good are good (i.e., moral -- your 'maximizing the good is what is right')". Please explain that missing step.

      Where are you getting this from?

      Delete
    6. TonyAugust 8, 2023 at 5:48 PM

      Doug, I agree that utilitarians typically jump right over important first steps, but I don't think it falls into a mere equivocation on "the good". Under A/T philosophy, "the good" (for a living thing) in its primary sense can probably be described as "that which fulfills the nature of the thing". In a sense, some such goods are merely exterior things (food, for example), because eating food helps fulfill the nature, but more properly it is in the behavior itself that is the living thing IN OPERATION, well. For a rational living thing, "the good" is a life of voluntary, free acts chosen and acted upon that are in accord with his nature. That describes the being as fulfilled. And also (not merely incidentally) "morally good" applies to acts insofar as the acts are, indeed, voluntary free acts chosen and acted upon that are in accord with human nature: we associate the "good" of the acts that fulfill human nature with the "good" of "right action" precisely because the former utterly grounds the latter. We ascribe "good" to exterior things like food, shelter, etc, insofar as these are the necessary accoutrements to the acts of a fulfilled life (but this latter sense of "good" isn't that of "moral good". They are "the good" in the sense that more of them is, per se, better than fewer of them. )

      Utilitarians tend to run with a mish-mash of what, precisely, is the meaning of a "fulfilled" human life, and usually they cannot specify any definite character to human nature, either. But they generally agree with A/T philosophy at least in this: "good action" is good precisely because it is related to a "good condition" of humans. Most utilitarians wrongly elevate material objects and physical goods (pleasure and comfort) as representing "the good" for man, (ignoring the primary status of activity for describing good life), but they still reasonably connect the good of "right action" with "what produces the good in life", with the latter being more primary.

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    7. DougAugust 8, 2023 at 6:13 PM

      Well, the starting point is the tautology: "maximizing the good is what is good" and the conclusion is what you said, viz: "maximizing the good is what is right". And my question is "how can anyone logically get from the former to the latter?"

      Delete
  23. English CatholicAugust 5, 2023 at 4:51 PM

    Can someone give me the beginnings of a Thomist account of why swearing (not blasphemy) is morally wrong?

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    1. AnonymousAugust 6, 2023 at 9:01 AM

      It isn't always.

      Delete
    2. TonyAugust 6, 2023 at 1:55 PM

      One should distinguish between such acts as (a) uttering a vulgarity as an exclamation, (b) using vulgarity as an insult, (c) using an oath as an emphatic insistence on your truthfulness in trivial circumstances, and (d) implicating hell or damnation lightly, (and other verbal wrongs). Each of these are problematic, but in different ways and with different qualifying constraints. If your baby's diaper just leaked all over your new suit, and you say "Oh sh*t!" only loudly enough for those right near you to hear it, the moral impropriety (if any) of that exclamation is ... very, very attenuated, perhaps evanescent. Using it with other of similarly frustrating conditions would be less justified, but not much more socially offensive. In general, the social importance of the negative status of "vulgarities" used as exclamations of disgust and irritation is relatively insignificant, and so the moral gravity involved is relatively slight: the moral offense springs out of the social conditioning of "proper" vs. "improper" behavior regarding a relatively slight matter.

      However, using a vulgarity to call someone a name is quite different: uttering "You're a sh*thead" cannot but be highly offensive (in a social sense), and that sort of social offense would virtually never have any moral justification. (Yes, there might be many moral justifications to treat a person as having disgusting morals (or manners), but calling them such a name is not necessarily the right way to accomplish it - after all, in spite of their offenses, they either ARE (now) a child of God in the state of grace, or God intends that they become such a person.)

      "I swear by my father's grave that I saw him drink 6 martinis": Christ himself tells us not to use oaths trivially. Instead, let your "yes" be simply "yes". Let the burden be on the hearer to justly believe your word not. The moral reality here is that it is improper to extend to a trivial situation a "truthbearing" attestation of gravity. That undermines the effectiveness of such attestations in actually grave situations, which holds important social functions (like trials).

      And invoking hell or Satan or damnation when you don't (or should not) mean it cannot be a good idea. Simply saying "he's a g*d-damned good athlete" is a horrible mix-up of God and damnation, but even if you skipped pulling in God there, you are trivializing hell, which is unwise at best, and probably scandalous. More likely, a person who falls into habitual uses like this does so because they (initially) want to be edgy, or to appear bigger and more important by being able to emphasize the weight of their opinion of the matter, a kind of vanity, but this likely will tend to undermine the user's own sense of hell and damnation as realities. They they scandalize their own future selves as well as others around them.

      Delete
    3. English CatholicAugust 8, 2023 at 1:32 PM

      Thanks, that's very helpful!

      Delete
  24. AnonymousAugust 5, 2023 at 8:44 PM

    Artificial Intelligence will start doing Ed Feser's blog and no one will ever know. that it happened.

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    1. AnonymousAugust 6, 2023 at 8:52 PM

      It has already happened. I took over a year ago.

      Delete
    2. AnonymousAugust 7, 2023 at 10:22 AM

      No! No! No!

      Delete
    3. David McPikeAugust 7, 2023 at 3:45 PM

      I've started to suspect some of the commenters here are Artificial Intelligence (a.k.a. Artificial Stupidity).

      Delete
  25. SMackAugust 5, 2023 at 11:33 PM

    On a Thomist account, why can the damned not repent after the resurrection (when they will again have bodies)?

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    1. TonyAugust 6, 2023 at 1:58 PM

      The event in which a sinner repents of mortal sin is a situation in which the sinner is being urged by grace to come back to life from (spiritual) death. It takes grace to want to repent. If God no longer provides that grace (because the period for repentance, for a change of heart, is past), then no repentance can come to be.

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    2. AnonymousAugust 6, 2023 at 9:39 PM

      That makes sense. Thank you. But I sometimes hear death (and no longer having a body, thus potential to change) given as an explanation, so that a decision (or not) by God does not even come into it. In fact, then, that is not an explanation -- God seemingly *could* offer grace, and does not?

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    3. Walter Van den AckerAugust 7, 2023 at 12:35 AM

      A timeless, simple and immutable Being who 'no longer does something'. Quite amazing.

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    4. BillAugust 7, 2023 at 3:57 PM

      Walter writes:

      A timeless, simple and immutable Being who 'no longer does something'. Quite amazing.

      I assumed you didn't intend that to be a compliment. So, what's so amazing about it? There is no tensed stratification in eternity. There is simply the eternal decree of God. Though His decree is indexed sequentially in the temporal realm, and though we who are looking at reality through the prism of time refer to God's act in a tensed manner, there is no before or after with God.

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    5. TonyAugust 7, 2023 at 5:38 PM

      Walter, don't be an ass. You know perfectly well that your particular objection applies to any and ALL references to God "doing something" that has a particular result at ONE time and not at ALL times. It doesn't have any special involvement in this debate as it applies to the post-resurrection. And since you don't believe in heaven and hell to begin with, you don't really have a bone in this discussion.

      Delete
    6. TonyAugust 7, 2023 at 5:45 PM

      In fact, then, that is not an explanation -- God seemingly *could* offer grace, and does not?

      The idea pre-supposes that God did not design a universe model that provided a specific, finite period for the acts of achieving or not achieving heaven. If, because of the particulars of the good universe he designed, with some particular good harbored by there being only a finite period assigned to be available for acts of love of God worthy of gaining heaven, then the pre-supposition is inappropriate. We cannot say, a priori, that such a providential plan doesn't make any sense.

      What we can say is that insofar as God has revealed parts of His plan, He seems to have allotted only a finite amount of time, and once that's up for each person, there's no further room in the plan for changing your mind. He did not clarify exactly how that model of the universe accomplishes the good design he intended.

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    7. grodriguesAugust 8, 2023 at 5:45 AM

      "But I sometimes hear death (and no longer having a body, thus potential to change) given as an explanation, so that a decision (or not) by God does not even come into it."

      This is definitely not correct -- e.g. for an example of change consider that God could directly infuse knowledge of particular things on the separated soul.

      It is true that Aquinas holds that separated souls cannot suffer passions of have sense experiences (for rather obvious reasons), but that is not the reason he gives for the unchangeability of the wills of the damned.

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    8. grodriguesAugust 8, 2023 at 5:54 AM

      Lest I am misunderstanding Aquinas, you can read him by yourself, e.g. in the Summa Contra Gentiles IV, 93-95. For the irreformability of the will after the resurrection he says (in 95.9):

      "For all that, one should not think that the souls, after they take up their bodies again in the resurrection, lose the immutability of will; rather, they persevere therein, because, as was said above, the bodies in the resurrection will be disposed as the soul requires, but the souls will not be changed by means of the bodies."

      Delete
    9. Walter Van den AckerAugust 8, 2023 at 11:35 AM

      Tony

      I have a bond in every discussion in which logic is abused. It isn't about God doing something that has a particular result atone time and not at another, it is about, I quote ( you), "God (who)no longer provides'.

      Delete
    10. AnonymousAugust 8, 2023 at 11:35 AM

      Yea, Chubacabra Grodrigues still lives!

      Delete
    11. BillAugust 8, 2023 at 4:04 PM

      @Walter, I don't think you're acting charitably. As finite beings, we use finite terms. Since we are bound by time, we used tensed descriptions of God, while at the same time affirming His timelessness. It's just a theistic colloquialism.

      Delete
  26. CosmicCatAugust 6, 2023 at 12:29 AM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

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  27. AnonymousAugust 6, 2023 at 10:39 AM

    How does one square the opposition to contraception with the fact the every developed society eventually reaches sub-replacement fertility? There is no example of any modern industrial state where using contraception is generally frowned upon or where large families are considered the norm.

    Demographic history suggests that the lowering of birthrates is intrinsic to how industrial societies develop. In agrarian societies, there is no relative cost to having large families. In developing industrial societies, the new costs to raising children in urban environments are offset by massive economic and technological growth.But at a certain point (around the 1960s in the US), this relative growth stagnates. A suburban home in 1960 America is not very different at all from a suburban home today. The existence of the internet and better video game graphics does not make it easier to raise a family in the way plumbing or electricity does. Once a society reaches this point, for the first time parents must decide to willingly lower their living standards in order to have large families, something unknown in the agrarian age and in the earlier stages of industrialization. Rather than do this, they choose to contracept, and TFRs fall and never recover. This process is seen in every industrial state, including theocratic Iran and developing states in Latin America and Asia that were undergoing baby booms in the 1980s, but have now reached the point of relative stagnation described above.

    I support Catholic teaching a natural law theory, but I don't see supporters of Catholic teaching really grasp with these demographic trends. First, alot of conservative American Catholics are economic libertarians (see the Acton Institute or Crisis Magazine) and would oppose the creation of a welfare state that in theory could make it easier for people to have large families (though it should be mentioned that more social democratic states have birth rates as low as anywhere else). While opposing social democracy, they fail to suggest ways in which private charities could make large families more workable for working class Catholics, instead chastising lower income Catholic men for not working or studying hard enough and playing too many video games, in accordance with the libertarian idea that one's lack of financial success is rooted in personal moral decadence. Second, they tend to look at cultural change as a matter of academic and popular discourse--the thinking is that contraception must have spread because intellectuals developed ideas supporting sexual libertinism and then pushed these ideas though mass media. While this is no doubt a partial explanation of the problem, the economic conditions that make the use of contraception the default position in modern societies are ignored.

    I know that were should not be consequentialist or use Kant's idea that something is moral only if we can imagine what would happen if everybody followed it. However, it seems to be that in a modern society, the avoidance of contraception is doomed to be a niche position for people who are (1) intellectually committed to orthodox Catholicism or natural law theory and (2) sufficiently affluent to absorb the costs of larger families (or celibate). Meanwhile, all developed nations will suffer the negative cultural consequences that come along with the normalization of contraception, with the Church unable to conceptualize a different vision.

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    1. TonyAugust 6, 2023 at 2:15 PM

      (1) The Church is not committed to a perpetual social environment of most families being large families, forever. After all, even before the Fall, God's commission to Adam and Eve for fecundity was to "fill the Earth", which bears a limiting condition within itself.

      (2) The Church has in past centuries upheld the right of a couple to enter into "josephite" marriages, wherein they planned and expected to remain without children by not enjoying conjugal relations - particularly, in cases where the couple had just cause to intend not to have children.

      (3) The Church, since Pius XI (i.e. before the 1960s and its bringing a widespread economic motive to not have large families), has elaborated ever more clearly that the fundamental directive to families is not "have more children" but rather "use the gift of your fecundity responsibly". This responsibility runs in both directions: future generations are dependent on parents bringing children into the world, even though this (always) represents burdens on parents, and married couples IN GENERAL have an obligation to consider this social need as their job to deal with. At the same time, having children in excess of responsible planning harms society as well as the family.

      It is my personal opinion that IF a married couple is going to have kids, internal family social dynamics implies that they should hope and aim for more than 2.1 (i.e. replacement #s) even if / when the Earth as a whole has satisfied God's directive to fill it. And, as a consequence, (in order to be a stable system) there would be also calls for many couples to enter into josephite marriages, who would be devoted aunts and uncles to the families of their siblings, and also undertaking significant other works in society other than that of raising their own kids.

      None of this requires, per se, a change in the teaching about artificial contraceptives. The existing teaching, that the use of such things is per se disordered because it interferes with the God-given order of the conjugal act, remains intact.

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    2. ficino4mlAugust 7, 2023 at 6:06 AM

      @Norm: would you please provide a link to the post that led you to think that Prof. Feser has gotten on the integralism bandwagon? Thanks.

      Delete
    3. DanielAugust 7, 2023 at 9:02 AM

      Father of seven here living in Canada.

      “How does one square the opposition to contraception with the fact the every developed society eventually reaches sub-replacement fertility? There is no example of any modern industrial state where using contraception is generally frowned upon or where large families are considered the norm.”

      Agreed. Although what is defined as a large family seems to be fairly open ended on the part of the magisterium. Also, you need to grasp with the problem of population implosion we are now seeing almost everywhere. My thought is that as populations decline and the economic stability falters on account of this, there will no longer be that stigma on large families. Although economic pressures in that population spiral may make having a large family difficult to imagine.

      “Demographic history suggests that the lowering of birthrates is intrinsic to how industrial societies develop. In agrarian societies, there is no relative cost to having large families. In developing industrial societies, the new costs to raising children in urban environments are offset by massive economic and technological growth. But at a certain point (around the 1960s in the US), this relative growth stagnates. A suburban home in 1960 America is not very different at all from a suburban home today. The existence of the internet and better video game graphics does not make it easier to raise a family in the way plumbing or electricity does. Once a society reaches this point, for the first time parents must decide to willingly lower their living standards in order to have large families, something unknown in the agrarian age and in the earlier stages of industrialization. Rather than do this, they choose to contracept, and TFRs fall and never recover. This process is seen in every industrial state, including theocratic Iran and developing states in Latin America and Asia that were undergoing baby booms in the 1980s, but have now reached the point of relative stagnation described above.”

      I am one of those who willingly lowered my standard of living. But that lowering of my standard of living is within the context of a society that has one of the highest standards of living in the world. So it is a relative lowering of my standard of living. This has a cost. People often pity us for not being able to take trips to Florida, or cruises in the Bahamas. They may look down on us for having a ten year old car rather than a brand new one. The kids may not be able to do all the things their peers are able to do.

      But there are significant advantages. For example, our kids have each other. They don’t experience loneliness in the same way many of their peers do. Our home is a hub of social activity, attracting kids from single child families from all over the place to play in our back yard. Some of them even want to come to church with us, so as to be part of the big family experience. A lot of these kids are from broken homes.

      My choice may not be a popular one or an easy choice, but no one said being a Christian and a Catholic would be easy or the popular choice. Having a large family in this context is an act of faith. And I would suggest having a large family in an agrarian culture where there are economic advantages is perhaps less of an act of faith on account of those advantages.

      Yes, we will be poorer than our peers because of our choices. But, as Jesus said, the poor will inherit the earth. And I am not poor. Only relatively so.

      Delete
    4. DanielAugust 7, 2023 at 9:19 AM

      “I support Catholic teaching a natural law theory, but I don't see supporters of Catholic teaching really grasp with these demographic trends. First, alot of conservative American Catholics are economic libertarians (see the Acton Institute or Crisis Magazine) and would oppose the creation of a welfare state that in theory could make it easier for people to have large families (though it should be mentioned that more social democratic states have birth rates as low as anywhere else).”

      I live in Canada. A conservative government had the bright idea of paying families to have kids. It start off with the Harper 100. The liberals lambasted it. What would those families use that money for? Chips and popcorn? They were defeated by a landslide. When the liberals eventually regained power, they increased it significantly. The Harper hundred now accounts for 1/3 of my income. I would not be able to afford the home I live in without it. But still, the Canadian birth rate is very low.

      “While opposing social democracy, they fail to suggest ways in which private charities could make large families more workable for working class Catholics, instead chastising lower income Catholic men for not working or studying hard enough and playing too many video games, in accordance with the libertarian idea that one's lack of financial success is rooted in personal moral decadence.”

      Agreed. Although being relatively poor has made us the object of charity from others, from time to time. It is humbling. Often times, the charity they give, they give despite my protests. But I always thank them sincerely. People will dump bags of almost brand new clothes on our doorstep. Some people send us checks in the mail or e transfers. I don’t get anyone complaining about me playing too many video games though. What I will get, from time to time, is the veiled or not so veiled accusation that I’m some sort of fundamentalist fanatic. But even those accusations come from a place of concern, rather than hatred.

      Just on a side note, I will point out that Ed Feser is not a libertarian. He has a post that describes his abandoning libertarian ideas. So neither he, nor I, see libertarian organizations as necessarily representing Catholic ideas. Perhaps a badly thought out fusion of Catholic and Libertarian ideas.

      “Second, they tend to look at cultural change as a matter of academic and popular discourse--the thinking is that contraception must have spread because intellectuals developed ideas supporting sexual libertinism and then pushed these ideas though mass media. While this is no doubt a partial explanation of the problem, the economic conditions that make the use of contraception the default position in modern societies are ignored.”

      This is a good point. It doesn’t invalidate those academic and popular discourses though, as you concede.

      “I know that were should not be consequentialist or use Kant's idea that something is moral only if we can imagine what would happen if everybody followed it. However, it seems to be that in a modern society, the avoidance of contraception is doomed to be a niche position for people who are (1) intellectually committed to orthodox Catholicism or natural law theory and (2) sufficiently affluent to absorb the costs of larger families (or celibate). Meanwhile, all developed nations will suffer the negative cultural consequences that come along with the normalization of contraception, with the Church unable to conceptualize a different vision.”

      Agreed. This is not an easy time to be a Christian. Although, I would suggest it is almost never an easy time to be a Christian. Not if you are doing it right. LOL.

      Delete
    5. AnonymousAugust 7, 2023 at 2:40 PM

      Daniel
      Do you not think it is more ethical to plan your family size according to your means, instead of rejecting artificial birth control, knocking out endless kids and then sponging off the state to pay for your standard of living? Just saying. Carry on.

      Delete
    6. David McPikeAugust 7, 2023 at 3:59 PM

      "How does one square the opposition to contraception with the fact the every developed society eventually reaches sub-replacement fertility?"

      Opposition to contraception is a moral position; sub-replacement fertility is a complex social issue. The former is compatible with any number of stances on the latter. There is no 'squaring' problem.

      Delete
    7. TonyAugust 7, 2023 at 5:30 PM

      Demographic history suggests that the lowering of birthrates is intrinsic to how industrial societies develop. In agrarian societies, there is no relative cost to having large families. In developing industrial societies, the new costs to raising children in urban environments are offset by massive economic and technological growth.But at a certain point (around the 1960s in the US), this relative growth stagnates.

      Anon, I really don't think you have quite located the right cause and effect relationships involved, nor other details. E.G. not only is there no high negative cost in past agrarian society to having many kids, there was high positive financial benefit. But for most periods and places prior to the 1800's, the high birth rate was ALSO needed to offset the high death rate of kids, frequently 50%, so part of the social mechanisms of family size had to do with that problem. Secondly, even in that past it was ALWAYS a temporary (but fairly long) period of increased effort / economic hardship to have many kids, before those kids pulled any useful weight toward income. So it's more like there were choices about the deferral of usable wealth tradeoffs, than merely total per-person wealth over his lifetime.

      Secondly, the family size changes have been affected by social security implementation, in that people with SS income did not need to rely on kids during their last years nearly as much. (At least, that was the idea, (and the socially accepted paradigm). The reality is a little different.)

      Other social modifications affecting family size were (a) the impetus toward universal schooling, and (later) (b) the movement toward large central schools with mass-production of education rather than the tiny one-room school houses of an earlier time. (These somewhat offset each other, but not entirely.)

      Many cultures experienced times with lowered birth rates and family size due to choices, well before effective contraceptives were available. It is notable that the aristocratic Romans, during the degeneration of Rome, had such lowered family sizes, and while it was certainly the case that part of the motivation might have been not having to spread their wealth around "so many" kids, it seems unlikely that this was the principal driving force - since they had the example of middle class and poorer folks around them who managed just fine with larger families.

      In your analysis, you also ignored the vast impact of women leaving the home to enter the workforce full time, and how that affected the trade-off decisions - including for those who WOULD HAVE preferred not to do so: one such impact was the increase in labor available, thus decreasing wages, thus decreasing the ability of a single wage earner to maintain the family.

      Delete
    8. DanielAugust 8, 2023 at 11:16 AM

      "Daniel
      Do you not think it is more ethical to plan your family size according to your means, instead of rejecting artificial birth control, knocking out endless kids and then sponging off the state to pay for your standard of living? Just saying. Carry on."

      Canada has a very high tax rate. More than 30% of my income is taxed on my pay check. I also have to pay property taxes on my home, and sales and services taxes on almost everything I buy. The money the government sends back my way does not cover the taxes I pay.

      Also, both liberal, conservative, and NDP parties have advocated for such child allowances. That is pretty much a unanimous consent from all political parties. So far from sponging off the government, I am taking advantage of programs designed by the government to encourage people to have more kids. Because they all recognize that the low birth rate is a real problem.

      Finally, the Catholic position does not reject all forms of family planning or birth control. Only those that are artificial. After our last child, my wife and I decided that we are maxed out. We've successfully used natural family planning for the last six years.

      In terms of ethics, I see nothing unethical in the choices we've made. My kids are turning out pretty well so far. I guess it comes down to what you think the appropriate means are necessary to raise a child. If your means require many luxuries, then I guess I understand how you might consider my choices as unethical, or at least imprudent. But I happen to think you can have a fairly happy home without a massive amount of luxuries. Not only that, but I think there is a real danger to kids who are given everything they can possibly want on a silver platter.

      Anyway, family size is a deeply personal matter. And natural family planning does not require that you knock out as many babies as you can. I wouldn't judge a person who has only one child, or even no children. There could be very good reasons why they do so. So long as those choices were made using ethical means, there is no problem.

      Delete
  28. AnonymousAugust 6, 2023 at 5:14 PM

    Could God have chosen to let people opt out of the trials and temptations of this world and go straight to The Beatific Vision, choosing to opt out of the benefits caused by suffering and choose a lesser degree of bliss in order to avoid pain?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. CosmicCatAugust 6, 2023 at 11:04 PM

      Kind of a silly question. Would you refuse to get your beloved family dog vaccinated because the jab hurts?

      However there are some people who mortally hate vaccinations.

      A better philosophy question would be the one Zaken Shammai asked in Jesus's day: is it ethical of the Creator to subject humans to a morality test knowing that by one poor choice they could lose everything?

      Delete
    2. AnonymousAugust 7, 2023 at 2:49 PM

      The beatific vision isn’t a vaccine, thought. The beatific vision doesn’t hurt.

      Delete
  29. AnonymousAugust 6, 2023 at 9:58 PM

    @StardustyPsyche

    "Is a black person who associates white with death or evil a racist?

    Is Shirewriter a racist for associating black with evil?"

    Is a novel about anthrax racist?

    Was shadow and bone racist?

    If we lack free will moral criticism seems unreasonable. If our lives are not aimed at good in a way that racism is to fall short of it. The criticism seems to come from imagination not reason.

    Can you get an ought from an is?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. StardustyPsycheAugust 8, 2023 at 6:53 AM

      "If we lack free will moral criticism seems unreasonable."
      Criticism is just part of what deterministic systems do to deterministically influence each other.

      Don't get mad a me for criticizing you, I had to do it!-)

      "If our lives are not aimed at good in a way that racism is to fall short of it. The criticism seems to come from imagination not reason."
      How does one reason without imagination?

      "Can you get an ought from an is?"
      Of course, no problem.
      I really "is".
      I really experience the emotion of "ought".

      My "ought" is part of my "is". Pretty simple.

      Delete
    2. AnonymousAugust 8, 2023 at 4:32 PM

      But your "ought" cannot in any way impinge on me as if it meant anything to me. Except for me to erase you as a problem if your actions (whether "ought" or not) get in my way.

      Delete
    3. StardustyPsycheAugust 8, 2023 at 8:13 PM

      "But your "ought" cannot in any way impinge on me as if it meant anything to me."
      Sure it can. That is what law is, the aggregate of individual emotions of ought. If my ought is with the law and yours is not then you will likely have your ought impinged upon by my ought.

      "Except for me to erase you as a problem if your actions (whether "ought" or not) get in my way."
      That frequently happens, just as one would expect on a total absence of objective morality. On materialism there is just the competition between differing senses of ought. People would fight, compete, even kill and go to war based on competing oughts.

      Oh, wait, that is how the world works.

      Delete
  30. AnonymousAugust 7, 2023 at 9:43 AM

    Asking for trouble, I ask:

    The Thomistic metaphysics and natural theology is compatible with Molinism?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. AnonymousAugust 7, 2023 at 2:15 PM

      Yes
      You asked for trouble

      Delete
    2. AnonymousAugust 7, 2023 at 8:49 PM

      Google the terms and you will get your answer.

      Delete
  31. UncommonDescentAugust 7, 2023 at 9:46 AM

    Materialists need to 'open their minds'.

    In their own ways influential figures such as McDowell and Putnam have been working towards positions very close to that of Aristotle and Aquinas.

    - Haldane Insight , Inference and Intellection

    ReplyDelete
  32. AnonymousAugust 7, 2023 at 10:32 AM

    WCB

    we cannot get an ought from an is? Nonsense, we do it all the time. Do you enjoy being robbed, attacked, raped, being made a slave or a serf? Do you like those types of is? No, we don't accept that and implement oughts to prevent as much as possible these horrors. Police, laws, prisons. Democratic governments. No more slave cultures. No feudalism. No robber barons, dictators, , no Nazis, no Stalinism.

    Some times, we fail. Putin in Ukraine, Donald Trump, for example. But we don't throw up our hands and cry "Nothing can be done! We cannot change or learn from our mistakes! We cannot get an ought from an is!" The is of Stalinist evil gave birth to NATO to stop the is of Stalinist aggression. See how it works?
    Or are you suggesting a free democratic civilization and a Stalinist dictatorship are morally equvalent?

    WCB

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. UncommonDescentAugust 7, 2023 at 2:09 PM

      @WCB:

      Do you enjoy being robbed, attacked, raped, being made a slave or a serf? Do you like those types of is?

      If Evolution + materialism are true, then those behaviors are perfectly acceptable. If they can help me to increase my reproductive success, then they are ok. And your personal feelings are irrelevant. Evolution doesn't care about 'personal feelings'.

      You people want the perks of traditional religion (respect of intrinsic human dignity) without traditional religion. Because you are irrational.

      "Bags of chemicals" don't have 'rights'. The only right they have is to figure in the 'periodic table'.

      And that's not a lot.

      Delete
  33. AndyAugust 7, 2023 at 4:02 PM

    Favourite science fiction authors? I read Isaac Asimov, Philip K Dick, Robert Heinlein, Robert Silverberg, Arthur C Clarke, Poul Anderson, Jack Vance, Robert Sheckley, Theodore Sturgeon, Brian Aldiss, Clifford D Simak, Philip Jose Farmer, Gordon R Dickson...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. UncommonDescentAugust 8, 2023 at 3:39 PM

      @ Andy:

      Dawkins is my personal favorite. His The Selfish Gene is a masterpiece.

      Delete
    2. Sci-fi & Aquinas buffAugust 8, 2023 at 4:29 PM

      Loved Asimov as a kid, but he's a bit thin on depth. Heinlein is great in a lot of stuff, (e.g. the "future history" collection) though he went wonky for a period. Clarke has decent writing skills, with anti-Christian hatred motivating far too much of his novels. I like his White Hart stories best. Larry Niven is fine. I also like James Hogan, Orson Scott Card, and Lois McMaster Bujold - her Vorkosigan books are really good writing. And for fun, I have read lots of David Weber and John Ringo, usually worth a read even when not worth a re-read.

      Delete
  34. DNWAugust 7, 2023 at 4:18 PM

    "... we cannot get an ought from an is? Nonsense, we do it all the time "

    Try rereading the sentence you are responding to.
    He did not say that values and possibly resulting moral imperatives cannot be deduced from matters of fact.

    He simply framed the question in terms which the anti-metaphysical party, materialists of a Humean stripe, logical positivists, and emotivists among others, have always presented the issue concerning the empirical status or grounding of moral, or value conveying, assertions. Those who see teleology as an illusion have almost universally denied that the nature of a thing logically implies obligations toward it. Though even the legal positivist Herbert Hart noted that it is impossible to make sense of the law without reference to teleology.

    Nonetheless, no one has ever said that you could not just declare your personal preferences and try to enforce them society wide. We see lots of young mentally ill and sexually disordered persons trying to do that very thing as we speak.

    So, what are the mechanics of the process which you see as being employed, and by which you shall demonstrate the flow of prescriptive propositions from simple matters of neutral, non valorized, fact?

    Or, have you too smuggled your values in, before even starting your analysis?

    ReplyDelete
  35. ficino4mlAugust 8, 2023 at 4:11 AM

    On what syllable does the stress accent fall when "integralism" is pronounced? I have found one online pronunciation guide that offers "inTEgralism" and another, "INtegralism."

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Son of Ya'KovAugust 8, 2023 at 10:33 AM

      Hey Ficino. Long time no see!:D From my reading Intergralism is like Socialism or Communism or Conservativism or Liberalism or Libertarianism. It is a broadly defined thing. People who believe in restoring Catholic Monarchy are lumped in with people who believe in some form of Republican Constitutionalism.

      I am technically an Integralism skeptic/Agnostic. But I am open minded.

      But that is a political view not a religious.

      Classical Theism Rulez! Thomas Aquinas pray for us!

      Delete
    2. AnonymousAugust 8, 2023 at 5:20 PM

      Apparently, Son of Y puts NO stress on "intergralism", anywhere.

      Personally, I reject the idea of an English word being made into an abstract noun (an "ism") with the stress on the first and followed by 3 plus syllables without a stress (not even a minor one). (3 plus, because "ism" as spoken bears more than 1 syllable.) I put the stress on the 2nd syllable.

      For comparison: "Conserve" has the stress on the 2nd syllable, but "conservation" has the stress on the 3rd. "Democrat" has the stress on the 1st, but "democratic" has it on the 3rd, and "democracy" has it on the 2nd. There are any number of words that change the location of the stress when the word is formed into a new part of speech.

      Delete
    3. StardustyPsycheAugust 8, 2023 at 8:07 PM

      ficino,
      "On what syllable does the stress accent fall"
      That depends on your region of origin, or major influence. Are you American, by any chance? (skip that question if you prefer, just wondering, thinking about regional American accents)

      Californians tend to put the accent at the front in many cases.

      Delete
    4. CosmicCatAugust 8, 2023 at 9:33 PM

      @Anonymous

      In traditional linguistics, stress is measured backwards, starting from the last syllable of the word.

      Instead of saying "on the 3rd" say "penultimate" and instead of saying "on the 2nd" say "antepenultimate".

      Delete
  36. AnonymousAugust 8, 2023 at 10:08 AM

    Anyone read or responded to Ben Page’s 2019 article “Wherein Lies the Debate? Concerning Whether God Is a Person.” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 85: 297-317?

    johannes y k hui

    ReplyDelete
  37. AnonymousAugust 8, 2023 at 11:28 AM

    WCB

    Long, long ago, when animals had small brains, they developed emotions. Emotions can be great motivators. Lust, fear, ect.

    Now, nobody likes being raped, robbed, attacked, cheated et al. Emotions. Something evolution devised. And this is the is that gives us oughts.We make rules. Do not murder, rapes, cheat or steal etc. All decent civilizations make their oughts and enshrine them into law and enforcement of laws.

    When mankind developed writing we start to see such codifications of legal codes. The oughts. Hammurabi's codes, laws of ancient Egypt and more. Some of the most well run, and happy civilizations on Earth tody are the Scandinavian nations, which are also among the least religious. By your reasoning then, they should be evil hell hole nations.

    Unfortunately, mankind has developed abstract reasoning skills allowing fools to create evil civilizations. Afghanistan, Hitler's Germany, Stalin's USSR, Pol Pot, Mao et al.

    Many centuries ago, some ambulatory schizophrenic shaman in Mexica had some weird dreams, and managed to convince many of his tribe of these dreams reality. He gave them the god Totec Xipe and eventually, their descendents had month long orgies of human sacrifices, often numbering tens of thousands. There is a lesson here. Can you figure it out?

    Where did these Aztecs get their ought involving mass sacrifices of immense cruelty? In the name of religion?

    WCB

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. UncommonDescentAugust 8, 2023 at 3:41 PM

      This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    2. UncommonDescentAugust 8, 2023 at 3:52 PM

      @WCB:

      Long, long ago, when animals had small brains, they developed emotions. Emotions can be great motivators. Lust, fear, ect.

      Not if we are epiphenomenal existents. And materialism leads us to being epiphenomenal existents.

      Nothing motivates us towards anything. It's just an appearance. Our motivations are just as-if-motivations.

      To solve this quandary, you'll need a good metaphysics. I'd choose Ari's and St. Thomas's one. They are such a great duo.

      Delete
    3. AnonymousAugust 8, 2023 at 4:18 PM

      Now, nobody likes being raped, robbed, attacked, cheated et al. Emotions. Something evolution devised. And this is the is that gives us oughts.We make rules. Do not murder, rapes, cheat or steal etc. All decent civilizations make their oughts and enshrine them into law and enforcement of laws.

      What a load of codswallop! It is true that there is an "is" that gets us "ought", but THIS account doesn't even begin to do it. You've just laid out a bunch of nonsense. Evolution producing animals that feel emotions tells us that those animals generally will act so as to increase the enjoyable emotions and decrease the unpleasant ones. It doesn't get any farther than that.

      Without free will, there can't be any "ought" to begin with. And even if you somehow suppose free will (even though evolutionists generally don't and none have specified a mechanism for it), you can't locate any "ought" in there that makes any of those so-called "rules" or "laws" binding on a person whose pleasures they reduce. Even if you point out that when everyone follows the rules, more people experience more of the enjoyable emotions than otherwise, that only explains (at best) why MANY people will want the laws followed. It cannot even remotely explain why the minority for whom those laws reduce satisfactions (those who are the strong, the clever, the persuasive among us) should be obliged to obey them. Nor does it explain why we have an "ought" obliging us to obey rules when disobeying would not be discovered. Nor does it explain why there would be any obligation to obey on those whose enjoyments are different from the usual ones protected by the rules. Neitzsche would correctly knock 50 holes in your thesis, (even though he was wrong on most other stuff.)

      You've expressed another one of those "just so" stories that so many New Atheists charge theists with, and this one doesn't even have any protective camouflage, it's just sitting out in the open. Emotions, we want, therefore "ought".

      Delete
    4. AnonymousAugust 8, 2023 at 5:09 PM

      Where did these Aztecs get their ought involving mass sacrifices of immense cruelty? In the name of religion?

      Excellent! Demons, out of hatred for men, helped evil-minded men generate a horrible false religion. Therefore, it follows that there can be no such thing as a good religion worshiping the very God whom the demons rejected.

      Delete
    5. DNWAugust 8, 2023 at 6:01 PM

      "You've expressed another one of those "just so" stories ..."

      Oh my Gaia. I looked at your use of that phrase and smacked my forehead, thinking "Oh no! Did I somehow ...?'

      But looking at the time stamps I see that it could not have been; but was simply two different commenters seeing pretty much the same thing in WCB's convenient little tale at about the same time.

      Delete
    6. KevinAugust 8, 2023 at 6:05 PM

      Now, nobody likes being raped, robbed, attacked, cheated et al. Emotions. Something evolution devised. And this is the is that gives us oughts.

      Evolution also gave the urge to rape, rob, attack, cheat, etc. Those qualify as an "is", so does that mean an "ought" exists for them?

      Throughout the animal kingdom, multiple species brutalize themselves. A male lion will kill the cubs of a lioness in order to get her in the "mood" to procreate. From an evolutionary perspective, an organism has the drive to reproduce, so for a lion, that "is" results in an "ought" of killing babies. Humans also have a drive for reproduction and dominance, but you condemn rape as evil despite its basic evolutionary basis.

      Your "oughts" are simply majority opinion based on the current snapshot of society. You judge the Aztecs by 21st century Western values, but in a thousand years society could very well find your values reprehensible. The Aztecs might be horrified at your moral code.

      Materialism cannot provide an ought beyond simple stimulus/response behavior, with the most powerful at the time imposing their opinion onto others. That's not a basis for a moral code, let alone a justification to condemn others. All those dictators were just as evolved as you, operating on their own is/ought system.

      Delete
    7. StardustyPsycheAugust 8, 2023 at 7:56 PM

      "Evolution producing animals that feel emotions tells us that those animals generally will act so as to increase the enjoyable emotions and decrease the unpleasant ones."
      That is the "is". Animals is.

      Ought is just an emotion, the experience of brain processes.

      There is your is from an ought. Pretty simple.

      "you can't locate any "ought" in there that makes any of those so-called "rules" or "laws" binding on a person whose pleasures they reduce."
      Who cares about binding? People do what they want. The only thing you can do is what you want, the aggregate of your wants.

      If laws were binding we would not have criminals.

      "should be obliged to obey them."
      Who cares about "should"? You always do what you want, it is the only thing you can do.

      "Nor does it explain why there would be any obligation to obey"
      There is no obligation to do anything, obviously, just look at how many criminals there are.

      "Emotions, we want, therefore "ought"."
      Yes, that is all ought is, just an emotion.
      There is your is from and ought, super simple to understand.

      Delete
  38. AnonymousAugust 8, 2023 at 12:16 PM

    Better late than never - I just discovered this thread. Yes, I'm a fan and have been watching much of the World Cup (limited to regular Fox as I don't get FS1).

    I was deeply disappointed by USA losing so early, especially in such a heartbreaking way. Of course, shootouts are a particularly terrible way for any team to lose after playing their hearts out for 2 hours.

    I was also disappointed by the group stage elimination of Canada and New Zealand.

    Do you have any strong partisan interest in the outcome?

    ReplyDelete
  39. DNWAugust 8, 2023 at 3:02 PM

    "Many centuries ago, some ambulatory schizophrenic shaman in Mexica had some weird dreams, and managed to convince many of his tribe of these dreams reality. He gave them the god Totec Xipe and eventually, their descendents had month long orgies of human sacrifices, often numbering tens of thousands. There is a lesson here...."

    No there isn't. Or not the lesson you are prattling on about. If there is a lesson to be drawn, it is that your pathetic once-upon-a-time "just so" story narrative would get your butt tossed out of any reputable historiographical method course.





    ReplyDelete
  40. Miguel CervantesAugust 8, 2023 at 8:56 PM

    Well-meaning conservatives are targeted for apostasy from a quarter against which they have no defences. Sebastian Morello (The European Conservative 29/7/23) and Martin Grichting (First Things 7-8-23) explain how to leave the Church and be a “trad” at the same time. Morello: “the institution that the Incarnate Word established on earth to lead “all nations” to “all truth” has lost its authority”; both progressives and “trads” have abandoned confidence in “the authority of the Holy See”; “the Church is… in a post-authority epoch”; “Since the late medieval period, every form of check and balance in the Church has incrementally diminished”. He reinvents the Church as a civil society with subsidiarity and “accountability”.

    The solution is a non-institutional, collegial, lay Church. But, he complains, “there is zero collegiality”, “Over the last century, the Church has undergone the greatest apostasy in its history” (did the rot start with Benedict XV?). But there’s hope. To counter clerics, “the faithful have increasingly fallen back on the sensus fidelium to ‘tap into,’ so to speak, the true faith of the ages”. Things are looking up: “Catholicism has largely become an internet genre”. Obviously Our Lord’s Tu es Petrus is superseded.

    Then Morello explains how modernism is such an opportunity for Conservatism’s own distortion of the faith: “Traditionally, the role of the clergy was to sanctify the laity” so the laity could create a “sacrilised world”. This neo-pagan Enchantment and sacrilisation of the world (so beloved of Kwasniewsky and Dreher) is NOT the purpose of the Church. This (capital T) Traditionalist heresy is the great danger for the faith of conservative Catholics, not the antics of liberals. Morello demands we by-pass the “institution”, adopt “mysticism” and “magic”, listen to Schiller and Trismegistus (!), tapping directly into the “Triune God”.

    Martin Grichting also makes conservative hay while the modernist sun shines. For him, the rot started long before Benedict XV: “There is a positive aspect to this situation. The current crisis is revealing that an outdated under-standing of the Church is finally coming to the end of its dominance”, referring to “Trent’s” emphasis on the “visibility” of the Church. Vatican II “recognized the important changes modernity had wrought. The Enlightenment and the French Revolution marked the end of corporate societies, and the “separate world” of ecclesiastical life was weakened… After all, in modern times the hierarchically-ordered Church became less “visible” as the ‘perfect society’… [the Church] no longer functioned as a counterpart to the state and civil society. Rather, the individual, as citizen and as Christian, came to the fore”.

    Grichting does not defend the traditional Church, just a conservative insistence on a division of labour (much insisted on by Coleridge and Burke) of civil society’s functions into lay and ecclesiastical. Conservatism’s identity (rather than collaboration) of what should be two societies as one, remains untouched: “What is currently being pursued in particular churches and in the universal Church under the name of “synodality” represents the continuation of the Tridentine understanding of the Church” because it seeks to “co-opt” the laity into the clergy.

    This appalling attack on the constitution of the Church fully recognises its eighteenth-century provenance: “Vatican II achieved this synthesis of the Christian faith with the societies that emerged from the Enlightenment”. Grichting applies Conservatism perfectly to ecclesiology because, in effect, the Church is to function as a facet of civil society (this does not exclude lace-wearing functionaries or Kwasnewsky’s Holy Week ceremony from 732 AD). But it if the Church is no longer a visible, corporate institution articulated by bishops, in particular, that of Rome, the mystical body of Christ is no more. I am aware that this grates with much of the conservative discourse. For them to take care.

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