- FrenchySkepticalCatholic
- Member
Offline 
- From: France
- Registered: 10/17/2017
- Posts: 151
Re: Stardusty Psyche's thread
StardustyPsyche wrote:
@FSC #190
"That's the point of contention. You're seeing linear motion as a special case."
--Uniform linear motion is distinct from acceleration. Acceleration is a change in kinetic energy, uniform linear motion is not.
You're not answering my message. Gratuitous assertions.
" If it has nothing to do with change, then we're all fine, since the First Way relies on change. "
--That is a core error of Aquinas. He imagined motion required a changer to sustain it. In his worldview to observe any motion is to require a changer to be continuously acting upon the object in motion right now. Aquinas was wrong.
You're not answering my message. Gratuitous assertions.
"If it has something to do with change, then we have to find whether there is (as you would affirm) or if there isn't a problem with it (as Feser and us would affirm)."
--The problem is that Feser is stuck in medieval times in his worldview, and lacks any displayed ability to reason his way through these problems to a rational conclusion,
Feser says inertia is compatible with a first mover. This necessarily means that Feser is asserting that an invisible being is continuously changing things in just the right way so as to present to us the illusion that inertia is not a change in kinetic energy. There is no necessity to make such a non falsifiable speculation, which has no explanatory value.
You're not answering my message. Gratuitous assertions.
"Note that this is a per impossible : if God would stop animating creation, then all creation would vanish. "
--That is pure speculation. I can invent an unbounded number of such speculations, each equally non falsifiable. It's invisible magical unicorns, don't you know? It's supercalfragilsitum. It's unobtainium, It's the combined powers of a trillion little godlets. And on and on and on. None of these speculations has any explanatory value, just like the god speculation.
This is like your entire message. Except that it's you just spouting things when you can't answer my questions.
Either you answer the specific contention points and you got me in the discussion, either you just admit you're not interested.
- StardustyPsyche
- Banned
Offline
- Registered: 7/15/2017
- Posts: 184
Re: Stardusty Psyche's thread
FSC #201
StardustyPsyche wrote:@FSC #190
FSC"That's the point of contention. You're seeing linear motion as a special case."
SP--Uniform linear motion is distinct from acceleration. Acceleration is a change in kinetic energy, uniform linear motion is not.
"You're not answering my message. Gratuitous assertions"
--Well, uniform linear motion is distinct from acceleration and the difference is very important to an analysis of what Aquinas calls "The first and more manifest way is the argument from motion."
So, examining the differences between the two hardly seems gratuitous.
Either you answer the specific contention points and you got me in the discussion, either you just admit you're not interested.
--Every answer I provided was a direct response to your specific words. All you did was chant some sort of refrain
"You're not answering my message. Gratuitous assertions".
Either you are not in a mindset to be able to grasp the relevance of my responses or you are having some sort of repetitive dismissal mode going on, dunno, I can't tell from here but clearly, every one of my responses are highly responsive to your stated points.
Do you have some sort of underlying world view beyond the plain text meaning of your words? All I can do is read the things you write and respond directly to them, which I have done at length.
- StardustyPsyche
- Banned
Offline
- Registered: 7/15/2017
- Posts: 184
Re: Stardusty Psyche's thread
@ficino, Miguel, JT #192-200
While I deny the reality of any "essential" real material causal series I do so from what I believe to be a common basis for A-T language. It's no good arguing against an expressed position if we don't even agree on the definition of the terms.
Feser at least from time to time defines his terms, so as a starting point I will reference a particular Feser blog post. Perhaps you have your other more preferred sources, if so, please post that link.
"Aquinas is not arguing that the universe must have had a beginning – that the first cause he is arguing for is “first” not in a temporal sense, but in an ontological sense, a sustaining cause of the world here and now and at any moment at which the world exists at all."
--This is the A-T assertion of a hierarchical causal series to account for existential inertia, largely derived from analysis of the Second Way.
"causes ordered per accidens or “accidentally” do not essentially depend for their efficacy on the activity of earlier causes in the series. To use Aquinas’s example, a father possesses the power to generate sons independently of the activity of his own father, so that a series of fathers and sons is in that sense ordered per accidens"
--Here Feser uses the classic example of an "accidental" causal series. Elsewhere Feser and others assert this is not the sort of series Aquinas argues for in his Five Ways. Aquinas is in no way arguing about the beginning of the universe, causal events in deep past time, or even any sort of causal series over generations, according to Feser.
Feser then goes on to argue in his typically confused, piecemeal manner about simultaneity, instrumentality, and examples that supposedly demonstrate his points.
"To be sure, the paradigm cases of causal series ordered per se involve simultaneity, because the simultaneity of the causes in these examples helps us to see their instrumental character. And the Thomist does hold that the world must ultimately be sustained at every instant by a purely actual uncaused cause, not merely generated at some point in the past. For these reasons, Thomists tend to emphasize simultaneity in their explanations of causal series ordered per se, as I did in The Last Superstition.
"
In truth, there is no such thing as a real material causal series with multiple members such that the member assigned the title of principle cause imparts its causal influence and that causal influence is transmitted by the members assigned the title of instruments, with the causal influence resulting in the effect upon the final member...all simultaneously. Their is no such simultaneity in any real material causal series with multiple members because there is no such thing as a rigid multibody system and causal influences propagate, classically, no faster than c, and more typically at the speed of sound in the medium or at a speed owing to the mechanics of the system.
To recap:
An "accidental" real material causal series is a temporal series wherein members imparted their causal influence in the past and might not even exist by the time that causal influence propagates to the final member.
A hierarchical series, or "essential" series, in this context, is thought not to go back but down, as it were, in this present moment, not extending into the deep past.
Let's just suppose A-T physics were correct.
1.An object in motion necessarily requires another to be acting upon it right now to sustain that motion.
2.Motion is manifest and evident to our senses.
3.Therefore another is sustaining the objects in motion right now.
4.Therefore another after that is sustaining the motion of the sustainer right now.
5.This cannot go on to infinity.
6.Therefore it is necessary that there is a first mover acting right now to sustain all objects in their motions.
If premise 1 were correct the First Way would indeed be a very powerful argument for a hierarchical first mover, a prime mover acting in the present moment to sustain all objects in motion.
But premise 1 is false, not necessary, on modern science. On modern science mass/energy is conserved. When an object is accelerated its kinetic energy increases. When acceleration ceases motion continues without another acting upon the object, this is known as inertia, accounted for by conservation of kinetic energy when an object is in uniform linear motion.
On modern science premise 1 is not necessary and therefore conclusion 6 is not necessary.
To assert A-T is *compatible* with modern science is to assert that there is an invisible being continuously acting upon every object in the universe in just the right way as to provide the illusion to our senses that no invisible being is acting upon any object in motion.
- FrenchySkepticalCatholic
- Member
Offline
- From: France
- Registered: 10/17/2017
- Posts: 151
Re: Stardusty Psyche's thread
a)
Do you have some sort of underlying world view beyond the plain text meaning of your words? All I can do is read the things you write and respond directly to them, which I have done at length.
That's a pity, because I *want* you to engage these details, because they're exactly where you and us disagree on. Especially :
b) Which brings us to my second point. My car is an artifact. If I'm going to have it repaired, I fully expect my car to change overnight. Let's say I have broken brakes : I hope I'll have my car repaired. It'll be a change, but it'll still be my car. How do you account for this?
What's what you call "material"? Atoms? Waves? Particles? Fields?
C.f. last point : that "very rough manner of speaking" is what is key here. Are you saying matter and energy can bounce off each other? Just matter and matter ? Just energy and energy ? What's matter and energy? What do you put behind these words? If matter is energy, why are there two words? Heard of energy/matter conversion? What is conversion if not change?
Still no replies.
b)
FSC #201
FSC"That's the point of contention. You're seeing linear motion as a special case."
SP--Uniform linear motion is distinct from acceleration. Acceleration is a change in kinetic energy, uniform linear motion is not.
Well, since per your own words, uniform linear motion isn't change, how come it's a challenge to Aquinas' ways?
Last edited by FrenchySkepticalCatholic (12/10/2017 3:28 pm)
- ficino
- Member
Offline
- Registered: 9/27/2017
- Posts: 188
Re: Stardusty Psyche's thread
I have no idea why you ignored Miguel's point and thought it pertinent to object to his using a point from Scotus. That Scotus undoubtedly disagrees with Aquinas in several areas does not mean the allusion here was misplaced, nor did you hint how it might be.
Well, heh heh, you and others (I forget who) challenged my citing Aristotle not long ago. Aristotle, on whom Aquinas leans in a major way. Scotus, on the other hand, was around eight when St. Thomas died. No influence from the Subtle Doctor on the Angelical Doctor. If ya'll can object to my citing Aristotle, I am entitled to object to an unasked citation of Duns Scotus.
As to accidentally ordered series, I allow that it is useful to appeal to them when answering questions about what happened in the past.
- Jeremy Taylor
- Administrator
Offline
- Registered: 6/25/2015
- Posts: 792
Re: Stardusty Psyche's thread
I have no idea why you ignored Miguel's point and thought it pertinent to object to his using a point from Scotus. That Scotus undoubtedly disagrees with Aquinas in several areas does not mean the allusion here was misplaced, nor did you hint how it might be.
Well, heh heh, you and others (I forget who) challenged my citing Aristotle not long ago. Aristotle, on whom Aquinas leans in a major way. Scotus, on the other hand, was around eight when St. Thomas died. No influence from the Subtle Doctor on the Angelical Doctor. If ya'll can object to my citing Aristotle, I am entitled to object to an unasked citation of Duns Scotus.
As to accidentally ordered series, I allow that it is useful to appeal to them when answering questions about what happened in the past.
But you were alluding to what seemed like irrelevant exegesis. Miguel was using Scotus in what seems an appropriate way to illuminate a point under discussion.
- •
Thread Starter- StardustyPsyche
- Banned
Offline
- Registered: 7/15/2017
- Posts: 184
Re: Stardusty Psyche's thread
@FSC
"Well, since per your own words, uniform linear motion isn't change, how come it's a challenge to Aquinas' ways?"
--Because Aquinas says it is, so Aquinas is wrong.
Further, Aquinas asserts a hierarchical regress to account for change, but he is wrong about that too. A temporal regress analysis accounts for change, not a hierarchical regress.
Guess what folks. people in the 13th century had some fundamentally wrong ideas. Deal.
- FrenchySkepticalCatholic
- Member
Offline
- From: France
- Registered: 10/17/2017
- Posts: 151
Re: Stardusty Psyche's thread
Modern science disproves the *necessity* of divine conservation as a *necessary* conclusion on observation of apparent kinetic inertia and existential inertia.
And "modern science" brews you coffee, rocks your baby after tucking it in bed, answers your wishes and draws beautifully. Welcome to the pseudo-idol of Stardusty Psyche ! You know that science is a tool, right? And when it's quoted by a garbage making bot, it produces garbage. Sciences, unlike your reasoning, evolves and updates.
Guess what folks. people in the 13th century had some fundamentally wrong ideas. Deal.
......................................................................................
Guess what, SP, people from the 18th century had some fundamentally wrong ideas. Deal. Like :
- It's wrong to assume that the strength of the attracting force is a function of the mass of an object; as a magical force to compensate for the intervening distance needs to be created out of nothing. Since then, we know stuff about energy and mass, that gives us a new understanding of mass.
- It's wrong to assume that a force has only physical elements. Since then, we know stuff about radioactivity, electricity and thermodynamics which gives us a new understanding of force.
- It's wrong to assume that there exist an absolute time and space. Call good man Albert Einstein, and he'll explain that to you. That gives us a new understanding of space and time... which are more in tune with Aristotle and Aquinas (regarding change).
Should we add more? Or do you prefer your... how do you say it...
fundamentally wrong ideas
... Yeah.
"Well, since per your own words, uniform linear motion isn't change, how come it's a challenge to Aquinas' ways?"
--Because Aquinas says it is, so Aquinas is wrong.
Am I going to thrash out Newtonian mechanics because I'm debating a lazy dogmatic who doesn't know the limits of his models and his worldview? For the love of God, not a single bit. I'm going to take the time to see what genius idea Newton had. Same for Aquinas and Einstein.
How about you apply Aquinas definition of motion ? "The reduction of potency to actuality."
You don't want to? Alright. You claim that uniform linear motion refutes Aquinas, proves him wrong, causes theists to have cancer, heals babies and saves the world? Fine. If it's your hobby. Why? "Because it's fundamentally wrong." Oho. So, despite this science used it for a millenium.
Now, I'd want proof for that specific motion. You know, like, existence of it. Seeing uniform linear motion. And not just a mathematical approximation. Show me uniform linear motion, I'll show you it's not linear motion. Remember my point about persistence? Same goes for motion. Motion, as defined by modern physics, or even by your botched explanation, is relative to objects. Absolute motion has no sense. Unless you have an universal frame of reference, your ideal form of motion is as dead as a doornail, and not a linearly moving one.
You know what? Aquinas, Newton and Einstein are aware that there are specific cases in which their models don't work. And we know that. We've been telling you this for 21 pages, now. We even took the time to tell you what the definitions and the problem actually are. There were even disputes within the scholastics : Duns Scot, for example, had a different view. And you know what? They discussed it. Disputatio. You come there with ideas and thesis, and you comfront them, you try to reformulate your "opponent" view and argue for it, so you get how they think, and you gain mutual understanding.
I took the time to try and get your presupposed ideas to understand them. You know, these points where I asked you
That's a pity, because I *want* you to engage these details, because they're exactly where you and us disagree on. Especially :
b) Which brings us to my second point. My car is an artifact. If I'm going to have it repaired, I fully expect my car to change overnight. Let's say I have broken brakes : I hope I'll have my car repaired. It'll be a change, but it'll still be my car. How do you account for this?
What's what you call "material"? Atoms? Waves? Particles? Fields?
C.f. last point : that "very rough manner of speaking" is what is key here. Are you saying matter and energy can bounce off each other? Just matter and matter ? Just energy and energy ? What's matter and energy? What do you put behind these words? If matter is energy, why are there two words? Heard of energy/matter conversion? What is conversion if not change?
Still no replies.
Still no replies.
And I don't expect any. Why? Because you're not thinking, you're repeating something, and you don't question it. If you were a theist, you'd be a fake one : you'd be just parroting a book (like the Bible), and you wouldn't make the slightest effort to think, claiming the truth would be written there. But since you have no holy book, you're spouting your fundieness on intelligent things. Don't do that.
Oh, and there's enough with pitiful atheists online too, don't be one either. There are wonderful ones which I can engage with and gain mutual understanding with, but I don't care about the ****id ones.
You're not disputing. You're just interested in being told you're right. Fat chance for you and I : it's not going to happen, for either of us. The only Truth is God Himself, and all the rest is what the human mind can fanthom, and merely approximate. Go read Democritus, who had a view of the divine as eternal laws governing the universe : he's interested in contemplating Truth, not repeating "I'm right, I'm right!" to whoever discusses him.
Either you are not in a mindset to be able to grasp the relevance of my responses or you are having some sort of repetitive dismissal mode going on, dunno, I can't tell from here but clearly, every one of my responses are highly responsive to your stated points.
Do you have some sort of underlying world view beyond the plain text meaning of your words? All I can do is read the things you write and respond directly to them, which I have done at length.
Just come back when you're out of your bubble. Don't claim to be a rationalist. You're one of the worst shams I've ever seen online. And I come from a secular country where pseudoscience replaced religion. You should change your name to "WoofilledSoma". And then you should call your mother to turn the computer off, because you've been doing too much internet for the day.
***ing grow up.
God forgive,
FSC
Last edited by FrenchySkepticalCatholic (12/11/2017 9:05 am)
- StardustyPsyche
- Banned
Offline
- Registered: 7/15/2017
- Posts: 184
Re: Stardusty Psyche's thread
@FSC
" It's wrong to assume that a force has only physical elements. Since then, we know stuff about radioactivity, electricity and thermodynamics which gives us a new understanding of force."
--radioactivity, electricity, and thermodynamics are temporal physical processes.
" It's wrong to assume that there exist an absolute time and space. Call good man Albert Einstein, and he'll explain that to you. That gives us a new understanding of space and time... which are more in tune with Aristotle and Aquinas (regarding change)."
--Einstein brought understanding of space and time more in tune with A-T? What are you even talking about. Galileo, Newton, Maxwell, Einstein...the progression is farther and farther away from A-T.
"Should we add more? Or do you prefer your... how do you say it..."
--You haven't added anything that exposes any errors in my refutations of Aquinas. All you do is alternate between claiming I am non-responsive, call me names, and try to claim modern science is somehow confirming A-T in some unspecified way.
Uniform linear motion is not a change in kinetic energy, thus no changer is called for and the First Way fails.
Existential inertia is not a change in mass/energy, thus no changer is called for and the Second Way fails.
"How about you apply Aquinas definition of motion ? "The reduction of potency to actuality.""
--No, because he is wrong, that's the point. He defined motion incorrectly.
A moving object is already fully actualized in its motion, or alternatively, in its particular kinetic energy.
"Show me uniform linear motion, I'll show you it's not linear motion."
--Right, real material motion is a superposition of uniform linear motion and acceleration.
Uniform linear motion calls for no changer at all.
Acceleration calls for a temporal mutual causation process, not a hierarchical changer.
The superposition of the two shows that a hierarchical first mover is not necessary, therefore the First Way fails.
- FrenchySkepticalCatholic
- Member
Offline
- From: France
- Registered: 10/17/2017
- Posts: 151
Re: Stardusty Psyche's thread
You haven't added anything that exposes any errors in my refutations of Aquinas. All you do is alternate between claiming I am non-responsive, call me names, and try to claim modern science is somehow confirming A-T in some unspecified way.
You haven't done anything that expose any refutations of Aquinas. All you posted are words which you use in a different way than Aquinas, than modern science and than us. And you use them in a babbling mode.
Einstein brought understanding of space and time more in tune with A-T? What are you even talking about. Galileo, Newton, Maxwell, Einstein...the progression is farther and farther away from A-T.
Your turn. Show me your sources.
No, because he is wrong, that's the point. He defined motion incorrectly.
You're the one being wrong. Source your claim.
A moving object is already fully actualized in its motion, or alternatively, in its particular kinetic energy.
Pure nonsense. "Actualized in its motion" means "actualized in its non actualization".
Right, real material motion is a superposition of uniform linear motion and acceleration.
Wrong again. Prove it, and define what you mean by "real" and "material".
Acceleration calls for a temporal mutual causation process, not a hierarchical changer.
The superposition of the two shows that a hierarchical first mover is not necessary, therefore the First Way fails.
Show me how you can get a temporal causation without a hierarchical causation. Give me an example.
radioactivity, electricity, and thermodynamics are temporal physical processes.
Define physical. I asked you this three times. Makes it four. Answer my questions.
Last edited by FrenchySkepticalCatholic (12/11/2017 10:40 am)