But surely, even if we break up the table, coaster, and cup into their constituent particles, the position of the particles within the cup is dependent on the position of the particles within the table in a way that the reverse is not true, right?

Why wouldn't the reverse be just as validly the case?  Drop a rock, obviously it accelerates to Earth, and I am sure you realize Earth calculably accelerates toward the rock.

The cup, saucer, table, and Earth are all equally the causes and effects of each other.  Imagine 4 equal size rocks lined up in space, weakly held to each other by mutual gravitation.  Which is the cause and which is the effect?

We are all bodies in space, everything is.  It is just that we have a great deal of nearby company here on Earth

  Sure, the table isn't the "first mover" because its position is dependent on the floor and the earth and all particles that make them up, but I don't see how considering the particles changes the fact that the particles that make up the cup would accelerate to the floor were it not for the table, whereas the table would not do the same without the cup.

I suppose if we balanced things very carefully we could put the cup on the floor and put the table on top the cup.  I don't see how the particular arrangements of such systems argues for a per se causal series at all.

Irrespective of the arrangements and sizes of the bodies in space every such object is in fact a temporal process even though it seems static.  What seems like a static positioning of objects is actually a vastly complex temporal process.

Feser, and others, will commonly construct such scinerios, state this cannot go on to infinity, and declare a per se causal series and therefore a first mover and therefore god.  This is terribly shortsighted, truncated, and incomplete thinking.

If we wish to discount going to infinity in the present moment we need to go a great deal further than a naked eye examination of 3 ordinary objects.  When we continue on with the analysis we always find that our supposed per se causal series is actually a complex temporal series, and we must regress back and back and back in time and space until it becomes apparent the our supposed per se series has become per accidens, and in fact always was per accidens.

At that point we can realize that every apparent per se causal series is in truth a per accidens causal series.

Obviously, this isn't proof of the existence in and of itself, but it would seem to me to be a case of simultaneous causation, which you denied exists.

Things exist over here at the same time things exist over there, but causal influences do not propagate instantaneously. Say you remove the cup from the table, that will change the table.  The cup is compressing the table, and when the cup is removed molecules that were under the cup will move, and that will induce motion in adjacent molecules and so forth.  That causal influence will propagate through the table over time, not simultaneously throughout the table.

The appearance of a simultaneous causation is due to our human modeling approximations in abstraction. The table is assigned the title of a single thing, and likewise the cup.  We imagine the table is causing to cup to not fall to the floor.  But if we are going to argue for fundamental structure to look for god we need to cast off these sorts of vastly oversimplified abstractions and realize the causality of the table and cup is spread out over a trillion trillion particles all in a vastly complex mutual causation temporal process.  In doing so A-T falls to dust.
 

Last edited by StardustyPsyche (12/17/2017 12:27 am)

@ArmandoAlvarez

If a cup is placed on a table, the cup's position is dependent on the table, but other than the imperceptible compression of the table, the table's position is not dependent on the cup.

So, except for the ways that the cup does exert causal influence on the table the cup does not exert causal influence on the table.

This is an illustration of the pitfalls of naked eye observations and simplified abstract models.  They are close enough approximations for ordinary activities to proceed, but they become logically and analytically invalid upon closer examination.

I don't think your argument against the existence of causes per se is as strong as you seem to think.

The argument is strong when carefully examined, but I have yet to find words I am satisfied with to communicate this point.  It is not an easy task to argue against something that is so intuitive in our lives.  Aristotelian physics did not dominate for 2000 years because people just like to believe stupid things.  Aristotelian physics just seems to make so much sense in our ordinary experience that it took 2000 years, a very long time, with many brilliant people earnestly working the problems, until at long last the errors of Aristotle were exposed.

Even so, Aristotelian physics still seems to make so much sense, seems to be so intuitively true, so in keeping with our naked eye observations, that many people remain utterly convinced that Aristotle was correct all along.

I console myself that I have not yet found the words to convey the error of the notion of per se causal series with the fact that such things required 2000 years to overcome and for many still seem very real.  It is no small rhetorical task to counter illusory notions that deeply seated.

You might want to think freshly about what causation even means.  Can a large scale object be assigned the title of "cause"?  How is that meaningful in relation to the physics of causation?

Let me try another analogy, say a crowd of people, half in red shirts, half in blue shirts that meet in the middle, red on one side, blue on the other side.  It is an unruly crowd with everybody pushing and shoving each other.  At the line between red and blue they push back and forth, red pushes blue a little back, then blue pushes red a little back.  And on and on they go pushing and shoving back and forth, yet the line stays, on average, in the same place. 

Is this a process of simultaneous cause and effect throughout the crowd, or this this a complex temporal process that on average results in no big change to the average position of the crowd?

StardustyPsyche wrote:

@FSC
Actually, I have answered these questions in various ways, but I will give it a more directed response here.

You didn't until now. So, here's my following input in response to your answers, and a guide for your subsequent answers.

StardustyPsyche wrote:

Right, which is a temporal process, not a hierarchical causal series.
<snip>
With a temporal process wherein no new material came into existence or ceased to exist.  Material was temporally removed from your car but continued to exist elsewhere.  Already existent material was added to your car.  The new brake pads and brake fluid did not suddenly materialize out of nothing, nor did the worn brake pads blink out of existence.

i) So, if I get you right, for you, my car is a temporal process, correct? When does it start? When does it end? If I change my brakes, the material of my old brakes and the material of my new brakes is not the same. Do my car exist apart from our minds? I'd take you say no to this, saying that my car is a shorthand for "the blob of matter containing X, Y...".
ii) I agree that no material is added from nothing. Though, the function of the blob of matter called now my car is to be driven, receive fuel, etc. Do you agree that the function changed? Or, if you don't agree, can you state where does the new function comes from?
You're not allowed to just say "it emerged", because that would be just stating "it changed". You are allowed to say "it emerged from ..." and continue your answer.

Everything that exists. Material, as in materialist.

Then I reject that definition. Because you're saying that
a) Everything that exists is material/matter.
b) Matter is everything that exist.
It serves no purpose in our discussion, as it has nothing to compare to; and adding "material" changes nothing to the primitive "exists". Saying "x exists" or "x is material" has no difference.

iii) Though, if I take your definition, how do you distinguish between my car is material and the constituents of my car are material?

How many words are there for water?  Ice, water, steam, vapor, snow...words have etymologies that go back to ancient times

That doesn't help your case as it's a false example. Ice refers to "solidified cold water", which is not just water, as it's a qualificative.
I understand you want to blur the lines as much as you can to get away with your free Aquinas is wrong card, but I doubt it will happen.
So, still stands :
iv) Why are there two words for matter and energy ? Is it because they're distinguishable ?

Indeed, E=mcc.  Conversion is also conservation.  Note the absence of any poof term.  No material gets in or out

Conversion is a conservative temporal process,  Since there is no change in the amount of material during a temporal conversion process there is no call for an existential changer at all, much less a consideration of a regress of existential changers terminating in an existential first changer, a sustainer of existence moment to moment.

v) Regarding v), does it mean, that, for you, when an electron hits a positron, since (at least) two gamma photon are created, there is no creation, no change and not any single difference? Is it what you are saying ?
vi) Even if the two (or more) photons have exactly the same energy as the couple used to produce them, you're actually saying that nothing has changed? Is it really what you are saying?

Please answer the i, ii, iii, iv, v and vi as close as you can if you want another answer from me.

@ficino
I don't know much about the original sources, but Feser uses objects that are not in motion to describe a hierarchical series of causes frequently, for example, in Five Proofs.  (I only have it on an e-reader, but it's in his discussion of the First Way-there called "The Aristotelian Proof"- and if you have it on an e-reader and search for "hanging" you'll get to the proper section.)
He uses it to show that the series of causation need not be temporal.

@Ficino

Either Feser isn't clear on this issue of instantaneous vs simultaneous series, or I'm misunderstanding him. I'm not even sure Feser is a big fan of using the term "simultaneous" when we get more technically precise about the nature of a causal series ordered per se. On page 63 of Five Proofs he says,

"What makes a causal series hierarchical rather than linear is not simultaneity per se, but rather the fact that all the members in such a series other than the first have their causal power in a derivative or instrumental rather than inherent or "built-in" way. This, is why linear series of causes can in principle extend backward to infinity, while hierarchical series of causes cannot. Since each member of a linear series has is causal power inherently rather than derivatively, there is no need to trace any member's action back to a first member, which imparts to it its power to act. Hence such a series need not have a beginning."

I think this is what ArmandoAlvarez was getting at. Even if cup, desk, and floor can be looked at as matrices of atoms instantiating a specific macro-structure, it's still the case that the matrix of atoms we call the cup continually depends on the matrix of atoms we call the desk for it to remain in its position one meter off the ground. That is, the cup's potential to be one meter of the ground is continually dependent on the desk for its actualization. And, as Feser notes, an absence of temporality is not necessary for a per se causal series. What is necessary is that each secondary member has its causal power in a derivative/instrumental/continually-dependent way. Perhaps this why this discussion with SP has been somewhat unfruitful for both sides of the issue--we need to clearly define what a per se causal series is, how temporality factors into it, why such a series needs a prime mover, and why such a series is fundamentally different than a per accidens series.

I would also like to see someone more knowledgeable of physics than me properly object to this criticism from SP that temporal processes of constituent particles robs the prima facie reality of per se causal series among macro-structures (e.g. the cup, desk, floor).

Last edited by RomanJoe (12/17/2017 3:13 pm)