@ficino #187

As I've noted previously, Feser is on record as arguing that each of the Five Ways, when properly understood and when rationally reconstructed, is an argument for the Doctrine of Divine Conservation of things in existence at every moment and a refutation of the contradictory, the doctrine of Existential Inertia.

--Yes, and more than that Feser argues, as Aquinas does, for the *necessity* of the first mover.

Feser then attacks the strawmen because he cannot argue on the merits with respect to kinetic and existential inertia. Feser merely asserts that divine conservation is how kinetic inertia works, and that divine conservation is how existential inertia works, and that modern science cannot disprove his assertions therefore his assertions are compatible with modern science.

There are an unbounded number of unfalsifiable speculations that can be made and cannot be scientifically disproved.  What is admiral about any of them?

Modern science disproves the *necessity* of divine conservation as a *necessary* conclusion on observation of apparent kinetic inertia and existential inertia.

The Thomistic worldview is that there is an invisible being continuously changing all things in the universe, every particle, every object, in just the right way as to provide the illusions of kinetic inertia and existential inertia.

I can just as well speculate that a googleplex invisible submicroscopic magical winged unicorns nudge every particle along moment to moment.  The unicorn speculation and the god speculation are of equal explanatory value.
 

StardustyPsyche wrote:

@Timocrates #182
"​Newtonian mechanics describes physical motion quite accurately but it does not explain from whence motion came"
--On a past infinite universe with past infinite causation both the universe and motion in it have always existed.

​That just evades the point. Newtonian mechanics does not tell us from whence motion originated but it does require an original sufficient cause for it.

StardustyPsyche wrote:

@"where these came from or how they came to be Newton does not pretend to know or tell us."
--Indeed, it is a great riddle, the origins of existence, mass/energy, and motion.  Newton was keenly aware that the vast ocean of truth lay undiscovered by him.

I am not here to tell you I am the first human being to answer the great existential riddle.  I am here to tell you that no human being has ever published such an answer into general circulation, and to tell you where Aquinas got it wrong and Feser continues to get it wrong.

​You have done no such thing. You need an original sufficient cause for there to be Newtonian mechanics. This cause itself cannot be a typical physical motion because it just raises the question on a Newtonian account of what generated that motion. It seems necessary for Newtonian mechanics that to initiate motion requires an extra-physical being; any physical being would just beg the question because the original action initiating an action-reaction chain presupposes either some other physical being or a being that initiates an action without being restrained by ordinary Newtonian movement/motion requirements.

Last edited by Timocrates (12/09/2017 3:24 pm)

@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.

" 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.

"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.

"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.

"As a secular equivalent, if you remove gravity, you can expect planets and bodies to explode in a chaotic arrangement of particles. Would you dispute it?"
--Gravity is part of a whole system of models.  It is detectable and measurable.  An exciting new branch of astronomy has just opened up with the first successful observation of gravity waves.  God is pure speculation that has no place in our physics.  Remove god from physics and physics stays the same.  Gravity isn't like that, so your analogy is not apt.

"Not quite. You're mixing a few things which is why I disagree with you on that."
--Then I suggest we get this clarified.
Feser, and other Thomists assert the First Way  is an argument for the necessity of a hierarchical first mover (changer) acting in the present moment to account for observed motion including uniform linear motion (and change generally).  Without this first mover, it is asserted, all motion (change) would necessarily cease.

Further, Thomists assert the Second Way is an argument for the necessity of a hierarchical first mover (changer) acting in the present moment to account for persistent existence, continued existence, the observation of existential inertia.  Without this first mover, it is asserted, all material would immediately blink out of existence, just vanish without a trace.

Those are the claims of Feser and other Thomists.  If you do not agree with aspects of those claims that's a good thing in my view, but those are their claims.

"You mean that if I find a way to show that "X exist" is false, then it doesn't follow that "X doesn't exist" is true? Like, if I take something which would do God's works and name it "Y", even by considering "the universe itself", I haven't produced a greater object than "the universe needing God to operate it", if I go using your vocable? Haven't I produced a primer ontological model?
--A non-falsifiable speculation would be of the sort of Russell's teapot.  We can't disprove the speculation of a teapot in a distant orbit.

"
Stardusty Psyche wrote:
prior to which the truth is that nobody knows how to account
Stardusty Psyche wrote:we must use a temporal regress analysis
"are two positive claims that I'm going to ask you how you can justify them. You're free to drop them if you feel you can't justify them."
--To the first, the riddle of origins has been the subject of discussion by great minds for thousands of years.  Never has a definitive answer to this problem been published.
An infinite past is irrational
Something from nothing is irrational
God is irrational
Yet I am absolutely certain I exist in some form, and thus that there is an existence as opposed to absolutely nothing at all. 

--To the second change occurs over time.  If we wish to analyze a causal series of changes we must employ a temporal regress analysis.  Causation progresses temporally into the future.  Causation progressed temporally from the past.  How is this basic language controversial?

And of course, once again, a hierarchical series is not necessarily characterized by temporal simultaneity; even if there could not be any kind of real temporal simultaneity whatsoever, there would still exist hierarchical series, which are simply what we call a series of causes in which there is a dependence of cause 2 on cause 1. Take cause 1 away from the series and cause 2 will cease to be or exert its causal power, even if it does so (for instance) 3 seconds after cause 1 has been removed. Like, for illustration, when we're holding a cup, preventing it from falling. In an accidental series, this is not the case: the father can cease to be, but this by itself would not cause the son to disappear, now or at any other time.

Miguel wrote:

ficino wrote:

StardustyPsyche wrote:

The Thomistic worldview is that there is an invisible being continuously changing all things in the universe, every particle, every object, in just the right way as to provide the illusions of kinetic inertia and existential inertia.


 

It seems that the Thomistic worldview also entails that there are no genuine linear, accidentally ordered causal series. On the Thomistic view, although Thomas asserts that we have fortuitous and accidental events, it follows that they are so only under a limited set of descriptors. Looked at from a more universal POV, every event is the terminus of some hierarchical series of causes ordered per se and directed at every link by God. Socrates can have a series of ancestors going back into the past, none of whom needs his father to be alive in order for HIM to sire a child. But everything about each of those guys occurs/occurred as the terminus of some other series ordered hierarchically. So it appears that we are left with a universe in which there are no genuine accidental series. Moreover, what we call "accidental" events seem to stand exposed as mere features of our limited descriptions of what are in fact outcomes of hierarchically ordered series of causes. The guy who runs into his debtor in the market, when he only went there to buy vegetables, can be described as experiencing good fortune, but all the different elements of the events are outcomes of hierarchical series of causes initiated by God.

Thomas does accord the separate substances a role as "principal" causes, which operate through the heavenly bodies as instruments, as an artisan operates through his tools. I haven't studied Aquinas' angelology enough to figure out how much this status of the separate substances affects the doctrine that the UM uses all mediating agents as instruments. A friend of mine is a serious, neo-Platonist polytheist, but I can't go there!

The above does not constitute a proof that the First or Second Way is false. I first got interested in Aquinas years ago, after all, when I was poking into the doctrine of predestination. A worldview seems problematic to me, though, if it entails that there are no true accidental series of causes.

 
None of what you said implies there are no genuine accidental series, only that accidental series always presuppose hierarchical series. This conclusion, which I hold on to as true, would be espoused by Duns Scotus when he says that there is no accidental series without an essential one, for the accidental is to the essential as the potential is to the actual. I agree. This is not however the same as saying there are no genuine accidental series of causes. There are. The hierarchical series are simply the series of direct dependence, which obviously permeate everything around us -- we are dependent on oxygen to continue surviving; the pushing of a stone is dependent on the movement in the arms, dependent on the muscles, dependent on the neuronal firings, etc. But there are also real accidental series, like the father-son series. It's true that the father is responsible for the son's existence, though not in a dependence manner. It's a genuine accidental series, even though it is ultimately possible only because of a hierarchical series that explains the existence of each one of the members, since neither father nor son have true independent existence by themselves.

What you write does not overthrow what I wrote. And why bring in Scotus? He disagrees with Aquinas on numerous points.