Such changes are temporal, not hierarchical.  They are accounted for with a temporal regress of mutual causation between multiple material objects, such as you, the tools, the electricity to power the tools, the generator plant to generate the electricity, the transportation of the fuel to the generator plant, and back and back and back at least as far as the big bang, clearly an "accidental" series of which your process regarding the care are simply a small subset.


whatever actualizing them here and now. So we clearly have hierarchical series,

No, objects interact temporally in processes of mutual causation, which is a temporal causal series, not hierarchical.

But here you're once again being fallacious and then merely asserting with hand wavings that series is accidental. " the tools, the electricity to power the tools, the generator plant to generate the electricity, the transportation of the fuel to the generator plant, and back and back and back at least as far as the big bang" might be accidental but there clearly are other essential causes here too, like constituents of cars like its molecules, atoms and so on , whatever keeps them in their particular structure, the ground which keeps up the car and so on. And as I've explained it is simply incoherent that all series are accidental, and accidental series themselves are only efficacious when undergirded by essential ones.

The notion of conservation mass/energy isn't much relevant to the argument

It's relevant to the Second Way, which is why Feser (fallaciously) discusses it from time to time.

As I showed you're the once who is discussing them fallaciously, it is even less relevant to second way then it is to the first. 

No, if there is no change in some respect then there is no need for an explanation of no change.

But this as I explain is mistaken, like in the example of fire which is eternally at constant temperature , the fact that its temperature doesn't change its magnitude hardly means that no heat source explain that temperature, it does and indeed does so necessarily and essentially. So again the point is if anything changes in any respect at all it contains potentiality so requires actualization, The terminus of explanations have to be purely actual in the strict sense, further as I've explained in case of mass/energy they simply supervene on other aspects which themselves require actualization. 

Net mass/energy is measured by defining a boundary, measuring the mass/energy that crosses the boundary and measuring the mass/energy within that boundary.

Say we start with x mass/energy within a volumetric boundary.  After an experiment we measure .2x + .2x + .2x + .2x + .2x + .2x within that boundary.  During the experiment we measured .2x crossed into that boundary.  Conservation of mass/energy through the experiment is thus confirmed by measurement.

Material was rearranged during the experiment, but no new material was created and no material was destroyed,  The net amount of material was measured to remain constant.

But the problem is what do you mean net change in the existence of mass/energy? Such a thing isn't empirically accessible to us, You've been pointed out to that Carroll post about GR, and you yourself talk about energy not being conserved for particular objects but now this net change in the "existence" of mass/energy energy doesn't make sense. 

You didn't intend, perhaps, to talk about origins in the deep past, but that is where those particular arguments of yours lead, even though you do not at this time fully understand the implications of those particular arguments you made.

I have found you and others here continually say I am ignoring your points.  I have some 150 posts on a 400 post thread, hardly a matter of ignoring.  Any objective analysis of my writing would say it is at least fairly prolific, even if you don't agree with the content.

You are confusing an unexpected answer with no answer in saying I ignored your points.  I answered your points, but in ways you do not yet understand the relevance of.

Once again all you do is produce a massive red herring this time adding self praises, Ignoring the point is indeed what you're doing here again, What I am addressing in that point is about parts and wholes, about Form,arrangement,organization,structures etc being real , which is again what you completely ignore. So all confusion is on your part not mine.as there isn't much "answer" in your passage in the first place.

If they are in a process of mutual causation that is not hierarchical, it is temporal.  There is no necessity for a hierarchical first changer because the changes of each member are accounted for by mutual causation with other members.

Yes, you are correct, everything just keeps bouncing off, as it were, everything else.  That is a temporal process of mutual causation, not hierarchical.

But this again simply ignores the content, such process is again essentially related to produce the over all result. any temporal processes are simply dependent on them. 

To account for the continued existence of the car as an organized object we consider 2 categories of existence.
1,Existence of the material the car is composed of.
2.The arrangement of that material.

1.The persistence of existence of the material the car is composed of is accounted for by the conservation of mass/energy, which is no change in the existential respect of material, and thus requires no explanatory changer.
2.The arrangement of that material is accounted for by the dynamic, temporal, mutually causal interactions of the constituents of the car.  No hierarchical changer is necessary since the arrangement of the constituents is accounted for by mutual causal processes with each other.

Thus, for both 1. and 2. no hierarchical changer is *necessary*.

But I have already explained why both 1 and 2 of second passage are mistaken. regarding 1. It is the conservation laws which are explained by such series of causes and effect. not the other way around so they simply depend on such explanatory changers not remove them. That is what the statement you quote was getting at in the first place and it still stands. 

Regarding 2 I have explained why such processes require essential series and why your arguments for accidental series are mistaken. 

And simply going back to an earlier point the argument can be modified to simply circumvent going through these series stuff, the objects if they are composite of act/potency regardless of being parts of any type of series then they are contingent, so even if there are infinite objects in such series essential or accidental there has to be something purely actual outside it to explain it. So we get to our overall conclusion.  

Summation process is a verb, it is an action descriptor, it is a process of a noun, not itself a noun.

But what is your point ? "Summation" is a verb but no particular "sum" like Car,cat,person etc is a verb , so the points remains either such sum are further objects which would falsify your claims or they aren't which would be incoherent.  

And if you still somehow insist on calling them verbs then instead of refuting my claims it would only mean(if my arguments here are sound) that some such verbs do really exist.

Last edited by Calhoun (12/24/2017 5:54 pm)

@Calhoun

but there clearly are other essential causes here too, like constituents of cars like its molecules, atoms and so on , , the ground which keeps up the car and so on

It seems that way but no, those are also accidental.  What seems like a static object to us, you, me, everybody, is actually a mad beehive of activity.  All that activity progresses temporally.  What seems like a simple system of static macro objects is actually a dynamic system of a vast number of tiny causes and effects, each one "accidental".

whatever keeps them in their particular structure

That is a dynamic process with nuclear forces in opposition to electromagnetic forces keeping protons together as they spin and vibrate and oscillate in shape.  Dynamic electrons continuously moving from atom to atom maintaining bonds, resulting in dipole moments, and all the activity know to occur in solids that appear to be locked in a rigid structure, but are actually in a continuous dynamic process of opposing dynamic forces, in a sort of tug of war with one team making a little progress, then the other, and back and forth on and on with the average position in the middle, as it were.

It is easy to see the "accidental" relationship going back hours, days, and years for objects separated by miles.  It is not so easy to see the "accidental" relationship going back a nanosecond for objects separated by a millimeter in a solid material, but the difference is only quantitative, not qualitative.

And as I've explained it is simply incoherent that all series are accidental

It is incoherent that any real material "essential" causal series could be the case because causal effects propagate, classically, no faster than c, the selection of a first member is arbitrary and false, there is no such thing as a real material rigid multibody system, and simultaneity of cause and effect does not extend beyond the limit as t goes to zero inside which no two time separated events can occur.

But this as I explain is mistaken, like in the example of fire which is eternally at constant temperature , the fact that its temperature doesn't change its magnitude hardly means that no heat source explain that temperature, it does and indeed does so necessarily and essentially.

May I ask you if you have had the benefit of a formal education in physics and chemistry?  If not, fine, that is not meant as a personal insult, there are lots of people in the world from many backgrounds, access to education is largely an accident of birth, I wish everybody had that opportunity but unfortunately in our world that is often not the case.

If you have had some education in physics and chemistry were you able to keep your textbooks?  Just wondering, because the way you speak of fire is not accurate on modern science that you will find in such textbooks.

Fire does not stay at a constant temperature, particularly a wood fire or internal combustion fire.  A closely regulated gas flame can stay very nearly constant in temperature.

Clearly, a fire is an "accidental" process involving the temporal movement of fuel, oxygen, and flame.  The heat of fire is accounted for by the forming of molecular bonds, which releases kinetic energy in the form of heat, which propagates temporally at the molecular level as molecules bounce off each other to transfer molecular kinetic energy.

That you would use fire as an example of an "essential" causal series calls your basic physics and chemistry knowledge into question.

You've been pointed out to that Carroll post about GR, and you yourself talk about energy not being conserved for particular objects but now this net change in the "existence" of mass/energy energy doesn't make sense.

Ok, again, how much background do you have in subjects where you would define a volumetric boundary to solve for physics parameters?  I suspect none, based on you not understanding a very simple illustration I gave you on this subject.

 

Merry Christmas Strawdusty.

SP I think maybe the trouble with this discussion is that fundamentally your worldview incredibly conflicts our worldviews. Correct me if I'm wrong but it seems like you hold to a naturalistic account of the world in which everything is ultimately reducible to the motion of fundamental particles. There are no essences, wholes, forms, etc. There are only particles in motion, fluctuations in those particles, and abstractions from and imposition of mental models onto those fluctuations via the human mind.

Most of us here don't hold to a reductionism of this sort. Most of us believe in forms, essences, substances, etc. I think you need to ultimately show us why your worldview is valid. How is it proved? How does it show that, for starters, something like essences don't exist. Or that wholes are reducible to their parts?

SP is just being a good scientismist.

Cause in science

This last notion of causality, as mere sequence, but without any idealistic ground to account for it, is that which principally obtains in current science. A given event, in the instant A, is uniformly followed by a second given event in the instant B. No implication of power, or dependence, is conceived or stated. Similarly, a group of events, in one instant, is followed by another group in the next; the total sum of things comprising the world is succeeded by the total sum of things comprising the world in two succeeding instants. In all these cases, as far as they are considered by science, the event or events of the prior instant are always the cause of what follows, provided the succession is invariable. Thus the same thing may conceivably be, and is sometimes said to be both cause and effect, identical in all respects but that of succession in time. There need be no necessary contradiction between such a view and that of philosophy; for science, as such, does not consider the questions of metaphysics or seek to determine the essential causes of beings. A relationship, given that it is invariable, as the unconditional constant succession of John Stuart Mill, between the two or more phenomena, is all that science demands and, under the particular abstractions with which it deals, this is enough to ensure scientific results. A knowledge of the conditions of the existence of certain phenomena is the principal aim of science; and this is strictly pursued by observation, experiment, and the application of mathematical methods. There is, consequently, no radical opposition between the two provinces of knowledge, since both the ends sought and the means employed in their search differ. Indeed were a man of science to make any pronouncement as to the nature of essential causes or their mode of causality, he would have overstepped the boundaries drawn by his science and declared himself a metaphysician. As a matter of fact, there have not been wanting scientists, whose habit of mind and training are entirely scientific and in no sense metaphysical, who have done this very thing and attempted to give a scientific solution of a purely metaphysical problem. There will be no need to give any detailed account of such an attempt, the success of which is obviously impossible. The scientific means at disposal are not equal to the task. But, on the other hand, in its own sphere and working with its own particular abstractions, science is quite competent to reach its own results in its own way, and this without any necessary correction on the part of metaphysics. (source : New Advent )

Happy Christmas everyone.

Last edited by Agnostic (12/25/2017 3:52 am)