Stardusty, if you post more of the good sciencez I will give you a pdf of the book which is guaranteed to antagonize the Thomist far more than The God Delusion.

StardustyPsyche wrote:

@JT
There is no such thing as a real material per se, or "essential" causal series.

Can you define a "real material" cause? You're implying that whatever this is, it's the "true" meaning of a "cause", and that other kinds of causes are somehow false or vague/incomplete. But why should this be so, given that the term "cause" is used in other ways which we all understand perfectly well?

Designation of the hand as first is arbitrary

Yes, but it was given as an example to illustrate the difference between accidental and essential causes. The hand is instrumental relative to the stick, it is not accidental.

tendons
muscles
blood
heart
metabloism
food
oxygen
oxygen source
food source
plants
water cycle
geology
formation of the Earth
the big bang

Even this list only scratches the surface of the vastly complex system of physical actors in the clearly "accidental" hand-stick-rock example.

So what? How does the complexity of the system show that the series is "clearly" accidental rather than causal? You're missing the point, big time.

Last edited by Agnostic (12/28/2017 11:29 am)

Pay attention Dusty, you might learn something.  Why is the formation of the earth NOT part of the causal series that moves the hand? Feser (in Aquinas) explains:

"Part of the reason the Aristotelian regards efficient causality as unintelligible without final causality is that without the notion of an end or goal towards which an efficient cause naturally points, there is no way to make sense of why certain causal chains are significant in a way others are not. For example, in characterizing the DNA of bears, we take it to be relevant to note that it causes them to be furry and to grow to a large size, but not that it also thereby causes them to be good mascots for football teams. The genetic information in bear DNA inherently “points to” or is “directed at” the first outcome, but not the second."

Regarding the water cycle and rock cycle, Feser continues to explain:

"...the role of condensation in the water cycle is to bring about precipitation; the role of pressure in the rock cycle is, in conjunction with heat, to contribute to generating magma, and in the absence of heat to contribute to generating sedimentary rock; and so forth. Each stage has the production of some particular outcome or range of outcomes as an “end” or “goal” towards which it points."

and finally:

"...sedimentation might (for example) happen to block the water flow to a certain region, the formation of magma might cause some local birds to migrate, or condensation in some area might for all we know cause someone to have arthritic pain in his big toe. But blocking water flow and causing birds to migrate are no part of the rock cycle, and causing arthritic pain is no part of the water cycle. Some causal chains are relevant to the cycles and some are not." 

StardustyPsyche wrote:

@Timocrates

Doubling the number of pushers doesn't change anything, SDP. Each pusher still needs an initial push deriving from within themselves some source of energy.

Not as a hierarchical series that defies being accounted for absent a first mover, no.

What is the energy source for the rocket?  The fuel.
How did the fuel get into the rocket?  From outside the rocket in the past, not hierarchically from within the rocket.

What is the energy source of the skaters? Atmospheric oxygen combined with digested food in the process of metabolism.
How did the oxygen/food get into the skaters? From outside the skaters in the past, not hierarchically from within the skaters.

Before declaring "this cannot regress infinitely" a sound argument must regress and regress to more thoroughly analyze the causal series in question.  When that is done every real material causal series is shown to be "accidental", not "essential"

Regardless, I'm not sure why Newton's third law would even apply in free space.

I provided this link from NASA
https://www.grc.nasa.gov/www/k-12/rocket/newton3r.html
If you are not familiar with the physics of space rocketry one option is to start with that link and continue on from there.

The reason for the push-back (reaction) is resistance but there is nothing to resist an object in motion in free space

No, that is an Aristotelian world view and it is mistaken. 

Various sorts of attractions and repulsions are modeled with various fields.  At our perceived mechanical level we typically do not consider the underlying electromagnetic forces that are the primary actors in classical statics and dynamics analysis.  Newton expressed forces as opposing each other at the point of contact. 

The reason is not resistance in the sense of friction and absent friction there would be no resistance.  There are many sources on line where you can learn the basics of modeling forces and acceleration where you will find confirmation of my points.

as the object itself is weightless also: there is literally nothing holding the movable object in place in the first place. Flap your arms up and down outside and you barely budge; do it in water and you will rise up to the surface. This is part of the reason why Aristotle thought motion in an absolute void to be impossible.

Aristotle was wrong. 
Aristotle was very wrong about a very great many things.
Motion in a void is possible if there are at least 2 objects occupying what is otherwise void.  Those 2 objects can push off against each other.

Thus, any sort of argument for a first mover from acceleration fails.

For the love of God, SDP: ROCKETRY DOES NOT OCCUR IN FREE SPACE. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS FREE SPACE. IT'S AN IDEALIZATION AND ABSTRACTION: FREE SPACE IS AS REAL AND PHYSICAL AS A POINT-PARTICLE.

StardustyPsyche wrote:

@Timocrates

For the love of God, SDP: ROCKETRY DOES NOT OCCUR IN FREE SPACE. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS FREE SPACE. IT'S AN IDEALIZATION AND ABSTRACTION: FREE SPACE IS AS REAL AND PHYSICAL AS A POINT-PARTICLE.

Free space is defined in various ways, but for this discussion I think we can agree that free space is a perfect vacuum.

Real space can be modeled as a superposition of free space and the effects of matter in space, on the order of 1 hydrogen atom per ml.

Underwater rocketry operates in a medium that is a superposition of free space and about 10^26 atoms per ml.
Atmospheric rocketry operates in a medium that is a superposition of free space and about 10^23 atoms per ml.
Real space rocketry operates in a medium that is a superposition of free space and about 10^0 atoms per ml.

Newton's 3rd law holds, classically, in all 3 mediums by the action-reaction principle in free space superposed on the fluid dynamics of the real medium.

Take away the fluid dynamics of the real medium and you are left with Newtons 3rd law, classically, in free space.

You said

The reason for the push-back (reaction) is resistance but there is nothing to resist an object in motion in free space

That is clearly an error.  All experimental science and mathematical analysis shows that Newton's 3rd law, classically, holds in all mediums and would hold without need of fluid dynamics terms in free space.
 

"a perfect vacuum"
Fascinating!
That's excellent SDP. You just keep making crap as as making crap up can be defined in various ways.

Last edited by Timocrates (12/29/2017 12:51 am)