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So far as location is concerned, that clearly doesn't work. Why delineate particles at one location from adjacent ones?
Otherwise, although your actual position is unclear, but so far as you are arguing for reductionism (i.e., the macroscopic qualities are nothing but the microscopic particles arranged in a certain way), claims about dependence aren't enough. This is why I brought up property dualism. Property dualist functionalism is probably the most popular position today in philosophy of mind, even (or especially) amongst materialist inclined philosophers. Property dualism claims mental qualities supervene on physical ones. That is, the former are entirely causally dependent on the latter. In this case, although my qualitative experience are not reducible to anything physical, they are entirely caused by physical processes, and have no causal power themselves, even between each other. Property dualists acknowledge this doesn't make mental qualities reducible to physical ones. That's why they are dualists, even if often reluctantly so (it is about as close to materialism as you can get whilst admitting that there seem to be irreducibly mental properties). Even if all that you have said about the dependence of macroscopic entities on microscopic ones is true, it doesn't show that the former is reducible to the latter. The pixel example doesn't show reduction. It doesn't show that the other colours are nothing but arrangements of the three primary ones. This is what you have to show, not just causal dependence but identity - that the macroscopic is nothing but the microscopic.
Are you saying that subatomic particles have forms?
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Drovot wrote:
ArmandoAlvarez wrote:
Perhaps this may help Drovot (although I'm just a beginner, so maybe I'm misstating this or being unhelpful). A materialist may say, "This chemical only has the property it has because of the arrangement of the atoms that make up its molecule, and the atoms only have the properties they have because of the arrangement of the subatomic particles," but in that case, "arrangement" is only another word for "form."
I'm not sure it is. It depends on how you use the term "arrangement." An arrangement can be nothing more than independently existing parts. A pile of bricks is twenty bricks, a stack of blocks is six blocks. If we can reduce these to their constituent parts by virtue of them being consisted of individually existing things, then why not side with scientific analysis and conclude that the pig is a swarm of atoms?
I don't think it's "siding against science" to say that something arranged certain ways has qualities that something arranged another way doesn't. Two hydrogen atoms arranged in a covalent bond with one oxygen atom really do have qualities that two hydrogen atoms alone do not. As far as I know, and I may be misstating Aristotle, he would include the use of the words "form" and "matter" even to something as simple as shaping iron into a sphere. So I think it is acceptable to use the word "form" for any arrangement at all.
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It would be misleading, as well, to suggest science has concluded all macroscopic entities are reducible to microscopic ones. This is a metaphysical claim, not a scientific one. It is the result of reading the science a particular way, and generalising from that. It isn't something science has or could conclude.
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Let me collect myself and restate my position clearly. To put it briefly there is one thing that has a quiddity to it, a form if you will. That thing is a fundamental particle (FP). There must be at least one substantial form, one quiddity, one nature to reality. This is because if we didn't have some quiddity then there could be no accidental quiddity. Accidental quiddity or accidental form is merely derivative form, relying on the substantial form of a constituent member. Such is the case with the pig who is merely an arrangement of FPs which are, in the last analysis, the only entities with a quiddity.
Now why don't I go beyond this? Why don't I posit forms for other beings besides FPs? Well, to begin, I think it's silly to claim that if I posit a form for FPs then I should just go ahead and posit forms for, say, the pig and the human. No, this doesn't work that way because it is a scientifically observable fact that all things are at base level reducible to the operations of FPs. Now one may bring up the qualia issue. How can first person experiences arise out of third person observable FPs? How can FPs ever give rise to the simplicity of an odor, the beauty of blue, the feeling of pain. Again, as I've already argued, we observe this happening all the time. Stand 3 inches from a painting. You see a chaotic mess of brush work, paint slathered on top of other paint, a storm of oils. Step back and those parts, those brush strokes, begin to take on shapes. After you step even farther back, those brush strokes (wall of which are not the painting) create the painting. FPs could work in a similar manner. They could be radically dynamic, able to produce all different kinds of qualities from their mere rearrangements, just in the same way you can produce all different kinds of qualities by the the mere rearrangements of paints.
It seems like people are taking issue with me jumping from x is constituted by y to x is just y. I don't see the error in this. Examine, you come across a light house. In one sense, yes, it is just one object, a uniformed whole arguably. But upon closer analysis it really is just heaps of stones, plaster, and cement all arranged in a specific way. We merely impose upon this arrangement of materials the form (accidental that is) lighthouse. The lighthouse is nothing but its constituent parts. Now the discovery of FPs confirms that the same is true for every physical substance. A pig is nothing but its fundamental constituents. This isn't terribly hard. We see this all the time with not just lighthouses but farmhouses, cars, toys, clothing etc.; They all are nothing but the arrangement of certain base materials. Now that we understand that the physical world is constituted by FPs which have their own quiddity we can now declare that material objects are nothing but the arrangements of FPs, just like how farmhouses are merely an arrangement of wood, cars are an arrangement of gas and metal.
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No offence you're not really taking on board and responding to criticisms.
For a start, you continue to equate causal dependence and origination with reduction, without taking on board what has been said against doing that. None of your examples are, without addition, of reduction as opposed to causal dependence. They show lower level entities give rise to higher level properties. But that isn't all reduction means. Reduction means that, in some sense, those higher level properties just are the lower level entities. Are you familiar with contemporary philosophy of mind? As I said above, property dualism is probably the most popular position on the mind amongst philosophers, especially amongst materialist leaning philosophers, and at its heart is the distinction between causal dependence and reduction. Property dualists are dualists because they recognise, often reluctantly, there are irreducibly mental properties, but they don't allow these to have any causal power. As is the case with any materialist worth his salt, they only allow the physical to have causal power. This is dependence (supervenience is the technical term) but not reduction. You need to explain how your examples establish reduction or identity, rather than just dependence or supervenience.
Not that you have necessarily shown that macoscopic entities are entirely dependent on microscopic ones. I wonder how, apart from qualia, such a position of yours would, for example, deal with the unity demanded of the human mind if we are to explain things like reason (the argument from reason), intentionality, and unity of consciousness, not to mention that the causal role of mental properties (pace epiphenomenalism - which property dualists are committed to when they deny the mental causal power), including psycho-physical causation, seems to belie complete dependence. Indeed, to note this latter, if what you said were true then it would presumably lead to epiphenomenalism, which is incoherent - if mental properties or substances, like qualia, have no causal power, then we shouldn't even be able to talk about them, yet we can. Similarly, how you'd explain psycho-physical causation, from the relatively well-known but still mysterious placebo effect to the most extraordinary feats of hysterics and hypnotics, if there were entire causal dependence of the mental on the physical, is hard to see. Science most certainly hasn't shown that all things are at base level reducible to subatomic particles. That is a metaphysical claim that generalises certain aspects of science. It is not a claim natural science does or can make.
Anyway, you know seem to be agreeing with A-T on forms, in general terms at least, except you deny substantial forms to anything but subatomic particles. As has been said above, such a position, whist implausible, is not necessarily be a denial of A-T forms. Although you were ambiguous earlier, you now seem to have repudiated nominalism.