Anything that exists materially, changes continuously, however minutely, it always becoming. — Janus

What Aristotle demonstrated is that "continuous change" is incompatible with the logical principles of what is and what is not, being and not being.

So for instance, if X changes and becomes Y, then if we posit a 'becoming" or change, between x and Y, we need to allow that this condition between X and Y is describable. If we allow that this condition of becoming is describable as A, then we have X becomes A and A becomes Y. Then we need to posit a describable condition between X and A, and A and Y. This would continue infinitely and we'd never get an adequate description of the becoming which occurs between two describable states. The point is that there is a fundamental incompatibility between "what is" (being) which is a describable state, and "change", or becoming, which is an activity.

Birds would be a genus - a real distinction in nature - because there was some essential natural purpose that "a bird" expresses. And then a duck would be a bird as a particular form that in turn expresses that purpose in terms of some more specific design. — apokrisis

This kind of talk is totally foreign to me. Bird is a genus, because there is "some essential natural purpose" which "a bird" expresses. No matter how much I reflect on this phrase, "essential natural purpose", I draw a complete blank as to what you could possibly mean by that.

He does not give a coherent account of the difference between existence and being. I have never heard a coherent account of this difference, which is probably because to say that anything is is logically equivalent to saying that it exists (in whatever sense of 'existence' we might be using). — Janus

There is a coherent difference to be made between existence and being which can be made from understanding the history of these terms. "Being" goes way back to very ancient times. In the Eleatic school, of Parmenides, where it gets opposed to "not-being" as a logical principle. But at the same time, the Greek philosophers of nature, like Thales and Heraclitus, observing a world of change, adopted "becoming" as a first principle.

Plato noticed a fundamental inconsistency between these two ways of looking at reality, 1)what is, is, and what is not is not; 2) All is becoming. Aristotle demonstrated that the two are inherently incompatible, and sophists could abuse this incompatibility to produce logical arguments with absurd conclusions. But Plato introduced "the good", as the means by which all things become intelligible. And Aristotle posited "substance" as consisting of both matter (becoming) and form (what is and is not).

"Existence" is a term which was developed in Latin, in later philosophies. In its development it was conceived so as to include both 1) and 2), under that name, "existence". In Christian religion it is compatible with Plato's "good", as what is given by God, and it is also compatible with Aristotle's "substance". "Existence" included both 1) and 2).

So I think that in its early development the category of "existing" was produced as a wider category which could include both the categories of "being/not-being" and "becoming". Both of these categories, which are inherently inconsistent, are allowed to be real under the category of existing, which is therefore the more general category. The scholastics though, then produced a dichotomy between existence and essence, and in this way they re-introduce the incompatibility. "Essence", is now the category of what is, and what is not (1), while "existence" is relegated to the material realm of becoming (2).

If we are to compare the modern concept of existence, to the concepts of antiquity, we see that in modern times existence generally refers to material existence, and this would be associated with the ancient "becoming". The ancient concept of being/not being, what is and is not, based in the logical principles of non-contradiction and excluded middle, is associated with essence.

I would say that the most important thing is to learn how to read the material with the intent to understand. This is completely different from the intent to just get through the material, and somewhat different from attempting to memorize what you think might be important points. Understanding requires that you associate what is being said with your own experience, and with what you have read from other philosophies. You should be able to notice consistencies. Things consistent with your own experience you will accept on intuition. Things inconsistent with your own intuition should not be automatically rejected. You need to read multiple philosophers and find points of consistency between them. If these points of agreement between others are not consistent with your intuition, you may find reason to reject your own intuitions, filling the gap with a new understanding.

We are not, in general, given philosophy to study at an early age. We need to develop our capacity to understand before proceeding into this field, just like any of the other higher level fields of study. So we necessarily approach with preconceptions, biases, derived from a younger age. But as you indicate in your op, we need to learn how to question, understand, and judge these fundamental assumptions. In this way we learn how to get beyond our own intuitions, rejecting them where necessary, in order to create a real understanding.

I think that we ought to recognize that understanding is based in agreement. To understand a piece of writing you can look for simple points which agree with you, then you may work outward from these points, into the surrounding context to grasp the meaning of a whole passage. The meaning you derive from this passage must be related to surrounding passages, looking for the consistency intended by the author, to ensure that you have interpreted each passage correctly.

As I told, evolution is an activity, therefore it consists of both causes and effects. Variation in species is the effect of evolution.

All activities cause change. Evolution is an activity. Therefore evolution causes change.

A cause has to be driven you are saying that there is an ineffable force in the universe which is evolution. That's utterly absurd. — charleton

Evolution is a description of what has happened, so to say that it is ineffable is what is absurd. It is no more ineffable than any other activity which we describe.

Shit happens, things change, and the result is evolution. For some species this is the end, for others it means little, for others still it means more fitness to a changing environment, but the result of all this change is evolution. — charleton

I don't see what you're trying to say. You are describing changes, and saying that evolution is not this activity described as changes, but the result of the changes. The result of these changes is that you and I are existing today. Are you and I evolution? See it's your statements which are really absurd. Or do you agree with me that "evolution" more properly refers to the activity of these changes, which has brought us into existence, not the result of the changes?

You can ask what was the change that led to evolution, but its just dumb to suggest we change BECAUSE of evolution.
Darwin gave us one of the three major Copernican turns in intellectual history, don't be a dinosaur medievalist! — charleton

I don't know charleton, your points are really incomprehensible to me; "what was the change that led to evolution?". Since evolution has been going on since life began on earth, then I guess the appearance of life on earth is the change that led to evolution. Agree?

OK, I see the point. I cannot imagine "something comes from nothing" in any way other than "nothing becomes something". And this is like saying that nothing is active, it is doing something, becoming something.

It's not begging the question, it's just a matter of obeying the fundamental grammar of the English language. To predicate a property such as "instability" requires that there is a subject of the predication. To insist that "nothing" here as the subject, means nothing in any absolute sense, leaves us without a subject; which is meaningless nonsense in the English language. It defies the fundamental grammar and is therefore nonsense.

To rescue that statement from this abyss of nonsense requires that we allow that "nothing" is a subject. Therefore in this usage "nothing" doesn't signify nothing in any absolute sense, it signifies something, Then the whole argument which is based on this statement is undermined.

So either we have a premise which is nonsense, and without meaning in the English language ("'nothing' is inherently unstable"), or we have an argument which is completely nonsensical. Any way we interpret it, it is nonsense.

What do you think of stuff like longitudes and latitudes? Do you think that time falls in the same category? — TheMadFool

I don't quite understand the question. Longitude and latitude are totally arbitrary, like the number of degrees in a circle. The measurements of time are based in real activities, the day, the year, etc..

Planck time is a unit of measure, and a theoretical one at that. I have yet to see anything measured in units of planck time, which sort of makes it useless. I'm suggesting the notion of an atomic quantum of time is maybe not an observable phenomenon in our universe. — AngleWyrm

If I understand correctly, the Planck length is a limit imposed by the prevailing theories. If the theories are accurate, then the smallest unit of time predicted by those theories would also be accurate.

Quantum mechanics tells us that "nothing" is inherently unstable, so the initial leap from nothing to something may have been inevitable.

Stability is a property. The predication of "unstable" to "nothing", requires the assumption that nothing is something.

SO much for the school boy understanding of evolution.
Evolution is an EFFECT, not a cause. — charleton

Evolution is a process of development. It is an activity, Therefore theories of evolution refer to both causes and effects, as is necessary for understanding activity. Within such a theory one ought to adequately differentiate between causes and effects, or else the theory may present us with a misunderstanding.

From the perspective of empirical science, evolution is demonstrated and known through various physical evidence, which is the effects of evolution. So evolution is known through the effects. Logic is applied to various different forms of evidence (effects), relating them, to produce theory concerning the activity which is called evolution. Further logic, and speculation is applied toward determining the causes of evolution.

Until we have an adequate way of distinguishing between what is real, and what is not, I don't see any point in worrying about where reality comes to end. You could proceed far beyond the limits of reality without even noticing the difference. As you've demonstrated.

If the genus is the capacity for communication, what is the differentia? — Banno

That's what I was asking. If we may communicate by means other than language, then what distinguishes language from other forms of communication? I don't agree that it's the ability to be interpreted by FOLP, but perhaps it's grammar in general. Or maybe grammar itself is a specific type of a more general category, a more basic form of consent to rules of behaviour which is better apt for defining language.

Too bad the limits on what you can say couldn't stop you at the point where you stopped making sense. You know, if the limits aren't real and existent, then they are completely arbitrary with no real constraint; like what you've just said, completely arbitrary with no constraint in relation to reality.

Put another way, you might try to translate "language" as "a capacity for communication", but if you do not understand what communication is, you have not made any progress. — Banno

Actually, that's exactly how understanding progresses, We proceed from particular instances of the individual, through the specific to the more general. So we encounter people, like you and I, we specify them as human, then we proceed to define human as animal, and animal as living, etc... By developing an understanding of the defining terms, we proceed toward a better understanding of the original particulars.

So we might define language as a form of communication. "Communication", as the defining term is the more general, such that not necessarily all forms of communication are language. We could analyze "communication" further to see if it is defined by a more general term, or we could look at the specifics of communication to see what separates language from other forms of communication.

You seem to think that it's being interpretable by FOPL which separates language from other forms ofcommunication. I disagree, I would think more along the lines of what SX proposes, that it is just having a grammatical structure in general which might be what distinguishes language from other forms of communication.

What could be more minimal than zero? — apokrisis

You weren't talking about zero, you were talking about asymptotic limits.

For example? — Banno

Try "Let's go".

Yet being able to interpret any given English sentence in FOPL does not imply that we can interpret every sentence.

What we can do - and this was Davidson's program - is to see how far the proposal can go. What sentences can we satisfactorily interpret? — Banno

Clearly, if there are some sentences which cannot be satisfactorily interpreted, then one cannot claim the capacity to interpret any sentence.

Further, not all language use need be translated into FOPL, so long as part of it is. — Banno

I don't think that's true. Your claim is that in order to be called "a language" it must be interpretable by FOPL. But I think that language is defined by a capacity for communication. So if some parts of a language may carry our communication with utterances that cannot be satisfactorily interpreted by FOPL, then we can conceive of "a language" which cannot be interpreted by FOPL. That language might be less extensive and more restrictive in the sense of what it can say.

Do you believe that the more restrictions there are within a language, the less restricted the users are with respect to what they can say?

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Dichotomies are reciprocal limits on possibility regardless of whatever you might pretend to be discussing. — apokrisis

You're not making sense. You defined dichotomy as "a relation that is mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive". Then you described "reciprocal limits" in a way in which they clearly were not mutually exclusive. Rest is said to be minimal motion, and motion is said to be minimal rest. So it is very clear that your statement "dichotomies are reciprocal limits" is contradictory. Reciprocal limits are not mutually exclusive, but dichotomies are.

Furthermore, as I argued earlier, your reciprocal limits are not jointly exhaustive, because they do not allow for the real limits.

Why not? — Banno

Because not all language use follows the rules of first order predicate logic.

What are you saying? I thought we were talking about language use in general, not this specific type of language use, predicate logic. You don't really believe that something has to be interpretable by the rules of first order predicate logic to qualify as language do you?

Will you ever master this tricky notion of reciprocal limits I wonder? — apokrisis

We were discussing dichotomies, not reciprocal limits. And your attempt to turn dichotomies into reciprocal limits is misguided. .

Rest would be minimal motion, and motion would be minimal rest. — apokrisis

Right, so rest and motion are clearly not mutually exclusive when defined in this way. Therefore this is not a dichotomy as per the definition of dichotomy which you provided.

Language a the least contains identifiable negation and conjunction, nouns and predicates. — Banno

Nouns and predicates? isn't that a mixed metaphor? Don't you mean subjects and predicates? I think that the predicate often contains a noun.

You are distressed because your ontology likes to presume a world of passive and stable existence. — apokrisis

No, I don't presume that. I understand that some things change and some things do not. I do not presume that world the consists exclusively of either one of these. I accept dualism as the only coherent understanding of reality.

So you get your desired passivity. But only at the end of time. — apokrisis

It is evident that some things remain the same, and we do not have to wait until the end of time to observe this.

Look it up. A dichotomy is a relation that is mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive. — apokrisis

Yes, so it appears like you do not know what "mutually exclusive" means. How are rest and motion mutually exclusive when you define rest as a minimal degree of motion? .

In the sentence 'What did the girl kiss the boy who delivered?' We have a coherent subject (the girl) but unlike the Chomsky example we cant say that there was an activity or behavior at all, even a ta higerh level. Just fragments of subjects and an activity that we dont know how to connect to either subject.
So the difference between the two sentences is that the first has a more extented coherence, we can go on within it longer.The higher order grammatical consistency allows us to forgive to at least a small degree the lower order grammatical inconsistency. — Joshs

You seem to take it for granted that we know what a subject is (I'm grammatically illiterate). I would think that "the girl" refers to a particular object, and in this context, this object is referred to as "the girl". Why do you think that "the girl" refers to a subject and not an object?

Inertia is a positive quality - a resistance to change. So rest is the potential for a reaction to an action. Push a rock to get it to roll and it pushes right back. — apokrisis

Ok, so "passivity" does not refer to something which matter is prior to being acted on, it refers to how matter will react when being acted on. See, you are defining everything in relation to action, saying what passivity would be like if it were active. It would be reactive. You give yourself no means for describing what passivity is during that time when it is what it is, passive, i.e. not being acted upon, and not reacting. So passivity is the potential for action. What do you think it means to be capable of reacting?

But even archaic physics was based on metaphysical dichotomies. — apokrisis

The point is, that you have the wrong idea of what a dichotomy is. A dichotomy is a division, a separation. You instead, unite the two defining terms of the dichotomy by claiming that what these two terms refer to are the two extremes of the same thing. So a dichotomy is not a division to you, it is the means by which two terms which would normally exclude each other in reference, are united in the same category. That is because your monist faith will not allow you to conceive of real ontological separation.

This is an abuse of language. — charleton

I don't think so, though I would like to see this idea properly developed and supported. "Evolution" refers to a particular theory. That theory is associated with the existence of living beings, and their activities. So there is a particular type of activity of living beings which is referred to as evolution. SX's claim is that this activity innovates, which means to make changes, and create new things, and this appears to be exactly what evolution does. The only remaining issue is the relationship to "consciousness". The evidence is that there isn't even a hint of "consciousness" as the word is normally used, in simple life forms, which have evolved in an innovative way.

So instead of denying that this is the case, we ought to look at how this is possible. How is it possible that an activity, which is not driven by a conscious mind, can innovate, and create new things? We can understand such activities of the human being, as being driven by consciousness, bit if we remove consciousness in order to account for these activities in non-conscious beings, then what drives these innovative activities in life in general? What is the agent of innovative activities, if it is not the conscious will?

Remember inertia? The first derivative of motion? The big deal is that "rest" isn't actually not going anywhere. It is simply a relative lack of motion. — apokrisis

This I take as a mistake, to define rest as a relative lack of motion, because it doesn't provide a real descriptive limit to motion. Now the concept of "inertia" for you is derived from motion, but as I explained already, "inertia" for me is derived from an observed temporal continuity of existence, a lack of change. You have no approach to this concept of lack of change from which the concept of inertia was really derived, because you define inertia as a derivative of motion. But your definition is mistaken, because the basic assumption involved with "inertia" is that things will stay the same, unless forced to change, and this assumption is then applied to motion. It is not derived from motion.

So in the actual physics of action, your presumptions about "rest" being anything else than an asymptotic limit on action is archaic metaphysics. — apokrisis

This betrays your closed minded, physicalist attitude. You are claiming that any assumption of the reality of anything other than what is demonstrated by "the actual physics of action" is "archaic metaphysics".

The issue which you are not paying attention to, is that any description of "the actual physics of action" which we may produce, is necessarily derived from fundamental, foundational assumptions, which act as real limitations to those descriptions. The descriptions produced are "derived" from the fundamental assumptions, they are not derived from the "actual actions". That's the way logic, and the human mind works, our descriptions are limited by the words we know and the ideas we associate with them.. We, as human beings, have no capacity to go beyond these fundamental assumptions in our descriptions, and so they provide the real limitations on our descriptions. The things being described provide no real limitations to our descriptions, as is evident from the fact that we can make false descriptions.

So, you mistakenly assume that the concept of inertia is derived from actual motion, when it is really derived from an assumption of rest, the foundational assumption that things will continue to exist in an unchanged way, as time passes. Now you have no approach toward understanding this foundational assumption, because you have excluded it from your conceptual structure by associating inertia with motion. And you support this conceptual structure with your foundational assumption that anything outside of this conceptual structure is "archaic metaphysics", which ought to be ignored.

So if discrete parts can overlap each other, then you have an interesting definition of "discrete" - one that seems to mean "continuous" as well. — apokrisis

Discrete things overlap each other all the time, but that doesn't make them continuous.

I see. You want to be so literal about "glue" that you mean actual glue - the material/efficient cause for how to discrete things became one continuous thing?

Have fun with your careful misunderstandings! — apokrisis

You said that purpose is the glue which holds the parts together to make the unity of a whole. If you didn't mean by "glue", the substance by which the parts are untied and held together, then what did you mean? The parts must be united by something, if it's not a substance like glue, and it's simply "purpose", then why didn't you simply say that purpose holds the parts together? You didn't say that because you know that it's nonsense. So you had to add that purpose is a "glue", because "glue" implies substance, and you know that there must be something substantial which holds parts together. Are you saying that purpose is a substance, like a glue, which unites parts to make a whole?

So yes, a more fundamental and well formed dichotomy is that of stasis~flux. Or absolute rest vs absolute motion.

Thus if we are talking about kinetics, temperature has this asymmetric direction. There is the spectrum of possible states that are anchored at the two ends of maximum physical action (the Planck heat) and minimum physical action (absolute zero). — apokrisis

I see you just want to repeat the same mistake with different terms. We seem to agree on this dichotomy of motion and rest. Now you want to refer to these as "the two ends of maximum physical action". But all "physical action", including what you call the two maximums, are by definition, within the category of motion. No type of action qualifies as rest. Are you prepared to recognize that rest is completely different from "physical action", and discuss what type of things might be in the category of rest, or are you satisfied with your category error, and contradictory claim that rest is an extreme type of motion?

A strong definition of temperature is one that is concretely bounded. So a kinetic theory of temperature defines heat in terms of motion. — apokrisis

OK, so lets take this as an example then. Heat is defined in terms of motion, so to be hot is like having lots of motion, and having less motion is to be less hot, or colder. Now hot and cold refer to the different degrees of motion.

Now, I want a real dichotomy, not just opposing terms referring to different degrees (hot and cold) within the same category (motion), but a real dichotomy. So I have to oppose heat, which is motion, to what is other from it, and this is rest. Now I have a real dichotomy, motion and rest. All the degrees of heat, which are described by hot and cold are placed in the category of motion. Do you see the need for the category of rest, in order that we can account for the reality of things that stay the same through time? Isn't this what continuous means, staying the same through time, not changing?

So physics understands temperature as a bounded spectrum. Opposing the hot and the cold is at least a start on getting to the root of the story. And now physics can define reality in terms of being bounded by the asymptotic limits of the absolutely hot and the absolutely cold. — apokrisis

I know that this is how "physics" understands these things, but we're discussing philosophy here, specifically ontology. Physics only deals with the physical, and this is why we need to go beyond physics, to metaphysics, in order to relate this category of things which physics deals with (motion), to reality as a whole. You seem to want to pigeonhole all of reality into this one category "what physics understands", with total disregard for the obvious fact that physics is a very limited field of study in relation to the vast whole of reality.

Check back and you will see that a proper notion of "an object" is that it is continuous with itself and discrete from the world. So the absolute separation from the world is the logical source of being able to claim the matching fact that the object is absolutely continuous with itself. — apokrisis

Janus already suggested this, that an object is continuous within itself, but it is obvious that an object is made of discrete parts, and the parts even overlap each other, and with other objects, so it is clear that an object is not continuous within itself. And, it is quite obvious that there can be no absolute separation of an object from the world, so I don't know how you could even suggest such a thing. If you are suggesting a temporal continuity, then we have the issues of my last couple of posts to deal with.

In the four causes Aristotelian view, formal cause is about constraint - the regulating presence of some enduring tendency, function or purpose. So organisms are defined as wholes rather than mere sets of parts because they are glued together by a common purpose. They have a generality or continuity that is real in being actually causal. That is why Aristotle could claim his hylomorphic substantialism. Form wasn't all accident. The glue of a purpose is what is essential to the continuity that makes anything an actual substance. — apokrisis

I've read most of Aristotle's material, and I never saw anything about an object being glued together by a common purpose. I think maybe that's something you are just making up. And you need to make this up because you refuse to respect the difference between formal cause and final cause. Are you saying that all the components of my computer are glued to together by the common purpose of being a computer? Sure, my computer was built with intent, or purpose, but it is not the intent, which holds the parts together. Intent, or purpose, may be influential in inspiring a person to put parts together into a unity, but it is clearly not the glue which holds the parts together.

It boggles that you claim to be any kind of Aristotelian. — apokrisis

I really don't claim to be Aristotelian, though I am very familiar with his work, as well as the work of others.

So one of us has defined it by grounding it as the opposite of the discrete or the divided - the standard dictionary definition, as it happens. — apokrisis

As I explained, defining a thing with its opposite doesn't ground it. We need to refer to something outside the category to give it meaning. That's the point I was bringing to your attention when I first engaged you in this thread. Defining cold as the opposite of hot, and hot as the opposite of cold, does not tell us what it means to be either hot or cold.

So, we've looked at all sorts of things which all seem to have discrete existence. In fact, as I was explaining to Janus, to be a thing is to be discrete. So, are you arguing that to be continuous is to be nothing, or that there is nothing which is continuous?

The other of us says it is "categorically different", but can offer no good reason for that claim. — apokrisis

Damn! I was under the false impression that you were reading my posts.

I can see where you are coming from insofar as 'multiplicity' is (or at least can be) less specific than 'collection'. This is shown by the fact that we can say "There is multiplicity in nature"; we can speak of 'multiplicity' or 'a multiplicity', whereas we cannot speak of 'collection' unless it is treated as a verb. So, if I say "There is a mutliplicity of objects in my room" it doesn't seem any different in meaning or in what it implies than saying "there is a collection of objects in my room", because both are referring to a precisely specific group of objects. — Janus

As I said in my first reply on this issue, you can use "multiplicity" in a similar way as "collection", but this just means that you are using each to refer to a whole. What we are discussing is the difference between referring to a number of distinct things, as distinct things, and referring to them as one whole. So we can refer to a multiplicity of objects in your room, or a collection of objects in your room, and the meaning is very similar. We are referring to a whole, all the objects in your room. It is the clearly defined boundaries of "objects in your room", which turns this collection, or multiplicity (however you want to call it) into one single object, a unity, or whole.

What was at issue is the principle of mereology which would be utilized here. We determine a defining feature, a principle whereby we differentiate these objects to be classed together, from those objects to be left aside, and this defining feature gives us "an object" which is the collection, or unity, the whole.

On the other hand, it seems more appropriate and suggestive of unity to say of the human body, as an example of organic unity, that it is a multplicity, than it does to say of it that it is a collection. — Janus

In this case, you are speaking about the human body as a unity. The principle of mereology which would be utilized here would be quite different because the things which we sense as a distinct objects, are naturally referred to as objects, wholes, or unities because that's how we sense them. So we call an object a whole, or a unity, because we sense it that way, so that becomes our principle of mereology. But when we sense objects as distinct objects, then we need a principle by which we class them together, such as "the objects in your room", and it is by this principle that they are considered to be a whole.

So this divine mind, is it the bit that is continuous? — apokrisis

I don't know. So far the idea of continuity has not been grounded. We really haven't agreed at all on a definition. You think it's at the opposite end of the spectrum from discrete, I think it is categorically different from discrete. It appears like continuity is some sort of assumption. We can think up this idea of continuity, so we figure that there must be something which corresponds to it.

On the other hand, the divine mind is brought in out of necessity, to account for what we experience as existence at the present. If we can establish an association between this, and the idea of continuity, then we might be able to say that the divine mind is the bit that is continuous, or at least related to continuity. This would depend on whether we assume any continuity involved with the passing of time, and if so, how we would relate the passing of time to continuity. Under the assumptions of the last post, it is impossible that the temporal existence of material objects at the present is continuous. It may be the case that the passing of time itself is continuous though, but this would require a separation between the passing of time and material existence, such that the passing of time would be independent of material existence. Then the divine mind might be associated with the passing of time. The divine mind seems to be other than the passing of time though, so if one of these is "the bit that is continuous, the other is probably not.

But inertial motion is a degree of freedom. — apokrisis

Since inertial motion is completely defined by past constraints, and "degrees of freedom" is how you refer to the future, I do not see how inertial motion is at all consistent with any degree of freedom.

If there's a reason I use "2" and not "3" for 2, then "2" is not arbitrary. The definition of arbitrary is that it is not based upon a system or reason, but it's just random or whim. Not every symbol is arbitrary, but some are based upon prior similar usage (as when we adhere to roots) and some languages attempt to make the word look like the thing it represents (like hieroglyphics). Regardless, though, I would agree that whatever the basis for why we have chosen a particular symbol, the typical user has no idea what it is. All of this is terribly irrelevant though because none of this requires any degree of faith. The reason I believe "2" represents 2 is through empirical evidence. Every time someone uses "2," I know they mean 2. If someone starts using "2" to mean 3, I'd correct the person because it would be contrary to what I empirically knew to be true, and the argument would consist of empirical examples of usage. — Hanover

Right, so isn't "empirical evidence" reliant on faith? The nature of time is such that whatever is empirical evidence, is now in the past. isn't it necessary to have faith in our systems of memory in order to claim that something empirical (in the past), is evidence to a present matter?

This reliance upon empirical evidence is not limited to language usage, and I wonder why you've chosen to use it as example, but it is used to know most things about the world. And, as I've said, I fully acknowledge having faith in the truth of empirical evidence (and in my ability to reason) as those things are foundational to any understanding of the world. — Hanover

You have claimed already, that this type of faith, having faith in empirical evidence, is a different type of faith, or a different sense of the word "faith", from faith in religious services. Let me see if I can draw out that difference. In the service it is declared that these items are the body and blood of Christ, but the empirical evidence is such that "the body and blood of Christ" refers to the person who died years ago. If I understand you correctly, you have more faith in the memory systems which provide the empirical evidence that "body and blood of Christ" refers to the person who died, than you have faith in the person performing the service saying this, which was bread and wine, are now body and blood of Christ.

In the one case, you refer to memory systems and have faith in the ability of the memory system. In the other case, one has faith in the ability of the person to describe what is occurring at the present time. It appears to me, that faith of the first kind, also requires faith of the second kind, because what happened at that time, had to be described. So faith of the first kind (faith in empirical evidence) has two levels of faith, faith of the second kind (faith in one's ability to describe what is occurring), as well as faith in the ability of the memory system.

So it appears to me that you have faith in the abilities of the people who described what occurred thousands of years ago, you have faith in the memory system employed, but you do not have faith in the person describing what is occurring now, at the Eucharist. You seem to believe that there is an inconsistency between the description thousands of years ago, and the description now, it is impossible that "body and blood of Christ" refer to these very same things.

Here's a question. If you have faith in that description from thousands of years ago, such that "body and blood of Christ" refers to that person who died back then, then what about the rest of the description, that he rose from the dead? Do you see what I mean? You have enough faith in the description to believe that "body and blood of Christ" refers to that person who died, yet you have no faith in the rest of the description. How is it the case that part of the description qualifies as "empirical evidence", yet another part does not? If the description is untrustworthy, shouldn't we dismiss the entire testimony as unreliable? Then why would you even believe that "body and blood of Christ" refer to some dude who lived thousand of years ago? And if this is the case, then there is no problem with the Church saying that these items are called "body and blood of Christ", because there is no reason to believe that these words refer to anything other than these items. There is no inconsistency in terminology. It is granted by fiat that these items will be known as "body and blood of Christ", and because this phrase cannot be reliably associated with anything else, there is no conflict.

I think you've defined "belief" and not "faith." I would define faith as belief inspired by something other than proof. It is a belief often the result of spiritual apprehension but sometimes the result of necessity. — Hanover

I think that "proof" is far too ambiguous here. In logic, "proof" refers to valid logical proceedings, but this leaves the matter of the soundness of the premises. What counts as a sound premise is debatable and what qualifies as "proof" is relative.

This categorization of two dogs as two objects and then on the other hand categorizing them as a group isn't mysterious and has nothing to do with transubstantiation. — Hanover

How two things become one, just by looking at them in a different way is very mysterious to me. But what is mysterious to me, and what is mysterious to you, are two different things. However, this is very relevant to transubstantiation, in two different ways. First, we have two different things, the guy who died, and the items of the Eucharist, and they become one under the name "body and blood of Christ". Second, we have the bread and wine, and the body and blood, two different things which become the same thing under the name "transubstantiation". So what is mysterious to me, and what is mysterious to you, are two different things, but they are actually one and the same thing, and that is how it is the case that two different things become one and the same thing. I find that very mysterious. What is mysterious to me, and what is mysterious to you, are two different things, but depending on how we look at them they are one and the same thing.

What I want to ask is: is time a mental or physical thing? To me, it looks like the former because it is possible to imagine a universe at absolute rest - no change at all - and in such a universe time is meaningless. So, if time seems real to us then time must be a peculiar characteristic of our universe and others like it. — TheMadFool

I agree with this, but I wouldn't class time as "mental" because that is ambiguous and confusing. "Mental" often implies that it is dependent on the human mind. Here, we want to say that time is not physical, but also not dependent on the human mind. So we have to have a category of non-physical, or immaterial things, which extends beyond the mental, to include time, and we also can place mental within that category. This means that what is proper to the human mind, as "mental", is not the limits of the non-physical, or immaterial.

So are you saying that the form in God’s mind is always completely particular? — apokrisis

I would say that this is a conclusion which must be made, the divine Forms are particular, as property of one divine mind, and they are present to us as particular things. And this is consistent with the notion of perfection and completeness which is commonly assigned to God. Also, it is consistent with Aristotle's law of identity, that an object has a perfection which is proper to itself.

Seems that this leads to more than a few problems regarding change - Janus’s point about the fact you are materially different every day. — apokrisis

There is no problem with change, in fact this perspective makes change very intelligible. The theological conception of time is quite different from that of physics because it focuses on the importance of the present, and "what is". The will of God is necessary to support the existence of material things, at each moment of passing time.

The reality of free will, and what you call the degrees of freedom which you assign to the future, indicates that there is no necessary continuity between the observed material existence of the past (physical constraints), and what will exist in the future. In principle, any material existence can be changed at any moment in time, by an immaterial power such as the mind. This indicates that the entire material universe must be created anew at each moment of passing time. That there is consistency in this "creating anew at each moment", with the appearance of continuity, is described as inertia.

In physics, inertia is taken for granted, but this is inconsistent with your assumption of degrees of freedom. So one or the other must be dismissed as an ontological misrepresentation. Either the degrees of freedom are not real, or inertia cannot be taken for granted. Under the theological representation, inertia must be supported at each moment of passing time by the will of God.

Again as Janus reminds, continuity of function or purpose seems a trivially obvious reply. — apokrisis

I didn't understand Janus' remarks about functionality, and I still don't. You say that its trivially obvious, but I don't see how one can conclude continuity from functionality. It appears like the claim is that if there is functionality then there is continuity, but I don't see the relationship. Perhaps you can explain.

Well. I guess there's nothing more to say then, since I don't interpret those terms the way you apparently do. — Janus

I already knew that this was the case. It was evident. I took my definitions directly from the Oxford dictionary though, so you may want to consider the possibility that you misunderstand these concepts. However, I know it is very likely that you could find some definitions to support your interpretation, so the misunderstanding is on my side as well. What does this indicate about the supposed existence of these concepts?

So does God imagine trees in general, or the particular kinds of trees like oak and larch, or even each particular tree, such as all the individuals in an oak forest? Is there any limit to the particularity of his generality? Or alternatively, any limit to the generality of his particularity? — apokrisis

It is particulars which I was talking about. I think I went through this with you on another thread. It is necessary to conclude that the Form of each individual thing precedes its material existence. This is necessary because the existence of material things is contingent. When a material thing comes into existence, we have to account for the reason why that particular thing, and not some other thing is the thing which came into existence. Therefore the Form of the thing must be prior to the thing's material existence, as the reason why the thing is what it is. It is a formulation of the principle of sufficient reason. Your metaphysics of emergence seems to oppose the principle of sufficient reason.

And the reason for that unity is....some kind of continuity? — apokrisis

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I wouldn't equate unity with continuity at all, they seem quite incompatible. The symbol "5" refers to one discrete unit, or it means a group of 5 discrete individuals. I do not see how you can impose "continuity" on this concept.

I cannot see any reason why you would think "collection" implies "one whole", whereas "multiplicity" does not. — Janus

Collection; a group of things collected together. Multiplicity: a great number. Whole: all there is, entire, complete. Do you see how "collection" implies a finite group, with completion to that group, a whole. All there is of that group is in that collection. On the other hand, "multiplicity" implies no such wholeness, or completion, it may even be infinite.

For example take the collection ( in the sense of 'set') of things in this room; they do not form a whole in any but the associative sense that they happen to all be in this room. — Janus

Of course the collection forms a whole, it is the whole of "things in this room", all there is, entire, complete. Any set is a whole, by definition. Here's what Wikipedia says is Cantor's definition of set:

"A set is a gathering together into a whole of definite, distinct objects of our perception [Anschauung] or of our thought—which are called elements of the set."

I could equally refer to them as ' the multiplicity of things in this room'. — Janus

Yes, you could equally say that there is a multiplicity of things in the room, but that is to say something completely different. As a collection, or "set", the things in the room are referred to as one object. As a multiplicity, the things in the room are referred to as numerous objects.

An arbitrary collection of disparate, unrelated things is a multiplicity, but then so is a collective of functionally interrelated things, such as for example, the human body. — Janus

Again, you are saying the same thing. By designating it a "collection", you have declared that it is one whole, a collection. So it is fundamentally a whole. If you remove the designation of "collection", then you have a "multiplicity" and either this multiplicity is a bounded whole, or we'd have to consider that it is infinite. It's simply the way that our language works, we refer to things, wholes, and it's very difficult to get out of that paradigm, because everything then becomes unintelligible.

It makes mereology emergent rather than fundamental. So yes, ontically it gets the story the right way around. It explains how hierarchical organisation can arise in nature. — apokrisis

The "right way around" as you assert. But I've demonstrated to you, in a number of different ways, in a number of different threads, that your ontology is backward, because it is illogical. You put the part as prior to the whole, but this is logically impossible. It seems intuitive to you, for some strange reason, that organization has emerged from complete disarray, but this is demonstrably unintelligible.

How does this story work when we are talking about nature? Humans can invent notions about beds (and what use God would have for a bed is a mystery). But where is this double representation deal when it comes to an oak tree or a river? — apokrisis

This is the structure which Plato produced to explain the existence of ideas, and ideas are demonstrated to us by human beings. How Ideas relate to natural things was developed later by the Christian theologians in the theories concerning creation.

Does the ur-oak tree and ur-river exists as a particular ideal in God’s mind? And how particular would it be, given variety seems an essential part of natural things? (Natural law always seems to have maximum generality according to scientific discovery at least.)

Then in what sense is material nature trying to make an ideal oak tree or ideal river? How is universality the medium connecting two individual representations. Does nature employ a mind when it produces its paler imitations of the divine ideal? — apokrisis

I think that the general sense of this would be that the Form of the individual thing exists in God's mind prior to it's material existence, such that the ideal Form is the cause of the thing's existence. This does not necessitate determinism, as God's will is free. Under these principles, which are more religious than Platonic, though they may be derived through Neo-Platonism, the material thing follows the immaterial Form of the thing, like a representation of it, and the universal, as the human conception follows the material thing as a representation. But it's complex, because human beings create things as well, and in the act of creation, the human being produces an idea or form, and the material object follows from this, just like God's creation in nature.

Your account needs to say something exact about why fiveness can be regarded as a unity. The continuity has to be explained on logical grounds, not simply treated as a matter of mathematical fiat. A meaningless convention. — apokrisis

That's the way "5" is regarded in mathematics. It is the number five, a single unity. It is not regarded as "fiveness", it is regarded as a collection of five, a unit of five. If this were not the case, then 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, would have the same meaning as 5. But they do not have the same meaning, the former is five separate ones, while the latter is five united as one. So two plus three is equal to 5, but it is not the same as five. This is what I learned in grade school. Johnny has two apples, and Bobby has three apples. We describe this as a group of three (3), and a group of two (2). This is not described as five (5). But if we put them together (add them), then we have five (5). A group of three and a group of two is different from a group of 5.

The point being, that unity is implied by "5" when the symbol is used within the mathematical system. It is a mathematical fiat, but it is not meaningless convention it is a very useful convention. The fact that it is useful says something about the reality of unities.

Crucial to the notion of fiveness is that it is a permutation symmetry. The five parts that compose the whole can be swapped around without making any difference to their total number. The set has cardinality but not ordinality. And fiveness, in representing pure cardinality/complete lack of ordinality, thus can become itself an ordinal part. It can be placed after fourness and before sixness. — apokrisis

You call this "crucial", but I think it's irrelevant. What is at issue is the unity. It is self-evident that the members of the unity are treated as being "equal", or the same, because what is being dealt with here are values. Because 1 and 1 and 1 and 1 and 1 are all of the same value, and the entire system is a system of values, then they are the same. But the values united, as 5, is not the same thing as the five individual values, 1 and 1 and 1 and 1 and 1. Whether the values are united as one, or they are separate, makes a difference.

So here we now have the principle of indiscernibles - the idea that there are differences that don’t make a difference. A can now equal A to the measurable degree that someone agrees nothing essential is changed by the finer detail. — apokrisis

I think you misunderstand the principle of indiscernibles. It actually indicates the exact opposite of what you claim here. It indicates that we cannot disregard any differences in our designation of identity. Because it states that if there are no differences between what appears as two distinct things, then they are necessarily one and the same thing. So we must account for all differences or else we might mistakenly identify two distinct things as one and the same thing.

All through this thread, MU and creative show how badly metaphysics can go astray in presuming identity as brute fact rather than being relative to some principled degree of indifference. — apokrisis

Identity is a brute fact, that's exactly how the law of identity was stated by Aristotle, a thing is the same as itself. This means that any thing has an identity proper to itself, and this is not relative to anything.

I'm not following your argument that "arbitrary" = "faith." I don't see the correlation and I don't understand why I can't accept that we use all sorts of arbitrary symbols to describe reality without having faith. — Hanover

If it's not readily apparent to you that the use of arbitrary symbols requires faith, then you may not grasp this even with an explanation. But it's very simple. There is a reason why you use the particular arbitrary symbol which you do, rather than some other arbitrary symbol. The reason is that you have faith that the other person will understand better, what you want to say, by your use of that particular symbol rather than some other. Since the symbol is arbitrary, there is no other reason for you to use it except that you have faith it will get you the desired result, the other person will understand you. All communication is based in faith.

There are foundational beliefs that anchor us into reality, sure. We might accept that our senses report to us what is occurring in the real world, and we might accept that reason and logic provide us insights into reality. Those foundational beliefs might at some level have to be accepted on faith, simply because a foundational belief can't have a further foundation; it's the origin of our belief.

If you're saying that your foundational belief is whatever the Catholic Church happens to tell you is true, I'd say that foundation is a much less rudimentary foundation than mine that no doubt relies upon many other more rudimentary beliefs, thus making it not truly foundational. — Hanover

I think you're just talking out of your hat here. You seem to have no idea as to how faith is foundational to knowledge, as you do not even seem to realize that faith is necessary for the use of symbols. How do you define faith? I would define it as confidence inspired by trust. Do you agree with this? If so, do you see how faith is necessary for communication to succeed? And because communication depends on faith, that's why deception is so easy for those with the will to deceive, because trust is taken for granted when we communicate.

But deception rapidly destroys the capacity for communication because the deception becomes evident, and we loose faith in those who demonstrate deception. That is why it is impossible that transubstantiation is deception, because it has persisted. We might have a start toward understanding each other if we begin with this point. If we can agree that it is not deception, because it has persisted, then we can proceed from here. Is it just an old club, with an odd use of symbols for purposes other than communication, like mathematics is, or is it something else?

You find it mysterious why people notice similarities among things and group them into categories? — Hanover

I didn't think you'd understand what I was saying there. I'll explain it again. We have a symbol "2". What 2 means is that there is one distinct object and another distinct object, two distinct objects. But in mathematical proceeding, the symbol "2" refers to the number 2, which is taken as one unity. So in it's true meaning, it means two distinct objects, but in the proceedings of the mathematicians, it refers to something contrary to this, one unity. How is it possible that 2 means two distinct things, but it also refers to one unity which is known as the number 2? Either there is two distinct things symbolized by 2, or there is one unity symbolized by 2, but to claim both is contradictory. But this is what is the case, what 2 means is completely different from what 2 refers to. So how this contradiction can be what is the case, is no less of a mystery to me, then what is a mystery to you, that "body and blood of Christ" means some guy who died thousands of years ago, and also refers to the objects of the Eucharist in the proceedings of the Church.

don't think that's right. Again, I think you attribute far too much significance to the notion of the individual. It was barely present in classical philosophy. Individuals only exist because they are expressions of the universal. — Wayfarer

I really don't know what else to tell you, except to read some Aristotle. Did you read the quote I put on the other thread? The individual is central to Aristotelian philosophy. From his law of identity, which refers to a thing, through "substance" which refers to the individual, through his physics, which employs matter and form to account for the fact that individual things change, through his biology which assumes the soul, to account for the existence of a living body; and his metaphysics, where he states that the important question for metaphysicians to ask, is not why is there something rather than nothing (in the general sense), but why is this thing, the thing it is, and not something else.

And as I argued in the other thread, Aristotle derived this perspective from Plato. You know Aristotle was a student of Plato. The difference is that Plato came to the importance of the individual towards the end of his life, in his later philosophy, so it forms more of a conclusion to his philosophizing, whereas Aristotle takes the importance of the individual as a starting poinmt. With Plato, all his early material focuses on universal Ideas. It's after the Republic, where he sees the need to assume "the good", that he starts to shift his attention toward the creation of individual things.

Notice first, that Plato speaks of "the good", and this is commonly misrepresented in modern presentations of Platonism, as the Idea of good, or the Form of good. You can see that this misrepresentation changes the nature of "the good" from an individual to a universal. But the good is necessarily an individual, as "the ideal". And this is the conclusion he reaches at the end of The Republic, that there is necessarily a perfection to any idea, which is the Ideal. Positing the perfect idea, the Ideal, allows that we can all have a different idea of what "just" means, while there is still, "the Ideal" idea of just, somewhere that we haven't yet grasped. This is very important, because the fact that we all have different ideas concerning things like "just", is a major problem for those who claim participation, i.e., that the idea we each have of "just" is a participation in an independent universal. How can our ideas be a participation in an independent universal when our ideas of the very same thing are so different?

Once Plato gets to the Ideal, the whole structure of idealism must be turned around, inverted. The independent Idea can no longer be conceived of as a universal, because it is necessarily a particular, the perfect, the ideal, and this is where the Neo-Platonists derive the One. For Plato though, by the end of The Republic, he proposes an Idealist structure of a double representation. There is a divine Idea, of "bed" for example, (we could say God's idea of bed), which is the perfect idea of what a bed is. The carpenter attempts to copy this ideal, with his own idea of the best bed, then proceeds to build a bed in representation. So we have two levels of representation. The human mind produces the universal, which is an attempt to represent the divine idea. what is apprehended as the perfect universal. With the use of the universals which the human beings have created, they proceed to produce individual objects. Notice how the entire structure starts and ends with individuals. The divine, "Ideal" bed is an individual. The products produced by human beings are individuals. The "universal" is a medium between these two particulars, the ideal particular, and the material particular which the human being creates.

Why would you consider something that is made op of parts to be a unity rather than a multiplicity? — Janus

It is dictated by the statement "something made up of parts". To call it "something" indicates that it is one, unity. if we called it a group of things, rather than "something", then it would be a multiplicity.

Look at the symbol, "5". Depending on how you choose to interpret this you could choose that it signifies one number, the number 5, which is a unity of parts, or you could choose that it signifies a multiplicity. However, the rules of interpretation which are required for mathematical proceedings. dictate that we interpret it as one unit. That is the essence of the symbol "5", that this particular multiplicity exists as one unit, represented as 5, so it is treated within mathematics as one unity. That's how it must be interpreted. If "5" were interpreted as a multiplicity, then each object within that multiplicity would have to be dealt with individually, and the mathematical process would be thwarted. So "5" represents a unity not a multiplicity, because this is what is required for proper mathematical proceedings.

Boundaries are notoriously imprecise, so it seems we cannot rely on them to define what counts as a discrete thing. Say a discrete thing is an individual; the etymology of 'individual' is 'not divisible', and yet something made up of parts can be divided into those parts, or may even be able to be arbitrarily divided. Would you say you ceased to be an individual if I cut off your arm, for example? — Janus

I don't really see the meaning of the question here. To remove a part from a whole makes that part no longer part of the unity, but it is an individual on its own. To remove my arm from me makes me less, in size for example, as an individual, but still an individual. But my arm is also an individual now. Notice that examples like this are just exercises in interpretation. We might disagree on interpretation, so we'd have to discuss to see what exactly is meant by the example. If we have "5", and we remove "1", we then have "4", and "1". 4 is not the same as 5, but they are both unities.

I haven't read up much on mereology, but as far as I know it is a contentious field; so I'm not convinced there would be an unambiguous "mereological principle" that could be relied upon. Now I can say, for example, that my body is a unity of discrete parts, so what kind of "unity" is that, if not a functional unity? And to think of unity in functional terms would seem to be thinking in terms of systems rather than entities. — Janus

That is exactly the point, just precisely what the mereological principle might be is of contention, but that does not negate the fact that one is needed to account for the existence of unities, if we are to give any unities the ontological status of real existence. That it is contentious indicates that we do not even know what a unity is. If we deny the need for such, then unities are illusions, and all we have is multiplicities. But sense information tells us that we have individual objects, unities, and they are real. Furthermore, if there is nothing real to account for unities then the assumptions of mathematics, that 5 is a unity, for example, are completely ungrounded. Unity is the basic assumption of numbers.

Of course we do commonly speak and think mereologically, if that is just taken to mean something like "in terms of parts and wholes". But we are here questioning whether or not that thinking, on analysis, remains unambiguous. I don't think we can fairly claim that it does. — Janus

That what "unity" refers to , or what it is, remains ambiguous, gives a rational foundation for doubt and skepticism with respect to all mathematics, and the entire epistemological system, which is grounded in the identity of the individual. Until we know what it means to be a unity, and validate the reality of a unity, then all knowledge based in the assumption of unity (including all mathematical knowledge) can be considered to be unsound.