OK, well, I'm glad we can both agree that in the universe as most people understand it, our world is determined. — MikeL

Where do you get this idea, that "most people" understand our universe as determined. Physicists make up a small portion of the people in the world, and not even all of them think that the world is determined. I would say that it's more likely that most people think that the world is not determined, because this is the default position produced by living and choosing. It only seems to be a small number of determinist philosophers who really think that the universe is determined.

So if now is happening now and the sacking of Rome is also happening now, why can't a person say the same thing next year? — MikeL

There's a substantial difference between future and past, that's why, I've gone over this numerous times. You deny this to claim determinism, but it is evident in all of our activities. Without this substantial difference, there is no such thing as "now".

It doesn't make sense to preclude the future from the now - after all, the fact that the time line has been redrawn in the 'now' format is telling us that there is no separation of time points on the timeline. Now is one gigantic superposition. Like it or not, that superposition includes the future as two weeks from now I will still be having that 'now' experience. It all becomes determined. — MikeL

Yes it does make sense to preclude the future, because time has not yet come to pass in that realm, so there is literally no time there. And there is separation between time points, because there is two dimensions of time, one which accounts for the breadth of the time points, and one which accounts for the separation (temporal duration) between points. There is no such points in the future, nor is there temporal duration, in the future, because time has not yet passed in the future. Any suggested points, or temporal duration, in the future, are purely hypothetical.

So, we are no longer even arguing that the present- the place we make choice- is determined, only what it is determined by. And you say it is determined by the Platonic Forms on the future side of the present. But I thought you wanted people in the present to have free choice. How can they when they live in a determined world - as determined by the Platonic Forms of the future? Isn't that the argument you're trying to use against me? — MikeL

As I explained, the Forms offer a seemingly endless numbers of possible combinations, for determining what will occur.. Whichever combinations occur, this determines what happens. People with free choice can choose combinations and make them occur. So as much as you interpret this as "the world is determined", part of this determining is carried out by the free will , which is not itself determined. Either you should interpret this as "part of the world is not determined", the part where free will is, or that the free will is separate from the world which you see as determined.

Lucky for me my bed keeps emanating in my bedroom each present moment from the past - although at times I think the Forms emanate my wallet and keys to other areas of the house. :) — MikeL

Right, you should always be wary because someone with free will could cause something unexpected, and also undesirable, to happen to you. That's just the nature of reality. Neo-Platonic Forms and such are needed to describe this aspect of reality.

If time has not come into existence in the future yet, then we only have space in the future. Space is full of spatial relations - it is determined, just like the past. Time when it comes along merely sweeps over it, creating the illusion of movement, just like flipping the pages of book with an animated comic drawn on them. — MikeL

No, that's a faulty conclusion, to say that if there is no time in the future, then there must be space in the future. There is neither of these, and that's why reality is so hard to grasp.

There is no contradiction. Human beings can change their world, that is why their determined paths through time are so complex, rather than straight lines. Do you not think that when Caesar decided to cross the Rubicon he made the decision to do so? - a decision you yourself have conceded was determined. — MikeL

No, you are misrepresenting what I said. I wouldn't say that a free choice is determined. I would say that the activities which occur as the result of a free choice are determined. They are determined by that free choice, but I wouldn't say that the choice itself is determined. Do you see the difference?

Your theory to prove that the universe is not determined wants to separate time into its own dimension separate from space, but the problem is that it does not mean space no long exists. — MikeL

I already went through the reasons why we must assume that space doesn't exist prior to the present. It's all supported by empirical evidence concerning how human beings have been observed to change the world. It is this empirically based principle which leads to the conclusion that time needs to be separated from space.
You demonstrate a misunderstanding of these principles.

Trying my best to figure out something to debate about, what would your take be on the hypothesis that meaning, of itself, is non-phenomenal information?* So, for instance, in the examples of the OP where the same meaning applies to different phenomenal information, the meaning itself is non-phenomenal information (and hypothetically the same) whereas the various means of obtaining it will all be phenomenal information and thereby uniquely different. — javra

Here again, we have the issue of "the 'same' meaning" assigned to different phenomenal information. As I explained, I take this to be contradictory. If the two distinct phenomenal occurrences really had the same meaning to you, you would not be able to tell them apart, because it is by virtue of differences in what each of them means to you, that you distinguish one from the other.

A different example in my attempts to keep this simple: “four”, “4”, and “IV” serve as three different bodies of visually phenomenal information yet they all convey the same non-phenomenal information (the same meaning being identical to itself in all three, phenomenally different cases). — javra

I do not believe that these three really have the same meaning to anyone. What I believe is that we have been trained to focus on the essential points of meaning, while disregarding the accidentals. So it is through this training that we come to assert that all these different symbols have "the same meaning". But really they have no more the same meaning than two human beings are the same by virtue of being human beings.

So the meaning of “4” has a form different from the meaning of “5”, for instance, but its form as meaning is noumenal: and thereby ontically distinct from the phenomenal information it is conveyed by to those who can so interpret the meaning of the given phenomena. (Alternatively, from the phenomenal information of the imagination one uses to convey the meaning to oneself.) — javra

The point is, if I describe to you what 4 means to me, and also what IV means to me, these descriptions will not be the same. I will surely refer to the second as a Roman Numeral, and I will not use this to refer to the first. Likewise, "4" means something different to me depending on the context. It could be a person's age (Joe is 4), the time (meet me at 4), etc.. And I think that if you asked a number of different people what four means, they would likely not use the same words to describe this. That is why I think that this premise, that the same meaning is conveyed by different phenomena is not an acceptable premise.

Meaning is located in a persn's mind, nowhere else. — Galuchat

There are many problems with this perspective. First, as I described, it dissolves the distinction between creating meaning, and interpreting meaning. If all instances of meaning are within one's mind, then each instance is a case of creating meaning. So we can proceed to ask, what is it which exists in the physical world which we interpret. And in the case of language, we can answer this by saying that it is something created with the intent of making you create a certain meaning in your mind. Now we have two acts of creation to account for, creating the physical symbols, and creating the meaning in the mind.

From my perspective, the author creates meaning, within the physical world, by rearranging existing things, creating a particular order, which is meaning. The interpreter interprets the meaning, and what exists in the mind is an interpretation, not the meaning itself. There is only one act of creation, and this is when the symbols are given physical existence. The act of interpreting cannot be an act of creating, or else the interpreter is free to create whatever meaning one wants when interpreting.

It's a very extensive argument to go through the different points for and against these two positions, but I can point to some difficulties with yours. You will have difficulty with "correct meaning", or "objective meaning", as the meaning of a statement is dependent on subjective interpretation. You will also have difficulty giving context its appropriate role in meaning.

An author encodes the semantic information in their mind into a physical form (e.g., a book) suitable for transmission to others. When that transmission (physical information) is received (read) and decoded (interpreted) it becomes semantic (meaningful) information in another person's mind. — Galuchat

From your stated premise, you cannot call this a transmission of meaning, because the meaning is only created within the mind. You might call it "information", that which is transmitted, but this creates an unnecessary divide between information and meaning, when "information" is generally used to refer to a type of meaning, objective, or correct meaning. So you would have to say that the person creates meaning, then converts the meaning into information, which is transmitted to the other, and the other converts the information back into meaning.

But what really happens, is that the person has the words, which are the symbols, right inside one's mind. So there is no transformation between what is in one's mind, and the physical words. The same symbols (words) exist within one's mind as do outside of one's mind. We must not be distracted by that unnecessary division.

If we separate what the words mean, from the words themselves, then we could say that the meaning is in the mind only. But since the words, as well as the meaning exist within the mind, this separation is not easy. We could ask what is meant by a particular statement, and the answer would be more words, so this doesn't help with the separation. Meaning and words are still united. I think that we can only bring into effect such a separation if we point to things outside the mind. Then we have a separation, the words are in the mind, and the meaning, which is the things referred to by the words, is outside the mind. So to uphold that separation we have to say that meaning is outside the mind.

I agree that your concept of "meaning" presents this difficulty. However, information is not a property, it is an object which can be physical and/or psychophysical. — Galuchat

I do not think that any object can be both physical and psychophysical (though I don't know exactly what you mean by this), because this would be a category error. I understand psychophysical to refer to the relationship between physical and psychological. It appear to me, like you have just made up another category, such that if you cannot determine whether X is a property of the physical, or a property of the psychological, you make another category, saying that X is not a property of either of these, but it's an object in the newly created category of psychophysical.

In addition to providing a definition of "information", it would be helpful if you could provide a definition of "data", otherwise I have no idea what you mean when using these terms (though I suspect it is substantially different from what I mean). — Galuchat

I don't like the word "data", and I rarely use it. You were using it, so I tried to reply in a way consistent with your usage. It appears like I don't understand your usage, so l'll refrain from using it and only ask for clarification from you, when necessary.

1/9 = 0.1111111111 repeating, agreed?

So if I multiply both sides by 9, I get 9/9 = 0.99999999 correct? So how are the two not equal? I think the idea behind this is rather that decimal notation cannot capture the value of a number to the same precision as fractions can. — Agustino

You cannot actually reach a conclusion when you multiply a repeating decimal. You have to round it off in order to perform the procedure. So when you say that .11111 repeating, times 9, equals .99999 repeating, you are just assuming this because you cannot actually complete the task. Demonstrate for yourself, by dividing 9 into .99999 repeating. You'll keep placing another 1 until you decide that you'll keep on doing this forever, so you designate it as repeating. But this decision is based on some inductive principle, rather than a mathematical principle.

But I agree with what you say about fractions. Some ratios, like pi, cannot be properly expressed in numerical notation. So these ratios are designated as irrational, and this is in way contradictory, an irrational ratio. We could look into the nature of these irrational ratios, to speculate why they exist, which I have done before. It appears like when we move from one spatial dimension to two spatial dimensions, there is an inherent incommensurability between the two systems of coordinates. So for instance, a circle's diameter is one dimension, and the circumference is two dimensions, and there is a incommensurability between them. Likewise, two perpendicular sides of a square represent equal distances from a point, in two different dimensions. But the hypotenuse which relates these two equal distances is incommensurable, just like the circumference of a circle which represents equal distance from a point in two dimensions.

There are other interesting features of fractions, such as those found in wave representations like in music. I think that the study of ratios ought to be a science in itself.

If you want to say they are not equal, then what number is there between them? Two numbers that are not equal are after-all separated by another number. The problem of mathematics is that continuity cannot really be broken into discreteness without creating such paradoxes. — Agustino

So I don't think it's a question of if .99999 repeating is not equal to 1, then there must be a number in between them. It is that .99999 repeating is not really a number, because numbers are definite, conclusive, as you say, discrete, like 1 is. But .99999 repeating is inconclusive, indefinite, expressing an unending continuity, So it's not a number. It signifies something which cannot be expressed as a number. This is similar to the categorical separation you explain to apokrisis above. We use "equal" within the category of mathematics, but .99999 repeating is outside of this category so "equal" cannot be applied. Once we round off the repeating decimal, it is expressed in the form of a number, but it's true nature has been compromised in order to do this.

I propose we define physical as whatever has a position in space. Information always has a location in space if you look at it in Aristotelian and not Platonic fashion. So in-so-far as this is true, information is physical - this is because information does not exist independently of the physical structures that transmit it - hylomorphism. — Agustino

This definition is problematic. Space is conceptual. We have concepts of space, and these are developed to help us understand and use physical objects. When you say that "information always has a location in space", you appeal to a concept of space which allows that things have a fixed position in some sort of fixed space. But this is a very naïve concept of space, because things really don't have fixed positions. Furthermore, much information is known to be associated with the activities of space rather than things assumed to be in fixed positions. So this type of definition is rather inadequate.

I think that "meaningful" implies that the information has already been interpreted. — Galuchat

This is not really true though. The author of a piece of information puts meaning into that piece. And this act of creating is completely different from the act of interpreting. So it is not true that "meaningful" implies that the thing has been interpreted. There are two distinct, but very related senses of "meaningful", one implies that the object has been created with intent, the other that it has been interpreted. One does not necessarily require the other, such that naturally occurring things, like geological structures, can be interpreted as informational, without assuming an author, and things created by an author can be said to exist as meaningful things, despite not being interpreted.

If we conflate these two distinct senses of "meaningful", one might insist that naturally occurring structures, must have been created by an author to be meaningful, or, that something created by an author must be interpreted to be meaningful.

That would depend on how information is defined. How would you define information in a general sense (i.e., one which takes into account its physical and mental manifestations)? — Galuchat

I hope that answered this question. I would define "information" in such a way as to separate these two distinct senses. In both cases, information may be physical, meaning the property of physical things, but it is not necessarily physical in each case.

But this is where the difficulty arises. Like any other property, we can abstract the property from the object, and start talking directly about the property without necessarily attributing it to any object, as if the property is an object. In this way, the property becomes an immaterial object, a concept. So for example, we can take the property of being red, and talk about "red" itself, as if it were an object, what does it mean to be red, etc. Now we have made "red" which was a property of some objects, into an object itself. We can't assign physical existence to "red", the concept, but we can assign physical existence to red as the property of an object. The same is the case for "information". We can assign physical existence to information, as the property of an object, but "information", in the conceptual form, without being attributed to a physical object, can't have physical existence.

But the mathematical aspect of data doesn't end with MTC. I find Floridi's comment, "The universe is fundamentally composed of data, understood as dedomena..," intriguing. Is he referring to geometry as a transcendental or abstract universal which constrains that which is physical and that which is psychophysical? Do Aristotelian forms figure into this equation? — Galuchat

If we invert things, we can assume that the immaterial concept, "information" is the object. Then we can claim that the physical universe is a property of that immaterial object. So the physical universe is seen as a property of the immaterial object, the concept of information. I would say that this is imaginary.

That would be misinformation. — Galuchat

But how would you distinguish information from misinformation? In the example, it's easy because I described it as misinformation. But just like stuff we call "knowledge", sometimes later turns out to be wrong, so stuff we call "information" may later turn out to be misinformation. This is the problem, with associating information with data. If we take a look at some collection of data, we have no way of knowing whether it's information, or misinformation.

But the fact that the 'physical medium' can be completely changed, while retaining the same information, indicates that the information itself is not physical. — Wayfarer

This argument is very problematic as well. The word "same" here is used in a very unphilosophical way. You are saying that two distinct physical occurrences convey the same information, when this is impossible or else we could not call them distinct occurrences. It's like saying that two cars of the same make and model are the same car. The only reason that the occurrences may be said to be distinct is that they convey different information. Each time the information is represented in a different medium, the information there is not actually "the same". The interpretation will vary depending on the medium. Each time a statement is translated from one language to another, the information conveyed by that statement does not stay the same. Also, when different people interpret the same statement, the meaning which is taken away by each,, is not the same for each. These issues with the notion of "the same", indicate that the information really is a property of the physical structure, and the immaterial aspect, how the information is interpreted, remains within the individual human mind.

So, you are abandoning the notion of space-time and proposing a whole new theory of the universe here to support the argument that the future isn't determined? Well, that's one way to go about it. — MikeL

That is correct. The problem with the space-time conception is that it makes time the fourth dimension of space. But a proper understanding of the passing of time, as a necessary condition for spatial existence, will demonstrate that time should rather be the 0th dimension. This allows for the reality of the non-spatial existence which we understand as ideas and concepts, which are demonstrated to have causal efficacy over the material world. Then we can comprehend real non-dimensional existence, and activity within non-dimensional points. This will shed a new light on the problems of quantum physics because it will enable us to comprehend a real non-dimensional matrix, rather than the inadequate field theory.

You told me that the present had duration. How long is that duration? Is it less than the duration of the entire timeline? There are two conceivable answers.
1. No, the duration is the same - in which case the entire timeline is the present. The present is now. So the entire timeline is happening right now. If that is the case then it is determined.

2. Yes, the duration of the present is shorter than the timeline. In this case the present will run out before it reaches the end of the timeline. Having reached the end of its duration time will freeze. There will be no further progress into the future. — MikeL

You've forgotten one thing though, time as we know it, only exists as the present comes to pass. So the "entire timeline" is from now until what we call the beginning of time. The real timeline cannot extend into the future because time has not come into existence there yet. That answers #1. The second thing is what I said about the human experience of the present. What we call "the present" is limited to how we experience the present. So depending on the context, one might use "the present" to refer to a second, a minute, the day, the year, whatever arbitrary duration one chooses.

The only difference I am proposing, from how we currently use "the present", is that we cannot include any future time in "the present". So if I say "the present hour", it is the hour which has just past. The present minute is the minute which just past, etc.. The future is separated out, as having had no time yet.

Thus, for the argument to stay alive, in addition to duration you might also invoke a breadth for the present and have the breadth span the entire timeline. The breadth is at right angles to the duration of the present. Thus when the present moves it does not move from past to future, but rather sideways across the timeline, so that all instants of the timeline occur now. As you can see though this solution also proves that the future is determined. — MikeL

The breadth of time is at a right angle to the flow of time, and it's magnitude is a representation of how we experience the present. So we have a time line created by the "flow of time", which begins at the point of "now", and extends into the past. The beginning point, what we call by the name "now", is not a zero dimensional point though. We have to allow for this dimensionality of the point which we call the present now, because if there was none, there could be no motion or activity whatsoever, at the now. But we observe activity at the now, therefore the now has some sort of temporal duration. However, it cannot be the same sort of duration which the timeline expresses because the time line only allows for points in time. If the point of the now has breadth, duration, then the whole timeline must be redrawn to allow that the timeline has breadth.

OK, imagining for a second that none of what I said proves determinism, the question becomes about the interface between the future and the present. Where does this occur? The present is a duration of time which encapsulates me but there is no nebulous haze of future that I can see around me. It is filled with both space and time - nothing is outside of space or time, but we have established that space is determined. Everything in space has a place and is performing an action of some sort. Therefore, the bubble of time you are calling the present must also be determined. It must, at the very least, become determined at the start of the duration of the present. So now you must have not only a determined past, but also a determined present. — MikeL

You are making a false representation here, referring to "the future that I can see around me". What you see around you is the activity of things. The activity is the result of this process which is the future becoming the past (time passing) This occurs at the present. This activity is "determined", but it is determined by the Platonic Forms, which exist on the future side of the present, it is not determined by what has occurred in the past. Because the present has breadth, the Forms may interact with each other during the process of emanation, at the present. There is an association between the length and breadth of time such that a wider part of last moment is related to a narrower part of this moment. . This interaction provides for the premise that no one particular Form has absolute power of determination over what will occur, at any particular moment, unless there was an omnipotent God or some such thing. The possibilities for interaction of the Forms, are endless, so the possibilities for actions at the present are likewise endless.

So there is no interface between the future and the present, the interface is between the future and the past, and this is what we call the present. Consider that "space" is nothing but a conception which helps us to understand the existence of physical objects. There is no actual space independent from our minds, only things existing. Instead of positing a fixed "space", within which things exist and move around, we need to adjust the concept of space, uniting it with the concept of existing things, such that the things are space, and the activity of things can be understood as the activity of space. Space is in no way fixed, it is defined according to what exists there.

How much more determined can you get than a state of being that is eternal? If it is outside of time, it doesn't change. — MikeL

The Forms are only outside of time, to the extent that the concept of "time" is currently defined by spatial movements and activities. So the Forms are eternal (outside of time) in relation to this concept of time, which ties time to spatial existence. As soon as we adjust our conception of time, such that space is understood as active and emergent, then we can talk about time prior to spatial existence. This allows that the Forms have actual existence in time, but in a time when there is no spatial existence.

Of course we can make choices. But the choices are fated. The universe is determined. — MikeL

Insisting that the universe is determined doesn't answer my question of why you contradict yourself. You said it is a fact that human beings can change their world, but you also claim that what's to be, in the future, is already determined, just hidden behind a curtain. So how is it that human beings can change their world when what's to be is just hidden from us. I don't see how this allows for change. You don't really believe that human beings can change their world, do you?

Reason has completely departed the scene. — apokrisis

I've been telling you this from the very beginning, your position is completely irrational. On your part, reason hasn't yet come on the scene, you just regurgitate nonsense.

Floridi defines information as well-formed data which is meaningful. Are your viewpoints amenable to this definition? — Galuchat

No, I don't think that I agree with this, because "data" implies that the information has already been interpreted, and this would mean that it cannot be information unless it has been interpreted. So why would we say that relationships which have not yet been interpreted are not information?

There is a dual problem here, two extremes. One is the question of whether relationships between things, which have not yet been interpreted by a mind, can be called information. The other extreme, which I already outlined, is the question of whether described relationships, which cannot be demonstrated to be actual relationships between real things, can be called information. The latter is what we find in quantum mechanics, described relationships (field theory for example) in which the things, particles, which are being related, cannot be demonstrated to actually be in those relationships, or even to actually exist. So in this case, we have "well-formed data which is meaningful", but the question is, is this information or imagination?

Suppose that I don't know about the earth's spin, but I observe the sun setting every evening and rising every morning. So I plot a trajectory, which has the sun moving around the back side of the stars which are behind the earth, every night. Then I hand you this "data". Is this so-called data information or imagination?

Most physicalists used to subscribe to some version of the stuff and structure ontology. There is stuff, and stuff is structured, but structure is not more stuff. The really hot physicists these days dispense with the stuff, and manage with just structure. So worse than information is physical, they claim that physicality is informational. — unenlightened

I think that this is the issue, in a nutshell. The structure of things, the relationships between things, is commonly taken to be the "information". So in Wayfarer's example, the number of masts, the speed of the ship, etc.. These are all properties of the physical world, existing relationships which are observed and interpreted as information.

The problem arises when, as you describe, we assume structure, relationships between things, without those things being there. This is a real problem because we can build structures of relationships, assuming that these structures are somehow real, or even physical, without any proof that any physical objects could actually exist in these relationships. So there are massive informational structures, produced from mathematical theories, which are used to explain physical existence, which are completely imaginary. Yes they do explain certain aspects of physical existence, so they are valid and grounded in that sense, but the informational structures are completely imaginary, and claimed by some, to have real physical existence, simply because they accurately predict certain physical occurrences.

The universe is fundamentally composed of data, understood as dedomena, patterns or fields of differences, instead of matter or energy, with material objects as a complex secondary manifestation. — Galuchat

Yes, this is exactly the point.

In many of these mass murders there were red flags well in advance of the crime and opportunities to intervene were missed. Virginia Tech is the best example that I know of. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

Hindsight is 20/20. Do you really believe that we could identify all the red flags, and then start to act on those red flags? What would those actions consist of, depriving thousands of people of their rights and freedoms because they demonstrated "red flags"?

We can't predict when and where they will happen. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

Isn't this contrary to your red flag statement?

But I have never heard of anybody spontaneously carrying out a mass shooting. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

This would depend on how you define "spontaneously".

Red flags are probably there well before the end a lot of the time. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

Oh, so now red flags are probably there. What would such a red flag look like, someone buying massive quantities of ammo at one time? If the act wasn't "spontaneous", then the stocking up of ammo would be over a period of time.

There is no consistency to your statements at all. The lack of spontaneity, which you have noted, is what makes the act well planned, no red flags, and unlikely to be uncovered in advance. So your "red flags" are just a red herring, and if we act on such red flags all we do is deprive many innocent people of their freedom.

So does the edge of one surface touch the edge of the other at every point? — apokrisis

"Edge"? Who said anything about an edge? How does this urge to add something to the description, which isn't there, possess you?

This is no difference at all. — MikeL

I can point your head at the difference. I can describe it to you. But I can't make you see it. If you do not see that the future is substantially different from the past, then so be it.

The first highlighted part is suggesting that because I can manipulate space in the present, the present is not necessary? — MikeL

Remember, I asked you to differentiate between time, and the things which exist in time. What you manipulate at the present, is spatial existence, not the present itself.

What can't we hold as a fundamental principle? And a fundamental principle of what? — MikeL

What we cannot hold as a fundamental principle is the continuity of spatial existence, at the present. This is the faulty principle which you will not let go of. And you will not let go of it because you are in denial concerning the very obvious, substantial difference between past and future, which you refuse to acknowledge. All human beings, all the time, recognize that they cannot change the past, but they can work to produce a future which they might like. Do you not see the difference between future and past? The past is fixed, "closed", but as Tom Petty said, "the future was wide open": "Into the Great Wide Open".

Dr. Sten Odenwald (Raytheon STX) of the NASA Education and Public Outreach program, as quoted by Standford University disagrees with you on this point. — MikeL

Of course he disagrees with me on this point. This is the hole which modern physics has fallen into as a result of people believing that special relativity expresses a truth about time.

Don't you agree that the argument that future space time doesn't exist because we can't see it yet in the present is a little akin to sailing a boat down a river claiming that the waterfall at the end of it doesn't exist because we can't see it? Or that it is also a bit like saying a tree falling in a forest doesn't make a sound because we can't hear it? — MikeL

No, I don't agree with that at all. First, I do not think that the concept of space-time provides a proper representation of reality, so we must start with a deconstruction of that. Once we have done that then we can see that the passing of time doesn't necessitate any particular spatial event, or existence whatsoever. Now, "the waterfall at the end" is a description of a spatial event. It is not necessitated by the passing of time.

That fact that human beings can change their world is not in dispute. — MikeL

I don't believe this statement from you. I think that is exactly what is being disputed. If you actually believed that human beings could change their world, you wouldn't believe that the waterfall at the end is necessitated by the passing of time. These two are completely inconsistent, incompatible, contrary, statements. You desire to say that human beings can work to avoid an unpleasant future, and produce a pleasant future, but at the same time, you want to say that there are things in the future, which are already fixed, "the waterfall at the end". Then, you take this faulty example, of a thing which is fixed (the waterfall at the end), and proceed through the use of some very faulty inductive reasoning, to claim that all things in the future are fixed, determined just like the past. Now, you base your denial of the very substantial difference between future and past, in this very faulty inductive reasoning.

How can you say, and truly believe what you're saying, "that fact that human beings can change their world is not in dispute", when you claim that there is no difference between future and past? Do you believe that human beings can change what has happened in the past? If not, then how can you make that statement in honesty, without allowing for a substantial difference between future and past? You recognize that human beings cannot change the past, then you claim that they can change the future, but you deny a difference between future and past. See the inconsistency?

If, for arguments sake, we say that space is materialising at the present, from which realm is it manifesting itself? — MikeL

Spatial existence manifests from the realm of the future. This is where the Neo-Platonic Forms are, which are the cause of material existence. Temporal existence is defined by the passing of time. In the future, time has not yet passed. So these Forms are described as eternal (meaning outside of time, rather than forever in time).

How did it get to the present? How come it has all the properties of space, but is not space? How does the present tether it to time (If I bend space I slow time)? What is it about the present that causes it to become space? Why can't we see the interface of this cosmic cloud with the present? Does it change to space at the outer interface of the present (I have never seen a cloud from the future in my present existence)? If it is does form space at the outer interface of the present does that mean the present is also determined and not just the past? — MikeL

I really don't understand these other questions, perhaps we could take them one at a time, and you could explain more thoroughly the issues which you are questioning.

No, no, you misunderstand me. I do not say the breadth of the present is duration. I am saying the breadth of the present must encompass the entire timeline. The duration would be the sideways bump that allows the instantaneous traversal of the entire timeline by the present. If it is not the case that it happens this way, then the duration of the present is of insufficient interval to span the entire timeline. It would move through an instant and run out of steam. No future or past, just a frozen moment. — MikeL

I don't understand this either. Why would you conclude, that if the present had breadth, it must be wide enough to encompass the entire past? The breadth of the present is defined by how we experience time. So even if yesterday, last year, etc., must be somehow included within the concept, we do not experience those presently, along with our experience of now, except by memory, so their is really no difference, in this respect, between accounting for past events in a one dimensional time, and in a two dimensional time.

Can we destroy space? I had no idea. What happens when we do? — MikeL

Quantum field theory effectively destroys space, and what happens is quantum entanglement.

I'm just complaining how you wave your airy hand at SEP and say look there when I ask for a specific reference. You have always avoided quoting actual sources when citing from authority. So of course I think the reason is that the sources aren't going to be much support to your rather personal interpretations. — apokrisis

I gave you the reference, it's right there under "identity". What do you want me to do, read it for you? Furthermore, the other time you asked for reference, I gave you direct quotes from Aristotle. So your claim that I haven't been able to produce references is very bogus. Just because the reference doesn't say what you think it should say doesn't mean that I didn't provide the reference. Now go read SEP under "identity", and tell me that it doesn't explicitly say that that there are two distinct forms of identity.

So we now have the third thing of a transition area. And the LEM does not apply as clearly this third thing is a crisply existent generality of it own. So far, pretty Peircean. — apokrisis

Clearly it's not Peircean, because Peirce proposed a line between the green and white, which is both green and white, violating PNC, while I propose a transition which is neither green nor white. violating LEM. Do you not see the difference? Furthermore, the violation of the LEM, is specific to that particular object, it is not a generality. It is common to particular objects in general, due to the nature of matter, but it is not a property of a generality, it is the property of physical things.

But this new transition area that replaces the line now has two boundaries - the one on the green surface area side, and another on the white surface area side. So what colour are they? Or are they further transition areas (and so on, ad infinitum)? — apokrisis

Again, you are just repeating Peirce's mistake, replacing "line" with "boundary". There is no line here, nor is there a boundary. Why do you feel the need to assume a boundary? There is nothing about the description which implies that there is a boundary here. It is the assumption of a boundary which is the false premise, the mistake which is leading you awry. The fact of the matter is that physical objects overlap each other, the gravity of the sun and moon are here on earth, the air around me enters the pores into my body. There is no boundary between one object and another. The assumption of a boundary is a false representation which is causing you problems, as it did for Peirce.

Aren't you really now hoping that the whole boundary question disappears into an amophous blur? The question becomes vague. It becomes impossible to say it is one thing or the other, and so therefore possible to say either could be claimed equally well without fear of contradiction? — apokrisis

Actually, the boundary question does disappear, when you realize that there really is no boundary there. You are assuming a boundary for no reason, so this is a false assumption. Then this imaginary, and non-existent boundary is assigned the property of where the PNC does not apply. But it's all imaginary, not real at all. There is no boundary.

Think again about how the laws of thought go, starting from the principle of identity. If the individuated particular is by definition the particular, then it is not not itself, and thus not its "other". The PNC and PEM follow from an axiom that assumes individuation exists.

But that leaves individuation itself unsecured. So when it comes to talk about boundaries or dividing lines, we can't afford to simply attempt to bury the problem out of sight for the moment with talk about further things such as transition zones. — apokrisis

Did you read what I said about the law of identity? The Aristotelian formulation of the law of identity is that a thing is identified as itself, the thing is the same as itself. This implies that identity is completely arbitrary. What the thing is, is what the thing is. It need not have any specific form. There is no necessary formula which the thing has to follow, in order that it is itself, it simply is itself, no matter what it is. So individuation is completely arbitrary, there is no rule which says that individuation must follow this or that procedure. And in order that individuation is completely arbitrary, we must dismiss this idea that there are boundaries, because this would mean that individuation must follow these boundaries.

Boundaries are created, artificially, by the human mind, when "what the thing is" is described. This gives us the other formulation of the law of identity, the one employed in formal logic. Here, the thing is identified by "what the thing is", the description. And in order for the logic to work, the thing cannot be other than what the description says. So boundaries are part of the description, they are not part of the thing itself.

But then I depart from Peirce at this point in adding in the strong notion of the dichotomy, or symmetry breaking. I employ the convergence to a limit argument to show that the continuity of a limit is a virtual object. — apokrisis

See, the "limit" is something produced by the human mind. It is conceptual only, and doesn't represent anything real within the physical world. Limits are completely immaterial, and that's why any proposed limit will never actually match what exists in the physical world, because there aren't any limits there. They are made up by the mind, and applied by the mind, in an effort to understand the physical world through containment. But this containment, these constraints which we impose, do not actually constrain the material world. However, it must be constrained in some way. We observe that the physical world is constrained, so we must look for something, other than boundaries, or limits (which are human constructs), which is doing the constraining.

How so? Only in a relational sense surely. One is in front behind the wall, the other is behind in memory. The content though is a continuation of the story, I just need to turn the page to find out what the words written there say. — MikeL

Things in the past are fixed, determined. With respect to the future we can work to avoid unpleasant things, and create pleasant ones. So clearly there is a substantial difference between things of the past, and things of the future.

Do you accept that space and time are inseparable entities? — MikeL

No, I do not accept this. What "time" refers to, and what "space" refers to are completely distinct. I do not believe that it is possible that the future contains space, I think that this idea is a misunderstanding of the relationship between space and time. I believe that spatial existence comes into being at the present. The fact that the human being is capable of changing things in the physical world, annihilating thing setc., at any moment, at will, is evidence that there is no spatial existence on the other side of the present (future).

The workaround in this situation would be to invoke a duration of time of random quantity and assign that as the present. Thus we have two measures of time - the duration of the present and the timeline of history and the future. But the duration of the present cannot make the trip from the past to the future - it is not of sufficient duration to make the trip. — MikeL

Yes, I believe it is necessary to assume two dimensions of time. I would say that the present has breadth. This is what you call the duration of the present.

Invoking the present as the only true time becomes totally deterministic. — MikeL

I don't see how you make this conclusion. If we assume two dimensions of time, one is just as real as the other, so it makes no sense to say that we have to forfeit one to enable the other. Therefore the conclusion that all moments exist at the same time is unwarranted.

Yes, but just because I can't see past the wall does not mean there is nothing past it. In fact my experience tells me that there is something past it. I can go to bed and close my eyes confident that tomorrow will come. — MikeL

Oh I believe there is something on the other side of the present (future), this is necessary to account for the continued existence which we observe at the present. However, the fact that we can interfere with that continued existence, at any moment, at will, indicates that the continued existence is not necessary. If it is not necessary, then we cannot hold it as a fundamental principle. And the fact that anything can be destroyed at any moment indicates that there is no spatial existence on that side of the present.

“Let part of a surface be painted green while the rest remains white. What is the color of the dividing line; is it green or not? I should say that it is both green and not. ‘ But that violates the principle of contradiction, without which there can be no sense in anything’. Not at all; the principle of contradiction does not apply to possibilities”.

I see a faulty premise here. The faulty premise is in "what is the colour of the dividing line". There is no such dividing line in the original description. There is a green surface, and a white surface side by side. Then the need for a "line" is assumed, but this assumption is unwarranted, there is no need to posit a line here. So the violation of the principle of non-contradiction is derived from this unwarranted assumption, that there is a line between the green and the white.

As I explained, the Aristotelian description is much more logical. Instead of a dividing line, we assume a transition of :"becoming". In the "becoming", the LEM does not apply, because the surface is neither white nor green. This renders the transition area intelligible through such concepts as potential, and matter. In this way, "possibilities" is understood through the concept of "potential", which is understood through the concept of "becoming" which is understood through the concepts of matter, change, and time.

If we claim that there is a dividing line, as per the quoted passage, instead of a transition of becoming, then the existence of this line is unintelligible due to the fact that the non-existent line is described as both green and not green. It is unintelligible because the line is not really there, what is there is a transition between green and white. When it is assumed that there is a line there, then the line must be given attributes, so it is said to be both green and not green.

The faulty representation is due to the positing of something, a line, which is not really there. So the premise, that there is a dividing line there, is a faulty premise, and this premise creates the illusion of Peircean vagueness. That vagueness is created by the false premise of a line. When we remove the line, then there is nothing there except a "becoming". And "becoming" is of a completely different category from being and not-being, so the question of whether the becoming is green or not green is simply not an applicable question. And we are in no way inclined to say that it is both green and not green, which is the Peircean way, which renders the transition unintelligible.

So it is not wrong. But it is a different sense of "potential" - one that is now about crisp possibilities or definite degrees of freedom. — apokrisis

No, it is actually wrong. It is wrong because it is a sense of "potential" which is created by that false premise. That false premise is what renders "potential" as something unintelligible. If we remove that false premise, then we are left with the Aristotelian concept of "potential", which makes "potential" something intelligible under the principles described above.

Their actualisation would be emergent. And spacetime~action, as the most fundamental form of symmetry breaking or dichotomisation, would be itself emergent. Time - conceived of as the necessary medium to effect change - itself emerges to achieve the said change. — apokrisis

But how can you refer to "fluctuations" which are prior to change? Change is emergent, but fluctuations are prior to symmetry breaking. Fluctuations are, by definition, changes.

It's always suspicious how you can provide actual references. — apokrisis

You mean you have suspicions that I might actually be right, because I can actually provide valid, coherent references to back up my claims? You firmly believe that I must be way off base, because my position is so foreign to you. Then I provide actual references to back up my claims, and suddenly you become suspicious. Suspicious that I might actually be right, while you and Peirce are actually wrong about this ontological matter?

Here, my position is that our awareness of at least some Forms—though they may find representation via words or other symbols—cannot constitute representations of what actually is. For example, an awareness of the aesthetic is itself non-representational … and any representation of what is experienced (though it may help to convey the essence of meaning from one person to another) will in no way of itself embody the given experience (if one for whatever reason cannot experience what another experiences as aesthetic, no amount of phenomenal representation will convey the noumenal reality that is experienced by the other). — javra

I think that the route toward understanding this issue is Plato's concept of participation. This is critical to Plato's refutation of Pythagorean Idealism. But when it is not understood, that refutation is not apprehended, and Plato is presented as a Pythagorean Idealist. If you are familiar with The Symposium, which is an early work by Plato, you know that the Idea of Beauty is discussed. It is explained that beautiful things obtain their beauty through partaking in the Idea of Beauty. So when we come to see things as having beauty within them, what is claimed is that what is really the case is that the thing participates in the Idea of Beauty. So it is proposed according to the principles of Pythagorean Idealism, that there is an independently existing Idea of Beauty which the things are participating in. This is a universal Idea, and the particulars participate in the universal. So in this model, the universal is passive (participated in), while the individuals, or particulars, actively participate.

Throughout his early dialogues, this model is presented, and continually attacked from all perspectives, revealing its weaknesses. The existence of the independent universal Idea is very difficult to uphold because it cannot be positioned within the human mind, nor the separate world. To give it objectivity, to make it more than just opinion, requires a separation from any human mind. Furthermore, the passivity of the universal Idea starts to become a real problem. If the objects actively participate in the universal Idea, then there ought to be evidence of this activity. And what is really needed to support the position is an active Idea, which causes the objects to "be", or exist, according to the Idea. So the Pythagorean Idealism begins to look deeply flawed in this respect.

In The Republic, a work from his middle stage, Plato proposes "the good". The good appears to be meant as a principle of actualization, it's what gives Ideas actual existence. Notice that the good illuminates intelligible objects, like the sun illuminates visible objects. As much as some Platonic scholars will represent the good as "the Idea of Good", this is a misrepresentation, because it puts the good back into the classification of a passive, Pythagorean independent Idea, when the whole point is that the good is meant as a principle of actuality which allows us to go beyond the constraints which are imposed by the deficiencies of Pythagorean Idealism. But the existence of the good itself needs to be supported, so Plato must turn to divine Ideas in a divine mind to support this. (The divine mind must be singular mind, to maintain consistency in the divine Ideas, contrary to a plurality of gods). So by the end of The Republic there is a hierarchy of existence described. The craftsperson produces a physical object, a bed. The physical bed is a representation of the craftsperson's idea of bed. From "the good", the craftsperson believes that there is a proper (objective) Idea, of how a bed ought to be. So the craftsperson wants the bed to participate in the Idea of Bed, in the way of Pythagorean Idealism. But this Pythagorean Idea of Bed is only supported by 'the good". The craftsperson must believe that there is a proper, or good, Idea of Bed, and attempt to conform to this. Now the good Idea of Bed must be supported by a divine Idea of Bed, such that the craftsperson person attempts to represent the divine Idea of Bed with the chosen idea of a bed which is supposed to be the good idea of a bed.

bring this perspective up, however, both to offer the possibility that independent Forms need not be theistic in their nature and, for me more importantly, to say that (at least some) independent Forms, as universals, are that which actively in-forms all beings’ identity—thereby making the actuality of the Forms minimally concurrent with the actuality of the beings whose identity is thus brought about via these universal Forms. — javra

I believe that Plato tries to stay away from the necessity of a divine mind to support the independent Ideas. His best defence of Pythagorean Idealism is probably in The Parmenides, but this is where many say that he effectively refutes it. Here he brings in the nature of time, and if you continue with this inquiry you'll find that time is of the utmost importance, due to the passive/active classifications. Socrates compares the existence of the Idea with the existence of the day. We can replace "the day" with "the present", or "the now". No matter how many different places participate, or partake, in "the day", this participation removes nothing from the day. The day, or the present, is actively participated in by all different things, while it maintains its status as passive and unaltered. But in a way completely different from the things which actively participate in it, the day, or the present, is itself active.

I believe that the key to understanding Platonic Idealism, in the sense of the Idealism which was developed by the Neo-Platonists, is to understand the role of time. Plato's Timaeus was pivotal, and it represents a transformation from the universal Ideas of Pythagoreanism, to the particular Forms of Neo-Platonism. What Aristotle describes, is that the important metaphysical question is not why there is something rather than nothing, but why is there what there is rather than something else. Now in the Timaeus Plato posits an independent, and active Form for each individual, particular thing, which determines what that thing will be when it comes into existence. The independent Forms of Neo-Platonism are the forms of particular things.

Here it is important to develop a peculiar notion of time. We look to the past as comprised of that which has actual existence, and we look to the future as comprised of that which has potential existence. So there is a coming into being of actual existence which occurs at the present. This means that all physical existence must come into being at every moment of the present. The Forms determine exactly how every individual physical thing will come into being at every moment, but the Forms are changing, and may be altered by human will. The Forms are on the future side of the present so they cannot be detected by human senses, but they are actual in the sense of being active in determining how the physical world will appear at each moment in this world of change. There is some speculation as to how the Forms interact with each other, and the Neo-Platonist posited an order, a type of procession, which dictates how things appear to us at the present.

Why can it not be logically viable that an eternally present, a priori actuality is coexistent with the temporal potentiality which it as a priori actuality brings forth? — javra

Let's assume for the sake of argument, that this "a priori actuality" which is "eternally present", is the present itself. At the present, there is an activity which I can describe as the future becoming the past. So, we know that there is future time, and past time, and a difference between the two, such that tomorrow becomes yesterday, when Oct. 9 comes to pass, and October 9 is substantially different when it is in the past from when it is in the future. The past is always coming into existence, and this activity is occurring at the present. This, what you call "a priori actuality", the activity which is occurring at the present, is what validates what you call "temporal potentiality". There is no temporal potentiality without this activity occurring, which is the passing of time. We can say, as you suggest, that these are coexistent, they are two sides of the same coin. There is the activity of time passing, and this appears to us as the potentiality of the future.

However, we cannot neglect the fact that this activity of time passing also appears to us as the actuality of the past. So we have the activity of time passing, and this is the other side of the coin, or co-existent with, temporal actuality and temporal potentiality, as a dichotomy. Now, when we look at this side of the coin, the side described as the dichotomy between actuality and potentiality, we see that as time passes, particular actualities are actualized, from a vast realm of numerous potentialities. There is a lacking of necessity with respect to potential, expressed by "possibility", such that there must be a cause of the actualization of the particular possibilities which are actualized. So we have to posit a different type of actuality, one which determines which potentialities will be actualized at each moment as time passes. This actuality must be in some sense prior to the actuality which is time passing, in order to have any power over time passing (on its other side, potentialities being actualized). So this is the actuality which is somehow outside of time, as prior to time passing, and cannot be said to be co-existent with it.

All the same, can you further explain the argument from the principle of plentitude: why it precludes any eternally existent possibility from being a real possibility? This to me is tied into what I express toward the end of this post regarding a global telos. — javra

The principle of plenitude says that if given an infinite amount of time, any possibility will be actualized (a monkey at the typewriter will type Shakespeare for example). Therefore a possibility cannot be eternally existent because that possibility would be actualized, and therefore cease being a possibility, it would be an actuality.

Current logicians will use forms of modal logic to break the categorical division between possible and actual. In this case what is actual is just one of the many possibilities. Some will proceed to argue against the above stated conclusion, to claim that when a possibility is actualized, it still remains in the category of being a possibility. But as you can see, this is to conflate, and create equivocation, between epistemic possibility and ontological possibility.

Is the future not part of a continuous time? Is it a separate entity to the past and present? If we do accept the continuous nature of time, then the materiality of space- time of the present must extend into the future as it does into the past. The only other option is for time to abandon space and race off on its own. — MikeL

Clearly the future is completely distinct from the past. Our living experience demonstrates that the two are not the same at all. When you talk about "continuous time" I assume you refer to the present. The present appears to be continuous, but it is neither the future nor the past, it is some sort of division between the two.

Would you agree that the past is determined? That we can read of the history of the world and it does not change every time we pick up the book? Again, arguing the continuous nature of time, we can deduce that if the past is determined, so too is the future as they are all parts of this same 'immaterial thing'. If the past existed and the present exists then the future will exist. This means it will be written into the past and assume the determined form. — MikeL

I agree that the past is determined, But I do not agree with your conclusion, that the future must be also, because they are both parts of the same thing. Two parts of the same thing may be very different in nature, so long as there is a proper separation, or boundary, between the two parts, and this is what we find with the present.

When we review the continuous nature of the past we see no discontinuity between what was a civilization's future and their past. It is one continuous path that we can clearly identify. A determined path. When Julius Caesar walks into the senate on the day of his assassination, his future is determined. It would therefore seem that to hold the contention that the future is not determined would suggest the need to ascribe different properties to the future of the past then to the future of the present. How can one be determined and the other not? — MikeL

In your description here, you are looking at the past, and trying to find the separation between past and future there. When you do not find the division between past and future in the past, you claim that there is none. This is a mistaken exercise because you will only find the division between past and future at the present.

Can you, in your mind, separate the things which exist in time, from time itself? If so, let's say something about time itself. Living at the present, do you notice that there is always a future in front of you, and a past behind you? Now let's turn to the physical existence, and see what it is about physical existence which makes the difference between past and future notable. Do you notice that the past is full of things which have already happened and things which have already existed? This is what allows you to have memories, and form visual images of things in the past, they have already existed and been experienced by you. Now bring your focus up to the very close past, right up to the point of what you are doing now, looking at the screen or whatever. The screen has been existing in front of your face continuously, right up to the point of now, and it continues to exist, even now as you read this. But let your mind jump to the future for a moment. You cannot see any screen there, or remember any physical object from the future. The present is like a massive wall, and behind that wall is nothing, in relation to your experience. Do you apprehend the nothingness in the future when referring to physical existence?

Remember that Peirce in fact defined vagueness as that to which the PNC fails to apply. So that is the definition in contention, not something else you might make up for yourself. — apokrisis

Yes, this is the definition which needs to be defended. You can define any term any way you like, but if it is nonsense, or contradictory, then it's a rather meaningless definition. As Aristotle demonstrated, due to the nature of time, we can determine certain situations where the PEM does not apply, and this is where the term "potential" is applicable. Does Peirce provide any such demonstration as to the type of situation where the LNC does not apply, to support his definition of vagueness?

However Peirce is very clearly asking the question of how existence could develop. And a logic of vagueness is his answer. And he says without equivocation that Firstness - being vague undifferentiated potential, pure quality without yet quantification - is generative of time and thus essentially timeless. So time (and space, and energy) only properly exist as Secondness. — apokrisis

What exactly is "a logic of vagueness"? If vagueness is where the LNC does not apply, then I assume you are referring to a logic of contradiction. But this is irrational nonsense. It is not logic at all. If we start with a contradictory premise, we won't get far with the logic.

And he says without equivocation that Firstness - being vague undifferentiated potential, pure quality without yet quantification - is generative of time and thus essentially timeless. — apokrisis

Wait, you just said that vagueness is where the PNC does not apply. Now you are saying that it is "potential". But "potential" is already defined by Aristotle as where the PEM does not apply, because of the nature of time. Can you explain why Peirce wants to change Aristotle's definition of potential? Does Peirce have a different understanding of time? Why would Peirce insist that time is generated from potential, or vagueness, when Aristotle clearly demonstrates that the existence of potential is a result of the nature of time. This is demonstrated by the fact that when time is passing there is a future, and future things are indefinite due to potential. Without any time there is no future, and no potential, therefore it is impossible that potential is prior to time. I suggest that you consider the possibility that Peirce is mistaken about this.

If you want to talk about time in Firstness, it is by definition vague temporality, the potential for an unfolding temporal progression. — apokrisis

Again, you should recognize that it is nonsense to speak about the potential for anything if time is not passing. So clearly time is prior to potential. It is a mistake to posit potential as firstness, and time as secondness, because potential is unintelligible without time. Or is that Peirce's intent, to render potential as unintelligible? But what kind of irrational move is this, after Aristotle worked so hard to make potential intelligible?

So the vague is where it simply isn't clear what is the case. You can't what is going on and so there is no way to tell if it is contradictory or not. And generality is then where you can crisply tell what is going on, but being completely general, it is not doing any excluding. Everything within its purview is included. — apokrisis

But what you describe here is an epistemic vagueness. it isn't clear what is the case, you can't tell what's going on. What you are referring to is a deficiency in the human capacity to understand. But just because the human being cannot determine what's going on doesn't mean that there isn't a definite "what's going on". This is the point I've been trying to make to you, Peirce sees the human inability to determine what's going on as proof of real ontic vagueness, where the LNC does not apply.

This is the irrational principle which got us involved in this discussion in the first place. If it appears to the human being that the PNC does not apply, then we ought to conclude that the human being has produced a faulty description of the situation. We need to revisit the situation and determine where the faults in the description are. We can never prove, and therefore know that the situation is such that the PNC does not apply because it is always possible that we have faulty descriptions. The human being may simply be lacking the capacity to properly describe the situation.

Since the claim that the PNC does not apply is the claim that the situation is unintelligible, then we should always assume that if it appears like the PNC does not apply, this is due to faulty human descriptions. Then we will seek to understand the situation in an intelligible way. To adopt as an ontological principle that there is a situation in which the PNC does not apply is to say "I can't understand this situation, so I am going to designate it as unintelligible, and quit trying". This is irrational. And so Peirce's definition of vagueness is irrational.

Because you are so busy trying to force a scholastic reading of Aristotle on this Peircean developmental ontology, you keep missing the target. And even missing the degree to which Aristotle was arguing the same story in many places. — apokrisis

As I've been demonstrating from the beginning, the Peircean ontology of vagueness, as presented by you, is irrational. To claim as an ontological principle, that an aspect of the universe is contradictory, is irrational unless you can explain how this contradictory aspect is somehow intelligible. I refer to Aristotle's understanding of "potential", as a demonstration of how potential violates the LEM, but it is still described by A as intelligible in relation to a proper understanding of time.

You haven't shown any such thing. You, or Peirce, simply have an irrational desire to assign vagueness the status of firstness. It is irrational because you are simply saying this:
"I can't understand firstness, because it is where it appears as if the PNC does not apply, therefore I'll designate it as the unintelligible "vagueness", and I won't have to worry about trying to understand it because I've designated it as impossible to understand."
Instead of persisting, and trying to develop the means to understand firstness in descriptions which are not contradictory, you simply quit, saying it is impossible. That's what designating firstness as vagueness does. It says that it is impossible to understand firstness. If a person accepts this principle, then that person will never attempt to understand firstness, it has already been designated, without justification, as impossible to understand.

Sure, you need the "eternal mathematic forms" as the ultimate constraints on material action. They somehow do stand outside time - as future finality. But rather than being active drivers of that action (in the way genes organise a body, or intentions organise our behaviour), they are simply passively emergent regulatory principles when we are talking about physics, or the generic Cosmos. — apokrisis

You seem to be contradicting yourself here. You say that there are eternal forms, which stand outside of time, then you say that they are "emergent". It is impossible that anything emergent is outside of time and eternal. Clearly, if you are following this ontology of vagueness as firstness, it is impossible that there are forms outside of time, and what you are really trying to say is that there is no such thing as eternal forms, and that you really believe they are emergent.

Or better yet, we can understand it as a vagueness. That removes any lingering notion of "matter" -
substantiality - from the discussion. We can now see that Firstness is just the potential for matter and form. All the apparent contradictions are absorbed by making substantial being fully emergent via the logical machinery of dichotomisation. — apokrisis

What do you mean by "all the apparent contradictions are absorbed"? You have already defined vagueness as where the principle of non-contradiction does not apply. So we can only conclude that contradiction is abundant in this vagueness or firstness. How can any principle of firstness which allows for the abundance of contradiction within firstness, be in any way a rational ontological principle?

Great. Perhaps you can provide a citation on this point ... if you are suggesting it is based on established authority and not something you've dreamt up on the spot. — apokrisis

Check your favourite, SEP, you'll see that they distinguish numerical, and qualitative identity. I do not agree with some of their descriptive principles, but at least they distinguish the two distinct forms of identity.

Funny. That's how maths approaches irrational numbers. It is how they know they are real. — apokrisis

Yes, that's very "funny", isn't it. When something appears to be irrational in mathematics, instead of attempting to understand the reason for this, and addressing the nature of this problem, they simply assume a contradiction, and on the basis of this contradiction they claim that the irrationality is something real. That's exactly what Peirce does with vagueness. Vagueness is the appearance of irrationality. But if he simply assumes contradiction, then the vagueness becomes real and the problem appears to dissolve. At what cost do we assume that the irrational is real, to dissolve the problem? I'll tell you. We do this at the cost of accepting contradiction. Accepting contradiction dissolves the problem. But this is the act of allowing into our reality, the impossible. This is a mistake, to allow that the impossible is real. The problem isn't dissolved, it is hidden underneath an even bigger problem. Perhaps if the bigger problem, accepting contradiction, is so big, we won't even notice that it's a problem.

So, from my point of view regarding a global telos, the telos must be a priori to all potentiality as an existent actuality—this even though its obtainment by aware agencies (these also being present actualities) can only be appraised in terms of potentiality. — javra

If I understand you, you are saying that the actuality which is known to us as a global telos, is understood by us in terms of potentiality.

I’m hoping that this at least makes some sense—and it is this overlap of actuality and potentially that currently has me further contemplating the matter. Still—though I can’t yet make out if it’s due to the same reasons or not—I’m in full agreement that actuality cannot be birthed of pure potentiality, and that the latter notion is nonsensical. — javra

So I believe that this is the difficulty, the gap between what appears to us as potentiality, and the real actuality which lies behind this appearance of potentiality. There is a substantial difference between these two, due to the categorical difference. But when we apprehend the potential as real, like apokrisis does, then it is necessary to recognize the actuality which provides for the existence of this potentiality, which apokrisis does not. When the actuality is not apprehended then one will proceed to make unsubstantiated claims concerning the existence of this potentiality, it's "firstness" etc...

A good place to develop a firm understanding of the relationship between potency and act, is by reading Aristotle's On the Soul. All the powers of living creatures are described as potencies. But these potencies must be attributed to something actual in order to substantiate their existence. The potencies, or powers, exist as the body of the living being, the various different bodies of various living beings, are the various potencies of living beings. So the body as a collection of potencies, must be attributed to something actual, and this is the soul itself. Aristotle provides, as the primary definition of soul, the first actuality of a body having life potentially in it. This necessitates that the body has no actuality prior to having life, there is no actual body, only the potential for such. And the soul brings, or gives, actual existence to the body.

This is contrary to the principles of emergence which hold that the soul, or life, emerges from the existence of the body, as if it is a potency of the body. But when this premise is taken, then we must look to a prior material existence to substantiate the actual existence of the living body. Since this prior material existence is not living, it can only substantiate the potential for life, not the actual existence of life. So the infinite regress of potential without anything to substantiate the actual, gives way to the infinite vagueness of pure potential, or apeiron.

I’m not sure how to here best interpret the term “ideas”—and I have not read Aristotle’s arguments first hand. I so far find it reasonable that at least some platonic ideas (ideals / forms) can be safely presumed to exist prior to any person’s awareness of them. Though not my main interests, basic geometric forms might serve as an easy example—a triangle, for instance. More importantly to me, though, are forms such as that of the Good—which I maintain necessarily exist as actuality even were no human to be consciously aware of this platonic “idea”. — javra

I think that the point here is that things like "the triangle", and "the good", are human words. Now, there is supposed to be an objective, independently existing idea which corresponds to these words. But what actually exists, in relation to this assumed correspondence, cannot be anything beyond the correspondence established by a human mind, between the word and the human idea. The human mind cannot establish a relationship between the word and the assumed independently existing idea, it only has the ideas in its own mind. Therefore, that the independently existing ideas exist, cannot be known in any sense beyond an ungrounded assumption, and we must maintain this in our representation of reality, that independently existing ideas is a possibility. The next step of the problem is that an eternally existing possibility is not a real possibility due to the principle of plenitude. So eternal, immutable, independent "Ideas" is refuted in this way.

Better expressed: My own present contention is that the Good as form, for example, is both actual and, in an equivocal sense, simultaneously potential. The Good thereby, imo, exists in and of itself as metaphysical actuality while, from the vantage of all actual people, existing only as a potential state of affairs yet to be obtained by any of us. Furthermore, it would hold this status even if no sentience were to be consciously aware of it so being.

For me, this is in no way intended as a defense of idealism. I’m however interested in better understanding the logics of actuality and potentiality from the vantage of a hypothetical global telos. — javra

I believe that this is the way that Idealism in the form of Neo-Platonism and Christian theology gets beyond the cosmological argument of Aristotle. The Neo-Platonists designate independent Forms as having actual existence. This assumption is proven necessary by our experience with the material world. But this produces a categorical separation between human ideas, which according to Aristotle's argument are of the nature of potential, and the independent Forms which are of the nature of actual. In theology the independent (actual) Forms are the divine Ideas, property of God. There is a necessary separation between these Forms, which are independent from, and prior to material existence, and human ideas, which are dependent on the human soul's union with the body.

For me, this is in no way intended as a defense of idealism. I’m however interested in better understanding the logics of actuality and potentiality from the vantage of a hypothetical global telos. — javra

With respect to telos, telos is what validates the claim of independent Forms. In the case of human intention, it is seen that the form of the thing is prior in time to the physical existence of the thing, the form is the blueprint which is followed in the creation of the thing. Plato demonstrated, that in nature, the form of all material things precedes the material existence of the thing, and Aristotle followed this principle with a claim of "that the thing will be" only follows from "what the thing will be". In other words, it is essential that "what the thing will be" is determined prior to the determination "that the thing will be". To say that it is determined "that the thing will be", when there is no specific "what the thing will be", already determined, is nonsense. The clear examples which we have, where we can analyze how "what the thing will be" is prior to "that the thing will be", are instances of human intention, telos. So we conclude that in nature there must be a similar telos at work.

If we want to be people who tolerate senseless, preventable violence, there is probably not much any academic, legislator, clergy, social activist, etc. can do to stop the mass murders. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

Are you sure that you do not have this statement backward? What can we actually do to stop such massmurders? Do you sentence the massmurderers to death? Clearly that doesn't work. The question of why these things occur will never be answered, and therefore the cause cannot be addressed. There is really no rational option but the painfully obvious ... to tolerate.

Just look at the subjects of his dialogues, he may not have the answers but he certainly know the topics, the ends are rarely questioned. — Cavacava

Actually I think the opposite of this is true, the ends are what are questioned by Plato. Pleasure, the different virtues, and virtue itself, are presented as the ends, and the nature of these things is questioned. So he takes words like "pleasure", "courage", "just", "pious", etc., and questions what is meant by these terms, what is referred toby them. So these ends are clearly questioned.

The end is generally the purpose of the dialogue, its topic, such as: can virtue be taught, what is justice, what is piety....and so on and Plato has a general methodology that he uses to approach these topics. The methodology is to question his interlocutors to come up with general ideas that may pertain to the topic and then investigate each idea, see what might be right or wrong with it and go on and on until they can't go any further. It is a selection process. — Cavacava

It is not a selection process. It is a process of understanding. Choice, or selection is withheld, suspended in the manner of a skepticism, such that the subject may be understood before selection is made. Each of Plato's dialogues ends without a clear and conclusive understanding of the subject presented, so no selection is actually possible.

Therefore, unlike your representation, the purpose of the dialogue, is not to produce a choice or selection, it is to further the understanding of the subject. So as much as the arguments of the various interlocutors may be rejected, as inadequate, a definite resolution does not come about, so it is a process of elimination rather than a selection process. A process of elimination is unending until all possible options are exhausted, but that is never the case here, so no selection is actually made.

Poppycock, what is that MU, the Marxian interpretation — Cavacava

Have you not read Plato? Clearly he stated that those using the product ought to have some say in the production of the product. It is produced for their purposes, not for the purpose of the producer. Plato was communist, he proposed communal living, so he lends himself well to a Marxist interpretation.

I disagree. The topic is never in question, he may not know exactly what is entailed by the his topic, such as knowledge in his Theaetetus, or Piety in his Euthyphro but there is never a question about the topic itself it is given as the subject of the dialogue. — Cavacava

The word "knowledge", or "piety", is not what is at question. What is at question is the thing signified by the word. That is why Plato's method is called "dialectics". It is incorrect to say the there is no question as to what the subject is, just because there is no question as to what the word being investigated is. The word is not the subject. The subject is what is referred to by the word, and this is exactly what is at question.

So the future does not exist? — MikeL

As something we can refer to, the future exists. But if "exists" is restricted to definite physical forms, through a physicalist premise, then the future does not exist, because there are no definite physical forms in the future.

Is your assertion that the future does not exist? If it does then it must be determined. If it does not, then we open up a new direction in the discussion. — MikeL

Do you recognize that time itself, what is referred to by this word, "time", is not a physical thing? Future and past, being parts of this immaterial thing, time, do not need to have material existence. So we can refer to "the future" without implying any particular material thing. And if we are not referring to any particular material thing, then there is no sense in using the term "determined". We refer to the future, and claim that the future exists, without implying that the future is determined because we are not referring to a particular material object which has determinate existence.

Yep. So it is vague ... in relation to the definite actuality that it then gives rise to. — apokrisis

But remember, I use "vague" and "potential" in a different way from you. For me, vagueness, is necessarily conditional, as is potential. It is conditional on the nature of time, Time is passing, and because time is passing, there is a future. Potential, along with its associated vagueness is descriptive of the future. You propose an unconditional vagueness. You disassociate vagueness from the passing of time, so that vagueness is no longer dependent on the passing of time, in order to propose an unconditional vagueness. This allows you to posit a "beginning" point where there is no past, only future, such that the potential of the future is unconstrained by any past. But this proposition is unjustified and incoherent, because unless time is passing, the claim of a future or a past is unsupported, not grounded at all. So your proposal of a point of infinite vagueness, pure potential, as a beginning, before time starts passing, is completely incoherent.

Yep. It is defined dichotomously - A and not-A. Or rather it is the prior state when there is neither A nor not-A present. That is, the PNC as yet fails to apply. So it is defined as that which must be capable of yielding the dichotomy and an actuality that is ruled by the PNC. — apokrisis

Why do you have such difficulty recognizing the difference between the principle of con-contradiction and the principle of excluded middle. What you have described above, "there is neither A nor not-A present" is a state where PEN does not apply. Yet you say that the PNC "as yet fails to apply". The PNC does apply. When the state has neither A nor not-A present, we can clearly make the valid claim that there is not both A and not-A present, so there is no need for the claim that the PNC does not apply.

Therefore, the so-called dichotomy of A and not-A exists, is present, but it is not attributable to this particular point. We have identified a particular point where neither A nor not-A is present, but this is applicable only to that particular point, as A and not-A are not denied in an absolute sense. So we still have the defining feature of A and not-A available to us, yet this particular point cannot be defined by these. The PEN does not apply, and this point being referred to, potential, or vagueness, must be described according to other principles.

So vagueness, or potential, as I understand it, is not described dichotomously, it must be described by referring to other principles. You want to describe it dichotomously, and say that there is no dichotomy right here at this point, but it "must be capable of yielding the dichotomy". This claim is totally unjustified, produced only by your desire to assign "firstness", or "beginning" to this vagueness. That desire forces you to utilize this particular point where PEN fails to apply, to exclude the dichotomy of PNC, in an absolute way. When PNC has been excluded absolutely you insist that vagueness is prior to it, and you are left with this incoherent claim, that the dichotomy of PNC emerges from the vagueness. This replaces the more intelligible claim that the vagueness of potential is not the beginning, or first at all, it is not prior to the dichotomous A and not-A, it is simply something other than this.

Aristotle saw that reality is a hierarchy of increasingly specified distinctions, or dichotomies/symmetry breakings. Genus begets species by critical divisions. Man is generically animal (and thus not mineral), but also more specifically rational (and thus not irrational or lacking in reason). — apokrisis

As usual, you have things backward again. The terms "genus" and "species" refer to the degrees of human understanding, they refer to concepts. Within the conceptual realm, the more specific "begets" the more general, as Aristotle explained, we move from the more well known, the particular, toward the lesser known, the more general. So "man" is defined as being "animal", such that "animal" is within "man", and what an animal is less well known than what a man is. And what alive is, is less well known than what animal is. The concept of animal (the more general) comes from the understanding of the particular (man). These are not "critical divisions", as they are not divisions at all, but principles of unity. "Animal" is within "man".

And that means that we both know - from reason - that there must be some "stuff", some "material", that gets formed in this way, and yet this material cause becomes the ultimately elusive part of reality. We can't pin it down - see it in its raw formlessness - as it only becomes something definite and "pinnable" if it has a form.

Aristotle was dealing with exactly this issue in discussing the prime matter that must underlie four elements. — apokrisis

Exactly, and as I have been telling you over and over again, Aristotle came to a very decisive conclusion on this issue. There is no such thing as prime matter. It may be useful for physicists to imagine this "raw formlessness", but in reality it is completely impossible, irrational to think that such a thing ever existed, because it is unintelligible. So, when you say it "becomes the ultimately elusive part of reality", this is very true, because it's not real, it's just a dream. Those who are seeking it are running off in the wrong direction, tilting at windmills. "The Impossible Dream".

So Anaximander understood reality in terms of an open flow action that self-organises to have emergent structure. Aristotle then showed what this reality looked like by going over to the other extreme - how we would imagine it as a system, still with hierarchical structure, but now closed and eternal. — apokrisis

Yes, Aristotle showed how Anaximander's understanding looked, it looked impossible. And so it was laid to rest, dismissed for thousands of years until hard core materialists, dialectical materialists, resurrected that impossible dream in the nineteenth century.

Aristotle pushed for a sharper distinction. The Comos became a closed material system. There must be an underlying "prime matter" that is eternal and imperishable, endlessly taking new shape without in fact being used up, or being generated anew. And it was from that assumption that the idea of a creation event - a birth of all this imperishable matter - became a great metaphysical difficulty. — apokrisis

Again, how many times must I tell you? This is unconditionally false. Aristotle proved that the idea that "there must be an underlying 'prime matter' that is eternal and imperishable" is absolutely false. He demonstrates that anything eternal must be actual, that's why he posits eternal circular motions.

We no longer rely on Anaximander's admittedly very material conception of the Apeiron, nor Aristotle's maddenly elusive notion of prime matter, but understand that there is a vagueness beyond both material and formal cause. We can't grant primacy or priority to either material cause or formal cause because they themselves are the dichotomy that emerges from a "pure potential" that is both neither of these things, yet necessarily must be able to break to yield these complementary things. — apokrisis

All you are saying, is that if prime matter has been shown to be the impossible dream, let's posit something else, "pure potential", in its place. But "pure potential" is just another way of saying "prime matter", and Aristotle's argument is directed specifically at the notion of "pure potential'. That is why Aristotle's argument is so effective. As I said it is a double edged sword which defeats both materialism and idealism. He demonstrates how ideas have no actual existence prior to being "discovered" by human minds. The act of discovery is an actualization. So anyone who claims that ideas exist prior to being discovered by the mind must consent to the fact that such existence is purely potential. Then he demonstrates that anything eternal must be actual.

The idealist notion of "pure potential" is just the flip side of the materialist notion of "prime matter". Both are effectively refuted by the cosmological argument. So it is pointless, senseless, and meaningless to dismiss the materialist "prime matter", for the idealist "information", or "pure potential", because these are just the two sides of the same approach, the approach which was refuted by Aristotle.

The formulation of a conservation principle - the law of identity - is the basic step to get formal logical argument going. — apokrisis

I think you are misunderstanding the relationship between the conservation principle, the law of identity, and formal logic. There are two distinct forms of the law of identity. The one employed by formal logic, says that the object referred to cannot be other than what is expressed by the defining statements. Aristotle saw that this principle was abused by sophists, and stated a new form of the law of identity, which says that the object cannot be other than itself.

The first form of the law of identity is what is required to get formal deductive logic going. The conservation principle emerges from the second form, Aristotle's form of the law of identity. This form allows that "sameness" refers to the temporal continuity of the object as "itself". And conservation principles are derived from that assumed temporal continuity. The two forms of the law of identity are not inherently compatible. They must be made to be compatible, by adjusting them. You might assume the descriptive form of identity used for deductive logical, is the one which must be adjusted, because the temporal continuity of the object is the way that nature is. But this is just an assumption, and there is nothing to show that the assumed temporal continuity, and conservation principles, should not themselves be adjusted. Therefore conservation principles, as a starting point for ontology cannot be taken for granted.

The infinite regress of causality is asymptotic at worst. So it converges on a point. And that point both defines the limit and stands "outside" it. So this is exactly how I have argued for vagueness - as a limit which itself is formally "not real". — apokrisis

The way to avoid infinite regress is not to set an arbitrary limit, it is to find a new approach, one which avoids the infinite regress. So it is clearly a mistake, to take an approach which has infinite regress firmly rooted in that approach, and say that when infinity is approached, this is the limit. That is an irrational, unintelligible approach. It is inherently, self-contradictory because you are claiming infinity as a limit. When something converges on a point, yet never actually reaches that point, to say that this is a limit, is contradictory.

To say that .99999 repeating is actually 1 is contradictory. And to avoid this contradiction is not to insist that the contradiction is actually true, and what is the case. It is to find a new approach which avoids the infinite regress conclusion of .99999 repeating, and the urge to insist that this is actually 1.

This is exactly the problem with your proposed vagueness as a beginning in pure potential. Your approach. using conservation principles, leads necessarily to an infinite past in time. But instead of accepting that this is what your approach leads to, and looking for a new, better approach, to avoid this problem, you designate a random, arbitrary, beginning point, as vague potential. Your justification for this beginning point is nothing more than the contradiction, that .99999 repeating is the same as 1. And if it is pointed out to you, that this is contradictory, you would say sure, because vague potential is where the PNC does not apply.

Yet the very fact that we can get arbitrarily close shows that pi "definitely exists" .... as a formal limit. — apokrisis

Here is that contradiction.

And here is a contradiction of another sort:

But the theory doesn't manifest the observables. They are what we actually measure when we apply the theory in modelling our reality.

...

Instead of there being an observer problem, reality is now viewed as "observer created". It comes down to being able to ask a meaningful question. — apokrisis

When I suggested that the Planck scale limitations are created by the theories which are applied, you said no, the theory doesn't manifest the observables. Then you went right on to the claim that reality is observer created. When it supports your argument one rule applies, but when it supports mine, the opposite of that rule applies.

Thanks for the encouragement. It's a bit difficult to maintain a continued and extensive dialogue with apokrisis for the reasons you mentioned, so I appreciate the encouragement. I assume that on apo's side, it is difficult to maintain a dialogue with me, probably for other reasons.

Desire is for something, no? So ends are given. — Cavacava

Perhaps you are using "given" in a way that I am not familiar with. Desire begins as an indefinite feeling. It is a sort of uneasiness within a person. The feeling must be interpreted then directed towards an object. The object of desire is chosen, not given, and the object of desire is the end.

And means vary, they must be deliberated upon but they are known, and must be subject to a selection process. — Cavacava

You would think that the means must be determined after the end is determined, because how could you ever properly fulfil your desire until after you've determined the object which the desire is for. But there is something very odd which happens with means, and this odd thing is demonstrated by the reality of habituation.

When the means to the end is determined, the activity may be repeated indefinitely in many different situations, bring about the same, or a very similar end. At this point, we do not take the time to determine what is really desired, the real end, we just carry out the operation habitually, assuming that the end is given. In this type of situation, the end is simply determined by the means. So in this situation we can say that the end is given.

This is the issue which Socrates addressed when he went around asking skilled people, do you "know" what you are doing. The crafts people are carrying out a procedure, and the end is "given", meaning that the product which is produced will have a form which is determined by this habitual procedure. But Plato suggests that there is something inherently wrong with this procedure. He says that the people who are using the product ought to have some say in the production of the product, such that the product is tailored to the user's satisfaction.

If we go in this direction, then the end, the finished form of the product, is not actually a "given". The manufacturer has to go to the consumer and ask what is wanted. So there is a distinction here between what is given, and what is asked for. And when you relate this to the grace of God, it is not a given, it is something which must be asked for.

Dialects for Plato is in the give and take of the dialogue, this is what dialects entails for Plato. The Socratic ignorance is largely ironic, it is his way of putting himself on the same level as his interlocutor, but it is clear from all the dialogues that he knows more than those he questions. — Cavacava

Socrates is doing this with all knowledge. He is denying anything as a given, and therefore he has adopted a skeptical position. So for anyone who claims to have knowledge, he ask of them, show me this knowledge which you claim to have. So the perspective is one of determining what is wanted (knowledge in this case), and asking for what is desired, the end, rather than just taking what is given.

I can skip to the end of time and look at all the choices you made and the path you took. It's just you can't see it yet. Time is a curtain obscuring it. — MikeL

No you can't skip to the end of time, that's the point. Time is more than just a curtain. What hasn't yet occurred cannot be viewed, it is impossible because it hasn't occurred. The position you argue seems to be based on the false assumption that you can skip around in time. You can't. And if you really think that you can, you should demonstrate this ability.

We walk only one path. The fact you chose to go left instead of right tomorrow was written in history the day after tomorrow, but it was written- or from today's point of view, will be written. I can go to the day after tomorrow and see that you did it - and you had complete free will in doing so. — MikeL

Again, this is false. Things are not "written" until they are actually written.

Aristotle called it proairesis, the faculty of choice. It is how we deliberate about the means, not the ends. Both means and ends are given, for Plato & Aristotle, freedom of choice is a selection process for them. If our selections are moral then our soul is in tune (Georgias). The parts of the soul are friends, when they work together. — Cavacava

I don't think it is correct to say that means and ends are given for Plato and Aristotle. This is what enables Socrates to say "I don't know", nothing is given to him. So in his dialectic method, Plato seeks the meaning of terms like "love", "just", "friendship", words which refer to the various virtues. The virtues are themselves ends, but if they were given, Plato wouldn't have to work at determining what the words mean. And as Aristotle aptly describes, the ends are usually desired for the sake of something else, a further end, so they end up being nothing more than means. That's why he seeks the ultimate end, if we keep asking what is it for the sake of, we can't have an infinite regress, so he posits happiness.

Plato has a slightly different outlook, because he comes to the realization that none of these ideas, which are signified by the words, "just", etc., are even intelligible unless they are illuminated by the good. That's what he says in The Republic, that the good illuminates intelligible objects like the sun illuminates visible objects. So instead of the ultimate end, this is for the sake of that which is ultimately for the ultimate good, which Aristotle posits, he posits the good. The good is a more powerful concept than the ultimate end, because it relates directly to intelligible objects (concepts and ideas, rather than to actions. All intelligible objects (ideas and concepts),not just actions, are seen in relation to the good.

For Paul the only way for man to mend this inner wretchedness through grace. — Cavacava

Grace, is that which is given, by God, so you seem to be saying that Paul takes means as needing to be given. But this all depends on how we look at the laws. If laws are given by men, then it is necessary that the human mind works to learn and create laws so they are not really "given". But if laws are given by God, then we must simply take them as they are given to us.

The future is determined, we just can't see it yet because we are at the wrong part of time. We made the choices that determined it. Just because I am unable to see it yet does not mean it is not deterministic. — MikeL

So I've already made the choices which I will make tomorrow, concerning the day after tomorrow. It doesn't make sense to say that we've already made the choices which we will make in the future. If you say that these choices are already determined, then they aren't choices at all. What appears as choosing is not. It is an illusion.

If you create your path by making choices, then there is no determinism. The fact that the past has already been determined is irrelevant, because you are not standing at the end of time looking back, you are at the present, now. If determinism meant that just the past is already determined, then there would be no conflict between free will and determinism, but determinists think that the future is determined as well. That's why free will and determinism are incompatible.

Potential is defined dichotomously by Aristotle. It is about the production of "what is" in contradiction to "what is not". — apokrisis

Potential is difficult to understand, because it is not any definite thing. It is defined by Aristotle by referring to the dichotomy of what is and is not, but it is not defined dichotomously. It is not about the production of what is in contradiction to what is not, it is that which neither is nor is not. Dichotomy is formal, through and through. Matter has perfections and imperfections, completeness and incompleteness, but all these dichotomies are with respect to the form, not the matter.

White is a definitely possible quality because blackness is the "other" that underwrites that. — apokrisis

Look, matter itself is neither white nor black, but may be either one. White or black is the form which the matter has.

But clearly the differentiation of black from white is a developmental process that passes through many shades of grey. And some shade of grey will seem exactly poised between blackness and whiteness. It will be as much black as it is white. So really it is just vague as which it truly is. It is simply now the potential to develop towards either end of the spectrum. The PNC fails to apply at this point even weakly. — apokrisis

So this is where continuity is the issue. Aristotle proposed, in his Physics, that matter provides a continuity of existence. In this way, when a thing's form changes from being black, to being white, we can assume that it is still the same thing, just having a different form, by assuming that it is still the same matter'

There was a logical problem which arose from the nature of becoming, which sophists exploited. If a thing changes, from black to white for example, it has a different form, so logically it is not the same thing, it has a different description. Aristotle pointed out, that if we assume an intermediate form, grey, then we have to account for the change from black to grey. So we would have to assume another intermediate form, between black and grey, a different shade of grey, and so on, such that there is an infinite number of intermediate forms necessary to account for any change from one form to another. His conclusion was that becoming is inherently incompatible with the logical forms of being and not being.

So matter, with the essential nature of potential, was proposed to account for becoming. Becoming, for Aristotle is where the laws of logic break down. Notice though, that it is a very particular law of identity which suffers from this problem. It is only when we assume continuity, that a thing continues to be the same thing, despite changing through time, that we have "becoming", a thing which is changing, and this produces a problem with the laws of logic. This is A's formulation of the law of identity, that a thing is the same as itself. It doesn't matter if the thing is changing, so long as it is itself, it is the same thing. If we stick to logical identity though, then every moment that a thing changes, it is a new thing. There is no continuity of existence of an object from one moment to the next. Each moment gives us a different form, a different description, therefore a different thing, and the logic of being and not being dictates that there is no continuity. However, we observe a continuity of existence, things continue to be the things that they were. So A assumes matter, and potential, to account for the observed continuity. Vagueness lies here within this continuity, where the laws of logic, if applied, would result in infinite regress.

Yep. Both time and space, and energy as well, would all have to "get started". In a metaphysics based on Apeiron, a pure potential, all the basic substantial furniture of existence would have to self-organise into definite, actualised, being.

This is then made intelligible by energy (or action) and spacetime (or direction) being themselves recognised as a dichotomy, a symmetry breaking, harboured in that pure potential. A state of everythingness can't prevent itself from becoming divided against itself in formal fashion. — apokrisis

But this is what doesn't make sense. You are proposing that something, pure potential exists prior to time getting started. But this apeiron doesn't have the capacity to start time, so we'd just have to assume something else as that which starts time. Then why propose apeiron as the first thing? Potential is used to describe the temporal continuity between two existing states in a changing world, the situation which is neither this state nor that state, but in between. The situation prior to all physical states is a completely different situation, then is a change between two states.

Being grey can't prevent the division that would be the separation that is moving towards black and white. If a greyness fluctuates even a little bit at some point, it is moving towards the one and moving away from the other in the same act. All it takes is for this kind of simultaneous departure to be a more intelligible state for it to develop then into a definite universal habit. Greyness disappears as the broken symmetry of white vs black takes over and makes for a world of definite being. — apokrisis

Here, you use "grey" as analogous to the pure potential apeiron. But the point of Aristotle's demonstration with becoming, is that it is incorrect to refer to the becoming, which accounts for the in between of black and white as "grey". To call it grey is to name another state, and you imply the infinite regress. So the matter, or potential, which accounts for becoming, is something completely other from black and white, it is completely incompatible. So we cannot say that the potential (grey) gives way to black and white, it is something completely different, which is always there regardless of whether it is black or white. The potential (matter), may at one time give way to black, or at another time give way to white, but it is always there, all the time, as the same. You cannot represent it as "grey", which is just a degree of difference between black and white, because this gives rise to infinite regress.

So now we have the apeiron of potential, which is completely other from the dichotomous black and white, but it continues to exist, along with the black and white. It cannot give way, and become the dichotomous black and white, it just exists with them as the continuity within change. If we say that the apeiron of potential is prior to the dichotomous black and white, this doesn't get us anywhere, because it cannot ever give way to the dichotomous black and white, so this tells us nothing about the forms which exist. We still need to seek the cause of why there is what there is. Assuming apeiron does nothing but confuse the issue by taking the principle which is responsible for explaining the change between two states, and trying to apply it where it is not suited, to the beginning.

So all physics has to show is (1) that a fundamental dichotomy - like action vs direction - has that basic complementarity. — apokrisis

But action vs direction is not a proper dichotomy. One is the property of the other. Action has direction. And this is the same as matter has form. But these are not what I would call dichotomies, they are categorical differences. One direction may be opposed to another, like black is opposed to white, but action is in a completely different category, like potential is, and action cannot become direction. That doesn't make sense.

But Aristotle instead argues that there is no beginning. It is because he can't imagine a "beginning" which is a vagueness - a "state" where there isn't even a fact of the matter in regard to "time" - that he feels forced to conclude existence is eternal ... timeless in the opposite sense. And it is to make sense of that which leads him to an argument for an unmoved mover. — apokrisis

No, I keep telling you over and over, it is not that Aristotle can't imagine a beginning in the vagueness of potential, he demonstrated that this is logically impossible. He clearly imagined it, and he discussed it. That's why your quoted scholar said that he believed in it. But he clearly did not believe in it. This is why he presented the cosmological argument which he is well known for, to refute it. After he accepted this impossibility, the impossibility of a beginning in vagueness, then he proposed the eternal circular motions.

However a vast weight of evidence and theory has been accumulated which points to the Planck scale as a true boundary to distinguishability - to counterfactuality and separability. — apokrisis

Because the Planck limit is completely dependent upon the theories employed to explain the features of the universe, it is just a manifestation of those theories. That these theories produce a boundary to distinguishability reveals the inadequacies of the theories, not true boundaries to distinguishability.

You are missing the power of dichotomous reasoning. It is always simply the case that for one thing to be, so must its "other". You can't have figure without ground, event without context. So what you point out as a bug is instead the metaphysical feature. — apokrisis

This is your category mistake creeping in again. It is only in conception that there is necessarily an other. Hot is defined by cold, negative defines positive, etc.. But in the actual world of individual material things, there is no such thing as a thing's other each thing is unique in its own ways. This is why matter, with potential, has it's own separate category. The matter has the potential to have the form of white or black, one or the other, but this is formal, and there is no other to the matter (potential) itself.

As I said, you can't have action without direction, and vice versa. If this is the most foundational dichotomy or symmetry breaking (and in physics, it is) then you always will get these two for the price of one. For anything to happen, both these complementary things are what must happen together.
...
So there is indeed both a dichotomy at the heart of things (change vs stasis) and thus a situation that can be read in either direction. — apokrisis

You seem to be using "dichotomy" in two distinct ways here. In the first case you present what I call a categorical difference, a thing and its property, action, direction. In the second case you have opposition, change and stasis.

Check Augustine's "On Free Choice of the Will". I think it's available online. He is really the first one to actually develop the concept of free will by that name. He's greatly influenced by Neo-Platonism.

Can you explain to me how an interferometer works, and exactly what it does?

So Plotinus says something simmilar. We have our souls that illumine our animal nature and we choose to turn our face towards higher things or baser things. I love how he says it's not the soul's fault if we sinned. She did her job of illumination and it is us who decided to turn away. — MysticMonist

That's the thing with the will. As Augustine argues, the will must be free from the material influences of the physical body in order to follow the immaterial principles of the intellect. However, it is quite clear that this freeness is a double edged sword, because in being free, the will is also free not to follow the intelligible principles.

Yes, I read the quote, that's what got me thinking. I do not think Paul's position is inconsistent with Plato though. St Augustine dealt with this subject to some depth, how we can knowingly do wrong, when Plato insisted that morality is a form of knowing.

The resolution is to recognize that Plato posits a tripartite person. As a medium between mind and body, he posits spirit, or passion. This is evident in The Republic, where he models the state after the human person, and proposes a three part state. rulers guardians, and subjects. This third aspect of the person, spirit (I don't know the Greek word used, but it is translated in different ways), is necessary to explain the interaction between body and mind. A well disposed person has the spirit allied with mind, to exercise control over the body. A not so well-disposed person will allow the spirit to be allied with the body, to overpower the mind. In St. Thomas' work this gets all tied up in the concept of habit.

In any case, the third aspect becomes very important in explaining why we need to know what is right, to do what is right, making knowledge and morality closely tied, yet we can still knowingly do what is wrong. This is because the will itself is essentially free, being tied neither to the mind nor to the body. When Augustine did his work On The Trinity, he modeled the Holy Trinity after the human trinity of memory, intellect and will. Aquinas expanded on this, and demonstrated how, in relative terms (relative to morality), the will must be subservient to, and therefore posterior to the intellect, but in the absolute sense, the will is prior to, and therefore free from, even the intellect.

That's not an issue in my triadic/hierarchical approach. A hierarchical relation has both an upper and a lower bound. Constraints come in two kinds - one that you might call material, the other formal.

We see this coming through in fundamental physics. The world is formed by two kinds of constraints - the formal laws and the physical constants. — apokrisis

This doesn't make sense to me. Formal laws are the laws which scientists make, they are descriptions of the physical reality. These are not constraints because they are descriptions which human beings make, so they cannot act in the world to constrain anything. If you are saying that these laws refer to something law-like in the physical reality, then these are physical constraints. Now we don't have two types of constraints, only physical constraints. If you drop an object, and say that it will be constrained to fall, this is a physical constraint. If a material object interferes, and breaks the fall, again, this is described by laws of interaction, and is again a formal constraint. Where are the two distinct types of constraints here.

Note again how you are relying on terminological slippage. — apokrisis

Oh really? I beg to differ. You accuse me of adhering to classical definitions, saying that you want to introduce new definitions. And you say I am relying on "terminological slippage". You continue to present things backwardly.

But then there is this other thing, this third thing, of a foundational Apeiron or Vagueness. That is the more standard understanding of "potential" - a materiality that is vague in lacking yet a positive direction. Now form follows in creating that definite direction. — apokrisis

I don't think that's the standard understanding of "potential" at all. Potential means capable of, or the capacity for, it has nothing to do with vagueness. If you are proposing a relationship between potential and vagueness, this must be justified, or at least explained.

In the Aristotelian structure, the concept of "potential" is required to account for the nature of time. The truth about things which may or may not happen at a future time (like the sea battle tomorrow), is stated with reference to potential. So it is neither true, nor not true, that the sea battle will occur, it is possible. Aristotle allows for exception to the law of excluded middle in reference to future events, and this opens the door to vagueness in "potential".

And as I then add, the idea of the Apeiron or Vagueness as a "pure potential" goes beyond even that as the argument is it contains the very dichotomy of matter~form as a seed action.

So there are a variety of meanings of "potential" in play. You may keep asserting that Aristotle offered the only "right one". But even there you interpretation seems back to front - or overly theistic - in wanting to credit creation on a prime mover rather than on prime matter (or better yet, the interaction between the two). You simply try to define prime matter out of existence, leaving only a prime mover, despite what mainstream interpretations are cited as believing. — apokrisis

Yes, there are a variety of meanings of "potential", or "possible", and the goal is to avoid ambiguity and especially equivocation. Do you agree, that when we look to past events, there is a truth concerning what actually occurred, yet if we do not know what actually occurred, we might entertain possibilities? This is a type of epistemic vagueness, a not knowing about something which there is an actual truth about. But "potential", in reference to future events which may or may not occur, is an ontological category. There is no actual truth as to whether or not there will be a sea battle tomorrow, because whether or not there will be a sea battle has not yet been decided. So the vagueness here is not a simple matter of not knowing what is actually the case, it is a matter of it being impossible to know what is the case, because it has not yet been decided. The reality is, that what will occur tomorrow will not be decided until tomorrow, so there is no truth nor falsity with respect to this. The LEM is violated, and there is vagueness. Do you agree with this ontological assessment of the future, and that this is what "potential" refers to, the future, and why it is designated as vague? That one chooses to violate the PNC rather than the LEM when dealing with the future (potential) is a matter of metaphysical preference.

Now consider your proposed foundational vagueness, apeiron. We need to determine whether this is a case of vagueness which is derived from not knowing, epistemic possibility, or is it the ontological vagueness which is given to us by the nature of the future, potential. Suppose, in a thought experiment, we project ourselves back to this proposed time, at the beginning of the universe when the apeiron is assumed to exist. In this projection, the present is then, such that all time is in front of us. I assume you would say, that according to the nature of the apeiron, the potential for the future is infinite. This potential is pure, so that means that there is no actuality in the past, nothing which has already occurred, to constrain what may happen in the future, so that anything is possible. Would you agree that this means that at this time, there is no past, there is only future?

So here's the problem. There is no actuality of the past, only pure potential, infinite possibility for the future. But if there is no past, that means that time is not passing, there is no time. From this position of pure future, with no past, how do you propose that we get time started? What creates a past, such that there is something actual? What Aristotle argues, is that from this proposed position of pure potential, all future and no past, it is impossible that there ever will be a past, because time is not passing, and no reason why time would start passing. So we need to introduce something which accounts for time passing and this is why he suggested eternal circular motions. But this is to deny the pure potential of the aperion, which is all future and no past, by introducing eternal time.

This is what you need to clear up for me then. You have proposed a situation where no time is passing, because there is only future, and no past. Necessarily, time is not passing. What makes time start to pass?

And yet physics shows these two aspects of reality become indistinguishable or symmetric at the Planck scale. There is a fundamental convergence where indeterminacy then definitely takes over. Hence the uncertainty relation between location and momentum in quantum mechanics. — apokrisis

This is exactly my point, physics does not show this. What the modern principles of physics show, in this regard, is that physicists have not the capacity to distinguish these two aspects of reality, at the Planck scale. This is evident from the principles of the Fourier transform, the shorter the period of time the more difficult it is to determine the frequency, until in a very short period, it becomes impossible. It is not the case that the two aspects of reality, actual and potential (past and future) are really indistinguishable, it is just the case that physicists have not developed the appropriate means for distinguishing them and so they get lost in the vagueness of symmetry math. In reality, there is a very real difference between past and future, actual and potential, because time is asymmetrical. To say that this difference is actually indistinguishable (rather than indistinguishable due to the deficiencies of human applications), such that it is lost in symmetry, is a mistake.

Or I could just as much point out the relativity of notion of motion. A context is needed to decide which one of us is doing the moving. Or even - in some absolute sense - not moving at all.

You are just applying a naive physical point of view to metaphysics here. — apokrisis

The problem here, is that the notion of motion already presupposes the passage of time. You have proposed a point, pure potential, at which point there is no passage of time, or else there would be an actual past, and not pure potential. So you cannot turn to motion, or any physical activity, to conjure up the start of time, because all of these imply that time is already passing.

The concept of a will divided against itself was not available in the ancient Hellenic culture. — Cavacava

I don't see the basis for the claim that the will is "divided against itself". The will resists activity, and it allows for activity, but this is not a divided will. The same will, which enables you to resist a specific activity because it appears to you as irrational, will allow you to carry out that activity in a different situation, when the activity appears to be rational. This is not a case of a divided will, it is the case of the same person in different circumstances.

When the will appears to be divided it is just a matter of the individual being incapable of adequately assessing the circumstances, one's environment. This is indecisiveness, but indecisiveness is not a defect of the will, it is a deficiency in the mind's capacity to apprehend the situation. The will, by its very nature must be in the middle, between acting and not acting, in order that it can allow for both. But this is not a divided will, the forces which drive the will toward acting, and away from acting, are divided. The will acts to reconcile, unite these divided forces.

Alternatively, for me, it is only natural that matter and form should express such a dichotomous pairing of limits. — apokrisis

The problem though, is that "limits" are by definition constraints, and therefore formal. You can talk about limits and lack of limits, and you are talking about form. Matter doesn't enter this discussion, that's why matter and form are not dichotomous pairings, they are separate categories.

You wouldn't talk about the Apeiron as "pure matter" as it was neither, as yet, in-formed matter, nor en-mattered form. It was only the potential for this metaphysical division which then yields a world of actual substances. — apokrisis

But matter exists as potential. So you are simply mixing up the terms, breaking down the categories. You are saying that the apeiron isn't pure matter, but it is potential. Aristotle's cosmological argument though, addresses the issue of potential, that's how it is directed at both materialists and Pythagorean Idealists. The same argument refutes both positions. What is proved is that it is impossible for potential to be prior to actuality in any absolute sense. We can take "matter" right out of the picture if you want, and it is still illogical to say that the potential is prior to actual existence, because potential only exists as a property of something actual.

A die has six numbered sides. So out of that form comes the completely crisp and definite possibility it will land on a number between one and six. But when I talk about potential, I mean a vaguer state of unformed possibility. It is possibility without yet a concrete form. — apokrisis

This is the idea which appears unintelligible, and irrational to me. You talk about a die having crisp, and definite possibilities. And, we could talk about definite possibilities in relation to many other different things. But then you refer to a "vaguer state of unformed possibility". So you have jumped to a different category, and want to call it by the same name, "possibility". I can see that if a person didn't know the form of a die, the possibilities would be vague, but this is an epistemic vagueness, the possibilities are still definite, only the person doesn't know them, so to that person the possibility appears as vague and unformed.

Let's take for example, a tree. The wood of that tree is the matter, and when we see the tree as wood, there are numerous possibilities, firewood, lumber, sawdust, etc.. As much as it may appear like the possibilities are endless, they are not, the tree is of a particular size, the wood a particular type, etc.. Each possibility is a definite thing which can be done with the tree, and there is no such thing as a vague or unformed possibility with respect to the tree. What would that even mean, that there are unformed possibilities within the tree? Sure there are many possibilities which a human being hasn't apprehended, but how does that make them unformed possibilities unless we're talking about epistemic possibilities?. We can only call them vague or unformed because the human mind hasn't determined them. But when the human mind determines a possibility, this doesn't change the nature of the possibility itself, so we cannot say that the possibility changes from being vague and unformed, to being definite, simply by being determined by a human mind. The possibility exists as a definite thing whether or not it is determined by a mind. Where does the notion of vague unformed possibility come from?

Suppose we go deeper into the composition of the tree, and instead of assuming wood as the matter, we assume the molecules, or even the atoms, as the matter. Now the tree presents us with an even bigger array of possibilities. But again, each of the possibilities is a definite possibility, and the possibilities are restricted by the actual atoms of the tree. No human being could possibly know all the possibilities, but this doesn't make the potential of the tree vague or unformed, the potential is well formed by the chemical constitution of the tree. And if we go deeper, to quantum fields with fundamental particles, the possibilities are still definite, limited by the form of the tree. The possibilities only exist as property of the tree. No amount of reduction can render the definite possibilities, which are determined by the form of the tree, into vague unformed potential. The concept of "vague unformed potential" is completely out of place here, because you want to jump from possibilities which are the property of a definite form, to the claim that there are possibilities (vague and unformed) which are independent from any definite form, simply existing as vague unformed potential. But the idea that potential can exist in a vague, unformed way, having no form whatsoever, is nonsensical.

So this weakens emphasis on the potential as a directed source of action. It is just action in some direction. That is why we talk about electrical potential, or potential energy in general. In physics, the word is normally used to talk about a vaguer form of material cause - one that is generic. — apokrisis

Here you seem to be making the same sort of jump from one category to another. We can talk about motion, or action in a general way, describing what it is, etc., just like we can talk about potential in a general way. But any existing action is a particular action. It doesn't make any sense to talk about an action which is not an action with a direction. This is like saying that something could be moving, but not moving in any direction. Sure, we could talk about motion, and say that it is not necessary for any motion to be in any particular direction, in order to be a motion, but to single out a particular motion and say that this motion is not in any direction, is nonsense. It might be the case that the human being knows there is activity there, but cannot determine what the direction of the activity is, but this doesn't mean that the activity has no direction, that's nonsense, and an irrational conclusion

You're being a bit rough on an Oxford lecturer whose specialism this is. Ainsworth ain't some random internet dude. — apokrisis

His published work is on the internet, seems like a random internet dude to me. If you really think that Dr. Ainsworth thinks Aristotle believed that prime matter has, or had real existence, then maybe you should invite him here to defend that position. I've already given you the unambiguous quotes where Aristotle himself denies this, and explained how prime matter is contrary to eternal circular motion, which he went on to propose as an alternative, after refuting the idea of prime matter. Perhaps Dr. Ainsworth just said that because it was what the publishers wanted. Maybe there's a materialist bias there.

I find that in general, your quoted website is very inaccurate, and often misleading. The fact is, that Aristotle went on, in BK 10-12 of his Metaphysics, after discrediting the idea of prime matter, to describe eternal circular motions. The concept of eternal forms (circular motions) is clearly inconsistent with the concept of prime matter. If there is eternal forms then it is impossible that there was ever pure matter. It is very clear that Aristotle promoted the idea of eternal circular motion, so to claim that he also promoted the idea of prime matter is to produce an inconsistent interpretation. One might refer to such a poor interpretation to claim that Aristotle is inconsistent, but that's really the mistake of the interpreter. However, all one needs to do is to pay attention to what is written in Bks. 6-9, to see that the concept of prime matter is refuted, regardless of what your website says.

I argue the interactive story where the naked potential contains within itself this very dichotomy of form and matter within it. — apokrisis

Now you are giving different definitions to these terms, "potential" "matter", and "form". So I cannot refer to the Aristotelian definitions, I can only refer to yours. Under the Aristotelian structure, matter and form are defined by potential and actual, respectively. Here, you are saying that potential contains within it, both matter and form, so it is impossible that form is defined by actual, unless actual is some type of potential. In any case, you now need to provide new definitions of matter and form, as well as actual, because the Aristotelian definitions are not applicable. In other words, your use of "potential", is meaningless unless you provide a new conceptual structure to house it.

So from the first moment of actuality, there is the substantial being of in-formed materiality. — apokrisis

So I must ask you, what do you mean by "actuality" here? If potential already consists of matter and form, and form implies actuality (as it does in A's structure), then there is already actuality prior to substantial being. If you are proposing some other form of actuality, which is not formal actuality, then what are you talking about? Or, in saying that potential consists of matter and form, is it the case that potential is substantial being, and there is no such thing as the potential for substantial being prior to substantial being?

You are going on about this being contradictory - that both matter and form would "co-exist" in the bare potential that is the Apeiron. But in this triadic metaphysics, form and matter, constraints and degrees of freedom, are understood as being causally joined at the hip. Each is the other face of its "other". It is the dichotomy itself which exists in potential fashion and then realises itself via the spontaneity of a symmetry-breaking fluctuation, or "first accident". — apokrisis

If it is necessary that form and matter "co-exist", then they are inseparable, and one cannot be prior to the other. I see this proposition as a big problem, because this would negate the essence of the dichotomy between actual and potential, which Aristotle worked so hard to describe.

The potential for an object is necessarily prior in time to the actual existence of that object. We understand the potential for the object as the matter, which is now in another form, which will be re-formed to become the object. Since one is temporally prior to the other, then when you say that they are "causally joined at the hip", what you mean by this is that one is necessarily prior in time to the other. To say that they "co-exist" is a mistake then, because as soon as the potential for something is actualized, that particular potential no longer exists, as it is replaced by the actual thing.

To give co-existence to matter and form, would have to be to disassociate matter and form from potential and actual. But this does not dismiss the reality that the potential for something is necessarily prior to that thing, it just forces us to discuss this under terms other than matter and form. Here is the difficulty which Aristotle addressed with the cosmological argument. The potential for something is necessarily prior in time to the actual thing. But in order for that potential to become the actual thing, the potential must be actualized, and this itself requires something actual. We could say that there has always been the potential for something, and that there has always been something actual, co-existence of potential and actual, but we would not get beyond an infinite regress. Thus to give co-existence to potential and actual implies infinite regress.

So co-existence is rejected because of infinite regress. Now when we look at the relationship between potential and actual naively, we say that potential must be prior to actual, because the potential for something is always prior to the actual existence of the thing. But then we must account for the fact that the potential must be actualized in order that there is something actual. To avoid the infinite regress of co-existence, we must designate either potential or actual, one as prior to the other. If potential were prior to actual, then there would forever be just potential, because there would be nothing to actualize that potential. Therefore we assume actual as prior to potential.

This is only a problem if the potential is imagined as being passively material. That is why I talk instead of a sea of chaotic fluctuation. — apokrisis

This is the category mistake, which I referred to a few posts back. When you describe "potential" as "chaotic fluctuation", you are describing something active. So you have conflated the two categories, potential and actual, to say that something actual, chaotic fluctuation, is potential. Now you no longer have the categorical separation between potential and actual, and you might insist that they co-exist, but this is inconsistent with observed reality which sees the potential for something as prior in time to the actual thing. Therefore your "chaotic fluctuation", and what you call "vagueness", is nothing more than a failure to represent, and maintain a proper temporal order with the categories of actual and potential, in your ontological principles. Instead of maintaining a crisp separation between potential and actual, with a determinate temporal order, you combine these in a chaotic vagueness. The so-called chaotic fluctuation of vagueness, apeiron, is not a real feature of the universe, it is a manifestation of the failure to provide a crisp categorical separation between potential and actual.

What comes out of the Apeiron is definitely determinate in being either more passive or more active. Actuality is divided between these opposed limits on being. So it is quite logical that the Apeiron must contain both these contrasting limits within it ... as its potential. It is the dichotomy itself that the Apeiron contains in seed form. Thus it is not a contradiction to claim the Apeiron contains two opposed tendencies. It is this very contrariety which it must contain ... as a potential division of nature. — apokrisis

See here, you unite the passive and the active, which all classical metaphysics separates into distinct categories, in order to produce your conception of apeiron. So your conception of apeiron, and vagueness is nothing but a denial of classical categories. The denial of classical categories would be an acceptable procedure if it was warranted. But as I've already pointed out, the separation between potential and actual is well supported by observation, empirical evidence, which demonstrates that prior to the actual existence of anything, it is necessary that there is the potential for it.

And so we are saying the Apeiron contains within the very means of self-actualising. — apokrisis

Yes of course, that is what you are saying, that the aperion, as infinite potential, has the power of actualizing itself. That is what I insist is a case of being irrational. You only produce this power of self-actualizing by breaking down the divide between potential and actual, allowing that potential has activity already within. But such a potential is nowhere near like the proposed prime matter, or unlimited potential, it is already limited to the activity (fluctuations) within. And each flustuation has a fluctuation prior to it, such that we are still in the position of infinite regress which results from the postulate of co-existence.

Can you provide a cite to back this interpretation up? — apokrisis

Read the text. It's quite clearly argued that actuality is necessarily prior to potentiality. And that is why he goes on to assume eternal circular motions. Also, if actuality is prior to potentiality, then pure potential is impossible. Here, check the first line of BK.9, ch8 (1049b):
"From our discussion of the various senses of 'prior', it is clear that actuality is prior to potency."
Further, 1051a:
It is obvious, then, actuality is prior both to potency and to every principle of change."

But it sounds here like you are speaking for a Christian apologetics interpretation of his writings. And the cosmological argument for a Christian god has huge, vast, gaping holes. — apokrisis

Aristotle doesn't argue for a Christian God, he argues that "prime matter" is impossible because actuality is necessarily prior to potential. I don't think that's a matter of interpretation. If you find it stated on the internet, that he promotes and believes in the idea of prime matter, just like you'll find it stated on the internet that the world is flat, then the people making these statements on the internet simply left out the core of his Metaphysics. Perhaps it was too difficult for them to understand, or it wasn't consistent with their materialist prejudice. Christian theologians such as Aquinas have adapted the argument for their own purpose because the idea of God the creator, is consistent with the argument..

So prime matter is denied? Or defined by some other modality other than "real existence"? — apokrisis

Prime matter is denied, as illogical. Read up on Aristotle's cosmological argument. It is logically impossible that there ever was matter without form. The proposed situation, infinite potential, prime matter, or matter without form, excludes the existence of form, because any form would mean that the potential is non-infinite, and therefore not fulfilling the definition of prime matter. If prime matter had form this would be contradiction. But potential requires an actuality to actualize it, it cannot actualize itself. Therefore if there ever was infinite potential, prime matter, or matter without form, there would always be infinite potential, prime matter, or matter without form. But this is not what we observe, we observe that matter has form. Therefore the empirical evidence along with the preceding logical argument denies the possibility of prime matter.

And was the assertion ever just that it is matter without form rather than being beyond either (actual matter always being actually formed). — apokrisis

It is not an assertion, it is a complex, well constructed logical argument which is drawn out through the explanation of the relevant terms, over many books in his Metaphysics. It is actually the substance of his metaphysics. After concluding that actuality is necessarily prior to potentiality, he proceeds to posit eternal circular motion to account for this actuality, the form, which is prior to matter. But this is where he went wrong. The Neo-Platonists went on to posit independent Forms, forms which have existence separate from matter, and prior to matter. Both of these proposals are brought about because of the logical force of the cosmological argument, which, with no uncertainty, or ambiguity, demonstrates that prime matter is logically impossible.

It is hard to discuss the lack of ambiguity in a text when you make such ambiguous pronouncements. — apokrisis

I don't see where you draw the charge of "ambiguity" from. I've been repeating over and over again, to you, in this thread, and others, that Aristotle demonstrates prime matter as logically impossible. And I do not believe that there is any ambiguity on this subject in the interpretation of Aristotle's Metaphysics. I took a course on Aristotle's Metaphysics in university and one of the first things told to us in the introductory classes, was that in this text, prime matter is proven to be impossible. Aristotle is well known as the originator of the cosmological argument, which is commonly adapted by theologians to demonstrate the need to assume God, as the actuality, which creates matter, as the potential for material existence.

So there is no ambiguity on this subject. You are simply in denial, acting irrationally, refusing to face the reality of the situation. Instead of approaching this logical argument, which demonstrates your faithful first principle of "matter" as false, you make the unwarranted claim that the pronouncements are ambiguous. But what you ought to do is obtain a firm understanding of this argument, and from there you can either offer a coherent refutation of it, or do as I did, and release your preferred principle of prime matter in favour of a more intelligible first principle. When I first studied the refutation of prime matter, in that university course, I did not accept the arguments. This was because I did not understand the complexity of the concepts involved, so that I did not adequately understand the argument. It took me many years of studying later Aristotelians, and reflecting back, as well as consulting Aristotle's many texts, before the whole structure of that argument became coherent for me.

In his Physics, matter is described as the underlying thing which persists, remains the same throughout a change. Form is active and changing. In his Metaphysics he questions the possibility of a prime matter, a matter without form, the underlying thing common to all physical existence, the basis for being. Aristotle's cosmological argument, which demonstrates that actuality is necessarily prior to potentiality, shows how it is impossible for prime matter to have real existence. Anyone familiar with that argument will recognize this.

Nothing in your quoted passage demonstrates that there is any inconsistency or ambiguity in A's concept of matter. In Physics, matter is assumed, as the basis for the continuity of existence. In Metaphysics the real existence of prime matter, matter without form, is denied. The concept of matter, and its relationship to potentiality is developed throughout his work, principally Physics, De Anima, and Metaphysics. They are large, complex, and difficult texts. Equivocal interpretations are the result of misunderstanding.