• Possibility
    2.8k
    It sounds like you're Spinozian, with a twist from Plotinus. Plotinus thought the ultimate reality was potentiality. Aquinas said actuality was prior to potentiality because otherwise potentiality could not get started. I think this is wrong, and it is part of the flaw in the botched arguments of deists like Devans99 in trying to prove there is a transcendent God. Potentiality being prior to actuality is in a lot of philosophies and theologies. Just think of the traditional idea of Heaven in China! The world flows from potentiality. There doesn't have to be an eternal being of Act. Potentiality doesn't have to "choose" in order for something to come from itGregory

    I certainly wouldn’t refer to myself as ‘Spinozian’ - I’m not all that familiar with his theories - but from a cursory understanding, I do think he was onto something in many respects. Nevertheless, it looks like we are in agreement on this point that pure potentiality begets actuality from beyond time.

    Having said that, I reiterate that a sixth dimension takes reality beyond potentiality, into the realm of pure possibility. The illogical notion of ‘squaring the circle’, for instance, is nevertheless an imagined concept in the realm of possibility that lacks any recognisable potentiality. If one can imagine it, then technically it isn’t impossible, even if it can never be actualised in our universe. Squaring the circle matters because it points to the human capacity to relate to the universe in ways that transcend all the conceptual systems of human ‘knowledge’ or ‘understanding’ we can reliably construct. From this position not just outside of time but outside of potential or value as we understand it from our perspective, we can more ‘objectively’ examine the structure of our value systems and perception of potentiality - in relation to that of the ecosystem, for instance - and make conscious and deliberate adjustments to our motives that matter: regardless of their perceived anthropocentric, political, cultural or personal ‘survival’ value, and regardless of any ‘logically’ calculated probability of success.
  • Gregory
    4.6k
    If I approach an object, first i have to go half the distance. Otherwise I am there. And half that, otherwise i am there. Laws of identity say this goes on forever. So objects are infinite. Yet they are finite to us. The division of a whole into parts gives us exactly that sum when combined. We can say things are merely potentially infinite like Aristotle's said. But nothing could then be truly actual, because it would only potentially have parts, which is absurd. Heraclitian fire is the solution
  • 3017amen
    3.1k
    I don’t use the term ‘logically impossible’ because I don’t think it makes sense. Something can be illogical and still possible (like love), but not both logical and impossible without exposing some level of ignorance. The way I see it, there are two dimensional levels of awareness and existence outside of time that tend to get confused A LOT. And it’s understandable, because we need to be at least vaguely aware of existing outside of potentiality to be able to distinguish it from possibility. Most people tend to experience ‘phenomenon’ as whatever exists outside of a knowledge structure we call ‘logic’, but it’s more complex than that. And ALL the phenomenon you mention I believe are consistent with a fifth and sixth dimension to reality.Possibility

    Sure, the phenomenon called Love is beyond logical impossibility, yet to describe it in a proposition, puts it into an axiom or construct of logic and language. Thus, when trying to verbalize Love, it becomes a logically impossible (or ineffable) phenomenon. Or at least a metaphysical one, that in theory, would include a 5th dimensional force (as you suggested), as even Einstein would posit.

    And so all we are really alluding to there, in an anthropic way, is the complex nature of consciousness, and the theory that conscious energy is 'out there' only being filtered by the brain. (That of course being in opposition to say the materialist view that the brain excretes substance to do its job of cognition-within itself as a self contained thing in itself.)

    And that thought process of entropy would, I believe, also align with Schop's philosophy of a Metaphysical Will in nature.

    So, to embrace logical impossibility (as a Christian Existentialist) as irony would have it, only supports my world view of the super natural existing-Love. (Which it turn, relegates Atheism to a pathology inconsistent with natural phenomena or otherwise in denial of the human condition.)
  • Gregory
    4.6k
    I think Christianity is the antithesis of love. In that system God created people knowing they will end up in hell. I would never do that with my own family
  • 3017amen
    3.1k


    Who was Jesus?

    I hope I'm wrong, but you seem to be perpetuating the Atheists mantra of yet another axe to grind... . And don't blame me, Einstein said it too...

    Otherwise, how do you feel about 'in God we Trust'? Or maybe more notably; Faith Hope and Love(?). Or, to stay on topic, something to do with Metaphysics?????

    In other words, how about a constructive argument instead of a mini-rant. LOL
  • EnPassant
    665
    Evil cannot exist without good because good is being and evil needs being/God in order to exist. Evil is ultimately self destructive.
  • Possibility
    2.8k
    If I approach an object, first i have to go half the distance. Otherwise I am there. And half that, otherwise i am there. Laws of identity say this goes on forever. So objects are infinite. Yet they are finite to us. The division of a whole into parts gives us exactly that sum when combined. We can say things are merely potentially infinite like Aristotle's said. But nothing could then be truly actual, because it would only potentially have parts, which is absurd. Heraclitian fire is the solutionGregory

    Not sure I follow you here. Objects are not infinite.
  • Gregory
    4.6k
    Viruses kill people, so maybe evil can kill God. But he is all knowing? Who says he even exists. Do you hear yourself? There is a meta-dude out there with a son? And the love between is another dude? Lol
  • Gregory
    4.6k
    Objects are infinitely divisible, so they have infinite parts. Hence Zenos paradox. Belief in God is about desire, not knowledge. People want more. They are not satisfied with annihilation. But what does it even feel to speak of an "order beyond the material"? The idea of prophecy is justified with molinism or compatabilism. The former makes no sense, because it makes people having made choices without existentially existing. The latter makes God a monster.
  • Possibility
    2.8k
    Sure, the phenomenon called Love is beyond logical impossibility, yet to describe it in a proposition, puts it into an axiom or construct of logic and language. Thus, when trying to verbalize Love, it becomes a logically impossible (or ineffable) phenomenon. Or at least a metaphysical one, that in theory, would include a 5th dimensional force (as you suggested), as even Einstein would posit.3017amen

    Love is always possible, but not always logical. Using language to describe love is fraught with error because the process is necessarily reductive: six dimensional information must be reduced to five-dimensional information and then ‘fit’ into a particular language structure. The difficulty is similar to drawing a table: it takes a certain amount of skill to reduce one’s relationship with a table to a relationship of shapes (2D) or even lines (1D) on a page, without losing important information that expresses its 3D aspect - let alone any aspect of time (4D) or value perspective or perceived potential (5D), or what the table or the moment or its value/potential or simply the relationship itself means to you (6D). And that’s just a table.

    Love always involves a reductive process. Personally, I tend to describe an act of love as actualising (4D) a relation (6D) of potentiality (5D). Like the drawing of the table, it’s only when we recognise that what people call ‘love’ always points to more a complex relationship of information than what we’re looking at, that we can get a sense of what that ‘love’ is.

    But I haven’t suggested a fifth-dimensional ‘force’ as such. It’s more accurately described as a relation - in much the same way as a 3D object is a relation of space to shape to length from a variable position in time. Where this relation pertains to ‘force’ is the notion of ‘metaphysical will’, which I tend to describe as the faculty by which action is determined and initiated. This 5D relation I see as three ‘gates’ between potentiality and actuality - awareness/ignorance, connection/isolation and collaboration/exclusion - which control the flow of energy/entropy.

    And so all we are really alluding to there, in an anthropic way, is the complex nature of consciousness, and the theory that conscious energy is 'out there' only being filtered by the brain. (That of course being in opposition to say the materialist view that the brain excretes substance to do its job of cognition-within itself as a self contained thing in itself.)

    And that thought process of entropy would, I believe, also align with Schop's philosophy of a Metaphysical Will in nature.

    So, to embrace logical impossibility (as a Christian Existentialist) as irony would have it, only supports my world view of the super natural existing-Love. (Which it turn, relegates Atheism to a pathology inconsistent with natural phenomena or otherwise in denial of the human condition.)
    3017amen

    I don’t think love is ‘super natural’ at all. Super-logical, ultimately, yes. Ineffable, absolutely.

    The complex nature of consciousness refers to our current capacity for awareness, which is not the same for everyone. Most of us have at least some awareness of a five-dimensional relation of value/potential to time to space to shape to length, and our relative position of experiencing subject: an integrated relational structure of the human organism as ‘mind’. The complex nature of love refers to awareness of six-dimensional relation of meaning to value to time to space to shape to length. From the relative position of an experiencing subject, our understanding of love is necessarily a reduction of information, understood as something ‘super natural’ - an actualising of potential, of ‘God’ - because what we understand of the universe is only what consciousness relates to, not what conscious IS. In the same way, most animals understand their universe as only what the living organism (as an event) relates to (ie. as response to stimulus), not what it IS.

    But from a possible position beyond the self, relating without limitation or fear to the full potentiality of the universe as an integrated system, we recognise this relational existence as love.

    Atheism usually relates specifically to the notion of ‘God’ as an actuality beyond time. I think calling it a ‘pathology’ is unnecessarily judgemental. It derives from a lack of awareness, but then so does every religious doctrine it refutes.
  • Possibility
    2.8k
    Objects are infinitely divisible, so they have infinite parts. Hence Zenos paradox. Belief in God is about desire, not knowledge. People want more. They are not satisfied with annihilation. But what does it even feel to speak of an "order beyond the material"? The idea of prophecy is justified with molinism or compatabilism. The former makes no sense, because it makes people having made choices without existentially existing. The latter makes God a monster.Gregory

    If you’re referring to actual objects, then I dispute this. The material universe is both finite and granular (according to quantum mechanics) and it also seems to be the case in relation to time. Belief in God doesn’t require knowledge, but it’s not about wanting more. It’s about recognising that the way we relate to this awareness that there IS more to reality is ultimately what matters. To speak of an ‘order beyond the material’ is to devalue illogical information about reality.

    Both Molinism and Compatibilism are ignorant of the capacity for the human mind to map causal conditions beyond time by relating to potentiality. Determinism refers to measurable relations within time, while the ‘freedom of the will’ refers to our capacity to ALSO relate to reality beyond time, and integrate this information in predicting, evaluating, determining and initiating action.
  • Gregory
    4.6k


    By granular, you mean discrete? The discrete is like a unicorn. It doesn't exist. Does it have size or not? Is it something or nothing? Those questions refute the opponents of Zeno and Parmenides
  • Gregory
    4.6k
    Maybe evil makes us weak. That doesn't make evil weak, or it's effects. I'm just saying, who knows? I am not espousing evil, just the Christian viewpoint.

    If God really abducted a human and walked this earth, we all should crucify him. Christians don't want to
    die. That is why they have always said "I know Jesus is coming very soon". They want someone to come out of the sky and bring them somewhere else. The only father I have is my dad. Christians complain about homosexuality, and yet commit lust with their spouses. Giving in to sexual pleasure is always sinful, it is always literally a gay act, no matter what. But who hasn't made an excuse to do it in some form? They should at least admit they are no different from other people and stop casting stones and pretending they have an all powerful dude backing them up
  • Possibility
    2.8k
    By granular, you mean discrete? The discrete is like a unicorn. It doesn't exist. Does it have size or not? Is it something or nothing? Those questions refute the opponents of Zeno and ParmenidesGregory

    No. By granular, I mean NOT infinitely divisible. Quanta represents a particle of the smallest actual measurement (Planck scale), but quanta are only mathematical representations of the granularity of matter, not actual objects. Objects are three dimensional relations to an observable event.
  • Gregory
    4.6k
    If an object is actual and material, it is infinitely divisible. The smallest unit of matter either has parts or it is nothing. If it has parts its divisible. So it is demonstrated that the process goes on eternally and everything has infinite parts. Nothing is actual
  • 3017amen
    3.1k
    I think calling it a ‘pathology’ is unnecessarily judgemental. It derives from a lack of awarenessPossibility

    Agreed. Thus, at the risk of redundancy:

    Then there are the fanatical atheists whose intolerance is the same as that of the religious fanatics, and it springs from the same source . .. They are creatures who can't hear the music of the spheres. (Albert Einstein)

    The concern there, relates to the many forms of extremism viz lack of self-awareness. So in that context, I would agree.

    And, thank for the word picture/metaphor describing the challenges of apprehending this notion of love. I think that's a real phenomenon, even when one is in the trenches sort-a-speak. Like the 80's lyrics; been in love before..., the hardest part is when you're in it. It's in many ways paradoxical. The limitation's of language indeed presents us with challenges in expressing our so-called sentient sojourn. We seek love, yet we don't really understand that which we seek.

    With respect to the definition of super natural I'll offer this:

    It seems to me that the supernatural (whatever it may be) is outside of space and time and thus the laws of nature as we know them do not apply to the supernatural. By laws of nature I refer to strong force, weak force, gravity, EM force.

    The 'supernatural' could describe anything which cannot be observed or proven by any classical means, but only by intuition and belief. Such as the presence of love, or for some people, the existence of God. You cannot classically devise a "proof" of neither but it exists only in our minds and in the way we believe. We can't prove we love someone, we just know that we do. And so I believe that love and God are examples of supernatural "entities".

    To speak to one's logic of it all, I would have to default to Kant's idea of the noumenal realm, when trying to understand the true nature of this thing called Love and/or the super natural.
  • Gregory
    4.6k


    Thomistic guys would say you can't have pure potentiality coming into actuality without a law that was actual guiding it. Hence their response to Plotinus. Yet, I don't like their whole potential/actual game they play. It's just a mental game. We can say the world comes from the One of Parmedines. All we experience eternally flows from it. It is not changed by us nor acts as a person. In fact there is no need to posit other persons out there besides the ones on this planet. We have plenty of people, and animals, and even plants, to love without believing we need something else higher than all this to love. I think Einstein would agree with that.

    You might feel you need something higher, but that doesn't prove there is something higher. Desire is not an argument for existence. I think this is essentially where Schopenhauer parts with Aquinas
  • Possibility
    2.8k
    With respect to the definition of super natural I'll offer this:

    It seems to me that the supernatural (whatever it may be) is outside of space and time and thus the laws of nature as we know them do not apply to the supernatural. By laws of nature I refer to strong force, weak force, gravity, EM force.

    The 'supernatural' could describe anything which cannot be observed or proven by any classical means, but only by intuition and belief. Such as the presence of love, or for some people, the existence of God. You cannot classically devise a "proof" of neither but it exists only in our minds and in the way we believe. We can't prove we love someone, we just know that we do. And so I believe that love and God are examples of supernatural "entities".
    3017amen

    I accept your definition of ‘supernatural’, but I think the classical axioms upon which the term is based undermine its usefulness in a discussion such as this. Remember that the ‘laws of nature’ used to be Newton’s, so already the definition has shifted away from a classical view of ‘nature’ and what is ‘natural’.

    If we’re to better understand these ‘laws of nature’ you refer to, then even science needs to recognise them as ‘evidence’ of a reality that transcends time. These ‘laws’ set the potential energy/entropy access of the unfolding universe, and point to a five dimensional aspect to reality. Our scientific understanding of this dimension starts with probability wave calculations, but the role of the observer can no longer be ignored or concealed in science. It opens the door to studying the effects of things like ‘belief’ or ‘affect’ on probability wave calculations using scientific method, and better understanding consciousness as a five-dimensional aspect of the human organism.

    I disagree that understanding or proving either love or ‘God’ can only be achieved by intuition and belief. We can subjectively ‘prove’ or at least affect the probability of the awareness of both love and ‘God’ existing for others by how we relate to them and to the world. It’s not scientific (not yet), but the potential is there, at least.

    To speak to one's logic of it all, I would have to default to Kant's idea of the noumenal realm, when trying to understand the true nature of this thing called Love and/or the super natural.3017amen

    Well, the way I see it, the noumenal/phenomenal divide is narrowly anthropic, and a clearer understanding of how we relate to this ‘noumenal realm’ (of which we are a part) through conceptual structures needs to take into account the way animals, plants, chemical reactions and molecules relate to the same ‘noumenon’. Because we don’t just relate to reality conceptually, but also on other levels, which continually influence the structure of our ‘phenomenal world’.
  • 3017amen
    3.1k
    I disagree that understanding or proving either love or ‘God’ can only be achieved by intuition and belief. We can subjectively ‘prove’ or at least affect the probability of the awareness of both love and ‘God’ existing for others by how we relate to them and to the world. It’s not scientific (not yet), but the potential is there, at least.Possibility

    How or what are some of the cognitive tools we can access in proving or understanding the EOG?
  • MathematicalPhysicist
    45
    You decided what you categorize as "right" and what is "wrong".

    But who decided that you should decide?
    No one, not me at least... :-D
  • 3017amen
    3.1k
    You might feel you need something higher, but that doesn't prove there is something higher. Desire is not an argument for existence. I think this is essentially where Schopenhauer parts with AquinasGregory

    Gregory, could you please elaborate a bit more on that point?

    The reason why I'm asking, for one, is how does one reconcile Metaphysical Will in Nature (Schopenhauer) being beyond a material object or entity?

    If you are equating "something higher" with the Will, I don't think you would be far off the mark there(?). Maybe try to define the Will first.

    Analogous examples of those things from conscious existence could include of course the Will; sense of wonderment, Love and other metaphysical abstracts and phenomenon from our sense datum (mind-dependent 'objects' that we are directly aware of in perception).
  • Possibility
    2.8k
    I disagree that understanding or proving either love or ‘God’ can only be achieved by intuition and belief. We can subjectively ‘prove’ or at least affect the probability of the awareness of both love and ‘God’ existing for others by how we relate to them and to the world. It’s not scientific (not yet), but the potential is there, at least.
    — Possibility

    How or what are some of the cognitive tools we can access in proving or understanding the EOG?
    3017amen

    I’m only saying that we shouldn’t dismiss the capacity of the scientific method (minus the classical assumptions) to reach an understanding of the absolute possibility of the universe that is referred to as ‘God’. It certainly won’t be a classically devised proof. But we can reliably calculate certain potentialities, so if we don’t automatically discard the low probability information in these calculations, but rather find some way to include them in our understanding of the universe, then we’re on our way to recognising the ‘illogical/improbable possibility’ in the universe that points to the absolute possibility that exists beyond logic.

    An example of this is the efforts scientists go to in measuring the minute energy signatures of neutrinos and other particles in the universe, because we now realise that they matter to our understanding of reality. This discovery began from a vague awareness of an improbable or ‘low value’ possibility, that mattered to the extent that we developed a collaborative potential to relate to this possible existence by relating to elements in the universe that have greater potential (or attribute more significant value) in how they relate to what is insignificant to us, such that it changes the value of our relation to what is sufficiently significant to us, so that we notice it. Love as a six dimensional relation is the same thing: recognising that what is significant to you but is insignificant to me matters in relation to its relation to your significance to me.

    In this same manner, we approach an understanding of the existence of ‘God’ by relating to the world to the extent that what matters, (what is ‘loved’) is not just everything I think or believe I could ever value, but everything that could ever be valued by everything I could ever value, whether or not I think or believe that I could, or that they could.

    The current understanding of ‘time’ as a number of interrelated variables in relation to three dimensional information, rather than a single measurement of the universe, is another example. This opens the way to understanding ‘value’ or ‘potential’ as a number of interrelated formulae (probability calculations) in relation to three or four dimensional information. Managing the relative uncertainty of our predictions is already beginning a paradigm shift in how we do science. Recognising that what we understand as ‘value’ or ‘potential’ is not necessarily numerical I think is the next big hurdle for science.
  • 3017amen
    3.1k
    Managing the relative uncertainty of our predictions is already beginning a paradigm shift in how we do science. Recognising that what we understand as ‘value’ or ‘potential’ is not necessarily numerical I think is the next big hurdle for science.Possibility

    Physical science/theoretical science already uses Kantian tools like synthetic propositional logic and inference in their sense of wonderment about the cosmos. Meaning, synthetic propositions are almost always used for discovering newness or testing a new physical theory uncovering truly novel ideas/discoveries about same. Also, as you may know, cognitive science will take empirical studies or otherwise take human experiment's and infer other theories about existential phenomena. All of which can lead to a greater understanding about things like EOG/Love phenomena and other ethical/cosmological concepts and so-called intrinsic human needs... .

    While we can have Kantian intuition, we can act on our those intuitions by experience or experiencing similar phenomena in living this life. We then can infer the probabilities, much like science, that in this case a Schop/ metaphysical will/EOG is more likely than not.
  • Gregory
    4.6k
    Will and Representation says the world is will, but it says it could be an evil will. Schopenhauer thought our desires can be thwarted in life. Aquinas thought our desire to be happy forever will always come true if we do what is right to get there. Christians say the desire for something higher prices there is something higher. Schopenhauer rejects such arguments
  • Possibility
    2.8k
    Agreed. As I said, the potential is there. Inference in physics is known as ‘interpretation’.

    I admit, I’m not all that familiar with the academic philosophy of language, but I tend to agree with Quine’s perspective of the synthetic-analytic distinction in response to Kant: that the justification of even supposedly analytic propositions are still contingent upon a shared meaning of concepts in relation to experiencing subjects, just as supposedly synthetic propositions are also constructed according to the limitations of language and other ‘logical’ value structures that appear to preclude the necessity of such a relative value position as an experiencing subject.

    Science has all but abandoned the search for a ‘universal time’ variable, recognising that this four-dimensional aspect of reality consists of a number of interrelated variables in relation to an observer. Quantum probability formulae without a ‘time’ variable are found to be more accurate, leading to an accepted scientific view that the universe of spacetime consists of interrelated ‘events’ rather than ‘objects’ in spacetime - but this is just the beginning. It’s a useful shift that allows for the irreducibility of reality.

    In the same way, a more accurate structure of the five-dimensional aspect of reality can be achieved not by proposing one ‘objective’, ‘logical’ or ‘ethical’ value system, but by recognising that our experiential reality consists of a number of amorphously interrelated value systems (currently isolated as mathematical, linguistic, ethical, social, political, aesthetic, musical, etc) in relation to an experiencing subject. In order to accurately ‘collapse’ all of this information into a determined and initiated action (a function of the metaphysical will), an expression should be carefully rendered to include this complexity of information in the observable event. This is the skill and talent of an artist/genius to which Schopenhauer refers, a capacity we can all develop only by testing for prediction error in our conceptual systems - which manifests as pain, humility and loss (suffering or negative affect) in our experience.

    What we call ‘intuition’ I think refers to the extent to which we interrelate and include these value systems in how we interact with reality, rather than ignore/isolate/exclude information according to a simplified dichotomy or continuum (good/evil, logical/illogical, objective/subjective, analytic/synthetic, even probability, etc). The more we increase awareness, connection and collaboration, the more we recognise that all value systems reduce information, and so even language or logic alone can only approach this complexity of shared meaning that points to the infinite interrelation of all possibility (EoG).

    It is how we relate to this possibility beyond language, beyond even our own experience (eg. to what we cannot understand or rationalise in others’ expressions or actions) that enables us to render a more accurate conceptualisation of reality. Buddha and Jesus were onto something: simply relating (without judgement) to what we may feel justified to exclude, and being open to its possibility, is the key to refining the accuracy of what is ‘reality’, ‘truth’, ‘love’ or ‘God’ as a five-dimensional rendering of six-dimensional information, and to reducing the prediction error (suffering) of subsequent interactions with reality, as four-dimensional action/expression events.
  • 3017amen
    3.1k


    Keep in mind that not all interpretations of evil relate to moral concerns. And in existential ethics (what it means to live a happy life) and cosmology, evil is considered a lack of perfection or lack of knowledge about the secrets of the universe and its complex nature. It also speaks to the Christian metaphor viz the tree of Life.
  • Jedothek
    9
    To be compared to Mozart is to be praised.
    Here is an example of a valid argument in Aquinas (ST 1.2.3)

    1. A thing cannot be simultaneously in potentiality and in actuality in the same respect. (Premise)
    2. To move, a thing must be actual in a certain respect. (Premise)
    3. To be moved, a thing must be potential in that respect. (Premise)
    4. Therefore, a thing cannot move itself. (1, 2, 3)

    To support your charge that Aquinas is a sophist, please supply an example of an invalid argument in Thomas.
  • 180 Proof
    14k
    Not addressed to me, consider the post below from an old thread concerning Thomistic sophistry:
    The ancient atomists (as well as Heraclitus) took it as axiomatic that motion was constant and universal without exception but generations later Aristotle disagreed with [his] "unmoved mover" fiat. On what grounds, however, is it reasonable to assume that

    (a) physical / natural motion ever started or (b) needed to be started or (c) that there is stasis (e.g. "unmoved mover") that starts, and therefore is prior to, physical / natural motion?

    Aquinas' "First Way", IMO, is [only] vacuous scholastic twaddle without justifying this anachronistic Aristotlean assumption.
    180 Proof
    And this excerpt from an old post objecting to the soundness, etc of "the cosmological argument":
    (i) At best the argument is unsound.

    (ii) Otherwise, it's an invalid, or incoherent, induction from the experience of the cosmos to [wait for it, wait for it] a-cosmos.

    (iii) Also, there's a further incoherence of trying to make an a posterior argument justify an a priori premise.

    (iv) Lastly, one of the argument's hidden assumptions - nullifying soundness - is that the cosmos, consisting of cause and effect relations, is itself the effect of a cause (i.e. "First Cause") - compositional fallacy, no?

    (v) And, nailing this apologia's coffin shut for good, this purported "First Cause" is not even uniquely, or identifiably, (JCI) theistic, but just as arbitrarily can be attributed to deistic or pandeistic or ... QFT tunneling symmetry-breaking theoretic "creation"-concepts.

    Caveat: And some, or most, of these same objections also defeat the rest of that toothless old quaint Quinque viæ (due, in no small part, to Aristotlean 'teleological' pseudo-physics).
    180 Proof
  • Deleted User
    -1
    Aquinas believed that good and being are the same thing. Good and beautiful are the same too, for him.Gregory

    Think empirically: good is equal to my 600 pound life? No. Being on the road, on foot, in heavy traffic? No. Complete failure of an idea just right there.

    God merely is the most actual of all. He is infiniteGregory

    Ahh, but has he considered unicorns? They too are most actual of all, AND infinite. And so are the cosmoballs of Tralfamador. I think Aquinas needs to think things trough a bit more.
  • Gregory
    4.6k


    Everything has actuality first and their potentiality comes from what substance they are. A rock not being able to move has nothing to do with potentiality but it's actuality. Potentiality is actuality. A rock can't move because it doesn't have a nervous system. And why did you open a two year old thread, gee
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