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hammiesink

To All: Detailed pickings of Aquinas' First Way #4: The First Way Premise 1

NOTE: THIS IS LESS OF A DEBATE THREAD AND MORE OF AN EXPLANATORY THREAD, FOR EASY LATER REFERENCE. THE AIM OF THIS THREAD IS TO GIVE READERS PROPER UNDERSTANDING OF THE ARGUMENT, NOT NECESSARILY TO DEBATE ITS TRUTH VALUE.

OK, now we should have just enough to look at the First Way itself. There is a lot more to Aristotle's metaphysics that will come into play, and has already arisen in some of the questions, but I'd rather stick to the bare minimum for this particular argument. So off we go to the argument proper...

The argument was first formulated by Aristotle, but then fleshed out and merged with Christian theology by Aquinas. So the Aquinas version is the one we will be looking at here.

The first day will be easy.

From Summa Theologica, First Part, Question 2, Article 3

The first and more manifest way is the argument from motion. It is certain, and evident to our senses, that in the world some things are in motion.

If we skip ahead in the argument a bit, we get the definition of "motion":

For motion is nothing else than the reduction of something from potentiality to actuality.

Motion, or what we would just call change, is the flip from potential to actual. So this doesn't just mean motion from place to place, but also means any kind of change, like changes in quality or quantity. Water freezing into ice would be "motion" on this view.

In other words, Aquinas is siding with Aristotle against Parmenides: our senses are correct in revealing to us that things are changing.

What we shall eventually see is that he is establishing the "C" in an essentially ordered series. To take the example from part 3, he is noting that there is a "laser spot on the wall." Or to take Aquinas' own example of a hand moving a stick moving a rock, with this premise he is establishing that the rock is moving.

This Concludes Part 4

This is the only empirical premise of the argument, and hence the only one that might be considered "scientific." But in a way, it might not even be that, since you could always side with Parmenides and say that change is an illusion. Either way, Aquinas agrees with Aristotle that change really does occur, and is the reduction from potency to act.

<<<< Back to Part 3....Continue to Part 5>>>>

Posted Jan 15, 2012, 5:15 AM UTC · edited

385
tannatwe're here•

Motion, or what we would just call change, is the flip from potential to actual. So this doesn't just mean motion from place to place, but also means any kind of change, like changes in quality or quantity. Water freezing into ice would be "motion" on this view.

This isolated expression is a brilliant pre-notion of energy as motion and the resulting change, or illusion of change. It shows a curious and brilliant mind to get so close with the primitive tools of analysis available.

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hammiesinkOP•

Illusion of change = Parmenides.

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tannatwe're here•

I know, but that's part of where Aristotle seem to have got it wrong, most changes/movements happening do not impact a change to the "thing", it's only the motion in the thing that is happening. Some states give illusion of change of the matter (Water and Ice) while essentially only more motion is passing by.

Aristotle hid the fault partly with this statement though:

For motion is nothing else than the reduction of something from potentiality to actuality.

When he reduces motion to these points he throws out all information about the real properties and limits of motion.

It's worse than saying that the way you drove to work is reducted to the two points of work and home because:

He don't give the points defined positions. There is no way to distinguish the locations. There is no information in the distinction between Potentiality and actuality in reality. They are fully interchangeable.

Net movement is exactly the same after potential and actual, motion is always. It's not channeled between two random points.

TL:DR Change is motion but change gives the impression of difference in total motion or matter. Motion is always, therefore change is always and can't be reducted to a limited path unless additional information is provided.

I guess I made the TL:DR even more confusing than the post. Problem here is that Aristotle's constructs don't conform with reality and reality is hard to express in his constructs.

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hammiesinkOP•

I honestly can't understand a single thing you've said here.

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tannatwe're here•

To define motion properly you need information about speed, acceleration and momentum. This means that you need information expressed in the fundamental unities time, space and mass.

It is simple: If there is no mass, there is no motion. If there is no time, there is no motion. If there is no space there is no motion.

For motion is nothing else than the reduction of something from potentiality to actuality.

Actuality and potentiality seem to share the same parameter definitions, but they carry no information about motion or kind of motion, expressed in the fundamental quantities above.

Therefore the reduction between actuality and potential (or vice versa), as expressed by Aristotle, can never be a correct, or even sufficient, definition of motion. It looks at two pictures and claim the movement was in between. We need Archimedes in order to express such relations. We need differentials.

We can't extract differential information from two random points where a functional change has happened in between. information is insufficient. This is basic math.

The other a thing I didn't explain very well (obviously) is that motion gives the illusion of material change, even if it never results in material change but only reconfiguration. Parmenides paradox seem to me to have held more truth than the introduction of actualization Aristotle made.

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dhookeatheist•

This is the only empirical premise of the argument, and hence the only one that might be considered "scientific." But in a way, it might not even be that, since you could always side with Parmenides and say that change is an illusion

It is not necessary to side with Parmenides, as we discussed in part 2 of this series.

Parmenides' grand mistake, was to extrapolate from particulars a universal. Then he treats this as the only existing thing. We can talk about things within the universe changing and there is no problem. Indeed we have modern concepts to describe how matter changes and moves.

The concept of "being" is a metaphysical imposition that has led to many centuries of error in philosophy. Aristotle (and then Aquinas) compounds this error by introducing new metaphysical entities, potency and actuality. Potency is no property of the object. Nor is it a tendency. Nor is there any other relation to potency. It is an unnecessary entity. We have the modern concept of energy to help describe change.

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hammiesinkOP•

Either:

  1. Act and potency
  2. Just act
  3. Just potency

Number 1 is Aristotle. Number 2 is Parmenides. Number 3 is incoherent and impossible.

You are saying "energy?" What about it? Energy either exists, or it doesn't. It has nothing to do with this argument, which operates on a much more fundamental level. Don't treat this like a quasi-scientific enterprise. It is not. It is operating at the same level as: "solipsism is false."

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dhookeatheist•

I'm sorry, but there is nothing "more fundamental" about creating unnecessary entities. Just because it makes metaphysical claims, it doesn't make it more fundamental than physics. Where there is physics, metaphysics may not be needed at all, as here. Aristotle makes a metaphysical claim about matter because he had no physics.

There is no such thing as potency. Change is explained by NOT assuming that there is a universal. The concept of time probably cannot even be applied to the totality.

Energy explains how there is change. It is fundamental. There is nothing more fundamental, other than what is made up.

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hammiesinkOP•

Where there is physics, metaphysics may not be needed at all

Of course meta physics is needed. Before you can even do physics, you need to know that the external world is real (solipsism is false), that your reasoning abilities can tell you something about it, that logic works, that the laws of physics will continue holding from moment to moment, and so on.

These arguments operate at that level. Don't mistake them for a competitor to physics. They are not.

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dhookeatheist•

I did not mean to say that physics removes the need for metaphysics (That is another argument). My actual words were "where there is physics...", meaning that a metaphysical explanation is not needed of something that has a physical explanation. That is, we do not need a metaphysical explanation of change, when we have a physical explanation.

Regardless, my main point was that the notion of "being" is in error, and other errors arise from there.

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blazingtruthpreacher's kid | mystic •

I pick 3. :D

(1) All fundamental properties are potencies - there are no (fundamental) categorical natural properties.

(2) The laws of nature are consequences of the existence of potencies.

(3) The laws of nature are necessary.

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hammiesinkOP•

But just potential, with no actual existence at all, is metaphysical absurdity.

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blazingtruthpreacher's kid | mystic •

http://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/qyo9r/to_all_especially_hammiesink_a_primer_on/

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[deleted]•

I'm not sure that Aquinas is that great a resource for public education. I see that a lot of people are getting hung up what is admittedly unfamiliar terminology, such as Aquinas' analysis of the actuality/potentiality division.

I think if we want people to understand what is at stake in these arguments, we have to do try to present the underlying logic in a manner which will be as understandable as possible to them.

Here's how I explain arguments that take the general form of the cosmological one:

First, people need to understand the notion of an ordered series. So let's consider an ordered series of numerical values, represented by the variables A, B, C, D, E... and so on.

Next, people need to understand the notion of a recursive relationship defining the elements of a series. So let's go back to our series and suppose that the way it is ordered is such that each of its members has a value twice that of the next one. I.e.: A=2B, B=2C, C=2D... and so on. Let's call this kind of relationship an "R-relation" for short.

Next, people need to understand the problem which arises for infinite series of ordered relations when all of them are R-relations. So let's go back to our series and ask: "Suppose this is a series of definite values, and each is defined as in the aforementioned R-relation. I.e., A=2B, B=2C... and so on. Is this a possible scenario?" It may take some reflection, but people should be able to see why this is not a possible scenario. So long as the definition of value is perpetually put off to the next step, we never actually arrive at a definite value, and so the notion of a series of definite values which is defined in this way turns out to be impossible.

That's all people really need to know to understand the underlying logic of these arguments. While the actuality/potentiality division (or other such analyses which come up in the philosophical literature on cosmological arguments) is interesting for a variety of metaphysical issues, I think it tends more often to get in the way of people understanding the above points of logic, rather than helping them to understand it.

Plus, when we present the logical relations this way, we don't need to worry about the typical "But science has refuted old philosophers!" gaff,

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hammiesinkOP•

Well, this argument deals with a different type of infinite series that needs to be understood, as I explained in part 3. It doesn't have anything to do with what I think you are getting at, that of Zeno's impossibility of traversing the infinite.

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[deleted]•

I'm not sure if we need to appeal to Zeno here either, but in any case it surely is a problem of transversing the infinite. For the empirical premise gives us the notion of one kind of relation, and that this notion actually describes something real: namely, the actualizing of a potential for which we must appeal to a prior actuality.

This kind of relation can be pushed back indefinitely, for the aforementioned prior actuality may again be another case of an actualized potential for which we must appeal to a prior actuality. And so on to infinity.

When people don't understand this and why it is problematic, they will be inclined to say something like: "That's right, so I guess that's the kind of relation which holds between all things. Except that you want to introduce an exception to sneak God in, you silly weirdo."

But the notion that we can have a definite series of things for which this is the only kind of relation which holds is incoherent, for the sort of reason revealed in my previous comment.

I think that if people understood this, they would not be able to complain that the appeal to a different kind of thing, or an "exception", we call God is capricious. Or at least they would not be able to sincerely complain thus.

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tripleatheisthelp not wanted for atheist downvote brigade•

...you could always side with Parmenides and say that change is an illusion.

Given your unabashed advocacy of these arguments in the face of strident, substantive objections, I'm beginning to wonder if perhaps Parmenides had a point.

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GoodDamonIgnostic atheist|Physicalist|Blueberry muffin•

He didn't, but hammie really wants it to be a dichotomy between Parmenides and Aristotle. As if no third possibility exists. I'm sure there is a fallacy about dichotomies that are false, but I can't for the life of me figure out what it is. ;)

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hammiesinkOP•

Explanation <> "unabashed advocacy"

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tripleatheisthelp not wanted for atheist downvote brigade•

You're one of our most prolific posters, and the plurality of your participation focuses on Thomism. Each and every time you bring these topics up, our more philosophically-inclined posters lodge some serious objections. Rarely, you'll issue a slight concession. More commonly, you'll drift off, disregard, or otherwise dodge the problem.

I realize this has nothing whatsoever to do with the argument, but this latest run of Aquinas primers isn't making it any easier for me to believe that you're interested in serious discussion about these arguments. To philistines like myself, it looks like a mess of sloppy definitions and shoddy argumentation paired with an unjustified sense of "metaphysical" dignity.

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hammiesinkOP•

That's because I'm inundated with bad objections which people think are good objections. Or objections so wack I'm like a deer in headlights and am left speechless cause I don't even know what's going on.

Like here. What? It might as well be written in Sanskrit.

Or here, where there is insistence that metaphysics is not needed anymore because of physics. ???? Might as well say that you don't need the foundation anymore now that the house is built. Or insist that the foundation of the house is a competitor to the house, and that the house is "better".

This is just nonsense. And I'm inundated with it. So after awhile I trail off because it's just pointless. And then elsewhere, people are like "Snap! He totally smoked you, dude!"

Ugh...

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tripleatheisthelp not wanted for atheist downvote brigade•

Trouble is, just as you see some of these objections as nonsense, many of us see your posts and responses as incoherent. At what point are we going to call this what it is: a stalemate?

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dhookeatheist•

Except I did not say that metaphysics as a field of study is not needed anymore. I said that Aristotle's metaphysics in this instance were replaced by a perfectly good physical explanation.

There may not be anything other than events conforming to regularities. Certainly we do not have to accept notions such as "potency", or even "being".

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simat6•

I'm trying to get my head around this.

Lets call the first mover G. Suppose 'everything' = G + A. G is the first mover so it is pure act. A is not so it has potential. Lets say it is actually A and potentially B. Lets also say that an actual B can potentially be C (but not A), and an actual C can be potentially D but not A, B or C), and this goes on to infinity.

So as I say, at the moment, 'everything'= G + A. Suppose G actualizes A's potential so that A becomes B and then actualizes B's potential so that B becomes C. So now 'everything' = G + C. I claim that the resultant G (which I will call G*) is different to the original G.

The original G can change 'everything' apart from itself into B. The resultant G* cannot do this as 'everything' apart from itself is C and C's only other potential state is D.

Therefore G and G* are different and so G isn't pure act (as it has the potential to become G*). Therefore G isn't the first mover.

Therefore there is no such thing as the first mover.

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simat6•

Just to be as clear as I can in identifying the difference between G and G(star). G is something that can change A into B. G(star) is something that can change C into D. Those are the only functions of G and G* and so it is obvious that the two are different.

Note: For some reason reddit didn't like me writing G* in some places, so I changed it to G(star)

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hammiesinkOP•

One problem is that the first mover is timeless, so from its perspective everything is already done and in place.

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simat6•

To kind of sum up my last post:

You say that 'the first mover' actualizes potential. But if it is timeless it can't actualize potential. The definition of potential is 'Having or showing the capacity to develop into something in the future.'

Something which is timeless will see everything that is going to happen as 'actual' and nothing as 'potential'. If its never going to happen, it can't have potential. And so, if the first mover is timeless, it can't actualize potential.

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simat6•

First of all, what is your argument that the first mover is timeless?

Second of all, so lets change my example slightly. Lets split 'everything' into G which is the first mover and 'the universe' which is everything apart from G. I previously said that 'everything' starts as G + A. i.e. 'the universe' starts as A. I then went on to say that G actualizes it's potential so it becomes B and then becomes C. Lets assume that C then becomes D and D becomes E etc. to infinity. So that each state, at some point, will have been actualized.

As G is timeless, it will see 'the universe' as A, B, C, D, E, F........ all actualized with no potential. If all potential states have been actualized, there's no potential states left.

If there's no potential in 'the universe' then G is powerless.

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Pastasky•

So we have a rock flying through space at 10meters/s towards me. It is fifty meters to my left. Now it is also potentially fifty meters to my right.

10 Seconds later it is actually fifty meters to my right. What actualized this potential?

As far as I can tell, nothing, but I am guessing this is just because I am misunderstanding something.

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hammiesinkOP•

"Motion" refers to change in location, change in quantity, and change in quality, so allow this motion to not be actualized by anything. You still have change in quantity and quality, which the argument still works with.

Secondly, frictionless Newtonian motion might be a state, and not a change. For the rock to change direction or slow down or speed up, its potentiality to do so must be actualized by something else.

And last, for the rock to be moving it must exist, and its existence is actualized by something else. But that gets into the essence/existence distinction and the Second Way, which is not directly germane to this argument.

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Pastasky•

I've got another question. What actualizes an event like a quantum fluctuation/pair production/radioactive decay etc...

Edit:

And liquid water in space will turn to ice. What actualizes it there?

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Sadnotatheist•

Turns to gas, actually, not that it's relevant.

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Pastasky•

Actually I think it turns to gas then to ice. But small ice crystals, not like a ball of ice.

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[deleted]•

[deleted]

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simat6•

A carbon 14 molecule is actually a carbon 14 molecule and potentially a nitrogen 14 molecule. When it actualises its potential, it does this without anything causing it to do so. Surely this doesn't fit into your system.

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hammiesinkOP•

Beta decay. Entirely dependent on the weak force. Take out the weak force, and no beta decay. And the weak force in turn is dependent upon force carriers.

The idea is not "billiard ball causation", but dependence on a chain.

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simat6•

A force carrier is actually a force carrier, what is it potentially?

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hammiesinkOP•

Either there is another chinese doll inside the force carrier or whatever, or the force carrier's potential to exist is actualized by...?

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[deleted]•

[deleted]

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jkeiser•

I agree with Aquinas that some things change and that you could view the move from state A to state B by saying "it was possible that state A could change to state B." If that's potentiality, I'm with you, I just don't get why we need a term for it yet, since we're not assuming potential states actually exist as "things" in the sense of the argument.

So this doesn't just mean motion from place to place, but also means any kind of change, like changes in quality or quantity. Water freezing into ice would be "motion" on this view.

Does Aquinas agree with Aristotle that water and ice are not "things," but rather only the atoms of which they are composed? Perhaps a better question: would he agree, if he knew the physics you know :) Again, this one is just a question I'm curious of.

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