Yeah, I see what you mean: I think that is the point of Job. However, I don't think we need to be able to give an account of what the perfectly good way to treat things is in order to know that certain treatment cannot be the perfectly good way to treat them. If we accept natural law theory, then we can look at the way God ordered things and know that murder is wrong and I don't see how God is exempt from that. Do you believe that which is the creator can do whatever they please with that which they created?

Sounds good and I will listen to that video.

Yes, your summary of my argument is correct. I am curious what your thoughts are on it.

Hello, friend!

I've heard this rejoinder before, but the issue I take with it is that it absolves God of any moral responsibility. God is a person and persons are moral agents.

Moreover, God is perfectly good with perfect knowledge of His own perfect goodness; so He not only cannot sin but He always chooses not to....but this presupposes that He is capable of moral accountability!

If we take your argument with fervent seriousness, then I would say that the principle here is that "that which is the creator can do anything it wants to that which was created".

On the contrary, if God is perfectly good, then it would either have to be good for Him to have committed these alleged atrocities being no atrocity at all or it was not God (or did not happen).

What do you think?

. Aren't you a Christian?

Ah, so you are a functionalist, then?

Functions point to ends; ends point to a form; and a form points to an essence.

A "mind" as a mere function is an abstraction of any being which has those kinds of faculties; but it does not suffice for accounting for what a mind is for such-and-such. E.g., my mind as a human a human mind, instead of an alien mind, because it inheres in my human substance.

The function of a leg may be the same for a human and an ostrich, but they have different kinds of legs in virtue of their nature. It seems like if we define a leg in terms of its function, then human's and ostriches both have legs in the same manner.

:up:

Ok, I think I am understanding it better now. My mistake was that I was thinking a substantial form is merely the self-actualizing principle of a being; but it is really the self actualizing principle of a substance. Iron has a substantial form: it's parts are essentially ordered towards the whole whereby if you destroy that ordering so goes the iron itself; whereas a chair has an unsubstantial form: it's parts are unessentially ordered towards the whole whereby if you destroy the ordering the parts remain the same kind of thing it was to begin with (e.g., the metal constituting the chair does not cease to be metal if the chair is taken apart).

A soul, then, is not identical to a substantial form; instead, it is a kind of substantial form that has a self-actualizing principle. This would entail, then, that a robot could never have a soul, even if it were self-actualizing, because it is not a substantial form: the parts are not essentially ordered to the whole.

Likewise, the unity in a robot, even if it were self-actualizing, would be accidental and not an essential one; so it would not be alive proper.

Assuming I am more on-point in this assessment than before, going back to how a soul begets another soul, the parents would have to somehow actualize the matter so that it can receive the soul; but the soul would have to somehow be educed from that process. I guess this chalks up to the basic and mysterious question of how a life-organism can be created; which is not a unique problem for Aristotle.

For the problem of interaction, I would say that Aquinas doesn't have the hard problem (since the soul and body are one substance); however, it does have the soft problem of how something immaterial can interact with something material. I'm not sure if he ever addresses that problem or not.

However, for Aquinas, since the rational soul is immaterial and subsistent and thusly has to be infused by God instead of being educed from a natural process, there is a further soft problem of how organisms which clearly did not have a rational soul could have evolved to have a rational soul (such as is the case with our transitionary species'). What do you think about that?

Is the elastic algorithm hardcoded or not? Given that it is, the robot is hardcoded to move in certain ways. It's just that the "ways" are a bit more subtle than someone doing a robot dance. — Leontiskos

The algorithm is hardcoded, but it only dictates the structure for the being to will towards its ends. We aren't talking about a being that has a proper intellect (as that would require an immaterial soul): we are talking about a robot akin to a mechanical zebra.

It has no intrinsic ends. It has no will. It is just blindly following the hardcoded algorithm. There is no extra-algorithmic aspect to its principles of motion — Leontiskos

Notwithstanding persons, organisms blindly follow how its soul is programmed to will towards in the sense you described: the soul moves towards the ends it is supposed to have relative to its nature. There's nothing absolutely free about it: wouldn't you agree?

In the case of improper intellects (like a zebra's) that just pattern matches, it is just the processing of sense-data without abstraction of the form; and so it does also abide by whatever natural algorithm is in place for it to think. This doesn't mean the zebra cannot will against its nature whatsoever: it might will against avoiding an injury to preserve itself from a predator.

I agree with you, but I do see the form of an alive being as analogous to how a form is baked into the chair. I think the robot example is going to further the discussion best, so let's dive in.

If I write a computer program that starts with an integer and adds 1 every second, is it self-unified towards the end of larger sums? The crucial point here is that the program or the robot is not self-moving, given that it is a human artifact which is being moved by the instructions given to it by a human. — Leontiskos

Imagine you made a robot that was not hardcoded to move in certain ways, but was comprised of an elastic algorithm that facilitated its ability to will in accord with its ends (e.g., survival, reproduction, regeneration, etc.). Would you not consider that analogous to an non-subsistent, substantial form (viz., a material soul like a zebra's)? If so, then why not?

This isn't like a hardcoded machine program. It is programmed to be self-unified towards its ends and to will towards it.

I was thinking the material soul is baked into the matter like the form of a chair is baked into a chair; but it sounds like in your view that is not true. The material soul is not merely baked into the matter as a way materials are arranged to self-actualize: instead, there's a quasi-subsistent unity that directs its self-actualization.

I would say that a robot has no inward self-actualizing principle towards specific ends. It has no substantial form because it is not a substance. It is a mere aggregate of parts and instructions. — Leontiskos

But wouldn't a robot that could mechanistically grow, heal, etc. be self-unified towards certain ends?

Let's call the act of procreating "begetting." I don't know precisely how an oak tree begets an acorn. Does it bear on your point about whether the soul is a unity? — Leontiskos

What I wondering is how would a material soul ever be begotton by another material soul if the soul is a unity which is not merely received by the matter in the same way a chair's matter receives unity from the form bestowed onto it by its creator.

I was envisioning that all Aristotle meant by a material soul (viz., non-subsisting soul), like a vegetative soul, is that it is analogous to how a chair receives its form but that it is a form when received that self-actualizes.

To clarify, are you saying that a robot that has an inward self-actualizing principle towards specific ends (which provide its whatness) does not thereby have a soul?

Do you believe, then, that the soul, even in material souls (viz., non-subsistent souls), is a unity that directs the organism (and this unity is not merely how the parts behave in unison together)? If so, then how does, e.g., an oak tree produce another oak tree with an oak tree soul? I was thinking it would just provide it with the intial spark to get it's parts self-actualizing towards the natural ends of an oak tree.

No, I'm suggesting that for Aquinas, (following the lead of Aristotle), the human intellect is not purely immaterial, it is dependent on the material body. This is actually the reason Aquinas gives for why human beings cannot adequately know God, and separate Forms. The human intellect is deficient in this sense, and that is why we cannot adequately know God until the soul is disunited from the body.

Aquinas, as far as I understand, did think the mind is immaterial. It is not half material and half immaterial (or something like that). In fact, he forwards many arguments for why it is immaterial. Aristotle vaguely alluded to it being immaterial in De Anima, but didn't explicate it like Aquinas did.

I would say that this is a misunderstanding of Aristotle, and Aquinas.

Why? Aquinas thought that, e.g., Angels are pure form and not purely actual.

All matter is potential, but not all potential is matter.

Agreed. To be precise: matter is that which has passive potency, and not that which has potency simpliciter. An, e.g., Angel has active potency but no passive potency; and this is because an Angel has no matter which can be affected; but they still can learn.

The reason why the mind must be immaterial, is illustrated with the tinted glass analogy.

That is a very interesting analogy and I am inclined to agree; but it contradicts your point that humans cannot adequately separate forms. The whole point of the analogy is that if we have a proper intellect (that can apprehend forms with clarity), then it cannot be material AT ALL. Aquinas uses similar arguments to affirm that the mind is completely immaterial; others, as you noted, will use it to deny we have a proper intellect (like Hume).

Let me ask you a point of clarification: would you agree with the following?

A soul is a substantial form and a substantial form is the self-actualizing principle which unites a substance towards its natural ends. A self-actualizing principle can be reduced to the way matter is organized, with the right materials, to self-actualize towards certain ends: there is no unity which subsists that directs the matter itself. Therefore, a robot that has been designed to self-actualize from its own inward principles towards its own natural ends has a soul.

I think you are going to deny this on grounds that I am implicitly thinking in terms of reverse mereology again; but if an unsubstantial form, like that of a chair, is reducible to way the material and organization of parts suit the natural end(s) of 'chairness', then a substantial form is the same but the addition that it is organized to self-organize: this doesn't seem to entail some sort of subsistent unity that directs the self-movement. Let me know what you think.

You made a claim about "things," not "forms." In fact the very vagueness of that word "thing" is doing most of the work in your premise. For example, if you had used "substance" instead of "thing" the premise would not do any work (except against Descartes).

True, but my point is that the mind is not a form and it is immaterial and it is infused with the body that is material; so the question arises: "how does the mind interact with the body in this sort of fusion?". It may not be a hard problem like descartes', but it is still a problem.

I think your basic idea here is correct. Whether or not we want to talk about brains, there will still be "interaction" between the material and the immaterial.

How does that work, then? Is it a mystery we cannot solve?

If the mind is immaterial, then it has to be pure form because there is only form and matter. Are you suggesting an immaterial 'matter' that the intellect would be of?

Aristotle distinguished passive and active intellect, and Aquinas upheld this distinction. Since form is actuality, and the intellect has a passive aspect, I think it is impossible that the intellect is pure form.

From my understanding, something that is pure form is not necessarily purely actual; and what you are noting is that beings which are purely being in idea (such as angels, the mind, etc.) have potency and thusly are not purely actual. That is true, but they are pure form nevertheless because they do not exist in matter.

The potency that an angel has is not like our potency as material beings. My body is what received my form; but an angel is form that was not received by matter.

Perhaps you are denying the distinction between potency and matter; but I would say passive vs. active potency are different, and beings with matter have passive potency.

But, again, then that admits that there is interaction, not in the sense of merely participation in a form, by the mind and body. No?

I guess it is metaphysically possible, but how does that work? Wouldn't there have to be some medium which supplies the imaginery to the agent intellect? Otherwise, why doesn't the agent intellect receive imaginery from other bodies?

According to Aquinas, if I understand correctly, the intellect does not just witness the images: it (viz., the agent intellect) actively extracts the form from the image and passes it along to the understanding (viz., the passive intellect).

The image of this particular apple is used by the agent intellect to extract the form of appleness and received and retained for reasoning by the passive intellect. This seems to imply that the agent intellect somehow operates on images which are material and yet the agent intellect itself is completely void of matter. @Leontiskos, how does the form of a particular thing (which is in the state of sense-matter) get transferred into immaterial thought?

I was using Aquinas' view that brain is capable of and does in fact produce images of things based off of the sensations; but that the agent intellect, which is immaterial, abstracts the form from it for the passive intellect to receive it.

Is the concept of triangularity material? No. Do we interact with it? Yes.

But triangularity is a form: the mind isn't a form. If it isn't a form then wouldn't it have to interact with things? Likewise, wouldn't that have to be an interact where something that is not involved with matter whasoever extracts from matter something?

What I am arguing is more like this:

1. Abstraction of a universal from phantasms requires interaction between the phantasm and the thing which abstracts.

2. The immaterial mind abstracts.

3. The brain produces phantasms.

4. Therefore, the brain and mind interact.

5. A material thing and an immaterial thing cannot interact.

6. Therefore, either the mind is not immaterial or it does not interact with the brain.

By "interact", I mean some sort of process of impact from one to the other; instead of like the participation matter has in receive form. I get form is act, but if there's a subsistent form that can think then I don't see how it doesn't have a part of it that interacts with the matter that is informed in a way not like participation. Somehow the subsistent rational form not only provides the self-actualizing principle for self-development, but it also comes equipped with a mind that somehow interacts with the brain.

namely <If man can have knowledge of all corporeal things, then man's intellect is incorporeal>. Some people use this to affirm the immateriality of the intellect; others use it to deny that man can have knowledge of all corporeal things.

When you say 'man can have knowledge of all corporeal things', is this in the sense that if the a particular of any kind of given to the senses that the mind could abstract out it's form? Or are you saying the mind can know all corporeal things indirectly through testing and self-reflective reason?

I would have to revisit the issue, to be honest. Feser offers accessible blog posts on Thomism, and he has at least four entries on the interaction problem (one, two, three, four). That's where I would begin. The fourth one looks like it is the most concise.

I haven't found a Thomist that addresses tbh. I read Ed Fezer's elaborations and his doesn't focus on how the immaterial mind interacts with the material body. He just vaguely states that there is no interaction problem for hylomorphisists because the soul is the form of the body. The problem I have with that is that it ignores the fact that the immaterial mind is not the soul: the soul would be the form of the body and the mind (together unified); so how could they interact or be unified together like that?

How does the concept of something not being a multiplicity entail it is a multiplicity that is one?

For the point in space, assuming it is real, it would be comprised of three parts: location, form, and matter.

In terms of distinguishing soul and mind, I agree; but that doesn't explain if Aristotle thought the mind is pure/substantial form like Aquinas; and if he does, then how does this not entail a sort of interaction problem even if it is not the same problem as Cartesian dualism? It would be an immaterial mind interacting with a materially body even if the soul is the form of a living being.

By pure form, I just meant substantial form like Aquinas thinks of. A kind of being which is not received by matter: it is just form itself subsisting.

So then we do agree that two purely ontologically simple beings are impossible, but the point if contention is that we can refer to something that is impurely simple as being ontologically simple.

I think this is fine in colloquial speech. We say things like "this is circular" even when it is not perfectly circular. However, I am referring to something that is perfectly indivisible by it being ontologically simple. E.g., I am referring to perfect circularity.

You alluded to indivisibility as not requiring perfect simplicity; but this is only partially true. What you are referring to is something which is materially indivisible WHICH DOES NOT make it completely indivisible. If we had one of these simple particles that you are talking about, it would still be comprised of form and matter; and these are parts of it given that a part is something which contributes to the whole but is not identical to it. You would have to define a part differently and then at that point we are disagreeing merely semantically.

Because they are ontologically absolutely simple; which means they are completely without anything which contributes to the whole but is not identical to the whole. You seem to be referring to a sufficiently simple thing with "ontological simplicity" whereas I am referring to complete and perfect simplicity.

:up:

Do you find his arguments compelling?

Also, if the form of an organism extends to some other substantial, immaterial aspect (of a thinking faculty), then how would that work with interacting with the body? It seems like this view loses that edge that Aristotle has of the form being nothing more than the self-actualizing principle of the body and ends up in Cartesian territory.

How do you support this claim?

Something being ontologically indistinguishable from another thing entails that they are the same thing because the concept of ontological (as opposed to epistemic) indistinguishability is that there is nothing ontologically different about the two things in question.

:up:

You continue to confuse moral facticity with inter-subjective agreement. A moral fact is not traditionally an 'imperative ought' where we ought to do something indpendently of our needs. A moral fact is a statement about reality that describes how it ought to be that corresponds appropriately to reality.

A million people socially accepting norms is not a source of facticity about anything. It would be a fact that they accepted it and that it is a norm, but the norm itself would be non-factual.

I partially agree. I don't think 'form' traditionally refers to some kind of transcendental idealistic 'idea' of a think attributed to it by cognition: it's an integrated actualizing principle of the thing, which is embedded into the thing by a mind.

:up:

I think I get where I was blundering: the fundamental material part would still be comprised of essence and esse, so it would not, in fact, be absolutely simple even if it was not comprised of any other material parts.

I agree but I don't see how this addresses the issue.

E.g., circularity is not a part of a circle; but the atoms that compose the given circle are; and those atoms are comprised of electrons, neutrons, and protons; ...

We would need to ask: does the stuff that is organized towards the whole and the wholes of those organized things and so on go on infinitely or finitely? My point was that if it is finite, then there is some stuff that comprises the second to last member of the causal chain of composition that has no parts. See what I mean?

They have some actuality and some potency. They can learn, turn their attention, will this or that, act here or there, etc. but they cannot grow, decay, or lose form, because they have no matte

How does the idea that they have no matter but pure form not entail that matter is a kind of substrate of pure potentiality?

Likewise, wouldn’t there have to be some primitive constituent of matter that everything made of matter is comprised? Wouldn’t that primitive constituent be absolutely simple and thusly purely actual (along with God)?

For a similar example, there is the human soul, which is immaterial but subject to change, and informed by the body.

But I don’t think Aristotle believed this: this seems more of a Thomist thing. Aristotle just thought that the form of a living-being in virtue of which it is living and unified towards its natural end is the soul. It wasn’t some extra immaterial, cartesian-style thing infused with the body or informed by the body.

Aristotle is quite different in this regard because he hasn't separated out essence and existence. Aristotle complains about the notion of participation in the Metaphysics but Aquinas is able to plumb it more fully and make use of it.

Interesting. Can you elaborate more on this?

All creatures participate in God's being, which alone is subsistent.

To me, matter in the sense you described it threatens this very claim: matter would imply a basic constituent of material things which comprises them which, in turn, implies fundamental parts that are absolutely simple—they are pure potency infused in some kind of being that will receive the first form—and this would entail that there are multiple purely actual beings. What are you thoughts on that?

This is why I was thinking that composed beings must be infinitely divisible AND infused with being from God; because:

1. If a composed being is finitely divisible, then it’s fundamental part(s) are absolutely simple and two or more absolutely simple beings cannot exist; therefore, since God is absolutely simple every composed being must be infinitely divisible.

2. If composed beings are JUST infinitely divisible (viz., that explains the existence of each), then it wouldn’t exist because no member itself with have subsistent existence; therefore, God must be the first cause of the existence of the infinite chain of divisible parts of a given whole.

What do you think?

EDIT:

I am thinking of the chain of causality for a given object like this:

God → [..., parts of N - 1, parts of N, N]

I don't think it would be possible for:

God → first parts → ... → parts of N - 1 → parts of N → N

It would be impossible because the first parts would have to be absolutely simple because they are not made up of two or more parts: there would be nothing more fundamental to that contributes to the whole (of each first part) that isn't identical to it (viz., there would be no parts). Two or more absolutely simple beings cannot exist because they would be ontologically indistiguishable from each other. Therefore, since God is absolutely simple as subsistent being itself, it follows that this kind of causality would imply the contradiction of having at least two absolutely simple beings (namely God and the first parts).

What do you think?

Yes, and without the form of clay the clay is just fine-grained mineral particles.

Parts are what a material object is composed of. I don't think it makes any sense to talk of the parts of an immaterial form. Neither does your argument make any sense.

How do you define a part?

Again, I defined it as something which contributes to the whole but is not identical to it. Nothing about a part in this sense is restricted to something with tangible parts.

Why not?

Because two ontologically simple things are ontologically indistinguishable from each other.

My dearest condolences! :broken: She will be missed.

You are missing the point.

Even if you accept that there can be a being of pure form, they would have immaterial parts. Parts comprise wholes; and my argument addresses wholes and parts simpliciter.

We can run this argument for something like and Angel that is pure form as well:

1. Either the Angel is comprised of an infinite or finite regression of immaterial parts.

2. A finite regress of immaterial parts entails at least two ultimate parts which are not made up of parts. (For there must be at least one part where the regression ends which by definition has no further parts and there must be two because if there's only one such part then it is identical to the whole which it comprises making it not a part but rather that whole)

3. Two or more beings without parts cannot exist.

4. Therefore, an Angel must be comprised of an infinite regression of parts.

edit: positing a distinction between types or kinds of parts, such as immaterial vs. material parts, does not rejoin my argument here.