Hey Mayor, I saw on the one thread that you've now been promoted to mayor of God. Now that's entertainment.

Is "the attribution of meaning" simply interpretation to you? If so, how do you account for the difference between putting words together to say something (composition), and attempting to understand what someone else has said? Isn't composition a matter of "attribution of meaning" which is not really interpretation?

Let's suppose, for example, that I say to you, meet me at place X. What "place X" represents to me happens to be different from what "place X" represents to you, so there is misunderstanding, and we go to different places. I have my reasons for calling my place "X", and you have your reasons for interpreting that I meant your place as "X".

According to the principles stated in your op, you misunderstood me, because you attribute understanding to interpreting what the speaker meant.

"The problems of misunderstanding/misinterpreting arise when the audience draws correlations between our language use and something else that we do not."

However, isn't it really my fault, my misunderstanding, to assume that you would interpret "X" in the way I expected? So "misunderstanding" in this sense is not a matter of drawing differing correlations, it is a matter of assuming that a person will draw a correlation which that person actually will not draw. When I say "meet me at place X", and I assume that you will be at the place I intend, I actually misunderstand you, through this assumption.

This, what I'd call the real character of misunderstanding, is produced by an attitude of certitude. I assume you know what I mean so I don't bother explaining myself. And, we can reduce all instances of failure of an audience to understand (what you call misunderstanding), to a matter of failure of the person to explain oneself. So misunderstanding really inheres within the speaker's choice of words (means of explanation), not the audience's interpretation of those words. The speaker misjudges the audience and makes a poor selection of words.

Therefore the Pavlov analogy is not too relevant. Misunderstanding is the result of the person who would ring the bell, misjudging how the dog would react to the bell. So the speaker has a whole arsenal of tools, different bells and whistles, and needs to make a judgement as to which of these the audience has been conditioned for, and conditioned in what way. "Misunderstanding" is attributable to the speaker, when the speaker makes the wrong decision concerning this matter.

And so far, it seems to fit my own understanding of how Eternal Potential is converted into Temporal Actual. — Gnomon

A big problem here is that Aristotle's cosmological argument explicitly denies the concept of "Eternal Potential" as an impossibility. This is why the Christian God, and Aquinas' God is Actual.

The Forum appears to have reached a new level of boringness, never before achieved.

No, cold-flu season will do what it always does, with one exception: it will conflate the covid panic beyond control, and the resulting fallout will be likely disastrous. — Merkwurdichliebe

You don't think covid is disastrous on its own?

If one's responsibility and self-discipline in pushing hard is unhealthy and should be avoided as such, then the prospects of excellence in the world look dim. — Merkwurdichliebe

What is "excellence" if not a healthy being?

If one's responsibility and self-discipline in pushing hard is unhealthy and should be avoided as such, then the prospects of excellence in the world look dim. Imagine if all the historic world figures were prevented from pushing themselves too hard because it is "unhealthy", we'd all be living in caves. — Merkwurdichliebe

I didn't say that it's always bad to push oneself hard, I said it's bad to push yourself hard when you are sick. Normally that's only a few days in a year, and has very little bearing on a person's overall accomplishments, because we tend to not do very well when we're sick anyway. So what's the point in going to work when your sick, risking making your coworkers sick, and making yourself even sicker, for the sake of doing a bad job because you're not at your best when you're sick anyway?

That all said, my personal work ethic has no bearing on the potential implosion that society will incur when flu season kicks off in Covidworld 2020 — Merkwurdichliebe

Do you think that the flu is so much more contagious than Covid-19 that it will spread around more than the latter, despite all the mask wearing and distancing? You do realize that there are vaccines for the flu as well, don't you?

You are hilarious :lol: I've never heard anyone refer to "reliability", or to "going into work" as a bad habit. — Merkwurdichliebe

Hey man, pushing yourself too hard is unhealthy. And to justify pushing yourself to an unhealthy extreme with "I have to eat", or "I have bills to pay" is nonsense. Face it, you have an unhealthy attitude toward work which you try to portray as good by calling it "reliability".

Information about Dr. Patel, on the web, is scant. I would assume that the use of "an object feels the effect of..." is not accepted physics, but an expression of some sort of panpsychism, or perhaps based in the Whiteheadian principle of "prehension". This is a term Whitehead used to account for what we observe as the relationship between a moment of time in the past, and a moment of time in the future.

The reality of the temporal continuity of existence, a form of which is expressed as inertia, which supports the laws of physics and inductive logic in general, is not at all understood by human beings. So there are numerous different metaphysical proposals of how one moment in time can be related to the next moment in time, in a way which provides for the observed continuity of massive existence, but also provides for the capacity of a free willing being to make random changes to that continued existence.

This is why I mentioned will power in relation to Dr. Patel's expressions. If a substantive thing, (massive object), is inclined toward temporal continuity (as inertia implies), yet "feels" a force which would impel that object to change, then there are two very distinct forces involved, the force to stay the same, and the force to change. If the object stays the same, despite feeling the force which would impel it to change, doesn't this appear to you like the object has made a choice, and exercised will power to prevent the force of change? If not, then what would it mean for an object to be able to "feel" the force of change, yet not change? If the object does not change, then how does the force actually affect the object such that we can truthfully say that it feels the force?

It sounds like you've got some bad habits. It's not healthy for the individual who is sick, or for those in one's surroundings, for a person to go to work sick. So why adhere to such irrational principles?

I don't know about you, but I would never go to work if I had the flu. Why would you even think of doing such a thing?

Do you think that an inanimate object has the will power to resist, (even for an extremely short period of time) being changed by the force which it is feeling the effect of?

Am I mistaken that what could happen in Planck time is more a matter of metaphysics than physics itself? If this is a settled issue please provide links. I have very little knowledge of quantum physics. — jgill

I would say that you're definitely right that this is a matter of metaphysics. But some metaphysics is supported by science while other metaphysics is not. I wonder what you mean when you say "an object feels the effect of...", but does not show any physical change. What does it means to say that a physical object is feeling the effect of something without itself being changed by the thing that it is feeling the effect of?

My understanding is as follows, coronavirus is "the flu", an evolved version sure... — Outlander

You clearly have a misunderstanding. They are not even in the same family.

I appreciate your enthusiasm, but you are not a serious interlocutor. — Kenosha Kid

Judging by how you refuse to address the issues I point to, and continue to be unwilling to acknowledge any of the problems of the Standard Model, I think the inverse of what you say here, is what is really the case. You are willing only to recite certain specifics of the Standard Model, as if you are a bot programed to do that. It reminds me of a high school kid who has been taught to memorize so-called "facts". You demonstrate absolutely no understanding of the principles. Clearly the Standard Model is your pet theory, whether or not it is the cornerstone of modern physics.

A serious interlocutor is one who is willing to address the shortcomings of one's professed theory, brought up by the other, rather than ignoring these issues with repetitive assertions.

And not merely be non-measurable? — jgill

I think it's been demonstrated that the position of the photon is non-measurable because it's simply not in any place when its position cannot be determined.

Paranoia!

You now seem to accept that the mass of the quark comes from its interaction with an external field, which is a retraction the above. — Kenosha Kid

There's no retraction. "Comes from", as in "the cause of" is not the same thing as the attribute itself. This is why I emphasized the fact that energy is equivalent to mass by convention equations, but is not the same thing as mass. And, as I indicated this equivalence is a failure in the modeling, which incapacitates our ability to distinguish between internal and external.

The quarks do not provide the mass of the hadron.. Nor do the gluons have mass. The mass is attributed to the hadron, and it is internal to it. In theory, and perhaps in practice to an extent, the gluons and quarks are separable. If they are separated, the mass no longer exists, it is substituted by energy.

So it is incorrect to use the spatial references of internal/external (as you do) in describing the relationship between these particles and the mass at this time, when they are separated, because the mass has no no spatial existence, It's gone, in the past. We can only use those spatial terms, when the mass has actual spatial existence, and that is as a hadron. And the mass is internal. Therefore the proper terms of reference of mass in relation to those other particles (quarks and gluons) are temporal, past and future. The mass only exists at the time when those particles have that relationship, but at that time the particles exist as a hadron and the mass is internal to the hadron.. We can say that the hadron has mass, and that mass is an internal feature, but if we talk about mass in relation to those proposed parts of the hadron (quarks and gluons), we need to concern ourselves with a temporal relation to the mass (before/after) rather than a spatial relation (internal/external).

If you now consider it uncontroversial that quarks and leptons individually get their inertia from interaction with the Higgs field, that's good enough to lay your original argument to rest. — Kenosha Kid

I don't know whether it's controversial or not, but I agree that this is the case within The Model. But as I've indicated, I consider this mass to be insignificant, and I don't agree with The Model. So the existence of such insignificant mass more likely a symptom of the deficiency of the model than anything else. I think that Einsteinian principles provide a faulty representation of the relation between space and time. The evidence I gave why I believe this, is that these principles lead to the incoherent ideas of waves without a medium, and particles without mass. Each of these ideas, in itself is incoherent, and sufficient evidence that the whole Standard Model, along with the Einsteinian relativity, ought to be rejected as misrepresentation, regardless of its utility.

If you specifically want to how gluons contribute to the hadron mass, either refer to my description of atomic binding energy for the gist or begin a thread on it; we should not derail bcccampello further. — Kenosha Kid

I don't think that this is a derail of the thread. The inconsistencies which bccampello referred to in the op involve the way that Newton represented space and time. And this problem has not been resolved by Einsteinian relativity, only made more complex. Look at gravity for example. It is represented as external to everything, a property of space-time, with the existence of objects being affected by it. This makes space-time an absolute. So instead of two distinct absolutes, space and time, there is one complex absolute, space-time.

The problem with this representation of gravity is exactly the problem that you and I are discussing. With this model there is no way to represent gravity as acting from within (internal to) an object, as property of the object. This is a problem because evidence demonstrates that objects have a center of gravity, and therefore gravity is best modeled as a property of the object itself. As a result of this misrepresentation (gravity represented as a property of the surrounding space-time rather than the object itself) objects get reduced to dimensionless points (such as point particles) with gravity as an external force, which is clearly a misrepresentation of an object, convenient but not true.

What is evident is that physicists have lost the capacity to distinguish between internal and external sources of activity. Once we allow for dimensionless and massless particles we have no means to represent activity internal to that particle. So all the internal forces must be inverted and represented as external, producing a misrepresentation as the real difference between internal and external is not a matter of simple inversion. What is needed is a model of a real, substantial space, one with a distinction between internal and external, such that a proper relationship with time can be established. I believe that the only way to properly represent internal and external is to conceive of space as consisting of separate particles which themselves are active and relate to each other through a wave activity.

A photon appears at one place and then another. We cannot say that anything happens to it in between because we cannot confirm that it even exists in between. Its presumed existence is represented as a wave function. But wave functions don't represent the actual existence of photons. All we can do is make statements about where it might appear, and what causes it to appear here and there.

You seem to be concluding that if there is an appearance of a photon somewhere at t1, then somewhere else at t2, there is a continuity of existence of a photon between t1 and t2, during which time the photon "travels", as you or I would walk down the street. But scientific observation does not support this conclusion. So the continuous existence of the photon is nothing but an unsupported assumption, which the scientific principles demonstrate is actually false. Therefore we cannot truthfully say that something happens to the photon in that duration, because it doesn't even exist.

How do we know that time passes when nothing happens? How do we know that time passes when things happen? — god must be atheist

Because that's what we call what we experience as time passing, "time passing". How do we know that water is water? It's what we call it. If you want to be skeptical about it, maybe we don't really know that water is water, or that time passing is time passing.

If we accept that time passes when nothing happens, then we can equally claim that time never passes, — god must be atheist

I don't see how you relate these two. The reason why we must accept that time passes when nothing happens is because it has been proven by science, through the discrete (non-continuous) existence of quantum particles. There is a shortest period of time, Planck time, during which something can happen. So there is a state at t1, then a state at t2, and nothing can happen between t1 and t2 because it is too short of a period of time. Yet time passes during this period of time. It must, in order to get the difference between t1 and t2. Therefore there is time passing when nothing happens.

I do not see how this is related to you proposal that time never passes. We experience time passing, as what was, is not now, it's in the past. We remember it, but it's gone, in the past. Also we anticipate future states, like if a car is driving toward you, you expect it to get to you, then it does. You might propose that time never passes, but I don't see how you would support that. Furthermore, I don't see how you relate this idea to the proof that time passes when nothing happens. I can see that if you could support this notion, that time doesn't pass, justify it somehow, then the whole scientific enterprise which is built on the fundamental assumption that we can measure the passing of time, would be undermined.

making the other learn something.

Making someone say to itself:

This is important and will help me survive.

is the expressway into agreement and engagement.

What do you think? — dussias

Persuasion is not based in learning, as the existence of deception demonstrates. To be persuaded into believing a falsity is not an instance of learning. And since it commonly occurs that one is persuaded to believe falsity, we cannot say that persuasion is based in learning. Therefore we must look for something else as the true basis of persuasion and rhetoric.

This fact is what Socrates and Plato exposed of the sophists. The sophists claimed that making the correct choice, doing what is right, is a knowledge based feature of human action. Knowing what is right would induce a person to choose the right action, and therefore virtue could be taught. In the terms of your op, we could say that the sophists asserted that if a person would learn what is right, then a person would be persuaded to do what is right. But Socrates demonstrated a disconnect between these two ideas, knowing what is right does not necessarily lead to the person doing what is right, as a person can choose to do what one knows is wrong. Because of the truth of this fundamental principle, we need to respect the fact that there is a fundamental separation between teaching/learning, and persuading. In no way can the two be equated.

The hadron is a system. You would say the mass of a bowl of fruit is intrinsic to the bowl of fruit: it is derived from the masses of its constituents. — Kenosha Kid

No, you cannot say that the mass of a hadron is equivalent to the sum of the mass of the parts, that's exactly the fact that I've been trying to impress upon you. This is because some of the parts, the gluons, are gauge bosons, and are therefore carriers of force which are represented by fields rather than as mass.

No, if you're speaking of quarks and gluons, you speak of the standard model in which mass is conferred by interaction with the external Higgs field. This interaction is, in terms of energy-mass equivalence, more fundamental, since rest masses are not theoretically added by hand as they are in SR. (In other respects, SR is more fundamental than QFT.) — Kenosha Kid

No, I'm not talking about the mass of quarks and gluons. Gluons are massless, and the mass of quarks is insignificant. I'm talking about significant mass, the mass of a hadron, real substance. As I've already explained to you, the mass of all the quarks of a hadron is very, very small, insignificant in relation to the mass of a hadron. Will you acknowledge this fact, or will you continue to play dumb? And, we agree that gluons are massless. Therefore, unlike your fruit bowl analogy we cannot sum up the mass of the quarks and gluons to make the mass of a hadron, because that sum is quite insignificant compared to the actual mass of the hadron.

Do you understand that the vast majority of the mass of a hadron is not derived from the Higgs field? The Higgs field only provides a very insignificant portion of that mass. Why do you keep insisting on directing the conversation toward some particles with a very miniscule, insignificant portion of mass, when we are discussing "mass" in general, and therefore need to first understand where the majority of the mass of an object comes from?

To use your fruit bowl analogy, it's like the contents of the fruit bowl has a total mass value of 1000, and the only massive objects in the bowl are three apples each with a mass value of 10. You seem to think that we can account for the mass of the fruit bowl by explaining where the mass of the three apples comes from. How can you not see how absurd this is?

To acknowledge on the one hand that the mass of the hadron cannot be due to the intrinsic masses of the quarks or gluons but still maintain that all inertial masses are intrinsic properties of the massive particles themselves is not even trying. — Kenosha Kid

The mass is intrinsic to the hadron. But, there is something called mass-energy equivalence, made famous by Einstein. Nuclear energy is produced by the conversion of mass to energy. It makes no sense to talk about the mass as being external to quark, because the mass is no longer mass when it is converted to energy, it is energy. The mass only exists as an internal property of the hadron. Furthermore, the energy which accounts for the mass of the hadron is represented as gluons. Since energy is equivalent to mass, and not the same as mass, the gluons cannot exist as energy when the hadron has mass.

Gluons add energy, not mass, to the system of quarks, which increases the coupling strength of the quarks with the Higgs field, which in turn increases its mass. — Kenosha Kid

Ah, now your starting to catch on. Remember, energy is equivalent to mass; not the same, but equivalent. The energy of the gluons accounts for the mass of the hadrons through this principle of equivalence. But this has nothing to do with the Higgs field, the energy is the property of the gluon fields, and it only becomes representable as mass if that energy is tied up in the hadron, as an internal property of the hadron. In which case it does not exist as energy, but as mass.

If it is represented as non-internal, it is not represented as mass, but as energy. You can insist that energy is non-internal, but the problem is that "energy", by its very conception is necessarily a property of something. If motion has energy, there is necessarily something which is moving. That moving thing is the thing which has energy, and the energy must be represented as an internal feature of that thing. Therefore the energy which is tied up as the mass of the hadron (potential energy), must be represented as something moving (kinetic energy), if it is released, and that is the activity of the gluons.

There is actually a huge deficiency with this conception, because if energy is equivalent to mass, then when mass is annihilated to produce energy we are left with motion, to account for the energy, but no mass to account for the thing moving. We now have a model of massless particles (immaterial things) which are moving around with lots of energy, in the physical world, and that's simply nonsense. The massless energy is represented by fields, but the fields have no substance, no medium to account for the supposed waves in the fields. Because the waves have no substantial existence, massless particles are proposed to mitigate this problem. But this is nonsense, leaving such particles as impossible to locate and identify.

Therefore the whole idea that mass is equivalent to energy is misguided metaphysics. It renders both of these, mass and energy as impossible to understand, unintelligible, through this false representation. It is false for the very reason of what you are arguing today, the idea that internal relations can be represented as equivalent to external relations. External relations are objects moving relative to each other. Internal relations are parts held in unity. These two are very different from each other, as evident from the asymptotic nature of the strong force. This is why it is a mistake to represent mass (internal relations) as equivalent to energy (external relations)

There is no mechanism by which gluons can add mass directly. — Kenosha Kid

Oh come on Kenosha, I know you're smarter than that. You say that gluons add energy. You know that energy is equivalent to mass. Yet you say that "there is no mechanism by which gluons can add mass directly". Obviously there is such a mechanism, it's called "mass-energy equivalence". Of course this "mechanism" is just a slight of hand, smoke and mirrors trick of sophistry, which ought to be exposed for what it is, a faulty principle of magical thinking. But try to tell a physicist that this principle is really a deep misunderstanding! The reply will be that the principle has demonstrated itself to be extremely useful, and therefore empirically validated. This is despite the fact that the principle makes the vast majority of material existence incomprehensible to us. I'd say that this is very clear evidence that being empirically validated as useful does not constitute being truthful. But we already all know this principle, that usefulness does not equate with truthfulness.

Which ought to give you a clue, since gluons are massless. Therefore what you call the intrinsic inertia of the massive particles in a hadron -- the rest masses of the quarks -- cannot actually account for the hadron's inertia. — Kenosha Kid

Exactly, neither quarks nor gluons have substantial mass in relation to hadrons. That's why your claim to know that inertia comes from an external source, is an absurdity. Mass, as the source of inertia, is known to be an internal property of an object, and until it is demonstrated that the mass is derived from someplace outside the object, such claims are baseless. Neither the quark not the gluon brings the mass to the object, as an independent, external source of the mass, rather the mass is a product of the interaction internal to the hadron.

Quarks couple to the Higgs field: the higher the energy of the quark, the greater the strength of the interaction. You cannot have a bare quark, but if you could it would be extremely light compared to one in a hadron. — Kenosha Kid

Only a very small portion of the mass of a hadron comes from the quarks, less than one percent. So if this is the "bit" you're talking about, I'd say it's an insignificant bit, and really quite irrelevant to the inertia of the object.

Same goes for the strong interaction except that, instead of lowering the energy of each, the interaction increases it. This increases the strength of the interaction with the Higgs field and thus the inertial mass. — Kenosha Kid

The quarks' interaction with gluons, as gauge bosons, is responsible for the strong interaction, consequently the substantial mass of the hadron, not the Higgs field. We need to address the gluon fields to understand the mass and inertia of an object. Your claim that the electroweak interaction of the Higgs field is responsible for the strong interaction of the gluons, is absurd. Notice that the force required for the mass of the hadron, and its inertia, is provided by the gluons, not the quarks (which you relate to the Higgs).

The protons and neutrons, hadrons, have mass, and therefore account for the inertia of a molecule. Quarks only make up a very tiny portion of this mass, so in this context of providing mass and inertia, it is incorrect to say that a hadron, as massive, is comprised of quarks. The mass, and inertia, only exist as a hadron, and the source of the mass is internal to the hadron. Furthermore, you cannot even separate one quark from another quark to demonstrate that the mass is external to that quark, because the force which binds the quarks internally within the hadron, as massive, prevents this from happening.

Your claim that inertia comes from "the outside" is completely unsupported, and contradictory to what is known by physicists. .

Try this KK. The "strong interaction" (gluons) is responsible for the mass of protons and neutrons, and it acts from within the nucleus of the atom, not externally to it.

And yet your entire objection was that inertia is not accepted as what you insist it is, namely an inherent property of the body in question. And while you may find science boring, I assure you that more people are bored by ignorant recourse to scientific ideas to promote anti-scientific hogwash. So if you expect me to be moved by your intolerance toward facts, you're doubly deluded. — Kenosha Kid

You really haven't explained how the Higgs field produces inertia. You've just asserted that this is a fact. What I'm intolerant toward, is opinion presented as fact. So either get on with your explanation, or quit pretending that you know something which you don't. Tell me how the Higgs field is responsible for the mass and inertia of a proton. Of course you can't because your so-called "facts" are pure bull shit.

Neither, rather that inertia is one of the 'bits' we didn't used to know and now know with some degree of confidence through experimental verification. — Kenosha Kid

Talking with someone who insists we know with confidence what inertia is, it is what is produced by the Higgs field, makes boring conversation, in my opinion. It would be much more helpful if you would explain to me how the Higgs field creates mass. Let's say for example that there are particles with insignificant mass, related to other fields, how would the Higgs field interact with these other fields/particles to create something with mass?

Does not a segment have an infinity of tiny points and is also finite? Have you heard of Banach-Tarski's paradox? — Gregory

A line segment being composed of points is a contradiction in terms. The point has no dimension, and the line has dimension. Even an infinity of points could not make anything with dimension, a line. The line segment is what exists between two points.

I would say finiteness and infinity are distinct categories, and therefore cannot be put "in the same regard", without a category mistake.

Since we only refer to physical change in our descriptions of temporal duration, we haven't yet developed the means for describing temporal duration through reference to non-physical things, like numbers. That was the point of my description, to demonstrate that we need to develop a way to measure time in relation to something other than physical change, because we know that time passes when no physical change occurs. I didn't mean to imply that this way of measuring time had already been developed.

Nothing and being can do nothing without each other, but they can act in unison with nothing playing prime matter and being form. — Gregory

No, nothing and being cannot act in unison because they would negate each other, in an absolute sense, rendering this supposed act as completely unintelligible, such that it would be something we couldn't even talk about in any coherent way..

Right, we know that we can divide any period of time into a shorter period of time, just like we can divide numbers. So when nothing happens (meaning no physical change), time can still be measured it's just not measured by physical change, it's measured by numbers.

hat leaves belief, which people - reasonably intelligent, reasonably educated people, anyway - understand is not in-itself a statement of any fact, but a statement of belief, and those same people have usually no too much trouble in distinguishing between the two. They express themselves in the "We believe..," and never as "God exists." — tim wood

Right, so reconsider my statement:

Again, this is the cultural relativism at play. It only appears as "an error" to you, because you do not believe in God. If you believed in God, it would appear as the correct description. — Metaphysician Undercover

That was a statement concerning belief, obviously. Now where's the problem? What makes it a ridiculous statement?

Interesting question. But only applicable to a world where nothing happens. Is our world that, or is our world in constant change and motion? You decide whether your objection is valid or not in OUR world. — god must be atheist

Here's something to consider. In "OUR" world, we talk about very short periods of time, Planck length for example. At some very short period of time it becomes impossible to detect an physical change during that short period. Isn't this, therefore, a period of time in which no physical change occurs? So it really does make sense to ask how long would a time when nothing happens last, because there clearly is a short period of time when nothing happens, and it would be helpful to know exactly how long that period of time is.

Suppose physical change consists of discrete increments of change which occur every so often (an extremely short period of time apart). Wouldn't it be beneficial to know how long these increments of time are, so that we can start to look behind the scenes to understand what is going on in there, in this time between the increments of physical change? It's not physical change going on in this time period, but the cause of it.

Becoming is the sublations of nothing and being. — Gregory

That is what I described earlier as a mistake. Following Aristotle, (and this is not Thomism it is Aristotelianism pure and simple), becoming is incompatible with nothing and being. Attempting to make becoming compatible with being/nothing is a sophistic trick which can be used to make all sorts of absurdities appear as if they must be real.. It was demonstrated by Aristotle, that no activity described with the terminology of this category of being and not-being, could be consistent with becoming. This is why he recommended a violation of the law of excluded middle to account for the reality of becoming. Becoming must be described such that it is neither being nor nothing, it must be expelled from that logical category. The terms which are applicable to the description of becoming are neither terms of being, nor terms of nothing.

As I explained earlier, the Hegelian sublation, allows both being and not-being to be subsumed within the concept of becoming. So after being expelled from that category, becoming turns around and consumes the whole category. But this leads to a violation of the law of noncontradiction because being and not-being are both predicated of becoming, and "becoming" being conceptual is not a temporal being. On the surface, the two positions, Hegel's and Aristotle's, appear be very similar ways for dealing with the reality of temporal existence. But there is a deep difference. Aristotle provides a category separation between becoming, and being/nothing, by demonstrating that the two categories are incompatible and therefore need to be described by different terminology. Hegel dissolves this category separation by making becoming the sublation of being and nothing.

It's clear that either you do not understand some words, or you ignore their meaning. I did not ask for an explanation. You made a claim; I said, "Prove it." See, "proof" "explanation," don't look the same, don't sound the same, don't mean the same, are different. But I am quite sure you will give any notion of proof the widest possible berth. — tim wood

As I explained there is no need to prove what I stated. Your obsession with proof seems a little unhealthy to me. Have you ever come across the word "opinion"? Wouldn't it be contradictory if an opinion could be proven? It would then not be an opinion, but a proven fact. When one person's opinion differs from another's it's ridiculous to ask for proof because we just accept the fact that different people have different opinions, concerning the same issues, and opinions are not the type of things which can be proven. They can sometimes be explained though. But that requires effort from both sides.

While much progress has been made in formulating QFT in a GR framework, pragmatically the calculations are intractable and the expansions plagued with infinities, which is a problem for us, not nature. Our technological inability to calculate exact solutions to difficult equations should not be confused with the universe's inability to cope with the same equations. Both theories have been experimentally verified countless times to high precision. The Universe appears quite happy with both. — Kenosha Kid

I mostly agree with what you say here, but I believe that "experimentally verified" means very little in this context, because as you say, the theories just refer to "bits", and are therefore verified in relation to the relevant bits. A major difference between Newton's gravity and Einstein's gravity, is that the latter has a wider application, more relevant bits. But obviously, it still falls short and therefore needs to be replaced, because it's still only applicable to bits, as you say, so it doesn't provide a wide perspective on the reality of the thing described.

Inertia and gravity are supposed to be properties of all material things. So are you suggesting that there are "bits" of reality which are immaterial, and this is why the theories of gravitation are incompatible with the theories of inertia? Or do you think that there are inconsistencies in our conceptions of space and time, as BC implied in the op?

I think I said earlier, or perhaps in another thread, that there are inconsistencies and ambiguity in Plotinus' principles which make working out specific problems of how the fundamental principles are related to each other impossible.

There are numerous reasons to dismiss this theory as ridiculous, beginning with the inability to establish a necessary relationship between gravity and mass, as required by observation. This is known as the incompatibility between general relativity (by which gravity is explained) and the Standard Model (by which mass is explained). Instead of recognizing that the incompatibility represents a fundamental failure in the theoretical structure, physicists and cosmologists employ mathematics to make exceptions to the rules, and give these exceptions dark names, like dark matter and dark energy.

This looks awfully categorical to me. Prove it. — tim wood

It's all explained in that post. It appears like you just read the last paragraph, or were incapable of understanding the metaphysical problem of temporal continuity..

How, from anyone's perspective, does a belief in God warrant the conclusion - or even the statement - that "God exists," except as an example of a stupid ignorance speaking? What indeed does perspective have to do with existence? — tim wood

What are you talking about? If a person believes that God exists, then the statement "God exists" is warranted by that belief, just like the statement "Trump is an asshole" is warranted by that belief. Whether or not you happen to agree with the statement, or whether you think it is "stupid ignorance speaking" is irrelevant.

And zero of this has anything to do with existence whatsoever. — tim wood

This is the second most ridiculous statement I've ever seen at TPF (KK's idea that inertia comes from a field being the most ridiculous). Since the reason for assuming God is to account for the reality of material existence, as Creator, it's utterly ridiculous to say that the presupposition of God has nothing to do with existence whatsoever.

Plotinus' matter is devoid of form. It's also evil: — frank

Matter, for Plotinus is the receptacle of form, just like in Plato's Timaeus. And, we can talk about matter devoid of form, but Aristotle demonstrated that this is impossible in reality

"Considered abstractly and from within Plotinus' system it should be no surprise that matter is the ultimate evil: matter is at the bottom, the Good is at the top. They are opposites. What could matter be, then, other than evil? Matter is not, by consequence, an independent power opposing the Good, however: Plotinus' whole approach to the question of evil consists in explaining its evil nature as its lack of goodness and being, its powerlessness, indefinitenesss..." -- Plotinus, Eyjolfur K Emilsson, 194 — frank

Matter and form are categorically separated, even for Plotinus. So good and lack of good are in the same category, as being proper to the form. These are the degrees of good and privation. Evil, he describes in the First Ennead, Eight Tractate, as a complete lack of any good, and this makes it a sot of non-being:

There remains, only, if Evil exist at all, that it be situate in the realm
of Non-Being, that it be some mode, as it were, of the Non-Being, that
it have its seat in something in touch with Non-Being or to a certain
degree communicate in Non-Being.

This is why evil becomes associated with formless matter. But formless matter, as demonstrated by Aristotle's cosmological argument is an impossibility, it's a nonsensical, incomprehensible proposition. Plotinus calls this an "Absolute Formlessness", or "Absolute Evil". So if we relegate Good to the category of Form and Privation, such that Good exists by degree relative to privation, we have no longer any need for Absolute Evil because there is no such thing as absolute Good, good exists by degree.

If matter or evil is ultimately caused by the One, then is not the One, as the Good, the cause of evil? In one sense, the answer is definitely yes. — frank

This cannot be the case, because "evil" in Plotinus' sense, is an absolute, non-being, so it cannot be caused. Causation is reserved to the realm of individual forms, and within this realm there are only varying degrees of good and privation, not evil, which is an absolute lack of good. We must recognize that privation is distinct from evil, the latter being an absolute, the former being relative to good.

Did you read Phaedo? Based on what you're saying, I don't know what you would make of the argument for the immortality of the Soul. — frank

I haven't read Phaedo recently, so you'd have to refresh my memory of the argument you refer to. I do remember one strong argument for the soul being prior to the body, but I cannot remember the specifics of it. I believe it says basically that the body is organized, and does not exist as anything other than being organized. So the body does not exist prior to being organized. However, the cause of its organization, as cause, is necessarily prior to it, and therefore prior to the body as well.