Hi guys, by potency and act, is the shorthand for potential (energy) and kinetic/actualised (energy)?
If so, it would seem that chaos and order would possess the same spectrum of both with the degree depending on the system.

I don't think so, because in my mind chaos is actually something which acts. That's why I'm confused when you try to tell me that chaos is infinite potency. — Agustino

Please elaborate. Show me some ordinary sentences in which chaos is something which acts. (I want to get a grip on what you mean by chaos, to translate it into my own lexicon).

Show me some ordinary sentences in which chaos is something which acts. (I want to get a grip on what you mean by chaos, to translate it into my own lexicon). — Mariner

Okay, let's think in terms of music. According to you, chaos corresponds to silence, which metaphorically is pure potential for sound. According to me, this is wrong, because silence in music is more primordial than chaos. A musical rhythm is order. Pure noise, without meaning or purpose, that would be chaos. But pure noise, just like a musical rhythm, is still an act, and not a potency, as silence metaphorically would be.

Okay, let's think in terms of music. According to you, chaos corresponds to silence, which metaphorically is pure potential for sound. According to me, this is wrong, because silence in music is more primordial than chaos. A musical rhythm is order. Pure noise, without meaning or purpose, that would be chaos. But pure noise, just like a musical rhythm, is still an act, and not a potency, as silence metaphorically would be. — Agustino

Music is the subject. In relation to this subject, pure noise may be the potential for music. How is there any actual music in pure noise? All you are doing is changing the subject from music to sound, in order to say that sound is still something actual, because it is not actual music. So the real subject here is sound, not music. Now the potential for sound, again will be something actual, but not an actual sound, and we could proceed ad infinitum.

The point which you don't seem to be getting is that noise, in relation to the particular order which is called music, is chaotic. But noise itself, as an actual thing is not chaotic, it is ordered by whatever produces it from the potential for it. So the actual thing which serves as the potential for something else, is chaotic in relation to that thing which it is the potential for, but if you look at this potential as an actual thing itself, it is not chaotic. But this is to change the subject. So you only convert potential from chaos to order by changing the subject.

I see. But that's just semantics. Music just is ordered sound as opposed to chaotic sound (which goes by the name of noise).

You are only trying saying that non-musical sound is "chaotic" in relation to the structured sounds of music. It doesn't have the required structure to call it music, so you just call it noise. But noise isn't chaotic, it's very nature is that it has its own cause and structure such that it is highly intelligible, and therefore not chaotic.

You are only trying saying that non-musical sound is "chaotic" in relation to the structured sounds of music. It doesn't have the required structure to call it music, so you just call it noise. But noise isn't chaotic, it's very nature is that it has its own cause and structure such that it is highly intelligible, and therefore not chaotic. — Metaphysician Undercover

:s ... so music isn't sound? Both music and noise are different kinds of sound. What makes one music and the other noise are order and chaos respectively.

As I said, just because it doesn't fulfill the structural conditions for being music, doesn't mean that any noise chaos. Would you say that the noise of people talking is chaos? If you are trying to claim that some noises are chaos, you need a better argument. I don't think there is such a thing as a noise which is chaos.

There's a reason why I said:

According to you, chaos corresponds to silence, which metaphorically is pure potential for sound. — Agustino

Now the only question really is whether you agree with @Mariner that chaos corresponds to pure, infinite potential, and order corresponds to act? Or do you agree with me, that chaos/order is a different dichotomy that is less general than the potential/act dichotomy? Or do you disagree with both of us?

Yeah I agree with Mariner, that's why I was arguing that point. To have order is to have form, and form corresponds with actual existence. In Aristotelian metaphysics, the cosmological argument denies the possibility of pure infinite potential, as not actually possible, it is impossible. That argument is the one which allows form to be prior in time to matter, giving the Neo-Platonists the logical foundation for independent Forms.

So as much as we can talk about chaos as lack of order, this makes chaos relative to order, just like potential is relative actuality. But to speak of an absolute lack of order is to talk about something which is impossible, because "chaos", meaning "lack of order", already assumes "order" within its definition, so to assume "absolute chaos" is self-contradicting..

Yeah I agree with Mariner, that's why I was arguing that point. — Metaphysician Undercover

Well no, reading your clarification here makes me think that you rather agree with both of us. On the one hand, you agree with Mariner that order is primary and chaos secondary (thus answering my original question), BUT you don't agree with Mariner that chaos corresponds to infinite potential (since well, the latter is impossible). It seems to me that you're saying that chaos is relative to different degrees of order.

Rather your argument is that to have order is to have form, and there can be no matter without form, so, therefore, there can be no absolute absence of order, only relative. I grant you that, I agree. That does seem to suggest that there can be no absolute chaos.

the possibility of pure infinite potential, as not actually possible, it is impossible. — Metaphysician Undercover

Though it is to be noted that perhaps most people on this forum would disagree with us on that point.

BUT you don't agree with Mariner that chaos corresponds to infinite potential (since well, the latter is impossible). — Agustino

Yes, I do agree with that. But just like we can speak contradictions, we can also talk about other things which are impossible, like infinite, unlimited potential, prime matter, and infinite chaos.

Though it is to be noted that perhaps most people on this forum would disagree with us on that point. — Agustino

The idea of unlimited potential may be in vogue right now, but belief in it doesn't make it any more possible. Clearly there are limits to possibility and believing that the impossible is possible is just a mistake. As Aristotle points out in the argument, if there ever was infinite chaos, then there would be no order whatsoever. But we observe order, so infinite chaos is impossible.

Paul Davies is a scientist and has written a couple of books exploring the possibility of God. He's not religious, by the way.

Thanks anonymous66, I'll look him up. He might have YouTube stuff.

You're welcome. I enjoyed his book, The Mind of God.