Second, I do not have a reductionist metaphysics, I have a dualism. — Metaphysician Undercover
First, Aristotle's metaphysics is nowhere near like yours. He denied the reality of the apeiron, and as I explained to you already, provided decisive refutation of this principle. It's in his Metaphysics Bk. 9. — Metaphysician Undercover
Exactly, you lose that difference to category error, and the result is your assumption that vagueness is ontologically real. — Metaphysician Undercover
It is well recognised that Aristotle was ambiguous and inconsistent about what prime matter might be in his scheme. There isn't a single interpretation. And that likely reflects the fact Aristotle hadn't got the last bit of the puzzle sorted out. He had thoughts but not a decisive answer to offer. — apokrisis
Are you serious? — Metaphysician Undercover
In addition to disputing the correct interpretation of these passages where Aristotle explicitly mentions prime matter, much of the debate has centered around, on the one hand, whether what he says about change really commits him to it, on the other, whether the idea is really absurd.
Some opponents of prime matter have argued that Aristotle does not, after all, wish to insist that there is always something which persists through a change (see Charlton 1970, Appendix, and 1983). In particular, when one of the elements changes into another, there is an underlying thing—the initial element—but in this case it does not persist. They point out that in the key passage of Physics i 7, where Aristotle gives his account of change in general, he uses the expressions “underlying thing” and “thing that remains”.
While readers have usually supposed that these terms are used interchangeably to refer to the substance, in cases of accidental change, and the matter in substantial changes, this assumption can be challenged.
In the elemental generation case, perhaps there is no thing that remains, just an initial elements that underlies. The worry about this interpretation is whether it is consistent with Aristotle’s belief that nothing can come to be out of nothing.
If there is no “thing that remains” in a case of elemental generation, how is an instance of water changing into air to be distinguished from the supposedly impossible sort of change whereby some water vanishes into nothing, and is instantly replaced by some air which has materialized out of nothing?
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/form-matter/
In Metaphysics the real existence of prime matter, matter without form, is denied. — Metaphysician Undercover
So prime matter is denied? Or defined by some other modality other than "real existence"? — apokrisis
And was the assertion ever just that it is matter without form rather than being beyond either (actual matter always being actually formed). — apokrisis
It is hard to discuss the lack of ambiguity in a text when you make such ambiguous pronouncements. — apokrisis
n his Metaphysics he questions the possibility of a prime matter, a matter without form, the underlying thing common to all physical existence, the basis for being. Aristotle's cosmological argument, which demonstrates that actuality is necessarily prior to potentiality, shows how it is impossible for prime matter to have real existence. Anyone familiar with that argument will recognize this. — Metaphysician Undercover
The traditional interpretation of Aristotle, which goes back as far as Augustine (De Genesi contra Manichaeos i 5–7) and Simplicius (On Aristotle’s Physics i 7), and is accepted by Aquinas (De Principiis Naturae §13), holds that Aristotle believes in something called “prime matter”, which is the matter of the elements, where each element is, then, a compound of this matter and a form. This prime matter is usually described as pure potentiality, just as, on the form side, the unmoved movers are said by Aristotle to be pure actuality, form without any matter (Metaphysics xii 6). What it means to call prime matter “pure potentiality” is that it is capable of taking on any form whatsoever, and thus is completely without any essential properties of its own. It exists eternally, since, if it were capable of being created or destroyed, there would have to be some even lower matter to underlie those changes.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/form-matter/
If prime matter had form this would be contradiction. — Metaphysician Undercover
But potential requires an actuality to actualize it, it cannot actualize itself. — Metaphysician Undercover
I took a course on Aristotle's Metaphysics in university and one of the first things told to us in the introductory classes, was that in this text, prime matter is proven to be impossible. Aristotle is well known as the originator of the cosmological argument, which is commonly adapted by theologians to demonstrate the need to assume God, as the actuality, which creates matter, as the potential for material existence. — Metaphysician Undercover
I argue the interactive story where the naked potential contains within itself this very dichotomy of form and matter within it. — apokrisis
So from the first moment of actuality, there is the substantial being of in-formed materiality. — apokrisis
You are going on about this being contradictory - that both matter and form would "co-exist" in the bare potential that is the Apeiron. But in this triadic metaphysics, form and matter, constraints and degrees of freedom, are understood as being causally joined at the hip. Each is the other face of its "other". It is the dichotomy itself which exists in potential fashion and then realises itself via the spontaneity of a symmetry-breaking fluctuation, or "first accident". — apokrisis
This is only a problem if the potential is imagined as being passively material. That is why I talk instead of a sea of chaotic fluctuation. — apokrisis
What comes out of the Apeiron is definitely determinate in being either more passive or more active. Actuality is divided between these opposed limits on being. So it is quite logical that the Apeiron must contain both these contrasting limits within it ... as its potential. It is the dichotomy itself that the Apeiron contains in seed form. Thus it is not a contradiction to claim the Apeiron contains two opposed tendencies. It is this very contrariety which it must contain ... as a potential division of nature. — apokrisis
And so we are saying the Apeiron contains within the very means of self-actualising. — apokrisis
Can you provide a cite to back this interpretation up? — apokrisis
But it sounds here like you are speaking for a Christian apologetics interpretation of his writings. And the cosmological argument for a Christian god has huge, vast, gaping holes. — apokrisis
I find that in general, your quoted website is very inaccurate, and often misleading. — Metaphysician Undercover
The fact is, that Aristotle went on, in BK 10-12 of his Metaphysics, after discrediting the idea of prime matter, to describe eternal circular motions. The concept of eternal forms (circular motions) is clearly inconsistent with the concept of prime matter. If there is eternal forms then it is impossible that there was ever pure matter. — Metaphysician Undercover
In any case, you now need to provide new definitions of matter and form, as well as actual, because the Aristotelian definitions are not applicable. In other words, your use of "potential", is meaningless unless you provide a new conceptual structure to house it. — Metaphysician Undercover
If it is necessary that form and matter "co-exist", then they are inseparable, and one cannot be prior to the other. — Metaphysician Undercover
To give co-existence to matter and form, would have to be to disassociate matter and form from potential and actual. — Metaphysician Undercover
Now when we look at the relationship between potential and actual naively, we say that potential must be prior to actual, because the potential for something is always prior to the actual existence of the thing. But then we must account for the fact that the potential must be actualized in order that there is something actual. To avoid the infinite regress of co-existence, we must designate either potential or actual, one as prior to the other. If potential were prior to actual, then there would forever be just potential, because there would be nothing to actualize that potential. Therefore we assume actual as prior to potential. — Metaphysician Undercover
If you find it stated on the internet, that he promotes and believes in the idea of prime matter, just like you'll find it stated on the internet that the world is flat, then the people making these statements on the internet simply left out the core of his Metaphysics. Perhaps it was too difficult for them to understand, or it wasn't consistent with their materialist prejudice. — Metaphysician Undercover
Information is information, not matter or energy. No materialism which does not admit this can survive at the present day. — Norbert Wiener
It from bit. — John A. Wheeler
In both cases, physics ends up endorsing an information-based description of nature. The universe is fundamentally composed of data, understood as dedomena, patterns or fields of differences, instead of matter or energy, with material objects as a complex secondary manifestation. — Luciano Floridi
Alternatively, for me, it is only natural that matter and form should express such a dichotomous pairing of limits. — apokrisis
You wouldn't talk about the Apeiron as "pure matter" as it was neither, as yet, in-formed matter, nor en-mattered form. It was only the potential for this metaphysical division which then yields a world of actual substances. — apokrisis
A die has six numbered sides. So out of that form comes the completely crisp and definite possibility it will land on a number between one and six. But when I talk about potential, I mean a vaguer state of unformed possibility. It is possibility without yet a concrete form. — apokrisis
So this weakens emphasis on the potential as a directed source of action. It is just action in some direction. That is why we talk about electrical potential, or potential energy in general. In physics, the word is normally used to talk about a vaguer form of material cause - one that is generic. — apokrisis
You're being a bit rough on an Oxford lecturer whose specialism this is. Ainsworth ain't some random internet dude. — apokrisis
The problem though, is that "limits" are by definition constraints, and therefore formal. — Metaphysician Undercover
We can take "matter" right out of the picture if you want, and it is still illogical to say that the potential is prior to actual existence, because potential only exists as a property of something actual. — Metaphysician Undercover
But then you refer to a "vaguer state of unformed possibility". So you have jumped to a different category, and want to call it by the same name, "possibility". — Metaphysician Undercover
As much as it may appear like the possibilities are endless, they are not, the tree is of a particular size, the wood a particular type, etc.. Each possibility is a definite thing which can be done with the tree, and there is no such thing as a vague or unformed possibility with respect to the tree. — Metaphysician Undercover
And if we go deeper, to quantum fields with fundamental particles, the possibilities are still definite, limited by the form of the tree. — Metaphysician Undercover
But any existing action is a particular action. It doesn't make any sense to talk about an action which is not an action with a direction. This is like saying that something could be moving, but not moving in any direction. — Metaphysician Undercover
His published work is on the internet, seems like a random internet dude to me. — Metaphysician Undercover
That's not an issue in my triadic/hierarchical approach. A hierarchical relation has both an upper and a lower bound. Constraints come in two kinds - one that you might call material, the other formal.
We see this coming through in fundamental physics. The world is formed by two kinds of constraints - the formal laws and the physical constants. — apokrisis
Note again how you are relying on terminological slippage. — apokrisis
But then there is this other thing, this third thing, of a foundational Apeiron or Vagueness. That is the more standard understanding of "potential" - a materiality that is vague in lacking yet a positive direction. Now form follows in creating that definite direction. — apokrisis
And as I then add, the idea of the Apeiron or Vagueness as a "pure potential" goes beyond even that as the argument is it contains the very dichotomy of matter~form as a seed action.
So there are a variety of meanings of "potential" in play. You may keep asserting that Aristotle offered the only "right one". But even there you interpretation seems back to front - or overly theistic - in wanting to credit creation on a prime mover rather than on prime matter (or better yet, the interaction between the two). You simply try to define prime matter out of existence, leaving only a prime mover, despite what mainstream interpretations are cited as believing. — apokrisis
And yet physics shows these two aspects of reality become indistinguishable or symmetric at the Planck scale. There is a fundamental convergence where indeterminacy then definitely takes over. Hence the uncertainty relation between location and momentum in quantum mechanics. — apokrisis
Or I could just as much point out the relativity of notion of motion. A context is needed to decide which one of us is doing the moving. Or even - in some absolute sense - not moving at all.
You are just applying a naive physical point of view to metaphysics here. — apokrisis
If you are proposing a relationship between potential and vagueness, this must be justified, or at least explained. — Metaphysician Undercover
So the vagueness here is not a simple matter of not knowing what is actually the case, it is a matter of it being impossible to know what is the case, because it has not yet been decided. The reality is, that what will occur tomorrow will not be decided until tomorrow, so there is no truth nor falsity with respect to this. The LEM is violated, and there is vagueness. Do you agree with this ontological assessment of the future, and that this is what "potential" refers to, the future, and why it is designated as vague? That one chooses to violate the PNC rather than the LEM when dealing with the future (potential) is a matter of metaphysical preference. — Metaphysician Undercover
So here's the problem. There is no actuality of the past, only pure potential, infinite possibility for the future. But if there is no past, that means that time is not passing, there is no time. From this position of pure future, with no past, how do you propose that we get time started? — Metaphysician Undercover
So we need to introduce something which accounts for time passing and this is why he suggested eternal circular motions. But this is to deny the pure potential of the aperion, which is all future and no past, by introducing eternal time. — Metaphysician Undercover
This is evident from the principles of the Fourier transform, the shorter the period of time the more difficult it is to determine the frequency, until in a very short period, it becomes impossible. It is not the case that the two aspects of reality, actual and potential (past and future) are really indistinguishable, it is just the case that physicists have not developed the appropriate means for distinguishing them and so they get lost in the vagueness of symmetry math. — Metaphysician Undercover
The problem here, is that the notion of motion already presupposes the passage of time. You have proposed a point, pure potential, at which point there is no passage of time, or else there would be an actual past, and not pure potential. So you cannot turn to motion, or any physical activity, to conjure up the start of time, because all of these imply that time is already passing. — Metaphysician Undercover
Potential is defined dichotomously by Aristotle. It is about the production of "what is" in contradiction to "what is not". — apokrisis
White is a definitely possible quality because blackness is the "other" that underwrites that. — apokrisis
But clearly the differentiation of black from white is a developmental process that passes through many shades of grey. And some shade of grey will seem exactly poised between blackness and whiteness. It will be as much black as it is white. So really it is just vague as which it truly is. It is simply now the potential to develop towards either end of the spectrum. The PNC fails to apply at this point even weakly. — apokrisis
Yep. Both time and space, and energy as well, would all have to "get started". In a metaphysics based on Apeiron, a pure potential, all the basic substantial furniture of existence would have to self-organise into definite, actualised, being.
This is then made intelligible by energy (or action) and spacetime (or direction) being themselves recognised as a dichotomy, a symmetry breaking, harboured in that pure potential. A state of everythingness can't prevent itself from becoming divided against itself in formal fashion. — apokrisis
Being grey can't prevent the division that would be the separation that is moving towards black and white. If a greyness fluctuates even a little bit at some point, it is moving towards the one and moving away from the other in the same act. All it takes is for this kind of simultaneous departure to be a more intelligible state for it to develop then into a definite universal habit. Greyness disappears as the broken symmetry of white vs black takes over and makes for a world of definite being. — apokrisis
So all physics has to show is (1) that a fundamental dichotomy - like action vs direction - has that basic complementarity. — apokrisis
But Aristotle instead argues that there is no beginning. It is because he can't imagine a "beginning" which is a vagueness - a "state" where there isn't even a fact of the matter in regard to "time" - that he feels forced to conclude existence is eternal ... timeless in the opposite sense. And it is to make sense of that which leads him to an argument for an unmoved mover. — apokrisis
However a vast weight of evidence and theory has been accumulated which points to the Planck scale as a true boundary to distinguishability - to counterfactuality and separability. — apokrisis
You are missing the power of dichotomous reasoning. It is always simply the case that for one thing to be, so must its "other". You can't have figure without ground, event without context. So what you point out as a bug is instead the metaphysical feature. — apokrisis
As I said, you can't have action without direction, and vice versa. If this is the most foundational dichotomy or symmetry breaking (and in physics, it is) then you always will get these two for the price of one. For anything to happen, both these complementary things are what must happen together.
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So there is indeed both a dichotomy at the heart of things (change vs stasis) and thus a situation that can be read in either direction. — apokrisis
Potential is difficult to understand, because it is not any definite thing. — Metaphysician Undercover
It is defined by Aristotle by referring to the dichotomy of what is and is not, but it is not defined dichotomously. — Metaphysician Undercover
Dichotomy is formal, through and through. Matter has perfections and imperfections, completeness and incompleteness, but all these dichotomies are with respect to the form, not the matter. — Metaphysician Undercover
This is A's formulation of the law of identity, that a thing is the same as itself. It doesn't matter if the thing is changing, so long as it is itself, it is the same thing. If we stick to logical identity though, then every moment that a thing changes, it is a new thing. — Metaphysician Undercover
Vagueness lies here within this continuity, where the laws of logic, if applied, would result in infinite regress. — Metaphysician Undercover
This is why he presented the cosmological argument which he is well known for, to refute it. After he accepted this impossibility, the impossibility of a beginning in vagueness, then he proposed the eternal circular motions. — Metaphysician Undercover
Because the Planck limit is completely dependent upon the theories employed to explain the features of the universe, it is just a manifestation of those theories. That these theories produce a boundary to distinguishability reveals the inadequacies of the theories, not true boundaries to distinguishability. — Metaphysician Undercover
But in the actual world of individual material things, there is no such thing as a thing's other each thing is unique in its own ways. — Metaphysician Undercover
You seem to be using "dichotomy" in two distinct ways here. In the first case you present what I call a categorical difference, a thing and its property, action, direction. In the second case you have opposition, change and stasis. — Metaphysician Undercover
And that means that we both know - from reason - that there must be some "stuff", some "material", that gets formed in this way, and yet this material cause becomes the ultimately elusive part of reality. We can't pin it down - see it in its raw formlessness - as it only becomes something definite and "pinnable" if it has a form. — apokrisis
Which is the source of the so-called 'observer problem', is it not? — Wayfarer
The purpose of thermodynamics is artificial or emergent. It's like having a 12-sided dice with 11 faces having a value of 1 and only one side having a different value. According to thermodynamics, it is only this asymmetry in the structure of reality that creates the entropic imperative in the long run - meaning the entropic imperative is only statistical and results from there being a lot more entropifying possibilities (a lot more possibilities to score '1' given a throw in the dice analogy) in the pool of possible choices than the opposite. So if anything this "purpose" is enforced by the a priori structure of reality.Apokrisis has quite specifically advocated a Cosmic Goal manifesting as a Thermodynamics with Purpose. — Rich
The purpose of thermodynamics is artificial or emergent. It's like having a 12-sided dice with 11 faces having a value of 1 and only one side having a different value. According to thermodynamics, it is only this asymmetry in the structure of reality that creates the entropic imperative in the long run - meaning the entropic imperative is only statistical and results from there being a lot more entropifying possibilities (a lot more possibilities to score '1' given a throw in the dice analogy) in the pool of possible choices than the opposite. So if anything this "purpose" is enforced by the a priori structure of reality. — Agustino
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