Second, I do not have a reductionist metaphysics, I have a dualism. — Metaphysician Undercover

Dualism is reductionism. Just doubled down. Instead of one variety of brute fact - material substance - you offer two. There is a spirit stuff or res cogitans as well.

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

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.

Exactly, you lose that difference to category error, and the result is your assumption that vagueness is ontologically real. — Metaphysician Undercover

You keep presenting my arguments back to front. Vagueness - in being limitation on being - would be ontically unreal. It marks where actuality begins. So itself, is the unactualised or the purely potential.

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? Obviously you haven't read A's Metaphysics, or his Physics. To say that he was ambiguous and inconsistent with respect to the concept of matter is nonsense.




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Are you serious? — Metaphysician Undercover

To say that there is nothing equivocal in Aristotle's handling of the question is just silly.

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 his Physics, matter is described as the underlying thing which persists, remains the same throughout a change. Form is active and changing. In 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.

Nothing in your quoted passage demonstrates that there is any inconsistency or ambiguity in A's concept of matter. In Physics, matter is assumed, as the basis for the continuity of existence. In Metaphysics the real existence of prime matter, matter without form, is denied. The concept of matter, and its relationship to potentiality is developed throughout his work, principally Physics, De Anima, and Metaphysics. They are large, complex, and difficult texts. Equivocal interpretations are the result of misunderstanding.

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"? And was the assertion ever just that it is matter without form rather than being beyond either (actual matter always being actually formed).

It is hard to discuss the lack of ambiguity in a text when you make such ambiguous pronouncements.

So prime matter is denied? Or defined by some other modality other than "real existence"? — apokrisis

Prime matter is denied, as illogical. Read up on Aristotle's cosmological argument. It is logically impossible that there ever was matter without form. The proposed situation, infinite potential, prime matter, or matter without form, excludes the existence of form, because any form would mean that the potential is non-infinite, and therefore not fulfilling the definition of prime matter. If prime matter had form this would be contradiction. But potential requires an actuality to actualize it, it cannot actualize itself. Therefore if there ever was infinite potential, prime matter, or matter without form, there would always be infinite potential, prime matter, or matter without form. But this is not what we observe, we observe that matter has form. Therefore the empirical evidence along with the preceding logical argument denies the possibility of prime matter.

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 not an assertion, it is a complex, well constructed logical argument which is drawn out through the explanation of the relevant terms, over many books in his Metaphysics. It is actually the substance of his metaphysics. After concluding that actuality is necessarily prior to potentiality, he proceeds to posit eternal circular motion to account for this actuality, the form, which is prior to matter. But this is where he went wrong. The Neo-Platonists went on to posit independent Forms, forms which have existence separate from matter, and prior to matter. Both of these proposals are brought about because of the logical force of the cosmological argument, which, with no uncertainty, or ambiguity, demonstrates that prime matter is logically impossible.

It is hard to discuss the lack of ambiguity in a text when you make such ambiguous pronouncements. — apokrisis

I don't see where you draw the charge of "ambiguity" from. I've been repeating over and over again, to you, in this thread, and others, that Aristotle demonstrates prime matter as logically impossible. And I do not believe that there is any ambiguity on this subject in the interpretation of Aristotle's Metaphysics. 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.

So there is no ambiguity on this subject. You are simply in denial, acting irrationally, refusing to face the reality of the situation. Instead of approaching this logical argument, which demonstrates your faithful first principle of "matter" as false, you make the unwarranted claim that the pronouncements are ambiguous. But what you ought to do is obtain a firm understanding of this argument, and from there you can either offer a coherent refutation of it, or do as I did, and release your preferred principle of prime matter in favour of a more intelligible first principle. When I first studied the refutation of prime matter, in that university course, I did not accept the arguments. This was because I did not understand the complexity of the concepts involved, so that I did not adequately understand the argument. It took me many years of studying later Aristotelians, and reflecting back, as well as consulting Aristotle's many texts, before the whole structure of that argument became coherent for me.

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

Yet....

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

I agree that a dualistic reading of prime matter doesn't work. It makes a mystery of both the forms and the material principle.

But that is why I support a triadic vagueness-based metaphysics - Peirce's answer. I argue the interactive story where the naked potential contains within itself this very dichotomy of form and matter within it. And the two co-arise as each other's limitation.

So from the first moment of actuality, there is the substantial being of in-formed materiality. The game has already got going as constraints are shaping material degrees of freedom. Of course also in this first moment, the state of this first substance is as vague as can possibly be imagined - a mere fluctuation that looks as much an accident as a organised tendency. With as yet no history or context to stabilise it, the first formed material fluctuation counts as merely a suggestion. A spontaneity that has yet to show it will lead anywhere.

So vagueness "contains" the potential for en-mattered form itself. What ever comes out of vagueness - gets crisply actualised - is logically what that vagueness contained as a potential. And the most metaphysically basic thing to come out of that vagueness was the mutual deal of formal cause and material cause - the possibility of the constraints that could form the material actions which, in turn, could construct the definite history, the physical context, which could go on to become the increasingly fixed habits, the fully realised global forms, which then constituted the Cosmos.

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".

I don't pretend this ontological formula solves all problems. The claim is only that this is the simplest story we can imagine, taking what we know of existence and rolling it back logically to an origin point. It is the ontology that minimises the mystery by starting existence with a lucky accident ... that was also historically inevitable.

That is where the symmetry maths argument comes in. As soon as there is any random action of the slightest kind, already that brings with it the hard possibility of the limitations of mathematical principle. If there is a group of transformations, then there is also a definite fixed invariance already waiting to greet them and bind them in their collective future. A purpose - a tendency towards this mathematically-described equilibrium - is exerting its finality over events already.

It doesn't really matter what Aristotle thinks because it is a Peircean triadic metaphysics which I am defending. But of course Aristotle is also important in traversing the same ground and highlighting the important elements in such an argument.

But potential requires an actuality to actualize it, it cannot actualize itself. — Metaphysician Undercover

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.

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.

And so we are saying the Apeiron contains within the very means of self-actualising.

The trick is seeing how form and matter really are just two ways of looking at the one thing. A fluctuation is an action with a direction. As an actual Cosmos develops, these two counterparts take on a hierarchically developed identity.

They start off as indistinguishable - action and direction have no real size or result as yet. With no history, the action has nothing to change, the direction as yet offers no context to be the limit of such a change.

But over time, there is a regularisation as a context of such events build up. Local action takes on a fixed and repetitive nature as the global context comes to provide definite directionality. You arrive at mechanical picture of nature as atoms in a void - an ontology of concrete objects acting with the regularity of eternal law.

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

That's as maybe. Can you provide a cite to back this interpretation up?

I agree that Aristotle's story had holes. 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.

I find that in general, your quoted website is very inaccurate, and often misleading. 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. It is very clear that Aristotle promoted the idea of eternal circular motion, so to claim that he also promoted the idea of prime matter is to produce an inconsistent interpretation. One might refer to such a poor interpretation to claim that Aristotle is inconsistent, but that's really the mistake of the interpreter. However, all one needs to do is to pay attention to what is written in Bks. 6-9, to see that the concept of prime matter is refuted, regardless of what your website says.

I argue the interactive story where the naked potential contains within itself this very dichotomy of form and matter within it. — apokrisis

Now you are giving different definitions to these terms, "potential" "matter", and "form". So I cannot refer to the Aristotelian definitions, I can only refer to yours. Under the Aristotelian structure, matter and form are defined by potential and actual, respectively. Here, you are saying that potential contains within it, both matter and form, so it is impossible that form is defined by actual, unless actual is some type of potential. 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.

So from the first moment of actuality, there is the substantial being of in-formed materiality. — apokrisis

So I must ask you, what do you mean by "actuality" here? If potential already consists of matter and form, and form implies actuality (as it does in A's structure), then there is already actuality prior to substantial being. If you are proposing some other form of actuality, which is not formal actuality, then what are you talking about? Or, in saying that potential consists of matter and form, is it the case that potential is substantial being, and there is no such thing as the potential for substantial being prior to substantial being?

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

If it is necessary that form and matter "co-exist", then they are inseparable, and one cannot be prior to the other. I see this proposition as a big problem, because this would negate the essence of the dichotomy between actual and potential, which Aristotle worked so hard to describe.

The potential for an object is necessarily prior in time to the actual existence of that object. We understand the potential for the object as the matter, which is now in another form, which will be re-formed to become the object. Since one is temporally prior to the other, then when you say that they are "causally joined at the hip", what you mean by this is that one is necessarily prior in time to the other. To say that they "co-exist" is a mistake then, because as soon as the potential for something is actualized, that particular potential no longer exists, as it is replaced by the actual thing.

To give co-existence to matter and form, would have to be to disassociate matter and form from potential and actual. But this does not dismiss the reality that the potential for something is necessarily prior to that thing, it just forces us to discuss this under terms other than matter and form. Here is the difficulty which Aristotle addressed with the cosmological argument. The potential for something is necessarily prior in time to the actual thing. But in order for that potential to become the actual thing, the potential must be actualized, and this itself requires something actual. We could say that there has always been the potential for something, and that there has always been something actual, co-existence of potential and actual, but we would not get beyond an infinite regress. Thus to give co-existence to potential and actual implies infinite regress.

So co-existence is rejected because of infinite regress. 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.

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

This is the category mistake, which I referred to a few posts back. When you describe "potential" as "chaotic fluctuation", you are describing something active. So you have conflated the two categories, potential and actual, to say that something actual, chaotic fluctuation, is potential. Now you no longer have the categorical separation between potential and actual, and you might insist that they co-exist, but this is inconsistent with observed reality which sees the potential for something as prior in time to the actual thing. Therefore your "chaotic fluctuation", and what you call "vagueness", is nothing more than a failure to represent, and maintain a proper temporal order with the categories of actual and potential, in your ontological principles. Instead of maintaining a crisp separation between potential and actual, with a determinate temporal order, you combine these in a chaotic vagueness. The so-called chaotic fluctuation of vagueness, apeiron, is not a real feature of the universe, it is a manifestation of the failure to provide a crisp categorical separation between potential and actual.

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

See here, you unite the passive and the active, which all classical metaphysics separates into distinct categories, in order to produce your conception of apeiron. So your conception of apeiron, and vagueness is nothing but a denial of classical categories. The denial of classical categories would be an acceptable procedure if it was warranted. But as I've already pointed out, the separation between potential and actual is well supported by observation, empirical evidence, which demonstrates that prior to the actual existence of anything, it is necessary that there is the potential for it.

And so we are saying the Apeiron contains within the very means of self-actualising. — apokrisis

Yes of course, that is what you are saying, that the aperion, as infinite potential, has the power of actualizing itself. That is what I insist is a case of being irrational. You only produce this power of self-actualizing by breaking down the divide between potential and actual, allowing that potential has activity already within. But such a potential is nowhere near like the proposed prime matter, or unlimited potential, it is already limited to the activity (fluctuations) within. And each flustuation has a fluctuation prior to it, such that we are still in the position of infinite regress which results from the postulate of co-existence.

Can you provide a cite to back this interpretation up? — apokrisis

Read the text. It's quite clearly argued that actuality is necessarily prior to potentiality. And that is why he goes on to assume eternal circular motions. Also, if actuality is prior to potentiality, then pure potential is impossible. Here, check the first line of BK.9, ch8 (1049b):
"From our discussion of the various senses of 'prior', it is clear that actuality is prior to potency."
Further, 1051a:
It is obvious, then, actuality is prior both to potency and to every principle of change."

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

Aristotle doesn't argue for a Christian God, he argues that "prime matter" is impossible because actuality is necessarily prior to potential. I don't think that's a matter of interpretation. 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. Christian theologians such as Aquinas have adapted the argument for their own purpose because the idea of God the creator, is consistent with the argument..

I find that in general, your quoted website is very inaccurate, and often misleading. — Metaphysician Undercover

Naturally. I look forward to your citation to support your own stance.

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

Alternatively, for me, it is only natural that matter and form should express such a dichotomous pairing of limits.

Aristotle was wrong about the fact of the matter - that the prime mover was "circular motion". But a prime mover to match the ur-matter is metaphysically logical. For there to be action, there has to be a direction. The laws of thermodynamics show how the Cosmos is indeed pointed in a universal entropic direction - moved according to that.

So again, the triadic view is that both "prime matter" and the "prime mover" would be the two aspects of the one basic relation that was present as a potential in an ontically vague beginning. 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.

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

Or maybe you should drop archaic definitions of the potential and actual.

A potential is the power to cause motions, set in train events. So it is efficient cause for a reductionist. For me, it is more complex as a holist. I would say a vagueness is a state of potential in containing the seeds of self-organised action. It is first a chaos of impulses - undirected action. But then, as I say, just as much the potential for the emergent organisation that gives generic direction to all action.

So yes, if I have to use the word "potential", it does gain a specific twist in a Peircean holistic context. And I have presented that "new conceptual structure" often enough.

Then actuality - in the Aristotelean sense - speaks to finality. It is the goal which defines the ideal form towards which some material development is tending. It is the global constraint, in my parlance.

But the actual, in ordinary language, means the reality of here and now. The physically realised. And a weakness in Aristotle/Plato is that the actual form of things is as much a matter of contingency as necessity in the real world. An acorn might want to grow into a tree (thanks to its genetically encoded constraints), but the tree could be proud and tall, or wizened and wind-blasted, depending on the vagaries of the landscape where the acorn took root.

So I would go with the ordinary language use of "actuality" as that simply means the physically realised form of something - a particular instance - without making a distinction between the parts of that material form which are accidental vs the parts that are intended due to some finality.

Then if I wanted to highlight finality - as the shaping global goal or constraint - then I would use those teleological terms explicitly.

Another confusion - which keeps cropping up with you - is that you then want to insist that finality precedes potentiality.

In my view, finality calls forth its material being from the future. Or at least, it may be there right at the beginning, but only as a pretty invisible tendency. A habit has to grow and harden via repetition. It is only in retrospect that it was clear the final outcome was "well anticipated".

I can also see what you or Aristotle might mean by saying that the potential arises out of a form being materially realised. A horse can gallop, a kangaroo can hop, by virtue of their bodily design. But I would more correctly call these their possibilities or degrees of freedom.

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.

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.

Note that actuality was called energeia by Aristotle in places. And now energy is how physics instead talks about generic potential. Energy is in fact matter now. The passive principle you defend has become the active part of the equation.

There are good reasons for the slippage in the Aristotlean conceptual framework. Important aspects of the ontology did end up facing the wrong way round.

If it is necessary that form and matter "co-exist", then they are inseparable, and one cannot be prior to the other. — Metaphysician Undercover

For them to be separated, they must have once not been separate. Seems logical to me.

To give co-existence to matter and form, would have to be to disassociate matter and form from potential and actual. — Metaphysician Undercover

Consider it done.

Or rather, the new dichotomy is the developmental axis of the vague~crisp. Matter and form become separated with ever greater definiteness as existence evolves from tentative beginnings to solidified habit. And to become separated, that process must have begun by them being together - in indistinguishable fashion.

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

The naive reading still seems better.

But in my view, the potential is simply an undifferentiated vagueness. A state without either definite material action, nor formal direction. So it is easy to accept these twin faces of reality becoming the separation that needs to develop.

If actuality comes first in time, then how on earth does that conjure up the necessary materiality to physically realise its desires?

Of course I agree that a matter-first ontology is almost as bad. So that is why my ontology is based on the notion of both matter and form co-arising, each emerging via the other.

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

You're being a bit rough on an Oxford lecturer whose specialism this is. Ainsworth ain't some random internet dude.

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

The problem though, is that "limits" are by definition constraints, and therefore formal. You can talk about limits and lack of limits, and you are talking about form. Matter doesn't enter this discussion, that's why matter and form are not dichotomous pairings, they are separate categories.

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

But matter exists as potential. So you are simply mixing up the terms, breaking down the categories. You are saying that the apeiron isn't pure matter, but it is potential. Aristotle's cosmological argument though, addresses the issue of potential, that's how it is directed at both materialists and Pythagorean Idealists. The same argument refutes both positions. What is proved is that it is impossible for potential to be prior to actuality in any absolute sense. 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.

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

This is the idea which appears unintelligible, and irrational to me. You talk about a die having crisp, and definite possibilities. And, we could talk about definite possibilities in relation to many other different things. 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". I can see that if a person didn't know the form of a die, the possibilities would be vague, but this is an epistemic vagueness, the possibilities are still definite, only the person doesn't know them, so to that person the possibility appears as vague and unformed.

Let's take for example, a tree. The wood of that tree is the matter, and when we see the tree as wood, there are numerous possibilities, firewood, lumber, sawdust, etc.. 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. What would that even mean, that there are unformed possibilities within the tree? Sure there are many possibilities which a human being hasn't apprehended, but how does that make them unformed possibilities unless we're talking about epistemic possibilities?. We can only call them vague or unformed because the human mind hasn't determined them. But when the human mind determines a possibility, this doesn't change the nature of the possibility itself, so we cannot say that the possibility changes from being vague and unformed, to being definite, simply by being determined by a human mind. The possibility exists as a definite thing whether or not it is determined by a mind. Where does the notion of vague unformed possibility come from?

Suppose we go deeper into the composition of the tree, and instead of assuming wood as the matter, we assume the molecules, or even the atoms, as the matter. Now the tree presents us with an even bigger array of possibilities. But again, each of the possibilities is a definite possibility, and the possibilities are restricted by the actual atoms of the tree. No human being could possibly know all the possibilities, but this doesn't make the potential of the tree vague or unformed, the potential is well formed by the chemical constitution of the tree. And if we go deeper, to quantum fields with fundamental particles, the possibilities are still definite, limited by the form of the tree. The possibilities only exist as property of the tree. No amount of reduction can render the definite possibilities, which are determined by the form of the tree, into vague unformed potential. The concept of "vague unformed potential" is completely out of place here, because you want to jump from possibilities which are the property of a definite form, to the claim that there are possibilities (vague and unformed) which are independent from any definite form, simply existing as vague unformed potential. But the idea that potential can exist in a vague, unformed way, having no form whatsoever, is nonsensical.

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

Here you seem to be making the same sort of jump from one category to another. We can talk about motion, or action in a general way, describing what it is, etc., just like we can talk about potential in a general way. 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. Sure, we could talk about motion, and say that it is not necessary for any motion to be in any particular direction, in order to be a motion, but to single out a particular motion and say that this motion is not in any direction, is nonsense. It might be the case that the human being knows there is activity there, but cannot determine what the direction of the activity is, but this doesn't mean that the activity has no direction, that's nonsense, and an irrational conclusion

You're being a bit rough on an Oxford lecturer whose specialism this is. Ainsworth ain't some random internet dude. — apokrisis

His published work is on the internet, seems like a random internet dude to me. If you really think that Dr. Ainsworth thinks Aristotle believed that prime matter has, or had real existence, then maybe you should invite him here to defend that position. I've already given you the unambiguous quotes where Aristotle himself denies this, and explained how prime matter is contrary to eternal circular motion, which he went on to propose as an alternative, after refuting the idea of prime matter. Perhaps Dr. Ainsworth just said that because it was what the publishers wanted. Maybe there's a materialist bias there.

The problem though, is that "limits" are by definition constraints, and therefore formal. — 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.

So limits aren't by definition "formal". A triadic approach sees substantial reality emerging from material and formal cause. And both of these can then be "formally defined" in terms of a constraining limit.

Your complaint here is really just word play.

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

Note again how you are relying on terminological slippage.

I agree that definite properties require actual substances. They are the possibilities that "subsequently" arise due to some state of formal limitation of material potential.

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.

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.

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

Obviously I was contrasting unformed possibilities with definite possibilities. So I am happy to call vagueness by its name. But also, somehow, it have to offer an intelligible contrast to explain what it could mean. A die is engineered so that it has counterfactual definiteness. Understanding what a die has then got - 6 exactly equal sides - allows you to understand what a die has got to lose ... what it would mean to be vaguer.

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

Sure, to the degree something is actualised and particularised, then it has lost any vagueness or generality. That is exactly the way it goes.

But before the tree grew, there was much about its future that was indeterminate. If you want to be epistemic, who knew the tree was going to be chewed up by borer or smashed by last Saturday's lightning bolt?

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

You are being optimistic now. If we go truly "deeper" into the tale of cosmic development, the Universe is blazing bath of radiation and nothing else. All action is lightspeed. The average temperature is billions of degrees above what matter can stand.

So yes, look around right now when the Universe is less than 3 degrees above absolute zero, and matter looks like fixed stuff with fixed properties. But that is not the "deep" view.

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

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.

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.

His published work is on the internet, seems like a random internet dude to me. — Metaphysician Undercover

Sure. Oxford always be handing out PhDs to random internet dudes. I'm sure yours is in the post too. :-}

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

This doesn't make sense to me. Formal laws are the laws which scientists make, they are descriptions of the physical reality. These are not constraints because they are descriptions which human beings make, so they cannot act in the world to constrain anything. If you are saying that these laws refer to something law-like in the physical reality, then these are physical constraints. Now we don't have two types of constraints, only physical constraints. If you drop an object, and say that it will be constrained to fall, this is a physical constraint. If a material object interferes, and breaks the fall, again, this is described by laws of interaction, and is again a formal constraint. Where are the two distinct types of constraints here.

Note again how you are relying on terminological slippage. — apokrisis

Oh really? I beg to differ. You accuse me of adhering to classical definitions, saying that you want to introduce new definitions. And you say I am relying on "terminological slippage". You continue to present things backwardly.

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

I don't think that's the standard understanding of "potential" at all. Potential means capable of, or the capacity for, it has nothing to do with vagueness. If you are proposing a relationship between potential and vagueness, this must be justified, or at least explained.

In the Aristotelian structure, the concept of "potential" is required to account for the nature of time. The truth about things which may or may not happen at a future time (like the sea battle tomorrow), is stated with reference to potential. So it is neither true, nor not true, that the sea battle will occur, it is possible. Aristotle allows for exception to the law of excluded middle in reference to future events, and this opens the door to vagueness in "potential".

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

Yes, there are a variety of meanings of "potential", or "possible", and the goal is to avoid ambiguity and especially equivocation. Do you agree, that when we look to past events, there is a truth concerning what actually occurred, yet if we do not know what actually occurred, we might entertain possibilities? This is a type of epistemic vagueness, a not knowing about something which there is an actual truth about. But "potential", in reference to future events which may or may not occur, is an ontological category. There is no actual truth as to whether or not there will be a sea battle tomorrow, because whether or not there will be a sea battle has not yet been decided. 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.

Now consider your proposed foundational vagueness, apeiron. We need to determine whether this is a case of vagueness which is derived from not knowing, epistemic possibility, or is it the ontological vagueness which is given to us by the nature of the future, potential. Suppose, in a thought experiment, we project ourselves back to this proposed time, at the beginning of the universe when the apeiron is assumed to exist. In this projection, the present is then, such that all time is in front of us. I assume you would say, that according to the nature of the apeiron, the potential for the future is infinite. This potential is pure, so that means that there is no actuality in the past, nothing which has already occurred, to constrain what may happen in the future, so that anything is possible. Would you agree that this means that at this time, there is no past, there is only future?

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? What creates a past, such that there is something actual? What Aristotle argues, is that from this proposed position of pure potential, all future and no past, it is impossible that there ever will be a past, because time is not passing, and no reason why time would start passing. 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.

This is what you need to clear up for me then. You have proposed a situation where no time is passing, because there is only future, and no past. Necessarily, time is not passing. What makes time start to pass?

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

This is exactly my point, physics does not show this. What the modern principles of physics show, in this regard, is that physicists have not the capacity to distinguish these two aspects of reality, at the Planck scale. 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. In reality, there is a very real difference between past and future, actual and potential, because time is asymmetrical. To say that this difference is actually indistinguishable (rather than indistinguishable due to the deficiencies of human applications), such that it is lost in symmetry, is a mistake.

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

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.

If you are proposing a relationship between potential and vagueness, this must be justified, or at least explained. — Metaphysician Undercover

Potential is defined dichotomously by Aristotle. It is about the production of "what is" in contradiction to "what is not". White is a definitely possible quality because blackness is the "other" that underwrites that. The less black something is, the more white it is. The PNC can thus apply to the actual outcome. If the change - the suppression of blackness, the production of whiteness - is complete, then we have the counterfactual definiteness of the PNC where some thing is either white or black.

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.

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

Yes, future conditionals are an example of vagueness. The reason then for talking about the PNC not applying is that Peirce made the argument that it is with generality, or universality, that the LEM does not apply. (And note also, rather than speaking of "violations" - as if a law is broken - the claim is that the law simply does not apply, there being "no fact of the matter".)

So a general is a form or substance that has crisp or definite actuality. It is a concrete possibility which is "all middle". The general is understood by what it manages to definitely include ... and so what it fails to exclude. The PNC is then about the vague as it neither definitely includes nor definitely excludes. Vagueness swallows up all distinction at a more primal level.

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

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.

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.

So all physics has to show is (1) that a fundamental dichotomy - like action vs direction - has that basic complementarity. It must produce a fluctuation of that form even in a "pure state of initial symmetry". And then (2), that that fluctuation would be self-sustaining and have reason to grow. And here, the argument is that the fluctuation will prove to be dissipative. There is some discovered advantage that drives a phase transition or fundamental change of state.

So yes. It is a big ask of physics to cash out this metaphysics. But even time is being looked at in this fashion now in fundamental physics - as thermally emergent rather than ontically basic.

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

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.

A vagueness-based ontology also has its unmoved mover as I say. The maths of symmetry, or invariance under transformation. There is a principle that "eternally" wants expressing. And it "exists" outside of time if you like. The Apeiron seems - retrospectively - a principally material state, as it is easiest to describe it in terms of the "chaos of unbounded action or fluctuation that got things going". Then the definite symmetries that were "always going to organise it" can be understood as "eternal mathematical truths" in being the regularities that were always going to manifest by necessity.

In that view, it is no surprise that Aristotle was already thinking in terms of the most symmetric form known - a circle. Or rotational invariance. That bit of reasoning is correct and shared. Particle physics has arrived at the same conclusion. All particles (or quantum excitations) have their definite form because there are only those invariant states of rotation or spin available to them.

The big difference of course is that particle physics invokes spin symmetries at the smallest scales of being. The Cosmos itself, by contrast, lacks rotation. Or at least, rotation of the Cosmos makes "no sense" as there is nothing to measure that in a relative fashion.

But also, modern physics recognises a dichotomy of "unmoved movers" in that the Cosmos is based on a pair of inertial symmetries, or free motions - rotational symmetry and translation symmetry.

So my point is that the idea of an "unmoved mover" is a general feature of metaphysics. In discovering the Cosmos to be rational and mathematical, this of course gets us thinking in terms of timeless or eternal principles that must become manifest in any material destiny. Even if matter tries to be maximally chaotic, that very attempt will reveal the limits to chaos. A "deeper" order will show through as the attractor - the final cause, or the actuality towards which the potential must "aspire".

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

Yes, it could always be the case that more might be discovered and there is something definite "beyond the Planck scale". One can never prove a theory, only show it has not yet been clearly falsified.

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.

So the astounding progress of the last century of physics stands against your nay-saying here. If you want to argue the physicists are all missing something, you would have to provide a better motivation for your position on that.

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

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.

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.

So time is change, and change is time. That is, the possibility of a particular action also calls forth the possibility of generic action. "Time" gets started when a distinction of this kind can itself begin to get made.

Note also that we can read off the passage of time either by seeing a local change as happening against a static global backdrop (a fixed cosmic temporal dimension), or instead as a local lack of change against a dynamic global backdrop (as is more the modern physical picture given that the universe started as a spreading bath of radiation, nothing happening "slower" than lightspeed).

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.

It is no surprise that Aristotle - admirable thinker though he was in every way - took an obviously human-centric view of his metaphysical story. Matter fell because the Earth was the centre of the Universe. Mind was fundamental to the Cosmos because it was fundamental to thinkers like himself. Motion needed explaining while stasis did not. And so forth.

The dichotomous or dialectical reasoning employed by the Ancient Greeks was very powerful and correct. But also, the tendency was to read the dichotomies the wrong way round. The human-centric qualities of nature - those most readily perceptible - were taken as the fundamental rather than as the emergent. Now that - through science - we can see reality in a more holistic and cosmic fashion, the same dichotomies can be used to make better sense of what the big picture really is.

Potential is defined dichotomously by Aristotle. It is about the production of "what is" in contradiction to "what is not". — apokrisis

Potential is difficult to understand, because it is not any definite thing. It is defined by Aristotle by referring to the dichotomy of what is and is not, but it is not defined dichotomously. It is not about the production of what is in contradiction to what is not, it is that which neither is nor is not. 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.

White is a definitely possible quality because blackness is the "other" that underwrites that. — apokrisis

Look, matter itself is neither white nor black, but may be either one. White or black is the form which the matter has.

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

So this is where continuity is the issue. Aristotle proposed, in his Physics, that matter provides a continuity of existence. In this way, when a thing's form changes from being black, to being white, we can assume that it is still the same thing, just having a different form, by assuming that it is still the same matter'

There was a logical problem which arose from the nature of becoming, which sophists exploited. If a thing changes, from black to white for example, it has a different form, so logically it is not the same thing, it has a different description. Aristotle pointed out, that if we assume an intermediate form, grey, then we have to account for the change from black to grey. So we would have to assume another intermediate form, between black and grey, a different shade of grey, and so on, such that there is an infinite number of intermediate forms necessary to account for any change from one form to another. His conclusion was that becoming is inherently incompatible with the logical forms of being and not being.

So matter, with the essential nature of potential, was proposed to account for becoming. Becoming, for Aristotle is where the laws of logic break down. Notice though, that it is a very particular law of identity which suffers from this problem. It is only when we assume continuity, that a thing continues to be the same thing, despite changing through time, that we have "becoming", a thing which is changing, and this produces a problem with the laws of logic. 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. There is no continuity of existence of an object from one moment to the next. Each moment gives us a different form, a different description, therefore a different thing, and the logic of being and not being dictates that there is no continuity. However, we observe a continuity of existence, things continue to be the things that they were. So A assumes matter, and potential, to account for the observed continuity. Vagueness lies here within this continuity, where the laws of logic, if applied, would result in infinite regress.

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

But this is what doesn't make sense. You are proposing that something, pure potential exists prior to time getting started. But this apeiron doesn't have the capacity to start time, so we'd just have to assume something else as that which starts time. Then why propose apeiron as the first thing? Potential is used to describe the temporal continuity between two existing states in a changing world, the situation which is neither this state nor that state, but in between. The situation prior to all physical states is a completely different situation, then is a change between two states.

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

Here, you use "grey" as analogous to the pure potential apeiron. But the point of Aristotle's demonstration with becoming, is that it is incorrect to refer to the becoming, which accounts for the in between of black and white as "grey". To call it grey is to name another state, and you imply the infinite regress. So the matter, or potential, which accounts for becoming, is something completely other from black and white, it is completely incompatible. So we cannot say that the potential (grey) gives way to black and white, it is something completely different, which is always there regardless of whether it is black or white. The potential (matter), may at one time give way to black, or at another time give way to white, but it is always there, all the time, as the same. You cannot represent it as "grey", which is just a degree of difference between black and white, because this gives rise to infinite regress.

So now we have the apeiron of potential, which is completely other from the dichotomous black and white, but it continues to exist, along with the black and white. It cannot give way, and become the dichotomous black and white, it just exists with them as the continuity within change. If we say that the apeiron of potential is prior to the dichotomous black and white, this doesn't get us anywhere, because it cannot ever give way to the dichotomous black and white, so this tells us nothing about the forms which exist. We still need to seek the cause of why there is what there is. Assuming apeiron does nothing but confuse the issue by taking the principle which is responsible for explaining the change between two states, and trying to apply it where it is not suited, to the beginning.

So all physics has to show is (1) that a fundamental dichotomy - like action vs direction - has that basic complementarity. — apokrisis

But action vs direction is not a proper dichotomy. One is the property of the other. Action has direction. And this is the same as matter has form. But these are not what I would call dichotomies, they are categorical differences. One direction may be opposed to another, like black is opposed to white, but action is in a completely different category, like potential is, and action cannot become direction. That doesn't make sense.

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

No, I keep telling you over and over, it is not that Aristotle can't imagine a beginning in the vagueness of potential, he demonstrated that this is logically impossible. He clearly imagined it, and he discussed it. That's why your quoted scholar said that he believed in it. But he clearly did not believe in it. 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.

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

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.

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

This is your category mistake creeping in again. It is only in conception that there is necessarily an other. Hot is defined by cold, negative defines positive, etc.. 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. This is why matter, with potential, has it's own separate category. The matter has the potential to have the form of white or black, one or the other, but this is formal, and there is no other to the matter (potential) itself.

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

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.

Potential is difficult to understand, because it is not any definite thing. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yep. So it is vague ... in relation to the definite actuality that it then gives rise to.

It is defined by Aristotle by referring to the dichotomy of what is and is not, but it is not defined dichotomously. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yep. It is defined dichotomously - A and not-A. Or rather it is the prior state when there is neither A nor not-A present. That is, the PNC as yet fails to apply. So it is defined as that which must be capable of yielding the dichotomy and an actuality that is ruled by the PNC.

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

Again yep. Formal cause - a calculus of distinctions - is what produces an intelligible actual world out of "bare material cause". There is nothing substantial except that it has been formed by informational constraints. And the dichotomy is just speaking to the "how" of the distinction-making.

Aristotle saw that reality is a hierarchy of increasingly specified distinctions, or dichotomies/symmetry breakings. Genus begets species by critical divisions. Man is generically animal (and thus not mineral), but also more specifically rational (and thus not irrational or lacking in reason).

So actuality is the product of a hierarchy of constraints that impinge on localised matter, giving it concrete shape. And that seems to be the case "all the way down". Even the simplest forms of materiality - like fundamental particles - already have formal shape due to mathematical-strength symmetry-breakings.

Quarks are stuck at an SU(3) level of symmetry-breaking - locked into a state due to the cooling universe and their stable confinement by their own strong force. Leptons are then particles that managed to decay all the way down to bottom-most U(1) symmetry. So fundamental physics agrees it is formal cause - a hierarchy of dichotomies or symmetry-breakings - that turned the vague potential of the hot Big Bang into a cascade of actualised particles. Cold shards of pure structure.

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.

Aristotle was dealing with exactly this issue in discussing the prime matter that must underlie four elements.

Now the four elements themselves - fire, air, water, earth - we can today recognise as the four phases of matter. Plasma, gas, liquid, solid. Those four distinctions have become purely formal ones - the different states of atomic interaction due to changing temperature.

But nevertheless, the same reasoning applies. Some material principle - some principle of energy/matter conservation - must provide the continuity, the imperishability, that allows the observed phase transitions, or perishings and generations, that are clearly part of the actual world.

So note the very reasonable assumption here - which is in fact a pretty impressive leap of the human imagination. From observation of the world, it was assumed that matter is ultimately conserved in quantity. Or rather, the quantity of potential action was fixed. Action or dynamism could be converted from one form to another, but the actual total quantity of action is conserved.

So Anaximander's Apeiron was an open system view. The Apeiron was like an inexhaustible supply of action. (Although a conservation principle was embedded in the idea that everything produced by dichotomous formation - fire, air, water, earth - would then return to Apeiron as that form eventually degenerated.)

Aristotle pushed for a sharper distinction. The Comos became a closed material system. There must be an underlying "prime matter" that is eternal and imperishable, endlessly taking new shape without in fact being used up, or being generated anew. And it was from that assumption that the idea of a creation event - a birth of all this imperishable matter - became a great metaphysical difficulty.

So Aristotle was taking the metaphysical argument the next step. He was making it clear that the choice was between a Cosmos open for causality (freely fed by an Apeiron) versus a Cosmos closed for causality (getting by on an eternally fixed quantity of prime matter). That then led to the apparently necessary conclusion that the material principle was the passive and imperceptible part of the equation.

Well seeing the Cosmos as a closed system, a conserved quantity of matter, doesn't ultimately work. But it does then allow the even more sophisticated metaphysical point of view. We can ask how closure itself could arise. We can seek an immanent model of self-organisation where a classical, materially-closed Universe, is the rational outcome.

This is where we get to modern dissipative structure thinking. This is where a logic of vagueness, a logic of hierarchical emergence, comes into its own.

So Anaximander understood reality in terms of an open flow action that self-organises to have emergent structure. Aristotle then showed what this reality looked like by going over to the other extreme - how we would imagine it as a system, still with hierarchical structure, but now closed and eternal.

Then following that sharpening of our thinking, we can understand reality in terms of self-organising material closure. We no longer rely on Anaximander's admittedly very material conception of the Apeiron, nor Aristotle's maddenly elusive notion of prime matter, but understand that there is a vagueness beyond both material and formal cause. We can't grant primacy or priority to either material cause or formal cause because they themselves are the dichotomy that emerges from a "pure potential" that is both neither of these things, yet necessarily must be able to break to yield these complementary things.

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

Yep. The formulation of a conservation principle - the law of identity - is the basic step to get formal logical argument going. It is how you ground a pure calculus of distinctions. It literally is the making of pure form by abstracting away the real world materiality - getting rid of the inherent vagueness of the actual world. Or rather, ignoring the vagueness, the ontic indeterminacy, that still inheres on close examination.

So identity - a conservation of "fundamental stuff" - is an epistemic presumption. It axiomatically grounds the ontic modelling. And from that assumed basis, we can compute arguments using the "pure forms" of the laws of thought.

But then to argue backwards from that set of assumptions to say that is how reality actually is, well that is the obvious mistake. Just because logic "really works" doesn't mean we should believe it is "the thing in itself".

That is why a systems approach to metaphysics would embrace Peirce's approach the laws of thought. He saw that they describe the regularity of a world which has developed rational habits. So yes, the laws of thought do describe the final outcome with great accuracy.

But when the question turns to how could such a world develop, we have to bring in vagueness - firstness, tychism, spontaneity, fluctuation - as the logical corollary. The starting condition of the crisply organised, the definitely closed, the conserved and (future) eternal, has to be its own formal "other". Creation has to be explained in terms of its own reciprocal being - the inverse of what it becomes.

Vagueness lies here within this continuity, where the laws of logic, if applied, would result in infinite regress. — Metaphysician Undercover

The infinite regress of causality is asymptotic at worst. So it converges on a point. And that point both defines the limit and stands "outside" it. So this is exactly how I have argued for vagueness - as a limit which itself is formally "not real".

If you are going to make the accusation of infinite regress, you have to also acknowledge that this is a special kind of regress - one that converges on an "actual" point. It is like pi. We can never arrive at the actual final decimal expansion of pi. Yet the very fact that we can get arbitrarily close shows that pi "definitely exists" .... as a formal limit.

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

Yes. Once you argue for a generalised conservation principle, then you have a real problem with understanding reality as any kind of creation event. And yet modern science shows the Universe did emerge from a "Big Bang". So we can't simply pretend that our existence doesn't have some kind of creation moment.

The metaphysical question then becomes how can we best explain the situation as we now know it to be? Is there a logic of self-organised development that can get us a step closer to "the truth"?

So sure Aristotle made some arguments. Those have been tested against reality. They clearly don't hold. We can thank him for so clearly presenting the contrasting alternatives that made them actually thus testable, and move on.

Aristotle's mistakes were valuable ones. Imagining matter as the passive principle is an example of getting it exactly back to front in a way that allows us to then flip to the other better perspective eventually.

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

Now you are simply misunderstanding the pragmatic foundations of belief. It is the whole point of theories to deliver confirmation in terms of measurables. But the theory doesn't manifest the observables. They are what we actually measure when we apply the theory in modelling our reality.

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

This is only true to the extent that materiality has become locally complex and historically specified. I can tell one oak leaf from another due to all kinds of microscopic accidents - blemishes - which have become incorporated into its material structure.

But down at the fundamental level of quantum particles, individuation disappears. That is why quantum matter becomes "entangled". Two particles, supposedly separate in regards to their location and momentum, are in fact acting as if it is impossible to tell them apart.

So you are building your classical notion of individuated substance on incorrect foundations. We now know from observation that your foundational notions about the "actual world" are simply wrong.

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

A "metaphysical strength" dichotomy is how categories are themselves generated. If there is quantity, then its formal other is quality. For form, there is matter. For one, there is many. For discrete, there is continuous. Etc, etc.

The job of metaphysics is then to try to describe reality using the least number of such dichotomies. Or arriving at the most basic ones.

For me, that leaves you with two foundational dichotomies. One encompasses "what is" - the hierarchical or structural notion of the local~global. And then the other speaks to how what is can develop into its definite state of structured being. That dichotomy is the vague~crisp.

So a generic dichotomy for measuring reality in terms of its synchonic structure, and another one for doing that in terms of its diachronic development.

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?

Which is the source of the so-called 'observer problem', is it not? — Wayfarer

It would be why I like quantum interpretations that now take the information theoretic approach and explain quantum uncertainty in terms of the fundamental impossibility of asking "two opposite questions of reality at the same place and time".

Instead of there being an observer problem, reality is now viewed as "observer created". It comes down to being able to ask a meaningful question.

But the flip side of that - which you won't like - is that any notion of a mind or conscious observer gets reduced to a thermal decohering environment. At the fundamental level there is "nothing else going on".

But the flip side of that - which you won't like - is that any notion of a mind or conscious observer gets reduced to a thermal decohering environment. — apokrisis

Isn't that simply another way of trying to dodge the apparent 'primacy of consciousness'?

It's another way to avoid the mire that is "not even wrong" mystical mutterings.

I read this almost interminable discussion and I side with MU. Apo has just made an entire jumble of categories and treats them as if they were convertible from one to the other. Also he often talks past what is said to him and just repeats his story with new words. A story which makes sense only if you grant him an irrational point of departure and an irrational point of finality. With those two small sleights of hand, everything else can be accounted for.

Another God-botherer, eh? Feel free to make an argument though.

Another God-botherer, eh? Feel free to make an argument though. — apokrisis

It's not about God, your metaphysics just doesn't make sense though. The argument has already been made, you're just avoiding it.

Zzzzz....

Apokrisis has quite specifically advocated a Cosmic Goal manifesting as a Thermodynamics with Purpose. This would be Doaism in a nutshell. He just wants to pretend (to himself) that he is oh, sooooo scientific. It's a game that scientists play.

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.

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

I really don't need you pseudo-scientific gibberish. The heart of your ideology is pure Daoism. Deal with it.

I really don't need you pseudo-scientific gibberish. The heart of your ideology is pure Daoism. Deal with it. — Rich

You're not speaking with Apo lol...

My apologies.