No, I still don't follow you.

There are minds and there are states of mind.

Minds are not made of their states. They 'have' states. They are not made of them.

So, by distinguishing between minds and their states one is not thereby dividing the mind.

Consider a lump of clay that is cuboid. It has six sides. But then it changes into a pyramidical shape. Now it has five sides. It has not been reduced by a sixth.

Minds are not made of their states. They 'have' states. They are not made of them. — Bartricks

Even the kinds of states are divided. Most would agree the mind is composed of visual states, auditory states, gustatory states, tactile states, and so on.

So even the divisions have divisions. And yet there is the opposing thing of a wholeness too. That is how the divisions can even exist as a positive contrast.

This is not puzzling from a systems science point of view. The dialectic of differentiation~integration is simply what is expected. Only variety can be combined in a cohesive and directed fashion.

You seem to have missed the point. When the cube becomes a pyramid, has it been reduced by a sixth? Has some part of the clay been removed?

Can a unity act on itself — Daniel

Remember the question.

So this lump of clay. Does it change itself, or does it get changed?

Aren't parts relative/abstract fictions linked to the value/perceiving apparatus of a kind of being/observer. Nothing really has (or does not have) a part that isn't relative to what conceives the the part as a part (or not part).

A unity is always within something which plays a necessary part in creating that unity. There are no absolute unities, only relative ones that break apart according to the various schemes/methods of part making.

Is one single atom of a nuclear isotope that decays a unity without parts? When the particle decays, does it act upon itself? Does the presence/fields of all other things (as parts) in the universe have no bearing on why/when/how that particle decays? It can't be a unity without parts if it decays, can it? Is time a part of that unity?

If one understands “something” in a very wide sense, so that no weight is put on the thingness in it — spirit-salamander

I don't understand this; specially the part in bold.

When the particle decays, does it act upon itself? Does the presence/fields of all other things (as parts) in the universe have no bearing on why/when/how that particle decays? — Nils Loc

@absoluteaspiration @apokrisis

Could you address his questions, if possible.

I just want to say that there are models of a Supreme Being that it is no thing at all. For example, Hegel asserts that absolute “Being itself” seems to be indistinguishable from nothingness. So God transcends every something in these mystical models. But he is still an absolute unity and simplicity. A universal principle or source of all multiplicity which transcends all multiplicity, qualification, and differentiation.

David Bentley Hart writes about this:

"For the Neoplatonist Plotinus (c. 204–270), the divine is that which is no particular thing, or even “no-thing.” The same is true for Christians such as John Scotus Eriugena (c. 815–c. 877) or Meister Eckhart (c. 1260–c. 1327). Angelus Silesius, precisely in order to affirm that God is the omnipotent creator of all things, described God as “ein lauter Nichts”—”a pure nothingness”—and even (a touch of neologistic panache here) “ein Übernichts.”" (David Bentley Hart - THE EXPERIENCE OF GOD. BEING, CONSCIOUSNESS, BLISS)

In some of these theological models of God, the simplicity directly affects itself - resulting in the creation of the world.

Could you address his questions, if possible. — Daniel

Check out the quantum Zeno effect. Just as the watched kettle cannot boil, the measured particle can’t decay.

So we have experiments to show that a “particle” is an instability being stabilised. The holism of the context is what prevents it breaking up into some more entropic, less ordered, state.

It ain’t really about parts and wholes imagined as composites. It is about the (thermal) equilibrium balance between global constraints and local degrees of freedom.

In the Big Bang universe, everything is sliding down the hill to its Heat Death. A stable particle emerges at the temperature where there is some barrier preventing its immediate decay. It becomes a trapped scrap of “hotness” - a thermal island in a sea of increasing cold.

But decay can still happen if the particle can exploit quantum uncertainty to borrow enough energy for a short enough time to vault its barriers and gleefully rejoin the wider world that is doing the generalised spreading and cooling deal.

So the world left the particle behind, walled in on its energy island. But there is a constant possibility - if the particle is left isolated and unmeasured - of it grabbing enough energy to decay, and then repay its debt with interest (in the sense of it producing a world with an even greater entropy content).

So is the particle acted upon, or does it act upon itself?

The two are in fact entwined as I say. And the quantum Zeno effect shows that particles and environments are in a dynamical balancing act. Crud can get stuck behind negentropic barriers as a result of historical accidents. A neutron exists because it ran out of antineutrons to be annihilated by. It is doomed to exist as a fundamental particle forever.

Or does it? In fact isolated neutrons have a half-life of about 10 minutes as they can cheaply borrow the energy to decay into a proton, electron and antineutrino. A collection of “parts” that increases the disorder of the cosmos as the second law requires.

It is only once further environmental constraints are added - like being bound into a nucleus by the strong force - that this decay is halted … because the neutron ain’t now isolated but closely “watched”.

Or to be more accurate, the neutron is no longer merely contemplating its fate as a trapped heat wanting to rejoin an ever cooling environment. It can’t make the supreme sacrifice of jumping its barriers to merge with that which is cosmically fundamental. Instead it has to hang around with a bunch of nosy neighbours that keep it from jumping. It is stuck with being part of a higher level of composite crud-ness … until a black hole eventually comes to its rescue.

When the particle decays, does it act upon itself? Does the presence/fields of all other things (as parts) in the universe have no bearing on why/when/how that particle decays? — Nils Loc

No, a process is involved but that process is also 'of the universe,' nothing external to the universe is involved. The question becomes 'is the universe more that the sum of its parts?' I think the answer is no.

A neutron exists because it ran out of antineutrons to be annihilated by. It is doomed to exist as a fundamental particle forever. — apokrisis

A neutron is not fundamental, it is made up of two down quarks with charge − 1⁄3 e and one up quark with charge + 2⁄3 e . Like protons, the quarks of the neutron are held together by the strong force, mediated by gluons.

Why are you lecturing me about particle physics when you wouldn’t know a QFT or Lie group if they bit you on the bum. :lol:

No lecture involved, just discussion, do you have a lot of physics quals?

And remember that I answered it. Yes. A thing can cause a change in itself. We are things and we cause changes in ourselves. Note too that if every change in a thing has to be caused by some other change, then one would have to posit an actual infinity of changes. As there are no actual infinities in reality, we can conclude that some changes are caused not by some other change, but by a thing. It's called substance causation.

Yes. A thing can cause a change in itself. — Bartricks

So again, how does your lump of clay change itself from a cube to a pyramid? Does it have a change of mind or sumthink?

My physics is limited as well but from my reading there is 'no particular reason' for the names given to the various quark types. Up and down has nothing to do with quark spin as far as I know. — universeness

Pro tip: up and down quarks were called that because they formed an isospin doublet.

So again, how does your lump of clay change itself from a cube to a pyramid? Does it have a change of mind or sumthink? — apokrisis

The question is whether something can cause a change in itself, yes?

The answer is 'yes'.

We can demonstrate this, in the manner that I just did. I'll do it again and you can tell me which premise is false.

1. If there are changes in things, the changes have causes
2. There are changes in things
3. Therefore, the changes in things have causes
5. If the changes in things have causes, they do not have an infinity of causes
6. Therefore, the changes in things do not have an infinity of causes
7. If all the changes in things are caused by changes, they will have an infinity of causes
8. Therefore, not all changes in things are caused by changes
9. If a change is caused, it is caused either by another change or by a substance
10. Therefore, some changes in things are caused by a substance.

Now, substance causation is causation by a thing. Not by an event. So, not by a change. But by a thing.

To the question, then, whether a thing can change itself, the answer is demonstrably 'yes'.

What you are now wondering is 'how'. That's a different question.

The answer is 'by doing so'.

That too is the answer to a similar question about how a change causes a change.

Not everything requires explanation (if it did, nothing could be explained).

Note too that one does not have to be able to answer the 'how' question in order to answer the 'does it happen' question.

I do not know how the tapping of my fingers on my keyboard produces these words on the screen, much less how you're able to see them too. Yet that does occur and I have good evidence it occurs. That evidence is not undercut by my inability to explain 'how' it is occuring.

So, again: can a thing cause a change in itself. Demonstrably yes. How? I don't know. I don't even know what you'd want by way of explanation there. I assume you want a question begging one in which I explain how the thing caused the change by undergoing a change.

The question is whether something can cause a change in itself, yes? — Bartricks

But I have now questioned your answer to that question. So again, where is the cause of the change in form If the substantial matter is a “clay”?

There must be some reason you thought this was a good argument.

5. If the changes in things have causes, they do not have an infinity of causes — Bartricks

Why not?

But anyway, I’ve already argued that casualty acts in the opposite way. It acts to constrain possibilities, to stabilise instability.

That is the holistic framework I am working from. A hylomorphic theory of substantial being where material states are self-organising, and so indeed the cause of their own existence. The material aspect of being is not some inert clay but infinite free possibility … that then imposes stabilising limitation on itself because much of that free possibility cancels itself away to nothing.

Standard QFT-based particle physics, in other words. :smile:

The argument i gave you is a good one. It is deductively valid and appears sound too.

You ask why we cannot have an infinity of actual causes. It generates contradictions, that's why. You can't have an actual infinity of anything, because half of infinity is infinity

Anyway, if you think you can have an actual infinity of something, then the burden of proof is on you to explain how.

But anyway, I’ve already argued that casualty acts in the opposite way. It acts to constrain possibilities, to stabilise instability. — apokrisis

Yeah, I don't know what you're talking about. You need to refute the argument I gave you.

You need to refute the argument I gave you. — Bartricks

I did. You couldn’t follow. So it goes. :up:

But also you framed your position in terms of clay changing its shape, which led you smack into a contradiction over such change being effected by substantial being. That was pointed out. You pretended nothing had been said. :down:

No you didn't. Identify a premise you believe to be false and then provide actual evidence it is false by constructing a deductively valid argument that has its negation as a conclusion and premises that seem self evident to reason.

Oh, and you clearly didn't understand the clay example. Your view is that the clay was divided when it went from a six sided shape to a five sided one. Presumably you think a pizza gets bigger the slices it is cut into.

Your view is that the clay was divided when it went from a six sided shape to a five sided one. — Bartricks

Your evasions are pitiful. The nature of the transformation is irrelevant. The source was what was in question.

Again, how does the clay change its shape from a cube to a pyramid? That was the claim you made.

The clay example was designed to show you that it is a mistake to confuse changing something's properties with taking something away from the thing.

The argument I provided demonstrated that substance causation exists. That is, substances can cause events without doing so by means of a change You have said nothing to address that argument.

pfft…

But physics!

Pro tip: up and down quarks were called that because they formed an isospin doublet. — apokrisis

Sounds quite arbitrary to me! what has isospin got to do with the dimension up/down?

From wiki:
In nuclear physics and particle physics, isospin is a quantum number related to the up and down quark content of the particle. More specifically, isospin symmetry is a subset of the flavour symmetry seen more broadly in the interactions of baryons and mesons.

The name of the concept contains the term spin because its quantum mechanical description is mathematically similar to that of angular momentum (in particular, in the way it couples; for example, a proton-neutron pair can be coupled either in a state of total isospin 1 or 0). But unlike angular momentum it is a dimensionless quantity, and is not actually any type of spin.

Perhaps you are the one experiencing bum bite's you don't understand!

But unlike angular momentum it is a dimensionless quantity, and is not actually any type of spin. — universeness

The story is much more interesting than that. Isospin was at first conceived as an analogy in that it used "up~down" spin maths to argue for some unknown quantum property that could "rotate" protons into neutrons.

That was a bust.

But then it reappeared as a fix to make a doublet/triplet structure out of up, down and strange quarks - an effective symmetry that connected them as they were all "close enough" in their quantum mass.

And next this strong sector version of isospin became even more properly spin-like when the same maths machinery was employed in the weak sector – the trapped chiral world of left-handed matter particles which rotate into each other via weak force exchanges.

So spin in its familiar spacetime basis of ISpin(3,1), or classical angular momentum, sets up some basic symmetry maths. But QFT is about the internal gauge symmetries that structure the Standard Model particle zoo.

The U(1) quantum spin of QED is already "not spin" in the concrete Newtonian sense, just in a permutation symmetry sense. And that sense got extended to the gauge symmetries of the SU(3) strong sector, and SU(2) electroweak sector.

Hope that clears things up for you!

Hope that clears things up for you! — apokrisis

The up and down labels assigned to quarks are quite arbitrary.

Perhaps this repetition will help you!