My ontology has nothing to do with perception.. — noAxioms

Consider the old saying, "you see what you want to see". There are principles of interpretation inherent within, built into, and therefore affecting the way that you perceive things. What you believe about reality (your ontology) has a very real affect on the way that you perceive things.

And that is just the tip of the iceberg, what we have access toward understanding, through sciences like psychology. Underneath, in the subconscious, there are all sorts of similar factors affecting the way you perceive things. If your ontology is the conscious manifestation of your attitude toward the reality of the things you are sensing, then underneath there is all sorts of intuitions and innate tendencies which feed your ontology, but also have an immense affect on the way things are perceived by you.

Usage of the word implies that quantum effects only occur when there is intent behind the measurements. There’s no evidence for that and heavy evidence against it. — noAxioms

There is always intent behind human actions, therefore intent behind measurements. If you removed it the acts would be random. I don't know on what basis you say there is no evidence of intent behind measurements.

Poor example I think since a magnifying glass doesn’t usually qualify as a measurement. They’re used in multiple places in typical laser experiments and they don’t collapse wave functions in them, else the experiments would fail. They’re not detectors, only refractors, and refraction wouldn’t work (wouldn’t bend light) at all if it constituted a measurement. — noAxioms

The magnifying glass was an analogous example, to demonstrate how the tool of observation (apparatus arranged for observational purposes) affects the observations, and why there is a need to have very good theory, and understand the theory, behind the use of the tool which is used.

In no way was I saying that a magnifying glass is used to make quantum measurements. I really cannot understand your mode of interpretation noAxioms. Have you no experience with reading examples or analogies?

But I wasn’t asking about descriptions. You say time requires observation. You didn’t say a description of time requires observation. I’d have agreed to that. So you’re evading the question instead by answering a different one. — noAxioms

No Axioms, "time" is a descriptive term, just like "space" is a descriptive term. The point is that you cannot use these descriptive terms to refer to anything other than something which is observational, because observation is inherent within, as "implied by", being an essential feature of, what the terms refer to.

So, what "time" refers to is something derivative from the observation of motions. What "space" refers to is something derivative from the observation of bodies. There is no such thing as time without observation, or space without observation, because these words refer to concepts which are derived from observation, having the observation data inherent within, as an essential aspect of the concept. If you remove the essential aspect of the concept (observation in this case), the concept referred to by the word is annihilated.

I am not evading the question, you are evading the reality. You say that's "idealistic", and your ontological attitude is to deny idealism, so you deny the reality because it doesn't jive with your ontology. Instead of recognizing that observation is inherent in, as an essential part of what "time" means, and realizing that you need to change your ontology because your ontology is inconsistent with this, your recourse is to deny the reality, that observation is necessary to the meaning of "time". That is an unreasonable response, to deny the evidence because it is inconsistent with your belief.

Don’t be silly. You know it does. It is the location of that which said ‘here’. — noAxioms

I have no idea where you are, and therefore no idea where "here" is when you say it. Imagine two people in a dark space, one says "here", the other hears "here". Ten seconds later this is repeated. Then the person who said "here" insists "I haven't moved because both times when I said "here" I was truthfully "here". That's how ridiculous your claim was, that because you were "here" now, and "here" later, you hadn't moved.

If I was being silly, it was because I was laughing at the ridiculousness of your claim.

But you said that being stationary was not possible, so you seem to exclude the possibility that you didn’t go anywhere during that interval. And as for my statement, had I indeed flown all around during that interval, at no time would I not be where I am, thus I’d always still be ‘here’. I’d simply not be inertial, so the coordinate system in which I am perpetually at the origin would not be an inertial coordinate system. — noAxioms

Please, stop with the ridiculousness No Axioms! However, I will oblige you with your solipsistic example if it will make you feel better.

Wherever you are is "here", and all the time you are always here, and "here" always refers to the same place, the place where you are, therefore you are never moving. Anything else in the world is totally irrelevant to you because in your solipsistic reality, nothing is ever changing places relative to you, which might make you think that you are actually moving.

Now, you said "If I’m here now and here later, that seems to be not-moving relative to ‘here’. OK, one might express that as motion at velocity (relative to here) of zero, which is arguably still motion." What in the world are you referring to when you say "not-moving relative to 'here'"?

To me, "here" signifies the place where you are, therefore it's obvious that you cannot be moving relative to here, because that would be contradictory. "Here", by the definition in the example, is always where you are. Do you agree, that this sort of tautology, or self-evident truth, that you are never moving relative to yourself, says absolutely nothing about whether or not you are "moving"? That is because 'you moving relative to yourself', or the more precise account, 'you moving relative to the place where you are', is a nonsensical thing to say, and to make it into something sensible would require a different definition of "moving".

To make sense of "I am moving relative to the place where I am' would require a completely different definition of "moving". This would be a definition which is completely inconsistent and incoherent in relation to any conventional definition of "moving", allowing that a thing is moving relative to the place where it is. So your claim of "not-moving relative to 'here'" is completely nonsensical without changing the definition of "moving" to something inconsistent and incoherent in relation with conventional definitions.

Therefore your example using "here" says absolutely nothing about motion as we understand motion. All you are saying is that "motion" in this nonsensical way, of myself moving in relation to the place where I am, is inconsistent with how "motion" is used in any conventional way. And your example says absolutely nothing about "motion" as used in any conventional way.

Consult a good dictionary. "Designating" is appointing, not judging. — Dfpolis

I don't really care how you want to say it. We could use "designate", "stipulate", "appoint", or whatever similar word, they're all very similar and also all forms of judgement. Judgement is to use reason in making a decision. The fact of the matter is, that we appoint things to the category which is their species, they do not just naturally place themselves into these categories, they are appointed to the appropriate categories

These properties are intrinsic to the organism, not willed by us in an act of designation. — Dfpolis

No, I think that this is false. The essential properties of the species are intrinsic to the concept, but all internal properties, are intrinsic to the organism. Every internal property of an organism is intrinsic to that organism, and essential to it being the organism which it is, as part of what makes it the very thing which it is. That's what the law of identity is all about. And that is also why members of the same species often have contradicting intrinsic properties. What is intrinsic to the organism is not necessarily essential to the concept. Those are the accidents.

I see you finally understood the texts I posted from the article I am working on. Matter (stuff) is the principle of individuation of form, and form is the principle of individuation of matter. — Dfpolis

I'm afraid I do not understand you, because this makes no sense to me. Form is the principle of individuation, it is the means by which we distinguish one thing, object, or entity, from another. It makes some sense to say "form is the principle of individuation of matter", because form is how we distinguish the material existence of one object as separate and distinct from the material existence of another object, but I can't make any sense of "Matter (stuff) is the principle of individuation of form". I believe it is the human mind which distinguishes one form from another (individuates), so I would need some further explanation to understand what you are proposing.

Do you have any text(s) to support this claim? You might mean that he is rejecting Plato's chora, but that is not "prime matter" in the sense used by the Scholastics. — Dfpolis

I think the best place for you to look for Aristotle's discussion of prime matter is Metaphysics Bk 8-9. In BK 8 he discusses how matter relates to form, as the potential for change. Change is the existence of contraries in the same thing at different times. At Ch4 he discusses the possibility that all things come from "the same original matter". And, he discusses how some differences are attributable to different matter, and some are attributable to different form. He also mentions things which have no matter, unchanging, eternal things.

Moving into BK 9, he questions "potency", and starts with a question concerning the possibility of one primary kind of potency which is the originative source of change. By Ch-8-9 he explains why actuality is necessarily prior to potentiality, thus excluding the possibility that prime matter is something real.

This is equivocating on "matter." Proximate matter, "this flesh and bones," which is actualized by psyche, is not pure potency. — Dfpolis

I do not see the equivocation., the possibility of "pure potency" is ruled out by the fact that actuality is prior to potency so there is no equivocation. The actuality which is prior to matter must be immaterial. Read Bk 8-9 of Metaphysics, mentioned above, to get a handle on how Aristotle conceives of the eternal, as actuality (form) without matter.

These are direct quotes from the text, not my interpretation.

These premises clearly give the conclusion that there is in nature some bodily substance other than the formations we know, prior to them all and more divine than they. (269a 30)

And the concluding sentence of Book 1, part 2:

On all these grounds, therefore, we may infer with confidence that there is something beyond the bodies that are about us on this earth, different and separate from them; and that the superior glory of its nature is proportionate to its distance from this world of ours. (268b 14) — Fooloso4

OK, now I see what you're talking about. Thanks for the exact reference, I must have been looking in the wrong section.

This is very consistent with what I've been telling you. Notice in the first quote he says "these premises give the conclusion...". He is discussing the argument of the Pythagoreans, and as I said, that argument proves the reality of eternal circular motion. Aristotle cannot refute that argument on its own terms. To refute that argument Aristotle needs to propose his own premise, that whatever is a body, is composed of matter, and by other means he demonstrates that anything composed of matter cannot be eternal. In the argument from the Pythagoreans, there is a distinction between natural body and unnatural body. This distinction is what Aristotle ends up rejecting, with the proposition that all bodies consist of matter.

Notice the latter quote, from the end of the section, he has replaced "some bodily substance" with "something beyond the bodies". This is very consistent with what he writes in Metaphysics Bk 8-9, which I refer to above and what I've been arguing. He speaks of an actuality which is prior to potentiality. It is not a body because being prior to potentiality it cannot consist of matter. So it is properly immaterial, eternal, and being an actuality it is a form. So he effectively replaces the Pythagorean idea of unnatural, divine bodies which are moved in an eternal circular motion, with an immaterial actuality or form, which is prior to all bodily existence.

Basically you're asking, How is it that all humans are homo sapiens yet with such a diversity of appearance? — Wayfarer

No, I'm asking how you conceive of diversity of appearance between individual human beings, under Aristotelian conceptual space, as anything other than each person having a different form?

Suppose each person is composed of different matter. It is the way that the matter is arranged which is the cause of the difference in appearance isn't it? And this is the form. Different instances of matter might look the very same, if it's not arranged in different ways. The arrangement, or order, is the form which the matter has, and that is what looks different.

That a man is skinny is not due to the formal cause. What it is to be a man is not to be skinny. If the skinny man becomes fat this is not due to the formal cause. He is the same man whether skinny or fat. — Fooloso4

That the man is skinny is accidental to the form of "man", but it is essential to the form of "skinny man". So, yes skinny or fat is a formal cause under that qualification. However, it is only accidental in relations to "man" and therefore not a formal cause at all without that qualification.

You are not paying attention to how Aristotle defines "incidental", or "accidental" causes. They are only formal causes in relation to the necessary qualification. In relation to "man", skinny and fat are accidentals therefore not formal causes in relation to this form. In relation to that specific qualification they are formal causes. That's why Aristotle explicitly stated in the passage I quoted, that without qualification chance is not the cause of anything.

I see you went silent regarding the eternity and material of the heavens. It would have been better to have admitted you were wrong, but better to be silent then attempt to argue your way out. If only you had used such good judgment with the rest of your tendentious arguments. I think it is time for me to once again join the ranks of those here who, for good reason, ignore you. — Fooloso4

No, I saw that you were hopelessly lost, and you failed to provide the proper reference for your quote. I read the whole section and did not find it. So I concluded that you were being dishonest in your quote. If you provide the proper reference for me, where he concludes that there is a different type of body which is the substratum to all other bodies, I'll take a look at the context and explain it for you. Until then, you are just wasting my time, because I know Aristotle well enough to know that this is not Aristotelian.

Bell suggests ‘experiment’, but that loads the whole situation with intent that is meaningless. — noAxioms

It's not meaningless to point out the intent which is inherent within observation, measurement, etc.. And the intent is much more evident with the word "experiment". It's a fundamental fact that experiments are designed, and this points to the theory-laden nature of measurements and observations.

In general, the fact that experiments are designed is a very good feature of the scientific method. It allows us to control for specifics. However, design under defective theories, defective premises, etc., can also allow us to be drawn down long paths of misunderstanding.

The fact that the apparatus, rather than the human senses, does the observing, is something which the implications of, needs to be considered. The apparatus has the position of being a medium between the thing observed, and the human observer. Because of this, it is essential to know exactly what the apparatus is doing in this position, as necessary to an accurate interpretation of the observations. In the case of quantum experiments, the issue of exactly what the apparatus is doing, is where the experiments are very theory-laden.

To understand what I am saying, consider making observations through a magnifying glass. The magnifying glass is the medium between the observer and the thing observed, it's the apparatus. When interpreting your observations it is essential to know what the magnifying glass is doing in this position, because it could produce some sort of interference which would not be there naturally, (like the way it can focus light on the object to burn it) and you might interpret this interference as a natural part of the thing you are observing. The magnifying glass is a very simple thing, but it can have a strong causal effect on the observed thing, as the burning example shows. As we move toward more and more complicated observational apparatus, the microscope, the electron microscope, the need to understand the theory involved, and the soundness of the theory, in making interpretations becomes more and more important.

Well I googled ‘motion definition in physics’ and get a britannica one saying “change with time of the position or orientation of a body.“ which makes no mention of a requirement for observation (human or otherwise) to be involved. — noAxioms

I told you, time requires observation, it is the outcome of observation. So "change with time of the position..." does require observation. Time is part of the map. And, once you realize this, you'll see that "position" also is part of the map. It is a human designation of where a thing is in relation to other things. "Position" also requires observation. This is Kant's point when he says that space and time are fundamental "intuitions". They exist as part of the human being's observational apparatus, as intuitional theory, not as part of the thing being observed.

That’s a pretty idealistic assertion. Are you one of those people that suggest that nothing happened before humans came along? — noAxioms

I think there was no descriptions derived from human observations (of which "motion" is one), before humans came along.

Absolute time has no dependency on its being measured. If it flows, the rate (and direction) at which it does so is entirely independent of anything’s perception or measurement of it. You seem to keep attempting to make everything about your knowledge of something, about the map and not about the territory. — noAxioms

"Absolute time" is a misnomer. I told you this already. What is referred to as the perspective of "absolute time", is the assumption that one's position on the earth is the grounding point, as the position of rest, from which all passage of time is assumed to be relative to. Any measurement of time passing, the "flow" you refer to is done from this rest frame. It is said to be "absolute" because it serves as the grounding for the measurement of time for all frames of reference, unlike special relativity which allows the measurement of time to be frame specific.

Nevertheless, what is referred to as "absolute time" is a theoretical proposal, a condition of the observational perspective. It does not refer to something independent of the perspective, but it is a definitional feature of the perspective. So in the map analogy it is part of the "key", or "legend", which i necessary for interpreting and using the map. Therefore it is part of the map rather than the territory.

If I’m here now and here later, that seems to be not-moving relative to ‘here’. — noAxioms

Come on Axioms, your pretense of naivety is overwhelming me. This statement is so filled with problems that it is actually bordering on ridiculous. First, what the hell does "here" refer to? The term gives no positional reference. It's just a matter of you stipulating I am "here", and the place I call "here" at one time is the same place I call "here" at another time. Even if we could assume that "here" refers to the exact same position in "here now", as it refers to in "here later", thus creating the appearance that you have not moved, there's nothing to exclude the possibility that you flew around the whole universe in the meantime. So your sense of "seems to be not-moving" is not at all a logical conclusion, and is just as much an illusion as it is a case of you simply stipulating "I am here therefore I am not moving".

But the salient point of the dispute is, is each individual an instance of a unique form? I say not, that the form 'man' is common to all men, that is why it is a universal. — Wayfarer

So let me ask you, are properties part of a thing's form? If so, then how is it that different men have different properties yet they have the same "form", man?

Where does he say that it is not properly a cause? — Fooloso4

Physics Bk 2, where he discusses causes. After describing the four senses of "cause" he says: "Such then is the number and nature of the kinds of cause." Ch. 3 195a. Then he distinguishes between those four which are "proper" causes, and incidental causes. 195a. Then at Ch. 4 he questions "in what manner chance and spontaneity are present among the causes enumerated". 195b. So he starts to describe the opinions of others. In Ch. 5 he discusses exactly what chance is, and makes the following conclusion.

Things do, in a way, occur by chance, for they occur incidentally and chance is an incidental cause. But strictly it is not the cause - without qualification - of anything; for instance, a house builder is the cause of a house; incidentally a flute player may be." — Physcis Bk 2, Ch 5, 197a 13 -14

Please notice Fooloso4, that he distinguishes between the four "proper causes" and what he calls "incidental causes". The word in your quoted translation is "accidentally". Chance is an incidental cause, therefore it is not a proper cause. I suggest you read the section, and figure out what he means by "incidental" because you seem to be totally ignoring this qualification.

It is relevant because at least part of your confusion seems to be based on the translation of the term ousia. — Fooloso4

Very clearly it is you who is confused.

It is not me but Aristotle who you are accusing: — Fooloso4

No, it is your pathetic interpretation which I am accusing

That is why I defined it for you. — Dfpolis

As I explained, your definition refers to nothing real because the additive are mixed with the subtractive What's the point in proceeding that way? You can define "abstraction" however you want, and produce a logical argument from this, but if there's nothing real which corresponds with your definition then it's just a false premise and your argument is unsound.

We do not "designate" species members. We find them, or don't. — Dfpolis

Of course we designate species members rather than finding them. We find things, and judge them to be of a specific species, thereby designating them as members of that species. The named species are categories for classification, we judge things and designate them as members of those categories. We do not come across things, and they say to us "I am of this specific species, you must place me in that category" Even if things did speak to us in this way, we would have to judge whether they were telling the truth or not. There's no way around the fact that we make a judgement which designates that the thing is of a certain species, and it is not the case that we simply "find" a thing to be of that certain species.

Not at all. We know they are different because they are not in the same place, and they cannot be in the same place because they are made of different stuff. — Dfpolis

This is backward. First, the same thing can be in different places, just not at the same time. The same thing being in different places is what validates the concept "motion". And, position is part of the formula, it is formal. If we state, as a formal principle, that the same thing cannot exist in two different places at the same time, then we have what we need to say that they are different. We do not reference "made of different stuff" at all. When we judge two things as different, we first reference obvious physical differences. If there is not obvious physical differences we might think that they are both made of the same stuff, aluminum steel, wood, etc.. Then we refer to spatial temporal positioning, and this tells us that the two things can't really be made of the very same stuff. But what makes the stuff different is something formal, spatial temporal position, not something material. Without form all matter would be the same thing.

The atomists proposed an indivisible stopping point, atoma. Aristotle roundly rejects the hypothesis of atoma, and answers instead that potential division is not actual division, so there is no actual infinite regress. — Dfpolis

That's right I agree here.

lso, will not find "prime matter" in Aristotle. It is an invention of the Scholatics, found in Aquinas, and confuses Aristotle's hyle with Plato's chora. (See my Hyle article.) — Dfpolis

No, we very much do find prime matter discussed in Aristotle's Metaphysics. He ends up rejecting it with his cosmological argument.

By "implies" I take it you mean that there is no text in which Aristotle actually says this. If there is, please cite it. — Dfpolis

Where he explicitly states this in "On the Soul", Bk1, when he addresses various different ideas about the relation between the soul and the body. He dismisses Plato's account of the circular motions of the heavens in Timaeus, starting with "Now, in the first place it is a mistake to say that the soul is a spatial magnitude." Then it is implied in Metaphysics Bk9 when he shows that there is necessarily an actuality prior in time to potentiality (cosmological argument). Since matter is potentiality, this actuality must be immaterial.

This is not Aristotle's position, and your reasoning is flawed for the reasons I gave. — Dfpolis

It appears like you have not read that part of "On the Heavens".

Cannot see that - truly free will is not concerned with worldly affairs or affect. The formulation of a "need to decide" already makes clear that the world is forcing itself upon you. Truly free will creates it's only choice by it's decision and does not pick from given alternatives like a hunted animal that can either flee left or right. — Heiko

This makes no sense to me "Truly free will creates it's only choice by it's decision". Choice is the cause, decision the effect. Are you saying that the decision determines the choice, as if the effect determines the cause.

Also, why would free will not be concerned with worldly affairs? You appear to put these things backward. The "need to decide" can only be a property of the capacity to decide. And as I said, I'd far prefer to have the capacity to decide, and the consequent "need to decide" because the world is forcing itself on me, then to be as a rock, where I would have no capacity to resist or manipulate what the world is forcing on me.

Again take a box with a partition in it, with gas A on one side, gas B on the other side, and both gases are at the same temperature and pressure. If gas A and B are different gases, there is an entropy that arises once the gases are mixed. If the gases are the same, no additional entropy is calculated. The additional entropy from mixing does not depend on the character of the gases; it only depends on the fact that the gases are different. The two gases may be arbitrarily similar, but the entropy from mixing does not disappear unless they are the same gas - a paradoxical discontinuity...

I suggest that this is an illusion created by the terms of the example. If each individual molecule of compartment A is marked as A, and each individual molecule of B is marked as B, then even if the two compartments each contain the same type of gas, the combining will appear the same as if they are different gases, because they are marked as different.

There is no paradox, just an illusion. In the case of two distinct gases, an act of mixing is required, and this requires time and energy. In the case of the gases being the same, it appears like the gases have already mixed as soon as the separation is removed. That's just an illusion, mixing has not occurred, as marking the molecules would reveal.

Abstraction is not inductive reasoning. Abstraction is a subtractive process, in which we focus on certain notes of intelligibility to form a concept, while prescinding from others. Induction is an additive process in which we add the hypothesis that the cases we have not examined are like the cases we have. No hypothesis is added in abstraction. Rather, we see that certain things do not depend on others, e.g. by seeing that counting does not depend on what is counted we come to the concept of natural numbers and the arithmetic axioms. In the case of species, if a new individual has all the notes of intelligibility required to elicit a species concept, it is a member of that species. If not, not. — Dfpolis

"Abstraction" is an extremely broad, and vague term, covering a wide variety of mental processes. I see no point to restricting "abstraction" to a subtractive process and denying that it involves any additive processes. To me, this would be like restricting "understanding" to analysis, and denying that it involves any synthesis. It's just not a reasonable approach to "abstraction", to deny all additive processes when abstraction clearly involves both.

No hypothesis is added in abstraction. Rather, we see that certain things do not depend on others, e.g. by seeing that counting does not depend on what is counted we come to the concept of natural numbers and the arithmetic axioms. — Dfpolis

Notice, you say that no hypothesis is added in abstraction, but you start from a hypothesis "counting does not depend on what is counted". This, in itself is derived from inductive reasoning, when it is seen that "all counting involves counting something" is a failed inductive principle. So you take the failed results of an inductive conclusion as to produce your hypothesis as your premise, then build your supposed "abstraction" on top of this. Then you claim that abstraction is something independent from, and not dependent on induction. Your claim is not justified, inductive reasoning inheres within abstraction, no matter how you present it, and it is fundamental to any empirical principles.

You could go the Kantian route, and separate out the a priori from the a posteriori. But a priori principles without rules for application provide no means for making empirical judgements. Furtther defining features are required.

I did not say that we did. — Dfpolis

Sorry, I misrepresented you again. But that is what Fooloso4 was arguing, and you seemed to be arguing the same point. My question then, is what do you mean by the following?
"Still, we can abstract aspects that are common to a species or genus, and these aspects are grounded in the form of the species or genus members." It appears strangely circular to me, so how do you propose a grounding here?

Lets say there is a named species, and it has some designated members. The definition of the species dictates which aspects are common to the members. Yet it is only through abstraction from the particular members that the definition of the species is produced. Where is the grounding you propose, and how is the designation of which beings are properly called members of the species anything more than arbitrary?

Try reading it by first skipping the footnotes. I am saying that sometimes Aristotle uses matter to individuate form, and sometimes he uses form to individuate matter. So, he has no single principle of individuation. Aquinas is forced to do the same. — Dfpolis

I would be very much inclined to agree with you on this, and that's why a thorough reading of much material is required, to establish consistency in the conceptual structure. What I see is an issue with the nature of "matter", as fundamentally unintelligible through the violation of the excluded middle law. So whenever we look at two distinct individuals, and ask what makes one different from the other, when the answer is not obvious, the simple solution is to say "the matter". They have different matter. That is a replacement for "I don't know". So for example, if we take two products manufactured from a production line, which appear to be exactly the same, the easy answer as to how they differ is "the matter". But this is really just a way to avoid answering.

Because of this way that "matter" is used, as the simple answer, and an escape, the meaning of "matter" is very much context dependent. Aristotle goes into this at one point in the Metaphysics. If we look at wooden furniture, we say that the matter is wood. The suffix "en" signifies the matter in the most simple way. But if we analyze deeper, we see that wood itself is a specific form, and there must be a further "matter" which underlies the wood allowing it the potential to exist as different forms. This is the issue of the divisibility of the material world. Each time we divide, we get a different form, and if we assume that there is always matter which underlies the form, then there is always also the need for a further underlying matter which supports the newly divided for form.

I discussed this briefly in my reply to Fooloso4 above, concerning where it is covered by Aristotle in On the Heavens. It is unrealistic to assume that bodies can be divided forever, infinitely. And, it is unrealistic to assume that there will eventually be a point in the division process where there is no more body. So the atomists propose a fundamental indivisible, which Aristotle describes in his Metaphysics as a "prime matter". But the problem is that unless the prime matter has true infinite capacity for producing different forms, there would need to be a multitude of distinct "atoms", to produces all the different forms. If the atoms are themselves distinct, then they each has a different form, and further divisibility is implied. If all the atoms are exactly the same as each other, and truly indivisible being without form, then they would have infinite potential to produce all the different forms. But such infinite potential is ruled out by the cosmological argument.

Because these two different ways of looking at prime matter, or atoms, both lead to problems, Aristotle leads us in a different direction. He implies that at the base, or foundation, of material bodies, is something truly immaterial. This is the only way to escape the infinite regress caused by the assumption of an underlying matter as the substance of the universe.

So in our common discussions we tend toward the easy solution to individuation, we simply attribute the differences to the underlying matter. But in metaphysical analysis, and ontological studies we come to understand that this produces an infinite regress of always needing a further underlying matter, and this renders the basis of material existence as fundamentally unintelligible. So we need to escape the infinite regress which is caused by assuming that the easy solution is the true solution, and Aristotle proposes that the true grounding of the material world is in something immaterial.

Must be quite an A**hole to create humans that way just to make them suffer. — Heiko

Actually I disagree. Suffering is caused by the same condition which allows for free will, the condition which produces the need to decide. I'd much rather have free will along with the associated suffering, than to live without feeling, like a stone.

I'm going to stop arguing this point, you've been telling me this over and over for years, and I just don't think it stacks up. Over and out. — Wayfarer

Basically it's the reason why Aristotelianism is not Platonism. I believe Aristotle gave us an improvement, some do not think so.

A simile comes to mind: imagine that 'the idea of the cat' is a silhouette in front of a light-source through which light is projected so as to create an image of the cat on a surface. But the surface on which the light is projected is irregular, so the image is always slightly different each time it is projected. In this simile, 'the silhoettte' is 'the form', but the actual impression is 'the particular' - due to the irregularities on the surface on which it is projected each image is slightly different, thereby making each one 'an individual'. The key point being, there is only one silhouette, but the resultant images are all different due to the irregularities - 'accidents' - of the surface on which it is being projected. — Wayfarer

The problem with this is that the irregularities are due to the form of the surface, and the silhouette is not independent from the surface, it is part of the surface. So in analyzing the silhouette's form, we couldn't separate the silhouette's form from the form of the surface. But if we did get that far in the analysis, we come to apprehend the projection, as independent from the surface, according to the reality of what you describe.

It is quite likely though that this is what Plato had in mind, judging by the cave analogy. And, in the Timaeus, it seems like the passive matter which the divine mind puts the form into already has some form or properties which could be the cause of accidents in the created things. But Plato apprehends, and turns toward the act of projection itself, as "the good", seeing that the silhouette is just a silhuoette.

This is consistent with the way that human beings create thing's. We are restricted in our creations by the form which the matter already has, when we project our intentions. In art, this is the medium. But as our knowledge increases, and we get down to the fundamental particles, we are less and less restricted. The mediums of today's artists is far different from the mediums employed in Plato's time. The principle is the same though, the artists are restricted by the form already within the medium employed, and if we could get down to a formless "prime matter" to work with, we would have absolutely no restrictions from the medium.

But that is not Aristotle's projection. He places a restriction on the matter itself, there is no prime matter. He clearly places an immaterial form as prior to material bodies altogether, as the cause of existence of material bodies. This means that all matter by its very nature of being matter is already restricted by the prior immaterial form which causes it to come into being.

From this perspective, even the most fundamental particles of matter are produced in the divine act of creation, and the forms which act causally in this creation are properly immaterial. This is the position adopted by Christian theology. Notice that the acts of God's Will are supposed to be perfect. There are no accidents in God's creation. The accidents are only in the way that things appear to us. These accidents are where the deficient human intellect fails to grasp God's creative act. The failure is due to our dependence on the body, sense observation, which cannot perceive the immaterial act which is prior to material existence. That's what I just pointed out to fooloso4, chance is not the cause of accidents. That accidents are caused by chance is how our own ignorance appears to us. The perfect Being, God, does not do anything by chance, and the appearance that He does is only our own ignorance influencing how we apprehend things. And the materialist perspective, which denies the reality of the prior immaterial cause, insisting that anything real must perceptible to the senses, only reinforces this ignorance.

Yes. Still, we can abstract aspects that are common to a species or genus, and these aspects are grounded in the form of the species or genus members. — Dfpolis

I think I would disagree with this. When we abstract what is common to a species, this is grounded in the individual instances. That is inductive reasoning, making a general statement which is derived from observation of a multitude of individuals. We do not derive the universal from an independent Form which is the form of the species, we derive it from the individuals. Then we can produce a statement of definition, and the definition of the species can serve as a grounding, as Aristotle's secondary substance. But never is the human abstraction said to be grounded in an independent Form of the species in Aristotelian conceptual space.

Here is a fragment about the principle of individuation from an article I am working on: — Dfpolis

I must say that I can't really interpret what you are saying in these passages, by simply reading them with no context.

Timaeus identifies two kinds of cause, intelligence and necessity, nous and ananke. Necessity covers such things as physical processes, contingency, chance, motion, power, and the chora. What is by necessity is without nous or intellect. It is called the “wandering cause” (48a). It can act contrary to nous. The sensible world, the world of becoming, is neither regulated by intellect nor fully intelligible. — Fooloso4

Plato on causation is not clear at all, and I don't agree with your interpretation here. You cannot make a clear cut and dry division like you do because prior to Aristotle defining the distinct senses of "cause", there was ambiguity and mixing of the senses, equivocation. So when Plato said "necessity" is a type of cause, this was not meant to indicate a physical process, as we might say today. It was meant to represent something distinct from a rational choice. The sense of "necessity" here is more like need. So when a very thirsty person is caused to drink water, knowing that the water may be contaminated, for example, this is caused by necessity rather than rational choice. This sense of "need" was imposed onto the physical world by the ancients, such that what we call physical necessity was understood as what was needed by the gods.l

They are two different ousia with the same form, man. There difference is not with regard to form but with regard to accidents. — Fooloso4

It is made very clear by Aristotle, that accidents are part of a thing's form. Even dfPolis and I agree this far. As I explained to Wayfarer above, if we can apprehend accidental differences as differences, then they must be formal, because form is the only aspect of the thing which is intelligible to us. If the difference were not formal we could not perceive them as differences.

This is precisely why the individual is not a form.

The cause of accidents is chance:

But chance and spontaneity are also reckoned among causes: many things are said both to be and to come to be as a result of chance and spontaneity. (Physics, 195b) — Fooloso4

This opinion strikes right to the very heart of the issue. The cause of accidents, in human actions is ignorance, not chance. And any cause in the wider world, which is unknown to us, will appear to us as chance. So chance is not a cause at all, it's just the way we portray and represent our own ignorance. Aristotle dismissed chance as not properly a cause, and that's why there are four senses of "cause" rather than six (chance and luck being excluded).

Notice in your quote, "many things are said...to come to be as a result of chance". This is what I mean about the need to be careful to distinguish between the ideas of others which Aristotle is rejecting, and the ideas which he is actually promoting. He rejects chance and luck as properly causal.

He does not say beyond the bodies but:

something beyond the bodies that are about us on this earth,
— Fooloso4 — Fooloso4

Looks like he's saying "beyond the bodies" to me, as the quote says "beyond the bodies". I suggest that's what he means. If he meant 'beyond these bodies there's another body, he would have said that. But. he didn't, he said "beyond the bodies".

They are a different kind of body. As I previously quoted:

These premises clearly give the conclusion that there is in nature some bodily substance other than the formations we know, prior to them all and more divine than they. (On the Heavens Book 1, part 2) — Fooloso4

Sorry Fool, but I read through this section and could not find your reference. In this chapter he is discussing the problems of other philosophers, atomists in particular. He discusses the possibility of infinite divisibility, and the problems involved with this idea. He characterizes this sort of division as resulting in dividing a body until there is nothing left, no body left to divide any more. This he says is impossible. But he also says that it is impossible to keep dividing forever, because there will be physical limitations to how far a body can be divided. I see no mention of a different kind of body, prior to this type of body which poses us with those problem. If I missed it though, he's probably talking about the proposed atoms which are supposed to be an indivisible type of body. But it appears like I need to remind you again, he is showing the problems with these other ideas, not necessarily supporting them.

We have been over this. From the introduction to Joe Sachs translation of the Metaphysics:

By way of the usual translations, the central argument of the Metaphysics would be: being qua being is being per se in accordance with the categories, which in turn is primarily substance, but primary substance is form, while form is essence and essence is actuality. You might react to such verbiage in various ways. You might think, I am too ignorant and untrained to understand these things, and need an expert to explain them to me. Or you might think, Aristotle wrote gibberish. But if you have some acquaintance with the classical languages, you might begin to be suspicious that something has gone awry: Aristotle wrote Greek, didn't he? And while this argument doesn't sound much like English, it doesn't sound like Greek either, does it? In fact this argument appears to be written mostly in an odd sort of Latin, dressed up to look like English. Why do we need Latin to translate Greek into English at all? (https://www.greenlion.com/PDFs/Sachs_intro.pdf)

The word translated as substance is ousia. It always refers to something particular, whether an individual or a species. — Fooloso4

I don't see how this is relevant.

We have been over this before. If each individual is a form and each individual form is different then how do you account for the fact that human beings only give birth to human beings? There is something by nature common to all human beings that at the same time distinguishes them from all else that is not a human being. What that is is the form man or human being. — Fooloso4

This is not relevant either. I could turn around and say to you, that evolution is clear proof that your supposed "fact" is a falsity. That a being can only give birth to the same type of being is proven false by the reality of evolution. You are obviously making wild, outlandish, and completely irrelevant assumptions because you think they might support your position.

Look, the fact that the mother bares a being similar to herself, has no bearing on the fact that each being is distinct and different from every other being, therefore having a distinct "form". How and why this similarity occurs is studied in the science of biology, through chromosomes and genetics. And there is no mention of an independent Form of the species which causes the mother to bare a baby similar to herself. In biology the species are as defined. They are human conceptions.

There is a reason the forms are also known as universals. If they were specific to each and every particular, the whole idea would crumble. — Wayfarer

The idea does not crumble, it is just clarified by Aristotle to better represent reality (be more truthful). There are two principal senses of "form" for Aristotle, hence primary and secondary substance. The one sense refers to human abstractions, conceptions, the formulae which we employ. That is secondary substance. The other sense refers to the forms of individuals. These are separate Forms, existing in the world independently from us, as the cause of the fact that natural things are the exact things which they are, and nothing else. This is primary substance. The whole idea doesn't crumble, it's just restructured into a more realistic form of dualism.

DfPolis' rejection of Cartesian dualism is right on the mark. The simplistic mind/body dualism has severe limitations and problems as Plato demonstrated. But the resolution is not to dismiss dualism altogether, it is to move toward a more complex dualism, which can properly represent reality. Under Aristotle's conceptual space we can understand all the aspects of reality, including both mind and body, as consisting of both parts of the dualism. This is why, following Aristotle, the mind consists of both passive, and active aspects. Even the mind itself is divisible into the two aspects of the dualism now. And the same is true of material things, they each have a formal (active) aspect, and a material (passive aspect.

Interesting. Why do you say that entropy is subjective? Is it because a system's boundary is arbitrary?

This is the issue which Plato approached in The Timaeus. It appears that when individual things come to be through a natural process, the universal form. or type, is predetermined, so that this universal form must in some way act as a determining cause. This produces the conclusion that the form is somehow put into the matter. However, we also observe that each individual, despite being of the same type, or universal form, is distinct and different from every other. So if the universal form is put into the matter in the case of generation, coming-to-be, there is a problem as to how it is that each individual is different.

The simple solution, which Plato proposes to some extent, is that the difference between individuals is attributable to a difference in each one's matter. However, Aristotle is moved to delve much more deeply into the concept of "matter", and his analysis reveals that this is illogical. Since form is the principle of intelligibility, each and every difference which is apprehended by a human being, as a difference, must be a difference of form. If it was not a difference of form, we would not perceive it as a difference.

This is what is meant by "and the question whether Socrates and to be Socrates are the same thing, are obviously answered by the same solution; for there is no difference either in the standpoint from which the question would be asked, or in that from which one could answer it successfully". From the standpoint that Socrates is a distinct and different individual from Calias, it is necessary to answer that the difference between the two is a difference of form. Since all differences which are apprehended by us are differences of form, it is necessary to conclude that the difference between two individuals, which we apprehend as different, is a difference of form. So the same perspective which says that the two are different, must acknowledge that the difference is a difference of form.

There is a sophistic trick which modern materialist employs, to speak of a "difference which doesn't make a difference". It's a trick, because the fact that the difference is apprehended as a difference implies that it has already made a difference, that difference being that they have been noticed as different. So that little trick is really an incoherent contradiction. You may have noticed that Apokrisis used this trick, as did Streetlight who seemed to stop saying it. Perhaps, but not likely, I convinced him that it is an incoherency.

I think it is all quite clear. The formal cause is by nature. It is at work. Your claim is that it is a concept. — Fooloso4

This is the problem Plato approached in The Timaeus, described above. Notice I said, it appears like the universal (formal cause) is active in nature, as the cause of a thing being the type that it is. But formal cause cannot account for the accidents. There is a difference between the type and the individual. Therefore the cause of the individual, natural thing's form, must be peculiar and unique to the individual itself. So the formal cause is not at work in the coming-to-be of natural things, there is a different type of cause, more similar to final cause, and that is why all natural things are different from each other, and unique. Formal cause is at work in the production of artificial things, when we follow a formula, and create numerous things which appear to be the same (production line). Notice though, that the formula is a human concept.

The discussion in Book 1, part 2 is not a discussion of the opinions of others. It concludes:

On all these grounds, therefore, we may infer with confidence that there is something beyond the bodies that are about us on this earth, different and separate from them; and that the superior glory of its nature is proportionate to its distance from this world of ours. — Fooloso4

I agree with that, it is consistent with what I've been saying. Notice, "beyond the bodies". What is beyond the bodies is properly immaterial, as I described. Aristotle describes the eternal as necessarily immaterial. Since a circular motion involves matter, the circular motion is not eternal.

"Each thing itself, then, and its essence are one and the same in no merely accidental way..
— Metaphysician Undercover

First, this contradicts your earlier claim:

The true form of the thing consists of accidents,
— Metaphysician Undercover

Second, the term 'essence' means 'what it is to be'. It is a Latin term that was invented to translate the Greek 'ousia'. So, yes, what each thing is and what it is to be that thing are one and the same.

This is why Aristotle has a primary substance (the form of the individual), and a secondary substance (the form of the species).
— Metaphysician Undercover

The primary ousia (substance) is not a form. A primary substance is a particular thing, both form and matter. To be Socrates is not to be a form. The secondary substance is not a form either, it is a universal, what all men have in common that distinguishes them from all else. — Fooloso4

Read Metaphysics Bk7 please. Substance is form. However, both "form" and "essence" have more than one sense. The universal, or type, is a form or essence, yet the individual has an "essence" or "form" unique to itself. Hence the law of identity. A thing and its essence are one and the same.

What is true of Callias is not true of all men, but what is true of all men is true of Callias. What all men have in common is not a universal. What all men have in common is a form. It is because of the form that there is the universal. — Fooloso4

This makes no sense. If it is what all men have in common, it is a universal, plain and simple. If you are trying to make a distinction between the universal (human concept), and the form which is causal in a natural thing's coming-to-be, you ought to respect Aristotle's principles, and allow that the form which is causal in this case is the form of the individual (law of identity), as the cause of the thing being the very thing that it is. Independent from human universals, each form is the form of an individual. Humanly created forms are universals.

I hold none of these positions. I think accidents inhere in substances, as aspects of their actuality or form. I think that potentials, such as that of an acorn to be an oak, are not self-triggering, but are triggered by something already in act. — Dfpolis

My apologies for the misrepresentation. It appears like you and I are in agreement on this point, but at odds with some of the others. Accidents are properly attributable to an individual's form, rather than the individual's matter. This necessitates that there is a form unique to each an every individual.

The gist of my claim herein is that the above quote describes our fluidly transforming world as an ongoing continuity of boundary crossings, boundary mergers, Venn Diagram overlapping and transcendence of boundaries. — ucarr

All this does is show the deficiency of systems theory as a means for modeling the world. The reality of these "boundary crossings" implies that there is many things which cannot be classified as being proper to one system or another. Initially, this may not appear as a problem, but when it comes to mapping causation, we need to distinguish between what is within the system, and what is acting on the system, as a causal force. As in my reply to Banno, above, inertial continuity is modeled as internal, therefore non-causal, and external influence is modeled as a causal force of change.

So for example, someone in another thread suggested to me that we could model an atom as a system. However, the natural state of atoms is to exist within complex molecules, where parts (electrons for example) are shared. If two atoms share an electron, and the atoms themselves are being modeled as distinct systems, then in each model, the shared atom is both an internal part of the inertial continuity of the system, and also a part of the other system, thereby acting as a causal force of change on that same system. In other words, from this 'systems' perspective, the electron must be understood as both a part of the inertial continuity of the system, and a causal force of change to the system (being a part of an external system), at the same time.

that's where we differ. I don't think that's what 'form' means. Socrates truly is the form 'man' but the form 'man' is common to all men. Likewise for forms generally. — Wayfarer

But what is the form 'man' other than the essential properties require for being a man? This is the species, man. How could Socrates, as one individual man, be the species? Even by the theory of participation, derived from the Pythagoreans and described by Plato, the individual participates in the Idea. It's explained very well in The Symposium how the individual beautiful thing participates in the idea Beauty. We cannot say that the individual is the idea, because the individual is one of many, but we can say that the individual participates in the idea.

But the deficiencies of the theory of participation are exposed by Plato in his middle and later work, culminating in The Timaeus. The Idea, as that which is participated in, is characterized as completely passive, and this denies it any causal capacity. Thus we have the commonly cited "interaction problem". Plato sowed the seeds for Aristotle's solution to this problem by revealing "the good", as the motivation for human actions, which allows ideas to be causal, actual. The good, (final cause for Aristotle) is what makes intelligible objects "real", through the apprehension of the efficacy of the ideas. Therefore "forms" in Aristotle's conceptual space are actual.

In his work On Interpretation, Aristotle maintained that the concept of "universal" is apt to be predicated of many and that singular is not. For instance, man is a universal while Callias is a singular. The philosopher distinguished highest genera like animal and species like man but he maintained that both are predicated of individual men. This was considered part of an approach to the principle of things, which adheres to the criterion that what is most universal is also most real. Consider for example a particular oak tree. This is a member of a species and it has much in common with other oak trees, past, present and future. Its universal, its oakness, is a part of it. A biologist can study oak trees and learn about oakness and more generally the intelligible order within the sensible world. Accordingly, Aristotle was more confident than Plato about coming to know the sensible world; he was a prototypical empiricist and a founder of induction. Aristotle was a new, moderate sort of realist about universals. — Wiki

There are two directions you can go in determining what is "most real". The materialist (physicalist) trend which is common today in the so-called vulgar realist approach, is to turn toward the individual, material object, and designate it as "most real". The idealist trend, which envelopes the scientific world with mathematical Platonism, is to turn toward the idea, the universal, and designate it as "most real". Each can be said to be a "realism", though they have opposing grounds for "real".

The philosopher acknowledges that both the individual and the universal must be real. But the difficulty for the philosopher is to provide principles, premises, which allow both to be classed together under one category as "real". The two show themselves to be fundamentally incompatible.

Plato demonstrated the priority of the ideal. The ideal is shown to be logically prior to the material. But "logically prior", in the realm of intelligible objects does not adequately translate to "actually prior" in the realm of material objects. Actually prior is a temporal priority of causation. So Plato's demonstration does not yet resolve the problem. Aristotle's resolution involves creating a bridge between "logically prior" and "temporally prior" through the concepts of potential and actual. The cosmological argument shows that what is logically prior is necessarily temporally prior.

But to get to this point, we need to go through an entire lesson on understanding the relationship between the temporal development and evolution of human concepts, and the existence of material individuals.

Notice the structure of concepts employed by Aristotle. The concept "man" is said to be within the concept of "Socrates" as a defining feature. Likewise, the concept of "animal" is said to be within the concept of "man", and the concept "living" is within the concept of animal. This is counterintuitive to the current way of thinking, because we think of Socrates as being within the set, or category of man, and man as being within the set of animal. This is an exact inversion of the Aristotelian conceptual structure. So modern principles have provided us with a conceptual space which is inverted from Aristotle's conceptual space, and since this is a fundamental, basic habit in the way that we think, it is very difficult for us to release this way of thinking, and truly see things the Aristotelian way.

The modern way is heavily influenced by the Platonism (Pythagoreanism) of modern mathematics, set theory for example, which treats numbers as particular, individual things. You can see that in this mode of thinking the more specific participates in the more general, just like the theory of participation. This approach becomes very problematic when we get to the participation of the particular individual, in the conceptual idea. (Take quantum uncertainty as an example, how does the particle (individual) participate in the wave function (universal). Plato revealed this problem, so Aristotle turned things around, and placed the particular, the individual, as first in the hierarchy, primary substance. So in "Categories", primary substance is said to be the individual, and as such it "is neither present in a subject nor predicated of a subject".

This places the individual as necessarily first in the hierarchy of human conception, dictated by the law of identity. And the conceptual structure is grounded, or substantiated in the individual. This is what provides the principles for truth in the sense of correspondence. The conceptual structure must correspond with, by being grounded in, the individual, as substance. The conceptual structure is grounded in, and in that sense derived from, observations of material individuals. The other direction of hierarchy, Platonic/Pythagorean, provides no means to ensure truth. The more specific concept is grounded in the more general concept, but the more general becomes increasingly vague and unknown. Then at the other end, the individuals must be fitted within the conceptual structure which is derived from some universal vagueness, instead of adapting the conceptual structure to match the individuals, thereby moving to eradicate the vagueness.

There must be a form for each and every individual. That is the point of the law of identity, which states that a thing is the same as itself. This is what Aristotle has stated here as "each thing and its essence are one and the same". So Socrates, as an individual, and what it means to be Socrates, that particular individual, are the very same. The form, essence, or identity of the thing, is within the thing itself (similar to Kant).

This is why Aristotle has a primary substance (the form of the individual), and a secondary substance (the form of the species). Each of these two senses of "form" is very different from the other. But both are actualities, or active in the world. The form of the species is actual, and active in the human mind, in judgement, and the form of the individual is actual and active in the sense world of material things.

In many modern interpretations of Aristotle there is a trend not to portray him as a substance dualist. So the substance of the individual is said to be matter, and the principle of individuation material. But matter does not have the capacity to individuate. It is only through formal principles that one instance of matter can be distinguished from another instance of matter. Therefore the identity of the individual is formal.

"Each thing itself, then, and its essence are one and the same in no merely accidental way.. — Metaphysician Undercover

Sorry, you need to explain yourself better, I don't see your point. The early part of "On the Heavens" is spent discussing the opinions of others. It is only in the latter part that he produces any arguments himself. You really need to put your quotes in context.

Yes. But forms, as a matter of principle, are not themselves particulars. There is not a separate form for each individual. That's the 'principle of individuation' which is subject of a long-standing discussion about Aristotle's metaphysics — Wayfarer

I suggest to you Wayfarer, that modern interpretations of Aristotle are heavily swayed by the materialist perspective. Consider, that the modern trend is to think of matter as substance, and this is decisively dismissed by Aristotle in the writing I referred to. So the reference you gave me, the SEP is seriously biased toward giving "matter" a position which Aristotle does not give to it. You'll find this also in discussions of "prime matter". Aristotle clearly dismisses "prime matter" as an idea which cannot represent anything real. The cosmological argument provides this rejection. However you'll find many moderners who insist that Aristotle supports this idea. The fact is, that our society is inclined to assign far more to "matter" than what the concept provides for.

In Aristotle there is more than one sense of "form". I showed you the argument, which indicates that individuation is formal. it's well expressed by him in that section of Bk 7. I even gave you the conclusion stated "Each thing itself, then, and its essence are one and the same in no merely accidental way." This is the law of identity, and identity, or "individuation", however you want to call it, is formal.

Clearly, then, each primary and self-subsistent thing is one and the same as its essence. The sophistical objections to this position. and the question whether Socrates and to be Socrates are the same thing, are obviously answered by the same solution; for there is no difference either in the standpoint from which the question would be asked, or in that from which one could answer it successfully. We have explained, then, in what sense each thing is the same as its essence and in what sense it is not." — Metaphysics Bk 7 Ch 6 1032a

Newton's first law explicitly says that the motion of a body will remain constant unless acted on by a force. I think "acted on by a force" implies causation doesn't it? In Newtonian physics gravity is a force, and acceleration is caused.

Even with my very limited knowledge of Aristotle, I’m sure this isn’t so. I think that a form by it’s nature is a universal, which is then individuated by ‘accidents’. If I’m mistaken, I’ll stand corrected. — Wayfarer

I believe this is similar to the issue which dfpolis and I disagreed on in an earlier thread. It is I think, best covered in Metaphysics BK 7, although like most subjects there is other material in other texts which serve to elucidate further. But Bk 7 is where the law of identity (a thing is the same as itself) is best exposed. This law affirms that the form of the thing (what the thing is), is not different than the thing itself, explaining why "substance" is properly associated with form rather than matter. Matter actually ends up providing nothing to the substance of a thing.

Do you agree that a particular object, an individual, is a composition of matter and form, according to Aristotle? And do you also agree that within the individual, there are accidents which are not conceived in the human abstraction? If so, then the question is where are these accidents, and how do they exist?

The short answer, is that the accidents must be part of the form of the individual, because Aristotle's conceptual space dictates that any distinguishing features must be aspects of form. As much as we speak of things like "brass", and "wood", as "the matter", if we analyze further, these are really formal properties still. So anything referred to as "the matter" of a certain item, can always be analyzed further as to the form of that matter. So if "matter were supposed to be the substratum, we'd have an infinite regress of analysis. Therefore, if it could truly exist deprived of all form (prime matter) it could have no distinguishing features. Therefore we must say that accidents, which are the features which distinguish one individual from another of the same type, are formal, not material.

I believe dfpolis was arguing that the accidents inhere within the matter itself so that when an individual thing comes into existence (generation), the form of that thing, complete with accidents, emerges from the matter. Dfpolis referred to the example of the acorn and the oak tree. But Aristotle describes in Bk 7 why the form of the individual, complete with accidents, must be separate, and put into the thing from an external source. So what dfpolis did not properly consider is the requirement for proper environmental conditions required for the acorn to grow into an oak, as well as the external factors put into the production of the acorn.

So, here's the longer answer now, in a brief display of the first part of Bk 7:

BK 7 Ch 1. Knowing a thing is to know "what" it is. Ch 2. Discussion of what various different philosophers refer to as "substance". Ch 3. A discussion on the nature of matter, and why matter is not substance. Ch4. A discussion of the essence of a thing, what a thing is by virtue of itself. Further, the problem with associating "essence" with categories, and species or genus, resulting in the situation that an individual thing could have no essence. Then there would be no such thing as what the thing is by virtue of itself. Ch 5. There is always a problem in making the essence a definition, because there is always required a further "determinate" which is outside the definition, and this produces infinite regress. Ch 6. A conclusion is produced representing the law of identity: "Each thing itself, then, and its essence are one and the same in no merely accidental way..." (193b, 18).

From this point onward, in Bk 7 he begins a discussion as to how the form or essence of an individual thing (complete with accidents) comes to be within the thing itself. He discusses natural and artificial things. The conclusion is that the form must come from a source external to the matter, like the form of an artificial thing comes from the mind of the artist, and is put into the matter. This is the case in natural things as well as artificial things.

Do you buy the notion gravity-and-acceleration are a unified concept within a restricted domain: — ucarr

Not really, because acceleration can be caused by things other than gravity. So for example, a rocket blasts off and it accelerates in breaking away from gravity, as a sort of reverse relation to gravity. There is still a relation with gravity involved here, but since it is a reversal, we see that it is not a direct relation because there must be something else involved. Since there is something else involve we can't restrict the domain.

Likewise, with your example of the parachutist. You refer to the effects after jumping, as "acceleration".
But what is required prior to this, and is a necessary condition, is that the person takes off in a plane (gravity reversal), and then jumps from the plane. That particular prior condition is the one required for your specific description, but it could be replaced with all sorts of others. So even the prior condition is not in the strict sense "necessary", but there is a whole class of possible prior conditions. But since one of these many possible conditions is necessary, for the acceleration described, we cannot restrict the domain in the way you propose.

I’m talking about the physics definition of motion, which does not require a human to be around deciding if it’s motion or not, even if it does require a human to have a human saying it’s motion. — noAxioms

You never provided any such definition, but if you think you can provide me with a definition of motion which does not require observation, be my guest, let's see it. Do you realize that motion is always a comparison? There are two factors, position and time. How do you suppose that motion could occur without a human to judge that time has passed?

The absolute perspective has no dependency on the motion of any observer. — noAxioms

Yes it does. The measurement of time is dependent on the observer's observations of motion. When motion is relative, the observer is necessarily moving if time is passing.

Somehow I’m not surprised. Presentism requires a preferred frame. You don’t know this? Any other frame labels past and future events as simultaneous (ontologically different according to your assertions), which would be a contradiction. So presentism contradicts Einstein’s postulates and his theories along with them. — noAxioms

You don't seem to understand how time is measured. As a result your response to my post doesn't make very much sense. You don't seem to actually address anything I said.

You seem to be putting the active principle outside of the combining of matter and form. — Paine

That\s right, because there is more than one sense of "form" for Aristotle, therefore more than one type of actuality. So a material object is a combination of form and matter, and that form is proper and unique to the particular object, complete with accidents. This produces the law of identity. However, as explained in Metaphysics BK 7, it is necessary that something puts this form into the matter, in the way that the artist does in artificial things, even in natural things. I think that's the central issue of Bk 7, where does the form of the particular come from. So here we have an active principle, like intention, final cause, which is outside the combing of matter and form, as the cause of it.

This is the same principle as that of the cosmological argument. Material objects are a combination of matter and form. But there is necessarily an (eternal) actuality prior to the existence of material forms. It is "eternal" because it is outside of time. Notice that if we understand "eternal" as everlasting time, there is just an infinite regress of changing material forms, but this is what the cosmological argument puts an end to.

This proposed separation runs afoul of how actuality and potentiality is used by Aristotle. — Paine

This is not the case, because it is demonstrated in Metaphysics Bk 9 that actuality is prior to potentiality. Therefore there is necessarily a separate actuality, or Form. It's separate because it is temporally prior to potentiality. Without this we have an infinite regress of infinite time with changing material forms.

What we wish to say is clear from the particular cases by induction, and we must not look for a definition of everything, but be able to comprehend the analogy, namely, that as what is building is in relation to what is capable of building, and what is awake is in relation to what is asleep, and what is seeing is in relation to what has its eyes closed but has sight, and what has been shaped out of the matter is in relation to the matter, and what has been finished off is to the unfinished. Of the difference exemplified in this analogy let the activity be marked off by the first part, the potentiality by the second.
— ibid. Θ 6 1048a35–b6

If we could say exactly what this element is in each case, we would.

There are only potential powers when there are actual ones nearby.

All the instances where the analogy does a job involve situations where the potential is sometimes not activated. This condition does not apply to as quoted above: "Things that have no matter, though, are all unconditionally just what is a one."

This permits Aristotle to speak of an active principle that is immortal to directly activate what is not one:

In separation it is just what it is, and this alone is immortal and eternal. (But we do not remember because this is unaffected, whereas the passive intellect is perishable, and without this nothing thinks.
— Aristotle, De Anima, 430a18, translated by DW Hamlyn — Paine

Sorry, I don't understand what you're trying to show here.

We know man in a weightless chamber doesn’t cause acceleration, not even when he jumps. — ucarr

Here's another thing to add to what jgill said. I think that jumping, or more correctly pushing off, in a gravity-free space, actually would cause acceleration.

Gravity and acceleration-due-to-gravity are, in a certain sense, as one. They are conjoined as a unified concept: gravity-and-acceleration. Thus cause and effect are, in the same sense, as one, save one stipulation: temporal sequencing. — ucarr

I don't think that this is correct either. Acceleration only occurs from the effects of gravitation when whatever is preventing acceleration is removed, or if an object is suddenly exposed to gravitation. So the man is exposed to gravitation, in the plane, before jumping, but is only caused to accelerate after removing himself from the plane. The plane being the thing which is preventing gravitational acceleration of the man. All things on earth are exposed to gravitation, and this has a great effect on the way that they rest, but they are not necessarily accelerating from gravitation.

So I don't really like the way you characterize causation, making cause and effect one. In principle (theory), cause and effect might be united as one, so that X necessitates Y, and Y could not have occurred without X, but this is simplistic and not properly representative of real events. In reality there is always a number of complicating factors such as prior conditions and other influencing activities. So the thing we isolate as the cause is really only a contributing factor. And in your example gravity is a contributing factor.

Per QM, the system could either be weakly measured (giving some information without destroying the superposition) or strongly measured resulting in rapid decoherence. Alternatively, the system could be transformed such that the probabilities change (including to certainty). — Andrew M

Can you elaborate these three, Andrew? What would be the act of a weak measurement? And, how could the probabilities involved with a specific system be changed to certainty without some form of measurement? To me, such a change would require a cause, and the cause would be a matter of "fixing" the system, like cheating if you're a gambler. But if "fixing" was possible then there would be no real mystery unless only the cheaters had figured it out.

It's the Wigner's friend thought experiment where the system in question (in this case Walmart rather than a laboratory) is isolated from the rest of the environment. — Andrew M

I've explained in other threads, that there is a potential problem with the application of systems theory towards real activity. Conventionally, there is a boundary defined which separates inside the system from outside the system. Any cause of change to the system (analogous to a force which changes the momentum of a body in Newtonian laws), must come from outside the boundary. However, this representation provides no place for what mystics and metaphysicians apprehend as a cause of change which comes from the inside.

So for example, gravity can be modeled as a cause of change (force) to a body's momentum, in the Newtonian way. It's modeled as an external force, acting on the body from the outside. But if gravity really acted on the body through the inside, this would require a completely different model for an accurate representation. And, that it may be the case that gravity acts through the inside is evidenced by the fact that the massive part of the atom is in the centre of the atom, and the massive parts interact directly through gravitation.

Allowing that causes of change which come from the inside are very real, and distinct from causes of change which come from the outside, forces the conclusion that systems theory does not provide an adequate representation. By classing all causes of change to the system which are not consistent with the system's inertial progression as "outside" the system, without distinguishing an inside boundary from the outside boundary, conflates these two distinct types of causation, potentially making some types of changes to the system impossible to understand.

The concept 'dog' does not bark and wag its tail. His concern with ousia is not a concern about a concept but the living being that barks and wags its tail. — Fooloso4

You've obviously not read Aristotle's Metaphysics. He discusses extensively what kind of existence ideas have.

There is something to be a man that is not a man's accidents. — Fooloso4

Yes, that is the concept of "man". So, why do you think Aristotle was not discussing concepts? He discussed both in the Metaphysics, what it means to be this particular man, and what it means to be a man. He showed that in each case it is a type of form. But, as he explained, the form of the individual is completely different from the form of the universal.


Are you trying to make a point here? It just looks like random quotes. And there is nothing in those quotes to indicate that Aristotle thought that the world is eternal. As I said already, he clearly thought that the world is composed of matter and therefore not eternal.

To understand Aristotle you will have to ignore Aristotle. — Paine

Like I explained at the time, it's not a matter of ignoring Aristotle, but a matter of distinguishing between the ideas which he discusses, and what his discussions, and demonstrations prove. Most often the ideas discussed are ideas of others, which end up being disproven by Aristotle's discussion of them. This is the same technique which Plato employed. In both these authors it is very difficult to distinguish which ideas we ought to support, from the one's we ought to reject. This requires extensive study. Many such discussions go on over numerous books, and it requires much attention to detail to determine what is being demonstrated by the discussion. Random quotes are generally not very useful.

The discussion of eternal circular motion is a very good example. In On The Heavens, it is indicated that eternal circular motion is a theoretical possibility. The logic which supports it is consistent. However, he says that anything which is moving in a circle must be composed of matter, and material things are generated, are corruptible, and will corrupt. Therefore we are left to conclude that Aristotle has demonstrated that eternal circular motion is not real. The thing moving in a circle must be material and is therefore not eternal. So in as much as he cannot dismiss the idea of eternal circular motion by attacking the logic which supports it, he introduces another principle, a premise which does reject this idea, that anything moving in a circle must be composed of matter. This is the principle which renders eternal circular motion as impossible.

Once you recognize that he is actually arguing against this idea of eternal circular motion, rather than supporting it, then what he says in On The Soul, about the possibility of the soul moving like an eternal circular motion, makes a lot more sense. He dismisses this idea, because it represents the soul as material, and he says that to understand the soul as eternal requires that the soul be properly understood as immaterial. And this is the point that he brings out in his Metaphysics, that anything eternal is necessarily actual, therefore prior to the potentiality of matter, and immaterial.

The point of that discussion I had with you, was that the representation of "the eternal" as a circular motion, was demonstrated by Aristotle to be a faulty idea. It's a faulty idea because according to Aristotle's cosmological argument anything eternal must be actual, and not potential. And since matter is potential, anything eternal must be truly immaterial.

This comment was said to cancel the description of the agent intellect: — Paine

I never canceled the agent intellect. I recognize the agent intellect as an extremely important concept. I just understand it in a way different from you. And that's not at all surprising because the proper way to understand the agent intellect has always been a matter of debate.

Being convinced that you are right there is nothing you can be shown to make you think you are wrong. — Fooloso4

This is completely untrue. I've changed my mind on these issues more times than I can count. And I leave my mind open to further changes, that's why I'm so willing to return to the text, reread and reference relevant parts when someone presents me with a substantial objection.

I spent years comparing Aristotle and Plato, and thought that I had developed a reasonable understanding. But when I read Augustine I found I had to reread Plato to adjust my understanding to be compatible with his. And when I read Aquinas I found my understanding of Aristotle to be quite inconsistent with his, therefore I had to reread Aristotle.. So even after spending years in comparing Plato and Aristotle on my own, thinking that I had an adequate understanding of Aristotle, I had to go back and completely reread to see how I missed what Aquinas had picked up on.

The fact is that there is so much information in these texts, that many readings are required even for a base understanding. And, I know form my experience never to rule out further advancements to my understanding. However, I also know not to go back, and revisit old ideas which I've had in the past, and have been dissuaded of by other highly regarded philosophers. When an esteemed philosopher like Aquinas has already convinced me to go back and revisit Aristotle and this has readjusted my understanding to a higher level, it is probably pointless for you to request that I go back and reconsider descending to the lower level understanding again. I mean you need to at least produce a reason for me to reconsider.

So it is in your requests to reconsider something that I've already reconsidered, without giving me adequate reason, which produces the appearance that I will not budge. Since I've already been there, you need to show me something to make me realize that possibly I was wrong to leave that place. But simply insisting that I ought to go back to what I believe is a lower level of understanding because you think that it was wrong for me to ascend to what I believe to be a higher level, without showing me any reason for your belief, does nothing for me.

Which is it? Are energeia and dunamis just concepts? Are you claiming that there is a need for a concept which is prior to another concept? In what way does a concept cause the first material form? — Fooloso4

As I said, they are concepts used to describe the world. How accurately they describe the world is judged as truth and falsity. There has been volumes of material produced in an attempt to answer these questions which you ask so I think it's pointless to address them here, now. I suggest you spend a good long time reading Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, and delve into the separation between human ideas, abstractions, conceptions, which are forms in one sense, and the independent Forms, which are forms in another sense. Then you might develop an adequate understanding of the two senses of "form" which Aristotle lays out. It is due to this need for two distinct senses of "form', "actuality", "substance", to adequately understand the nature of reality, that we cannot escape the need for dualism.

You know I’m talking about it’s property of motion, in complete absence of a second thing relative to which that motion (or lack of it) is meaningful. — noAxioms

This is unintelligible to me. Motion is a concept. That is why I could give a definition of motion prior to the principle of relativity being produced, and also a definition of motion derived from the principle of relativity. That these differ indicates that the concept of motion has evolved.

That something is moving, or in motion, is a human judgement. This judgement requires a spatial temporal perspective, Kant's pure a priori intuitions. This means that there is necessarily an observer, and that observer is human, hence a "second thing". Therefore it's completely nonsensical to talk about the motion of a thing in the complete absence of a second thing.

Non-sequitur. The principle (your chosen wording) seems only to say that there’s no way to tell, not that there cannot be an immobile one. — noAxioms

No, it's a valid conclusion from the premises I stated. You are ignoring the other premise I stated. That premise is derived from empirical observation that there is a multitude of things. observed to be moving in different ways. From that empirical, observational premise, and the principle of relativity as the other premise, we can conclude that nothing is at rest.

I'm really surprised that you are arguing this point, because the absence of absolute rest is often cited as the basic epistemological principle which is derived from the principle of relativity, which is an ontological principle. So we take the principle of relativity (that the motion of a body is only determined relative to another body, and either one if the motion is observed as uniform, could equally be the rest frame), as the major premise. And this is an ontological theory. Then we add the observational data that there is always at least one body moving relative to any other, and this produces the conclusion that nothing is at rest. This principle serves as the epistemic base for the arbitrary application of the concept "rest frame". Since it is known by the logic above, that nothing is truly at rest, then the designation of "rest", or "rest frame" is necessarily completely arbitrary, therefore that designation is based in pragmatic principles, rather than an ontological principle. The ontological principle "relativity" renders "rest" as not true.

However, this puts "time" in a very odd situation. Our measurements of the passing of time are based in the ancient concept of motion within which, we as observers are assumed to be at rest. We observe motions relative to ourselves, assuming ourselves to be at rest, and produce temporal durations from these observations. Then we apply these temporal durations in measurement of other motions. Newton assumed that we ought to continue with "time" based in our rest frame. This is said to be an "absolute time". But it isn't really "absolute" time, it's just maintaining the old principle that we are at rest, and that observations of motions relative to us (as a sort of absolute rest) are the best suited for the measurement of time. You can see there is inconsistency because the principle of relativity denies that any perspective is true rest, but the "absolute time" perspective clings to our perspective as the true rest frame for producing temporal measurement. Einstein saw a way beyond this inconsistency by repealing the "absolute time" perspective.

The train example presumes the premises listed. If you deny those premises, then the train example ceases to demonstrate any inconsistencies.
I always took you for somebody in denial of Einstein’s theory precisely because only in one frame (and not an inertial one either) are all the events in ‘the present’ simultaneous with each other. In all other frames, this is not so, so the laws of physics are different between this and that frame, in violation of the principle. This follows from your assertions, ones with which I do not agree. — noAxioms

This is really confused. I haven't the foggiest idea of what you're trying to say. You seem to be employing the "absolute time" perspective to come up with "the present", yet also using "the relativity of simultaneity" to say that events in the present are not necessarily simultaneous. You cannot conflate these two in that way. They are completely different conceptions of time which are incommensurable. If you employ the relativity of simultaneity, you have no basis for a conception of "the present". And if you have the desire to base "the present" in your own observational perspective, or rest frame, as Newtonian "absolute time" does, this would just be an arbitrary designation, providing no true representation of "the present". This is why the principle of relativity puts "time" into an odd place. We can only measure time from our own perspective, yet relativity removes the validity of that perspective. Therefore we have no valid measurements of time.

What you deny is that potentiality and actuality do not exist apart from those things that they are the potentiality and actuality of. If we cannot agree on that then we cannot agree on what follows from it. — Fooloso4

Of course I disagree with that. These are concepts, and concepts do not exist within the things which serve as tokens which display the concept. The concept of red does not exist within a thing which is judged to be the colour red. The thing is judged as being the colour of red, and by that judgement it is said to be red. In no way does the concept of red exist within the thing which is judged to be red.

The Pythagorean idealism discussed by Plato assumed the theory of participation. By the theory of participation the red thing participates in the idea of red. That means the thing is in the concept, not vise versa. But Plato demonstrated problems with the theory of participation, and Aristotle denied this approach with his concept of "primary substance". Check the definition in "Categories"

Substance , in the truest and primary and most definite sense of the word, is that which is neither predicable of a subject nor present in a subject; for instance the individual man or horse. — Categories Ch 5, 2a, 11-12

Notice, how the theory of participation is denied by the concept of primary substance, because the individual cannot be within the concept. However, the individual may participate in substance in the sense of "secondary substance". But secondary substance is conceptual, in the sense of the species. So the individual man is allowed to participate in the concept "man"..

As long as you think that by potentiality and actuality Aristotle means a representation you will remain hopelessly confused. — Fooloso4

You can think what you will, but you haven't shown me anything to make think that I'm wrong. Potentiality and actuality are terms which Aristotle used when describing the features of reality. Descriptive terms are representative. Therefore potentiality and actuality are representative. Why would you think otherwise?

Things are systems of a very basic or maybe well-understood kind. — Pantagruel

No, each thing is different from every other thing. Therefore if represented as "a system", we need different types of systems according to the different type of things. Nevertheless the "system" as the theoretical representation is completely distinct from the thing represented.

The point was you said an atom had a purely theoretical and not a real existence, which is absurd. — Pantagruel

"Atom" is a theoretical representation, for the reasons I explained, but I did not say that it isn't real. As a theoretical representation, it is real. You have not addressed any of the issues I mentioned, to make an argument otherwise.

Maybe the theoretical concept of an atom doesn't correspond in toto to the actuality, but that is a limitation of perception and representation that doesn't eliminate the underlying correlation of the intentional object and the reality it intends towards. — Pantagruel

Ok, so your argument is that if I intend to represent something in a truthful way, but I fail, and my representation is just fictional, because the thing I thought I was representing (intended to represent) was just an hallucination, there is still a correlation between my representation and the thing I intended to represent. i.e. the product of my hallucination. Fine, I'll go with that.

You can't perceive a "season" but seasons most certainly exist. — Pantagruel

Right, in the same way that my hallucination most certainly exists.

Potentiality and actuality does not exist apart from those things they are the potentiality and actuality of. If the world is eternal there has always been something with potentiality and actuality. No potentiality and actuality prior to the world. — Fooloso4

I don't see your point. Aristotle shows that the world is not eternal, as I explained above. Therefore your conditional proposition "if the world is eternal..." is excluded as irrelevant because the world is not eternal. What is used in his demonstration that the world is not eternal, is the concepts of potentiality and actuality.

And concepts are distinct from the things which are said to share in the concept. That is an important point in Aristotelian ontology, the one which dfpolis ignores when he says "the known form is the form of the known". The true form of the thing consists of accidents, the known form does not. Therefore potentiality and actuality, as concepts, do exist independently of the things which are said to be potential and actual. This is commonly known as the separation between the world and the representation, map and terrain.

So, Aristotle uses these concepts to show that the world is not eternal. Whether or not the premises employed by him are true, and the world can truly be described by these concepts is a different matter. So if you do not accept the conclusion, that the world is not eternal, you need to demonstrate that the concepts are not truly applied in the premises, or that the logic is not valid.

My education must have gaping holes in it. Much more obvious than the facticty of atoms being evident qua properties in the external world which we experience constantly. — Pantagruel

The point though, is as I explained. What we commonly refer to as "an atom" cannot be adequately represented as "a system". Don't lose track of the argument. I was demonstrating to you the deficiencies involved in representing natural things as systems.

So, is this a thread about Aristotle's metaphysics, addressing what he actually wrote, or is this just a thread about our opinions of Aristotle, as a supposed wise man. You can see how we could discuss the latter without any knowledge about what he actually wrote. But what's the point of blind character assassination?

In the Physics he argues that it is. — Fooloso4

Definitely, he does not. As argued in "On The Heavens", anything composed of matter is corruptible and not eternal. I suggest that you reread Aristotle's Physics, to see where you've made the mistake of misinterpretation.

he potentiality and actuality of what? There can be no potentiality and actuality of something that is not. Potentiality and actuality does not exist apart from those things they are the potentiality and actuality of. — Fooloso4

"The world" obviously. You made the claim that the world is eternal and therefore not describable in terms of potential and actual. But the world is changing. Therefore it is describable by Aristotle's terms of physics, matter and form. And matter is potential, while form is actual. Therefore the world is describable in terms of potential and actual, these are matter and form. And, it is necessary to use these terms to account for the fact that the world is changing. As explained in "On the Heavens" anything composed of matter is generated and corrupted. Therefore we can conclude that the world is not eternal.

The former does not preclude the latter. — Fooloso4

The former precludes the latter under the conditions of your conditional proposition: "If the world is eternal then there can be no prior potentiality or actuality or prime mover."

This is Aristotle's argument that the world is not eternal. The world changes therefore by his principles of physics it consists of potentiality (matter) and actuality (form). Anything consisting of matter is necessarily generated and corruptible. The corruptible will in time pass away. Therefore the world is not eternal.

That shouldn't suggest an "extraspatiotemporal" limbo world where tree potentialities exist and evolve until they are actualized as trees in our "spatiotemporal" world. Instead the world we inhabit just is where an acorn develops into a tree. — Andrew M

The problem though, is that with each passing moment the actual acorn, along with the potentialities, changes according to the conditions it is exposed to. Through chemistry we'd understand these changes as changes to the form, or actuality of the physical object, the acorn. But corresponding to these changes to the form, there are changes to the potential which cannot be directly understood simply through an understanding of the chemical changes to the form of the acorn. The potentialities really do evolve along with the changing actuality. We might apply premises from biology, which could state that X physical form is equivalent to Z potential, therefore destruction of X actuality is a destruction of Z potential. However, the theory of evolution, genetics and mutations, shows us that relating actualities to potentials is not so simple in reality. Actualities come and go, potentials change.

Actual forms don't directly correspond with potentials. The physical form is represented as one unity, an entity, or particular. Potential is related to the particular as a multitude of possibilities. Each possibility is itself represented (by us thinking humans) as a particular, to establish a direct relation to the actual, particular form. Thus a multitude of possibilities (possible actualities) is related to one actual form. So "potential" appears as a multitude of possible particulars, each of these particulars having a theoretical rather than a real spacetime representation. The theoretical spacetime representation, which is not a real spacetime representation (analogous to a counterfactual), constitutes what is known as a real possibility by modal logic.

But that is not a real representation of the real existence of "potential", it is only a representation of how potential relates to the actual. We create with our minds, a number of possible actualities which directly relate to the known actuality, and designate these as the real possibilities. But these are representation of actualities which are qualified as "possible", and these are supposed to relate the real potential to the real actual. We have no representation of real potential, only representations of real actualities. So to establish the relationship we represent potential as a multitude of possible actualities. But we also know that what we designate as real possibilities (possible actualities) cannot all be true without defying the laws of spacetime. Therefore we need to conclude that real potential, which is described in terms of incompatible spacetime actualities, is not describable by the laws of spacetime.

The proper analogy would be that jgill observed interference effects until he and his wife met up and she pointed out that she had been standing there all the time. — Andrew M

So we say that @jgill has extremely bad eyes, and all he sees until he's about three metres from his wife is a strange interference pattern? Suppose he's 50 metres away. How would he interpret the interference pattern as probabilities for the actual location of his wife? Consider that if this is a true analogy, the closer that he gets, he ought to be able to observe changes to the interference pattern which would increase his certainty.

But I have calculated the probability and it has come out .7 in favor of her standing there and .3 her not. — jgill

So? How did you interpret that interference pattern, to come up with these numbers? Ultimately, the way that you interpreted the pattern, to come up with accurate probabilities, says something very significant about what the wave interference which you are interpreting, really is.

If the world is eternal then there can be no prior potentiality or actuality or prime mover. — Fooloso4

There is nothing to indicate that the world might be eternal. and everything indicates that there is potentiality and actuality. So that possibility, that the world is eternal and there no potentiality or actuality is easily excluded as unreal. You might take the route of ignore and deny though, as that is a real possibility for you.

Ye are quite mad lad. Bon voyage, enjoy the ride! :) — Pantagruel

You obviously have no education in basic chemistry, so you take the route of dfpolis, deny the facts and ignore the reality.

If a system isn't a real thing then certainly, by your logic, there are no real things. — Pantagruel

I explained in what sense a system is a material, physical thing (i.e. an engineered artificial creation). I also explained in what sense a system is a theoretical thing. Both of these are real. That is the advantage of dualism, it allows us to make this separation between what exists in theory, and what exists materially, providing for both to be real. Both are "real" unless you have a mind which is closed to the truth of reality, and therefore have a desire to restrict the reach of the word "real" to one side or the other.

An atom is a system. — Pantagruel

An "atom" is a theoretical representation. Atoms do not have independent existence in nature, and if given such in a lab, its existence, as a system, is an engineered system. Even the helium atom, which was classically believed to exist as an independent inert atom has been found to really only exist in nature as part of a larger structure. So the idea of "an atom" as a "system" is theory which does not accurately represent the natural existence of the things which it is supposed to represent.

And yes, it is an 'arbitrary' boundary if by that you mean at some point the atom didn't exist and at some point it will cease to exist. Again, if that is your definition of arbitrary, then we live in a Heraclitean world and the only thing that really exists is change. — Pantagruel

No, that's not what I meant. What I meant is as explained above. The arbitrary boundary is drawn between the thing represented by the system, and its environment. So for example, atoms in their natural condition exist as molecules, and the supposed boundary which separates the atoms from each other is an arbitrary boundary because this boundary doesn't really exist in natural things. The boundary exists in theory, and the application of this theory proves to be very useful in understanding things like physical reactions and chemical reactions. However, this theory leaves the electrons in a peculiar position, because they bridge the boundary between one atom (system) and another. This is where the usefulness of the model, or representation, begins to break down and loose its effectiveness. Another model has to be produced to show the interactions of electrons from various atoms because these cannot be properly classed as part of one system (atom) or another.

There is also evidence of a further problem with systems theory which is much more significant. There is an assumed boundary between the system and it's environment, and everything not within the system is "outside" the system. However, systems theory provides no means for a boundary to the "inside" of the system. So all things "not within the system" are modeled as outside the system and there is no means to differentiate which things are beyond the true boundary to the outside from things which are beyond the true boundary to the inside. These need to be two distinct boundaries.

So with your proposed system modeling of the atom for example, we can model the interactions of the electrons as occurring at the outside boundary of the system. Individual electrons may pass in and out side of a given system (atom) in this way. At the center of the system (atom) we have a massive nucleus. Each system (atom) has its own nucleus, and the nucleus of one system (atom) may interact with the nucleus of another system. Therefore we need to be able to represent direct nucleus-to-nucleus interaction of the two systems (atoms). But systems theory only allows one boundary as "outside" the system. Therefore any nucleus-to-nucleus interaction through the inside boundary gets conflated with electron-to-electron interaction through the outside boundary, and the systems theory provides us with no principles to distinguish these two.

Time to change your username to Metaphysician Uncovered or much better suited Theologian Uncovered. — Fooloso4

Let me reveal to you, a discovery which I made for myself. The highest quality metaphysical material is found in theology. This tradition emerges from Plato, through Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas etc.. One cannot truthfully proclaim oneself to be a metaphysician without studying the relevant theology.

Where exactly in Metaphysics does he say that material objects are preceded in time by the potential for their existence? Where does Aristotle say that God acts on potentiality to make it into something actual? — Fooloso4

That would be Bk 9 Metaphysics. You ought to read it. It's very informative, especially in respect to his characterization of the nature of potential, or potency, and its relation to the actual. Here's a sample from chapter 8, but you need to read the whole section to get the complete context with the discussion of potency and possibility.

Obviously, therefore, the substance or form is actuality. According to this argument, then, it is obvious that actuality is prior in substantial being to potency; and as we have said, one actuality always precedes another in time right back to the actuality of the eternal prime mover. — Aristotle, Metaphysics Bk9 Ch 8 1050b

The part concerning which I had a lengthy discussion with dfpolis previously, is BK7 Ch6-9. In Ch6 he explains in what sense a thing and its essence are the same, and in what sense they are not the same. Then in Ch7 he discusses the coming to be of things. He separates artificial from natural, and discusses the artificial, relying on examples. Artificial comings to be are called "makings". Thinking precedes the making, and the active principle, the form, proceeds from the soul of the artist. So we say that the artist puts the form into the matter. Then, after a lengthy discussion of the various different ways that natural things come to be, he concludes by the end of Ch9 that things formed by nature come to be in much the same way as things formed by art. This latter point is where dfPolis and I disagree.

A "system" is a whole, and as such it requires a boundary, or principle at least, which validates its supposed existence as a united whole. Such principles are applied with degrees of arbitrariness. This is the point covered in my reply to Wayfarer above, concerning secondary substance. When the substance is a species, or type of thing (secondary substance) as is the case in systems theory, a human judgement is required which designates the individual thing being judged as fulfilling the conditions of the species, the type of system in this case.

In "conceptualizing the nature of reality" we need to have respect for this fact, that the representation of the individual is not the individual. That is the problem which dfpolis demonstrates above, by insisting that "the known form is the form of the known". This is the type of sophistry which Aristotle's conceptual space was designed to battle against. Simply stated, the sophistry manifests as the Parmenidean principle, being and knowing are the same thing.
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Therefore I suggest that you pay attention to the fact that "a system" in systems theory is a theoretical representation of a real "thing", not the thing itself. And, when "system" is used to refer to a real physical thing, in engineering, this type of thing is always a created thing. Therefore there is no way around the fact that "a system" is always artificial, whether "system" is used to refer to a theoretical representation of something natural, or whether it is used to refer to physical, engineered system. In both cases "the system" is a type, not an individual thing.

I was trying to argue that the probability wave is outside of space and time... — Wayfarer

Space and time are conceptual. So "outside of space and time", simply means unable to be apprehended through our current conceptions of space and time. This issue is very much analogous to the discussion above, of numbers which our conception of numbers reveals to us as needed to be accounted for, but they lie outside of our capacity to apprehend them. What I argued above, is that this indicates a fundamental flaw in our conception of numbers, that this conception produces numbers which cannot be apprehended by us.

I actually covered a lot of my views relating thermodynamics and information theory by way of cybernetics in the dialog with ChatGPT I just posted in the Lounge. There is a lot of preamble because I needed to contextualize the discussion to make sure the neural net was weighting things correctly. The history of the conversation appears to change the nature of the response to any given question. — Pantagruel

The problem with something like the ChatGPT is that it tends to represent common, conventional ideas, sort of like Wikipedia, so this is not very useful for representing the peculiarities or idiosyncrasies of the thought of a specific philosopher like Aristotle. For example, in your question of hylomorphism it equates matter with substance. But this is not consistent with Aristotle's definition of substance in his "Categories". He proposes primary substance, and secondary substance. Primary substance is the individual. And the individual is a combination of matter and form, not just matter. Secondary substance is species, and this is conceptual. Therefore your later question to ChatGPT, can there be form without substance, just plays on an unAristotelian meaning of "substance".

I also think that you need to be very careful to watch for equivocation, in using something like ChatGPT.

Do you accpet that a "system" is an artificial thing? So any experiments carried with a system are designed and ordered by the engineers of the system, therefore not necessarily giving a proper representation of what is natural.

This leads to the disastrously oxymoronic conception of 'a thinking substance' which is the single biggest contributor to modern physicalist philosophy. So this, I entirely agree with: — Wayfarer

The problem here is not so much Descartes' use of words, as it is the use of words in modern vernacular. In Descartes' time Aristotelian logic was still taught, and "substance" maintained its definition according to Aristotle's principles of logic, as that which substantiates, or grounds logic. Check my reply to Pantagruel above. At that time, the use of "substance" in chemistry was becoming the prominent use, over the logical definition, and this usage in chemistry was consistent with Aristotle's "primary substance". However, that primary substance (the individual) consists of a combination of matter and form, and that secondary substance consists of forms, was soon forgotten by the monist materialist mindset, so that substance in its common usage became equated with matter.

This is the separation which allows for the conception of "prime matter". When matter is conceived to exist as substance without any form, we designate the fundamental "substance" of reality as unintelligible. This is because "form" provides for intelligibility as that which is intelligible. So the cosmological argument is very significant and important, to demonstrate that substance must be formal, and the conception of prime matter as basic substance is a misdirected adventure into the unintelligible. A properly directed adventure into the aspects of reality which appear to be unintelligible is to assign principles which would bring those apparently unintelligible aspects into the intelligible through the process of understanding, not to assign principles which would designate the unintelligible as impossible to understand, eg prime matter.

So the fault is not in Descartes usage of "thinking substance" which is consistent with secondary substance, the fault is in the unnecessary narrowing of the mind by monist inclinations. We no longer recognize the terms of Aristotelian logic, to see that "substance" is what grounds logic, therefore substance must have a formal aspect.

I also agree with the gist of the 'fundamental abstraction', although again, I differ somewhat in my analysis of it. I trace the 'fundamental abstraction' to early modern science - a consequence of Cartesian dualism, and equally, the division of the world into primary and secondary qualities or attributes, with the primary qualities being the objects of physics and the secondary being assigned to 'mind' and thereby subjectivised and relativised**. I agree that Aristotle's hylomorphic model is vastly superior to the Cartesian, and also note that Aristotelian metaphysics is enjoying a comeback in the biological sciences. — Wayfarer

I believe that the division of primary and secondary qualities was meant to be consistent with Aristotle's primary and secondary substance. Primary substance is the individual, the material object. Secondary substance is the species, the type, which we use to classify the individual, "horse", "man", etc.. Notice that a judgement is required in the case of secondary substance, and that is why it is "subjectivised". So if we take the syllogism "Socrates is a man. All men are mortal. Therefore Socrates is mortal", substance or grounding, is provided by "is a man". We cannot take that actual individual (primary substance) and place that individual into the syllogism. So, we make an initial, primary, or fundamental judgement to classify the individual, and this classification acts as a stand in, or representation of the true properties of the individual; this is secondary substance. What we say of the individual, as a true representation within the syllogism, is secondary substance. You can see that the secondary substance is based in a human judgement in relation to a primary substance, and this less than perfect grounding is how logic loses certainty.

There is no point in continuing to respond to you. — Dfpolis

A very common response from the monist mindset, deny and ignore the complexity of reality. Ignorance is preferable to facing the reality of a complex world.

Maybe I'm just naive, but how is the well-documented physical phenomenon/fact of negentropy not in and of itself sufficient evidence of this? — Pantagruel

Wikipedia tells me "In information theory and statistics, negentropy is used as a measure of distance to normality." Care to state your case?

I’m wondering how this relates to phenomenology, which it seems to me attempts to reduce all forms of causation to a single non-determinist form, thereby dispelling the spiritual woo-hoo without falling into materialist determinisms.

And then there’s Nietzsche’s take on causation: — Joshs

I think non-determinist causation would be considered by most as spiritual woo-hoo. I tend toward agreement with the Nietzsche quote though.

When I piece together what you ascribe to Aristotle, I don't understand it as a thought by itself." — Paine

Of course it's not a thought by itself it's a vast multitude of thoughts. And the problem with any multitude of thoughts is to maintain consistency throughout them all. it appears like you never got to the point of understanding the consistency the way that I do. That's most likely due to my inability to express myself clearly. Metaphysical principles are not easily expressed.

The fact that you find it repugnant to think that order could emerge from disorder, tells us nothing about what occurs in nature or the rational mind. — Fooloso4

The problem with this principle, that order emerges from disorder, is that it is completely unintelligible to think of order without a cause for it. Therefore positing it as a real representative principle is to premise that some aspect of reality is unintelligible. This is self-defeating to philosophy because it kills the philosopher's desire to know by assuming that this is something which cannot be known. That is why the theological principle "God" is much better suited to philosophy, because "God" is in principle the highest form of intelligibility, yet fundamentally unknowable to human beings in their current condition. This inspires human beings to better themselves in the effort to know God.

You can posit a pre-material final cause but in doing so you part ways with Aristotle. The final cause is always the end or telos of some being and does not exist apart from it. — Fooloso4

Yes, that would be God. And Aristotle spoke of God, so I don't see why you think I part ways with Aristotle.

Where does Aristotle demonstrate this? We can distinguish between the final and formal cause but they are always at work together within a being. — Fooloso4

It is what is known as the cosmological argument, where he demonstrates in his "Metaphysics" the need for an actuality which is prior to material objects, as the cause of the first material form. All material objects are preceded in time by the potential for their existence. But a potential requires something actual to actualize it and become an actual material form, because potential cannot actualize itself. If the first actuality coexisted with potential, it would be just another material form, and this would produce infinite regress. So the first actuality (as a final cause, known in theology as God's Will) must be prior to, and distinct from material forms.

First actuality is being operational. Second actuality is operating. — Dfpolis

This is somewhat incorrect, and really shows that you are the one confused, because "being operational" is a capacity, a potential. It is the potential to operate. If we do not maintain this description, that "being operational" is a potential to operate, then we have no difference between "being operational" and "operating". This is the principle whereby Aristotle showed that all the powers of the soul are properly characterized as potencies, rather than actualities. Since they are not operating all the time, they are all potentials which need to be actualized in order to operate. Therefore we cannot say that "being operational" is an actuality. Aristotle described it more like having knowledge, and notice that the actuality of having knowledge is provided by the thing which has the knowledge.

As such, and to maintain consistency with Aristotle's conceptual space, this capacity of "being operational" must be attributed to the matter of the living being, not the form or "soul". And this is why Aquinas attributed to the potential, the properties which we call "habits".

However, as demonstrated in his "Metaphysics", in his discussion of how it is that a material body comes to be the very body which it is, rather than something else, Aristotle describes a need to assume an actuality which is prior to the organized material body, as the cause of it being the organized body which it is. And, as stated in his definition of soul in "On the Soul", this "first actuality", which is necessarily prior to the organized material body as the cause of it being what it is, is what he calls "the soul". This is what has the knowledge.

So, we have your stated potential "being operational", and the actuality of operating. We need to assume a "first actuality" which actualizes the potential to operate (described by you as being operational), causing the actuality of operating. It is impossible that the actuality of operating causes the potential to operate (described as being operational) to actually operate, because actually operating is posterior and the cause needs to be prior. And we cannot, as you claim, say that being operational is itself an actuality because then there would be no difference between "being operational", and "actually operating. So Aristotle separated these as potency and act. Therefore we need a further "act" which is responsible for causing the potency of being operational, to actual operate, and this is "the soul".

I am not arguing against having more than one principle in an organism (not against matter and form) as Aristotle recognized, but against having two things (res cogitans and res extensa) as Descartes thought. I've told you this a number of times before. — Dfpolis

This is your hypocrisy. You tell me you are only rejecting Cartesian dualism, and that you do not reject other dualisms. But in your article it is clearly stated "Seeing dualism as a representational artifact disposes of both ontological and property dualism." And your op here states "The article rejects dualism as a framework...".

You clearly propose a means for rejecting dualism. Then when you are criticized concerning how effective the means would be, you claim that you're not really trying to reject dualism, only one special idiosyncratic type of dualism. That's why I accused you of being disingenuous. Why don't you just take the honest route, and accept that your means for rejecting dualism does not work? Then you might start to embrace dualism as the means toward true understanding.

Aristotle does not say that the human mind creates forms, but that it actualizes the intelligibility belonging to the form of the sensed object. He even says that in doing so, the nous becomes, in some way, the thing it knows. Thus, the known form is the form of the known. — Dfpolis

Again, this is incorrect. There is a very explicit difference between the form of the sensed object, being a particular, complete with accidentals, and the form which is intelligible to the human mind, being a universal, consisting only of the essentials. So it is impossible that the human mind actualizes the form of the sense object, because it actualizes a completely different form, what we call an abstraction. The form of the particular is completely separate from the abstraction and is not the same form at all. If he says that the mind "in some way" becomes the thing which is known, then this is clearly metaphorical.

I have not proposed such a duality. Again, the known form is the form of the known. — Dfpolis

This demonstrates a profound misunderstanding of Aristotle. A material object consists of matter and form, and in having matter the actuality of that material object, which is the form of the material object, has accidents which are unknown to human beings. The known form does not consist of the accidents. This is the purpose of the law of identity, to expose this type of sophistry. A thing is the same as itself. It is not the same as the known form or else there would be more than one of the same thing.

Totally agree with this, but it renders meaningless a statement about a single body in the absence of something relative to which motion can be defined. — noAxioms

A statement about a single body is not completely "meaningless", because we can still state properties of the body itself, and this is meaningful. Predication is actually very meaningful. Now, you should consider the distinction between internal and external properties, a distinction which has been quite meaningful in classical philosophy. It seems like the science of physics has no real principles to distinguish these two, the difference between internal change (difference of properties) and external change (locomotion or change of place), and physics wants to reduce, and treat all change as change of place. Internal change would be change of place of internal parts.

The problem with this perspective arises when we get down to the fundamental parts. As I described above in a prior post, there must be base indivisible parts, or else the universe is fundamentally without substance. That's the principle employed by the ancient Greek atomists. If internal change is described exclusively through change of place to internal parts, then internal change to fundamental indivisible parts is ruled out as impossible. Yet if fundamental parts demonstrate internal change, such change is rendered as unintelligible, unless we allow for further division. Then fundamental parts cannot be found unless they are observed to be unchangeable.

If what is being discussed is one body relative to the other body, your choice of wording leaves the second entity unspecified, merely implied, like there’s some embarrassment about it. So say it. Relative to what is nothing immobile? — noAxioms

Relative to the principle of relativity, nothing is immobile. That is, if we take the principle of relativity as our primary premise, and add the observational premise that there are numerous bodies observed to be moving in different ways, we can conclude that noting is immobile. That is the fundamental conclusion, (assumption), which the principle of relativity give us, there is no such thing as "rest" in any truthful, grounded sense.

And here I thought it was the definition of motion that did that. The principle of relativity seems to still hold even if you discard the relative definition of motion, and Einstein’s theories along with it. — noAxioms

Yes, "motion" as defined by the principle of relativity is what renders the concept of "at rest" as obsolete, but only as defined by the principle of relativity. Prior to Galileo's development of the principle of relativity, "at rest" was a valid concept referring to one's position on earth, and motion was defined relative to any location on earth, the earth being "at rest". And, the locations on earth were supposed to be at rest relative to each other. The principle of relativity makes rest a property derived only from locations which are at rest relative to one another (lack of internal change), but these locations are not at rest in the wider context (external change, or change of place). So when motion is defined as change of place relative to what is external to a designated location (the principle of relativity), there is no such thing as "at rest".

If the PoR makes the concept of ‘at rest’ invalid, why does it (or at least the version of PoR that you prefer) reference it? — noAxioms

The principle of relativity creates an artificial, and arbitrary definition of "rest", as "the rest frame". It is not a real rest, because it is moving relative to its environment (external change). So we can designate a number of points, as locations, and say that they are not moving relative to each other (no internal change), and claim to have a rest frame. But this is not a true or real rest, as they move relative to external things. And, as the principles of Einstein's special relativity (time dilation, length contraction) demonstrate to us, there is not even any true internal rest here. We must overlook certain discrepancies to say that they are at rest relative to each other. The locations actually change relative to each other due to the effects of external change, acceleration. Therefore even the internal "rest", or lack of internal change, which is associated with the rest frame, is not a valid "rest".

My apologies for hanging on this point so much, but you seem to contradict yourself regularly, saying that the concept is invalid, but regularly referencing the invalid concept nonetheless. I personally don’t find the concept invalid at all. It’s just a totally different set of definitions with totally different physics than what Einstein proposes. I don’t prefer these alternate definitions, but I cannot prove them wrong. — noAxioms

If you can show me a valid concept of rest, lack of change, which can be maintained consistently along with the principle of relativity as well, I would appreciate the demonstration. Even if we accept locations to be "at rest" relative to each other in an internal way, and deny Einsteinian relativity, these locations are still not at rest in the wider (external) context. And when we start mapping the points which are supposed to be at rest relative to each other, in comparison with external things, we inevitably find minor inconsistencies which cannot be resolved, as demonstrated by Einstein's train example. So we do not have the evidence to adequately support any claim that any multitude of points of location in the material world are actually at rest relative to each other. The need for "spatial expansion" helps to demonstrate the reality of this point.

Basically the problem was that this particular mod hated my guts and would initiate or join any pile-on concerning myself. — Wayfarer

SLX showed extraordinary will power by completely ignoring me no matter what I posted. Banno is similar, but doesn't demonstrate the same will power, and succumbs from time to time.

It appears to me, that what's coming out in this thread, is that there is a form of scientism within which the practitioners attempt to reduce all forms of causation to a single determinist form. This is the manifestation of an urge to reject dualism for monism, and dispel the spiritual woo-hoo. The common method of procedure is to conflate formal cause with final cause, and represent final cause as a type of formal cause, instead of as a distinct form of causation. Ultimately this renders the whole of material, or physical existence as somewhat unintelligible, because the two are fundamentally incompatible.

That appears to be the modern trend in metaphysics, it's well demonstrated by apokrisis. Ultimately, Aristotle's "prime matter" ends up as the first principle, as prior to any ordered or formed existence. And, instead of recognizing the need for a prior actuality ("final cause"), which is demonstrated by Aristotle's cosmological argument, the actuality of ordered material existence (displaying formal causation) is said to "emerge" from prime matter. Of course this is repugnant to the rational mind, to think that order could emerge from disorder, and that is why we need to maintain a separation between pre-material final cause, and post-material formal cause, in the way that Aristotle demonstrated, so that we can maintain the intelligibility of the physical world .