Infinite Regress and Empirical Reality: Zeno´s Paradox and Thomas Aquinas´ (Thomistic) Thought

Apologetics of Emptiness Apologetics of Emptiness 11 months ago (edited) @Thomistic Disputations I was using your own example as a demonstration of the emptiness of the reasoning you are having at 11:33 (section "argument II"). In this argument you are using the infinite regress based on an effect "having its motion in another" as a reasoning to negate an infinite set of causes and claim there is a first cause / first mover giving its actuality to the motion. 11:59 "having an infinite series of things in motion would not solve the problems because none of these things have the principle of motion primarily" But the issue with using "actuality" or "primarily" like that is that it fails to represent a basic example of motion, such as the car. In the case of a car, the motion of the cylinder is caused by the spark in the gas. I hope we agree on that. We can decompose that if you like : spark ignites the reaction of the molecules of the gas, causing heat, causing pressure to rise, causing pressure to apply to the surface of the cylinder, causing the cylinder to move up. But for the sake of simplicity let's say the spark causes the motion of the cylinder. I hope we agree this is a "per se" causal relationship, again trying to use your terms of the problem. Would you say the motion of the cylinder has its actuality from the spark? I am just asking to clarify, but my point is beyond that. The thing is... the motion of the cylinder and the spark DO NOT COEXIST. Indeed, when the cylinder is still moving up, the spark is long gone extinct. Even if the "per se" cause of the motion can be traced back to the spark, those are not existing together in the same time. The motion has its actuality in another that pre-existed, earlier in time. The motion of the cylinder is actual, but it's cause that gave it its actuality... is no more. To go back to your conclusion at 12:22 replacing paintbrush by cylinder here : "(the cylinder) does not have the principle of motion primarily, so it must receive this principle from something that does, the first mover". No, you have failed to prove that. There CAN be an infinite series of CAUSES, no problem with that. The only problem you have with that is you are trying to force this notion of "actuality" unto it, when it just doesn't fit to describe a changing process. Apologetics of Emptiness 3 days ago (edited) @Green Peacemst "Infinity applied to any of the component of a spark to cylinder chain of events would prevent the chain of events from happening". No it doesn't, the video has failed to demonstrate that. That's all I am saying. Also, I hardly understand how you can in one comment hold together, on one side a relationship between my car's cylinder movement and something as remote and infinitely distant as Karl Benz, and on the other side say an infinite series of causes is not supported by empirical analysis. My main point of disagreement overall is that, for a cause to produce an effect, the cause has to change (and one could argue disappear). And that change can be observed empirically in all phenomenons. Once you introduce that in the line of reasoning of the video, that wonky notion of "finding its motion in another" and the infinite regress it claims to point to, is just non-existent. The infinite regress in that line of reasoning is problematic only if you remove time and change from the problem. There can be other lines of reasoning not requiring that, but this one in particular does. Ultimately, one of the failure of the reasoning of the video, is that it fails to consider reality as continuous, impermanent and interdependent. It is stuck considering objects and events as independent and discrete entities or states. It's limited to thinking time as a series of instants, rather than a duration. Once you get to view time as duration, and reality and continuous, an infinite chain of causality can literally be observed every moment, everywhere. Green Peacemst Green Peacemst 2 days ago ​ @Apologetics of Emptiness The video´s own philosophical domain language isn´t too difficult to clean up with the language of empirical scientific philosophy. And you show how easy it is to confuse notions, apparently by basing yourself in scientific materialism. You extend your assumption of physicalist truth to the term "infinity" and it´s all wrapped up in your own present to you. That´s not how reality works. You make an assertion about "reality" as "continuous, impermanent, and interdependent" relating to "time and change" which even sounds spiritual, or Buddhist. I see that you use the term "line of reasoning," but not "perception." So, let´s see. You also try to assert "an infinite chain of causality" observable "every moment, everywhere." And then suddenly you apply a name. A human symbolic sound that can be used by the evolved human primate animal capacity combining tool-making cognition and interpersonal communication. Non-verbal awareness through meditation permits perception to perceive. Relaxing permits perception, and then the next stage, our awareness of our perception. That also involves a state of consciousness, conventionally referred to as Left/Right brain thinking, serial linguistic or spatial creative. Your assertions of "continuity" can be reasoned, but psychology has studied human perception, and identified "awareness packet units." Frogs, in a fun analogy, have evolved powerful perception faculties to track flies in motion. We have our bio-physical limits. So, welcome back to Earth. Awareness of symbolic thought then has led to useful knowledge like Ogden and Richards triangle of reference: symbol-referent-thought of referent, rich in implications. I recall Bertrand Russell approached this issue in On Denoting. So, now, your citing qualitative variables and dimensions like continuity, impermanence, and interdependence is confusing the issue of the infinite. None of that establishes the unending nature of empirical reality. Zeno´s paradox is an act of philosophical imagination framed in an imagined context. Combining all achievements in empirical knowledge, including the scientific and psychological philosophical, we observe that you are imagining a spark-cylinder action sequence, and failing to distinguish your imagining an infinite regress willfully with empirical reality. In reality, you run into the turner of the car key. Continuity meets the discontinuity of discrete units of different kinds in a human conceived sequence in the case of spark to cylinder. Impermanence as a quality is in fact opposed to "infinite" anything, much less any context of extended permanence. There are forms of temporary permanence, although all permanence in the physical plane is temporary, a point not adequately raised by Buddhists, in my understanding. You are confusing all these qualities with the abstraction that is the concept of a mathematical infinity. Scientific knowledge has traced matter - energy down to atoms and subatomic particles and the Higgs´ particle in the Higgs field. Discrete units with identifiable qualities. Not "infinite." My Karl Benz reference relates to the shift from your imaginary scenario fixation to empirical reality involving an ignition key turner, and extends that into historical time to mark a significant form of human technology use, its invention by individuals. Not its infinite unending qualities. As for the enormity of the macrocosmic Universe and the extent of diminutive microcosmic units, enormously large or extensively small numbers are not infinite. That´s where the Big Bang makes a fine modern reference. Yet Aquinas showed the power of the Judeo-Christian theological metaphysics and the Creator God from before Moses to Jesus and Jesus´ legacy. No space between A and B is infinite, as in Zeno´s proposed paradox. Aquinas´ motion argument, thus, really is a strong one. There is a First Cause, and it is transcendental and powerful, along with being immaterial, ie not of the material plane. Understanding the human mind, biologically evolved into a symbol-using phenomenon with agency. It is a dual interactionist system, reflecting the expression "Mind over Matter." In your case, you´re not quite aware of the nature of your own mind. Buddhism helpfully teaches the powerful basic awareness of perception and the sense-perceived world.