The Human Question

To the person who objects that there is so much other stuff in this universe than that which is essentially connected to humanity, the following question: What would you have expected the universe to look like in order to support just humanity?  would it be only as big as our planet and the sun?  And the moon (for the tides)?  Isn't the world we live in much more interesting than that? Why shouldn't we expect the universe to be incredibly varied and interesting?  Wouldn't that be more reflective of God's greatness?

If all processes in this universe were reversible, then what would a scientific discovery look like?

This book looks promising: http://catalog.umd.edu/F/RKN45D6X1VBMK8RGNYT2TXVB4FBGTYCGYXLKFD5MFNXEVJBIAN-00067?func=full-set-set&set_number=006491&set_entry=000015&format=999

One could not judge that x and y are discrete except by contrasting both of them to a continuum of some sort.

The quotes below are from q. 91 of the supplement to the Summa theologiae. Since Aquinas didn't have a concept of momentum, he thinks the movement of the spheres has either a  an angelic or a supernatural (in the strict sense) cause.  That is problematic, but he allows for an openness of natural things (like spheres) to direction by reason in a way that is consistent with his notions of natural/unnatural&violent.  That is interesting and worth pondering "...  things that are directed to the begetting of  men , such as the movement of the heaven  and the variations of the elements... every body that is moved  naturally  has a place wherein it rests  naturally , whereto it is moved  naturally , and whence it is not moved except by  violence . Now no such place can be assigned to the heavenly body, since it is not more  natural  to the sun to move towards a point in the east than to move away from it, wherefore either its movement would not be altogether  natural , or its

Perhaps free will bends the deterministic universe like gravity does spacetime.  Compare this to movement of waves in StThAq.

http://thomism.wordpress.com/2013/11/20/physical-theory-and-i/

complexity (in the mathematically describable sense) with an end (in the sense of goal, purpose, but including not only those that are the product of deliberation but natural ones as well).  So a natural order would be an order that exists prior to / independently of any deliberation.

Why emergence > mechanism as explanation/and/or description of life the operation of the whole, is something unitary that one could not describe as simply a sum of the interactions of the parts. Why first actuality> emergence as explanation/and/or descritpion think of the act of being as something like an overflow from a spring.  Outside influences don't push the water OUT (mechanistic): rather, they CHANNEL the FLOW.  Here first actuality indicates a kind of initiative that is already and always there.

Rough draft:  Perhaps the higher level is underdetermined and acts in a manner that is, from the perspective of the lawfulness of the lower level, indeterminate in a manner analogous to how the digits in pi seem undetermined to one who is unaware of what they represent.  But at the higher level, they act in a manner that is determined, albeit in a manner that is conditioned by circumstances. And these determinations are best understood in terms of seeking a kind of equilibrium/goal.  The highest level would be that of a rational being that apprehends the good as such, and is, in virtue of its determination to seek this goal, undetermined...free.

Could stand for being as such? ... only the discussable as such?

Eternalism, says Sean Carroll in his lectures on time, is the notion that a scientist, or at least a physicist, has a "view from nowhen" inasmuch as past and future are viewed with a kind of indifference.  This indifference consists of the ability to see that, for any particular particle moving in one direction at a certain speed, it can be conceived of as moving in the opposite direction at same speed.  Since every change involves an interaction of equal and opposed forces, the same process can be reversed while operating according to the same laws of nature.  Consequently, the processes that we witness in our daily life could, in principle, occur in reverse.  One would need a closed system for that to happen, so it makes more sense to say that all of the processes in the universe could together go in an order that is the reverse of what we now see happening.  And in doing so, they would proceed in a manner consistent with the laws of nature.  Of course, this reverse would b

Here's how I understand the reversibility of time.  Suppose you took measurement of everything going on at one instant (wait--to say that is to talk as if there is absolute time!  Wouldn't Einstein have a problem with that?) and somehow reversed the movements indicated by those measurements.  The result would be that everything would continue to work in reverse indefinitely.  For example, a bowling ball being dropped on the ground with a kind of wave of movement being transmitted and dispersed through the earth, would, when played in reverse, amount to the opposite: many very small movements would congeal together and become more intense in a reverse-wave, with the result that the bowling ball would be propelled upwards.  And so it would be for each event that preceded the dropping of the ball... The following claim is made about reversibility: If, per impossible , one could pull this off, history would reverse itself. Someone lying on the ground in a pool of blood would

ST I, q. 105, a. 6, ad 1:  Moving something like water upward, as the heavenly bodies do in the case of the waves, is not violent in the Medieval sense, because they depend upon heavenly bodies for their natural inclination. Reply to Objection 1.  In  natural  things something may happen outside this  natural   order , in two ways. It may happen by the  action  of an agent which did not give them their natural  inclination; as, for example, when a man moves a heavy body upwards, which does not owe to him its  natural  inclination to move downwards; and that would be against nature . It may also happen by the  action  of the agent on whom the  natural  inclination depends; and this is not against  nature , as is clear in the ebb and flow of the tide, which is not against  nature ; although it is against the  natural  movement of water in a downward direction; for it is owing to the influence of a heavenly body, on which the  natural  inclination of lower bodies depends. Therefore sinc

Wouldn't it be more parsimonious to posit one world soul rather than giving every piece of the universe its own concsioussness?

Isn't it possible to interpret space-time as not allowing for any simultaneity whatsoever?  That is, if we kept pushing the same line of reasoning that would support the claim that we and the folks in some galaxy "far, far away" cannot rightly be said to exist at the same time, then couldn't one maintain that no two things, no matter how close, exist at the same time? If so, how might that relate to the concept of "now" that would seem to be a necessary condition of humans sharing something in common with each other (including those we find in scientific practices)?  How would it relate to the internal unity of things (think of DaVinci's drawing of a man with his arms extended: do the right and left are coexist?? Couldn't this give rise to a kind of temporal monadism (on in which there are no wholes because every point in space-time has its own "now")? Wouldn't the common sense notions that make human endeavors like science possib

Given: that evolution occurs through chance. The conclusion that evolution is not teleological makes perfect sense if one is a thoroughgoing reductionist, for in that case, evolution is nothing more than complexification.  So assuming the latter, then yes, evolution offers zero evidence of teleology.   But to argue on the basis of the apparently ateleological nature of evolution that reductionism is true is to put the cart before the horse.  And that is precisely what folks do: they ignore the question of whether their understanding of life forms, especially what we call higher life forms, ARE more than just more complex versions of non-living things. The other alternative is that living forms have a kind of UNITY in their complexity and that higher life forms have a higher kind of unity, etc.  If all this is true, then the chanciness of evolution is like the chanciness of an IED: when it goes off is a matter of chance, while that it is there to go off is not.   That ph

That is, the outermost sphere is a continuous source of disequilibrium, which keeps the four elements from settling into their four levels, but instead stirs things up so that complex compounds are formed from which life might arise. This concept is a mind of ancient recognition of the need for disequlibrium as a necessary condition for life.  The fact that Aquinas et alia, not recognizing (as Jean Buridan did recognize) that this sort of motion could, once started, continue on its own, must have a rational source, is a kind of anthropic argument, albeit a defective one, for a rational source of life (albeit one less than the divine, for the primum mobile is not God).

This thought experiment, conjured up by Maxwell, starts with two boxes that are roughly at equilibrium with the normal levels of fluctuation.  Maxwell asks us to imagine a demon that is able to open and shut teeny-tiny doors between the two boxes.  These doors open and shut very quickly without creating any significant entropy in either box.  Their timing is precisely controlled by the demon so that high speed particles enter one door going in the direction of box A and low speed ones travel only in the other direction. As Sean B. Conner points out, this is a good metaphor for life, for it constantly creates a low disequilibrium, which it uses to perform life functions. I would like to point out that the metaphor of the demon, inamusch as it is a rational, illustrates how life seems to come from mind. In order to keep track of the movement of particles, the demon relies upon notes which need to be erased in order to make room for new information.  This erasure itself creates entr

Sean B. Connery, in lecture 14 of his series on Time, points out that life slows down entropy in the earth biosphere just a teeny-tiny bit.  It proceeds close to 100% of the same speed that it would have had there been no life, the difference between the two rates being 1/4billionof what it would be had there been no life.  Or was 400 billion?

Isn't the term "operational definition" a very terse admission that science is inherently anthropometric? For the word "operation" comes from the word "opus" which is a human action.  And that action is the act of measuring, an action involving anticipation, imagination, desire, will, deliberation, memory, etc.--none of which is ever given as such in a manner that can be measured.  Measurement always has a human signature.  That is, in measuring we are always comparing the measured to our own agency, and that agency (including when it is engaged in the act of measuring) is itself is never given as something that could be measured. I

Could it be that the primum mobile postulated as both finite and rational by Aquinas (following Aristotle) allows us to put agency at the center of cosmological arguments for God? Not so much because it's plain silly to argue for such a being, but rather, because, inasmuch as a being is like this one (i.e., inasmuch as it is, like us, an agent, engaged in productive behavior) evidences something greater?

That's the official name, Sean Carroll tells me (in lecture 13 on Time) for what I call a "self-defeating statement."

Is there a combination of physical events that would constitute your being as convinced that 2+3=4 as you are presently convinced that it equals 5?

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Perhaps the best way to understand entropy is to look at it as the tendency of things to arrive at equilibrium.  Many non-living processes head in that direction, but not all.  For an example of an exception, consider the movement of electrons around the nucleus: that movement itself doesn't seem to be heading toward any equilibrium… unless one considers the tendency of atoms to combine into molecules so as to fill the electron shells.  If reductionism is false, then isn't the fact that organisms continually create disequilibrium at one level, while seeking another equilibrium (for example a full stomach) quite relevant?   Of course, entropy as a law is about systems, not individuals…. right?

To understand  the necessity assigned to laws of nature, we must realize that, while these laws may be necessarily true in the abstract, they are not so in the individual.  That is because as generalizations, they abstract away other influences upon the behavior of individual.  Given that all other influences are NOT present, then YES, the sort of thing pointed out in the law may necessarily behave in the manner described by the law.  But with the application of the alw to an individual case, all that was abstracted away comes back into play, and with that concretion the necessity found in the abstract law dissipates like fog in the sunlight. Take for example the speed of light.  The claim that it travels 186K miles/second is true-- in a vacuum.  It travels more slowly through our own atmosphere and especially underwater.  That it travels more slowly under these conditions is not a violation of the law, for the law was an abstraction. Even if reductive materialism is true, it is st

Think of a truth -- x --about something going on here and now. When I say to others that I know x, I not only expect that they will agree because they see what I see, I also expect others to whom I have not yet spoken to see and agree to the truth of what I've said, should my proposal come to their attention.  In fact, I expect that all other rational beings, inasmuch as they have an adequate grasp of reality, will see the matter as I do, should they be confronted with the evidence that I've seen.  Of course, every human being's grasp is inadequate to grasp all truths, and my own grasp of things is always somewhat inadequate and hence in need of some correction.  But inasmuch as I am correct, those with an adequate grasp of the matter in question will see things as I do and agree that x is true. Openness to the possibility of any other ADEQUATELY acquainted rational being's seeing the truth of x is a necessary condition for my claiming that x is true.  By "o

Does rest really trump motion for Aristotle if the spheres -- the highest non-living beings -- are always moving?  And if Aristotelian rest is more like an embrace than it is like inertness. How does God as you understand Him know? Through perception? Wouldn't God in order to satisfy your moral imperatives have to continually do miracles to prevent harm by performing miracles, so that nature would become superfluous much of the time? Wouldn't the one God have to be many (in the sense that God would not be the same before and after)? If I am not who I was yesterday:  wouldn't it be impossible for me to recognize abstract objects as such? Wouldn't God in His practical reasoning have to be guided by an abstract object (goodness)? Aren't you confusing freedom with indeterminacy?