there's something i don't understand about this. was there something that was purely potential before god came to actualize it?
No, there was nothing except God.
>implying actually and potentiality are anything more than human tools for explanation
>purely actual
>that shitty argument against infinity
>ignoring the problem of induction
No because there is no 'potential' or 'actual'
OP, delete your thread. We have a thread about the first way on the front page.
>>329265
Counterarguments ahoy;
Particles decay spontaneously without external influence; they transition from potential to actual without requiring motion. Ergo by observing the universe we find something that tells aquinas to go fuck himself.
For bonus points; given superposition states collapse under observation and we observe the collapse of superposition states; there cannot be something that has observed the state before us. Hence there does not exist an omniscient being.
>>329265
>before god
God exists independent of space-time.
There is only the eternal now.
>>329315
>For bonus points; given superposition states collapse under observation and we observe the collapse of superposition states; there cannot be something that has observed the state before us. Hence there does not exist an omniscient being.
Well, I can tell you know jack shit about physics.
>>329348
n qubit system with initial preparation in |1>, iteratively CNOT between them for entanglement, apply unitary operation, measure using whatever experimental system is appropriate (tomography, gate voltage in the high spin orbit coupling regime, I dont give a shit) and record results
Repeat experiment with longer times between state preparation and measurement, observe error rate on entanglement. If error rate is time independent then there exists an omniscient being who is doing measurements as soon as the state is created; if not then you've got loss to outside noise. Either that or now your omniscient being is waiting to do the observation just before you do along with planting dinosaur bones to test our faith.
>>329295
this. it's a word trick. aquinas found a combination of words that refer to abstract concepts and can be strung together into grammatically correct english sentences that are ultimately gibberish and don't say anything meaningful.
the only argument more deceitful than this one is the modal ontological argument for god which is LITERALLY a word trick, even more than this. you can't define things into existence.
>>329265
There are actually a lot of problems with it. Here is another question: Why call it immaterial if it can interact with material things?
>>329380
no dude, read the ontological argument. it's literally just a word trick. "god necessarily exists, therefore god exists". they stick other premises in there to fluff it up and obscure the structure of the argument. this potentiality and actuality nonsense only exists in aquinas' head.
>>329390
It's not interaction in the Newtonian sense.
>>329265
>as the grounding of all true propositions, it would not have knowledge but BE knowledge itself
Wat... So by the ice example at the top the nuclear power plant doesn't have ice but IS ice itself? What in the fuck?
>>329380
>Well, I can tell you know jack shit about physics.
>are you actually retarded?
You're not even responding to the content of the posts, just going for the ad hominems; keep it classy.
>>329396
How is that relevant? Tons of material things interact in non-newtonian ways
>>329394
>strawmans internally
>>329398
not the same guy, and there is literally no content in your post.
>>329265
If lacking knowledge means have the potential to have more knowledge, then doesn't having knowledge mean having the potential to have less knowledge? It doesn't make sense. Like the water has the potential have less energy and become ice. How can total actualization ever occur? You go in one direction and just gain potentiality in the other direction.
>>329400
MY BAD
>it's possible that god necessarily exists
A MORE CLEVER WORDTRICK BUT STILL A WORD TRICK.
>>329403
>Someone claims that I'm making shit up
>Go into the technical detail of why what I am saying is correct
>"There's no content in your post"
Ad hominem away.
>>329399
I'm trying to say that causality isn't really an actual thing so much.
>>329265
Oh look, a theist proposing yet another argument for deism. Why am I not surprised?
>>329423
>I'm going to call my incoherent rambling "technical detail"
>pointing out that I can't put words together effectively is ad hominem!!
You don't even know the definition of ad hom.
>>329430
Would you expect an argument for deism from an atheist?
Because I can understand the reason for your lack of surprise even if you can't. It's cause it's fucking obvious.
>>329430
Why can't it be used by theists and deists? Its only for the existence of God, not any particular sort of God
>>329364
I've got a better idea. Since you've got a handle here, explain what you mean by "observer."
This will be good.
>>329443
This argument Isn't for the existence of a deist God. just a God in general.
>>329443
So?
Also you're assuming we're theists.
>>329458
>Not sure if trolling or just stupid
quality response
>>329443
That's not surprising. Arguments for something are always distinct from arguments about the particular qualities of the thing, and second depends on the former.
>>329431
Let me try this again for you; you appear to be utterly incapable of actually attacking the argument being made and so are skirting around with accusations that there either (a) is no argument, or (b) the argument being made is not understandable
Just another run down, because it appears that you require repetition to understand what is being said. In quantum mechanics, and as is experimentally observable, the observation of an event alters it. Given we know what the state of a system will be if it is observed, we know if something has observed it before we have. In particulars, a superposition state will have collapsed and we will be unable to perform quantum teleportation. Given that we have experimentally verified that quantum teleportation is possible, there does not exist an omniscient being that has observed the state before we did.
If you believe the above to be "technobabble" or "bullshit", then I happily invite you to read up on it yourself in such journals as nature, or science. If you wish to continue failing to actually address the point that is being made while claiming that what I am saying has "no meaning" or indicates that "I dont know physics" while providing no counterargument or evidence yourself, then I'll link a couple of relevant papers and leave you to it. For your scientifically illiterate benefit, you may assume that the words "superposition" and "entanglement" mean the same thing.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v518/n7540/full/nature14246.html
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v390/n6660/full/390575a0.html
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v390/n6660/abs/390575a0.html
>>329458
Well you don't have to believe something in order to argue its case. Though I think it helps on a certain level.
>>329463
>quantum mechanics
>the observation of an event alters it
you are literally a meme
>>329462
Sure, but I have NEVER seen a legitimate argument for theism put forth ever. I even know the names of all the common arguments for deism, and I've argued with theists about these deistic proofs but I'm always waiting for theists to actually put forward their justification for being theists rather than deists. It just never happens.
/rant
>>329463
>Given that we have experimentally verified that quantum teleportation is possible, there does not exist an omniscient being that has observed the state before we did.
What?
>>329463
All that means is that quantum particles are potent enough that they can be moved by observation.
Don't break you arm jerking yourself off over quantum entanglement or decay. Knowing shit about physics isn't the same thing as knowing philosophy.
>>329475
That's usually because the internet is full of people demanding proofs of God, and very few people interested in the nature of God.
Demands for argument for the Christian God, as opposed to any other god (an argument for Theism certainly is NOT by default an argument for Deism), are almost universally argued in bad faith, as the opponent is not willing to actually stake out the position of any actual alternative deity.
>>329475
Well a simple answer is that they've probably personally experienced what they cannot otherwise explain as anything other than God and don't need to prove it to you.
Not to mention it's impossible to prove you're actually experiencing anything at all.
But the first step to arguing theism is the establishment of deism.
>>329497
>divine revelation
Yeah, I used to do psychedelics too.
>>329499
>Well a simple answer is that they've probably personally experienced what they cannot otherwise explain as anything other than God
That actually brings up an interesting question. What kind of experience could this possibly be? How could it not be a hallucination or a display by some advanced aliens that are fucking with you? I mean, how could you be SURE that it is absolutely a certain God?
>>329390
Yes. It was called bullshit semantics. And then God touched and lo, he saw all apolegetics being born from it. From a cloud of pure linguistic nonsense, every apolegetic was realized.
From the first con artist to the last, all were actualized into existence. And God saw that it was good
>>329474
Eyy, just keep ignoring the evidence
Observation of quantum events obviously alters them; if you observe a photon you destroy it, and as a result have interacted with the experiment. In bulk this has no impact, on quantum scales that photon was your qubit and you just caused an error in your computation.
I strongly suggest you read the links that I'm posting before claiming everything is wrong; I can start linking wikipedia articles too if you actually want to learn something.
>>329477
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v518/n7540/full/nature14246.html
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v390/n6660/full/390575a0.html
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v390/n6660/abs/390575a0.html
Quantum teleportation works by entangling two qubits, I give you one and keep one myself. I then apply an operation on my qubit using another qubit and tell you a single bit of classical information relating to what basis I selected. Using this information you can then measure your qubit in that basis, and as they were entangled I have "teleported" the quantum information to you using a classical channel.
However, observation of an entangled state collapses it, and thus if the state was observed before I applied by operation then the entire phenomenon would not occur. We observe that it does occur and can reliably replicate it over distances of (currently) 137Km, as a result there does not exist some omniscient actor who observed my state at any time while I was doing this teleportation.
And an omniscient actor that fails to observe something, isn't.
>>329484
Wrong argument, my attack on the notions of aquinus was earlier. Particles decay spontaneously without external influence. As a result by aquinus, they move from potential to actual without the influence of another mover. This has been experimentally observed for nearly a century.
>>329509
Man, that is the most weak-ass response ever. It doesn't even properly address most of the critiques. Also, you didn't answer my question about immaterialism.
>>329508
>Yeah, I used to do psychedelics too.
Yeah, I used to do psychedelics too.
And trust me when I say that the experience of the divine is basically the deepest and most meaningful of all possible shit ever.
>how could you be SURE
the same way I'm sure I exist.
>>329265
Movement can't occur without time, so time must have existed before anything moved
>>329518
>And trust me when I say that the experience of the divine is basically the deepest and most meaningful of all possible shit ever
That doesn't make it true
>>329514
>if you observe a photon you destroy it
>>329522
I'm saying that I know the difference between hallucination and reality.
And the mundane is much closer to hallucination than than which is truly real anyways.
>>329518
>muh properly basic belief
look bud if you're seeing and hearing shit that isn't there you might want to go see a shrink.
>>329533
>isn't there
that's a mighty big implication you've got there
probably get that checked out
>>329531
the sad fact of the matter is that schizos don't know the difference between hallucination and reality. they literally cant tell. its all real to them.
>>329531
>And the mundane is much closer to hallucination than than which is truly real anyways.
Except that fucking wrong. If I see a car drive by I never consider the possibility that I'm hallucinating. If I see a purple dinosaur eat my family then I'm pretty certain that I am
>>329523
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_eye
Observation of a photon by a human results in the photon exciting an electron within your eye and produce a signal that is transmitted (or not) to your brain. The photon ceases to exist.
Or are you claiming that by standing in the path of light you do not cast a shadow in the frequencies corresponding to the absorption spectra of the various molecules in your body?
>>329531
>I'm saying that I know the difference between hallucination and reality
No, you simply think that you do
>>329541
It's easy enough to confuse the two, given that all we usually call reality is in actuality it's appearance to us.
Hallucination is just an aberration of the normal apparition.
>>329563
>really?
Yes, really. Why the hell would I consider the possibility that I'm hallucinating every second of the day? I'm not a solipsist.
>>329543
>Observation of a photon by a human results in the photon exciting an electron within your eye
Oh, so observation happens strictly before the photon excites an electron in your eye? Then how did we see the photon?
what happened to conservation of matter?
seriously, read a book.
>>329568
You don't have to be, and maybe you should.
Are you saying that your senses have never deceived you? In those fairly regular moments in which they have, were you not "hallucinating"?
>>329573
The words individually make sense, but together are senseless.
Let me try googling "conservation of matter", just to demonstrate what an uneducated idiot you are here. Oh look, we immediately jump to conservation of mass, which I will presume is actually what you meant.
Let's make this quick and easy for you;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation_of_mass#Matter_is_not_perfectly_conserved
Conservation of mass only holds under mass energy equivalence;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass%E2%80%93energy_equivalence
Photons are massless (the little box on the right)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photon
And the energy from the photon is what excites the electron, the photon goes away but the energy is conserved.
You are an idiot, shut up or ask to be taught if you don't understand what is being spoken about.
>>329593
faggot
>>329600
And here come the ad hominems again; I take it you've given up pretending to not be an uneducated dickweed.
>>329607
elitist cum-guzzling sycophantic sophomore
>>329613
Perhaps elitist, I'm not a fan of cum or sycophantic behaviour, and I'm not a sophomore. But that aside, at least I get the satisfaction of being correct; while you have been demonstrated to be incorrect in almost every statement you have made here today.
>>329607
it's not ad hominem if its not part of an argument
it's just an insult smart man
>>329617
You literally had to google "conservation of matter" to figure out it was the incorrect phrase.
You are clearly fucking 15 years old.
>>329624
No, I wanted to emphasise just how wrong my opponent was because the statement was so incorrect. Could you please attack the content of my argument rather than these silly tangents into my method of presentation.
So an open invitation; does anyone else want to come and debate Aquinas?
>>329644
Sure, so long as we begin with the assumption that he was right about completely everything.
>>329644
He's dead
>>329366
Sort of. Potential energy = kinetic energy
I read some Aquinas for a biology essay, I had gone a bit off-piste
It just all read like a string of assumptions built upon the last ending with "therefore god exists"
Then potential refutations which seemed to mischaracterise arguments also ending with "therefore god exists"
>we can come to assume God exists through observation of the natural world
>that is, unless I don't understand the natural world, and especially if observation about the natural world disagree with my arguments
Aquinas threads are always great.
>>329315
First, just to clarify, motion=change in Aristotelian terminology.
>particles decay spontaneous without external influence
Without external influence from other material things that are able to be dealt with by the scientific method you mean. You have to be able to deal with the argument against self-change in order to claim that something can be self changing. We should also note that in Unless you can show why this argument is false then we don't have any reason to believe that something can be self changing, and if you claim that our science cannot ground the change on anything natural, then it seems that the best explanation comes from God ( since he is proven to exist if your objection does not hold).
1. The subject of a change must be in potency to x. (Definition of change)
2. Causes must “contain” their effects/ effects must "resemble" or be based in their cause. (Causal Axiom 1)
3. Hence the cause of a change must be in act with respect to x. (From [2] and the definition of change)
4. Proximate causes must be spatio-temporally concurrent with their immediate effects. (Causal Axiom 2)
5. It is impossible for one and the same thing to be at once in potency and act with respect to the same and according to the same. (Application of the Law of Non-Contradiction to potency and act)
Conclusion: Therefore, Anything that changes must be changed by another.
>>329394
But Aquinas was against the ontological argument.....
>>329430
Aquinas' argument demonstrates a first sustaining cause that is active at each moment, He proves an active theistic God, not a deist God who creates the world and then leaves it be.
>>329463
Why should we assume that an experiment that grounds certain properties of creatures is going to apply to God ? Sure we can know is some creature has observed something before we have. Why assume that the way God observes something is going to be just the same as a way a creature observes something and have the same effects ?
>>329315
m8, you're algorithmic understanding of mechQ is making you forget something important: "collapse" is only meaningful on a certain subspace relevant to the observable you're measuring. You can never have a particle "completely collapsed", it doesn't mean anything. If you're collapsed on the y-axis for spin then you're not collapsed on the x-axis for spin, and so on.
Also, a more pedant point: "we observe the collapse" is impossible, the wavefunction status is NOT an observable.
>>335132
Just to accentuate my last point.
If God did have observation based knowledge of everything( why this is the only kind of knowledge he could have needs to be explained ), then it would be consistent with the science that what we call the "unobserved state" is just a state when only God has observed that which we are talking about. Then relevant property changes are made due to creatures observing it from this state of having been only been observed by God.
The evidence is entirely silent on if this is the case or not, so I don't think there is any reason to treat this as an argument against God's omnipotence.
>>329265
Remember this proof is not about causes stretching back in time ( Aquinas accepts that we can infinite causes in time stretching back in infinite time), but rather what God is doing at every moment after he created the world. The initial act of creation would be more properly a straight creatio ex nihilo rather than going from potency to act.
>>329390
>time passing
>not a change in state
kek
>>335242
>Aquinas accepts that we can infinite causes
hell no
>Now in efficient causes it is not possible to go on to infinity, because in all efficient causes following in order, the first is the cause of the intermediate cause, and the intermediate is the cause of the ultimate cause, whether the intermediate cause be several, or only one. Now to take away the cause is to take away the effect. Therefore, if there be no first cause among efficient causes, there will be no ultimate, nor any intermediate cause. But if in efficient causes it is possible to go on to infinity, there will be no first efficient cause, neither will there be an ultimate effect, nor any intermediate efficient causes; all of which is plainly false. Therefore it is necessary to admit a first efficient cause, to which everyone gives the name of God.
>>329509
Did you seriously use the idea that cause and consequence can be concurrent to defend Aquinas? Because you should know he rejects that idea and claims the reason something can't be self-caused is because then it would precede itself.
Also the argument against infinite regression is certainly not "logical":
>If everything in the series only had derived actuality, then there would be nothing for them to derive their actuality from
To which I reply: yes there would be, it would be the previous one.
>>335279
Those are all simultaneous causes all acting in one moment. Causes acting across time( accidental causes, which are more vague necessary conditions for a case of causation rather than the sufficient cause) can go on infinitely. In an Aristotelean universe where there is infinite time stretching backwards, there would be an infinity of accidental causes stretching back throughout time- Aquinas accepts that this is physically possible- thus an infinity of accidental causes is possible.
>>335346
The problem would be that the previous one would not have actuality, neither would anything in the series. If you have a series of causes that have their actuality derivatively then each one needs the actuality to come from elsewhere, if every cause in the series is like this then there can be no actuality in the series what so ever because there is nothing for anything in the series to gain actuality from in the first place.
Your first comment is also incorrect. Things can't be self caused because of the argument I specified here >>335132 .
It is true that something can't cause something when it doesn't exist, much less its own existence. But that is irrelevant as far as the point goes. The cause causing the effect concurrently in the moment the effect arises has nothing to do with something existing before it exists.It is about a cause existing and causing in the exact moment the effect comes about. Causation is first and foremost based on an ontological priority of dependence, not a priority of temporal precedence.
Cause and effect being primarily simultaneous is a very standard Aristotelean view that pretty much all of the Scholastics adopted.
>>335464
>Aquinas accepts that this is physically possible
Fucking where? I'm gonna need a quote on that.
>If you have a series of causes that have their actuality derivatively then each one needs the actuality to come from elsewhere
Yes, the previous one.
>if every cause in the series is like this then there can be no actuality in the series what so ever because there is nothing for anything in the series to gain actuality from in the first place.
Yes, there is, the previous one.
>Your first comment is also incorrect.
Is it?
>"There is no case known (neither is it, indeed, possible) in which a thing is found to be the efficient cause of itself; for so it would be prior to itself, which is impossible."
Pretty sure this is exactly what Aquinas says.
>>335495
" By faith alone do we hold, and by no demonstration can it be proved, that the world did not always exist"( ST 1a 46.2 c)
Just look up the literature on Aquinas on the Eternity of the World, it is a really important topic in Aquinas scholarship in general since his view was controversial at the time.
All these causes only have actuality insofar as something else gives them it- each one can only grant actuality to another cause insofar as they are being granted actuality in that same moment themselves by another. This means that if we find actuality in A, and A has actuality derivatively then the actuality cant be explained by it, if we go back to B and B has actuality derivatively then the explanation of the actuality has not yet been given, it has only been differed to another explanation that is just as impoverished as the last. Unless we have a first cause acting in that simultaneous moment all the causes are actualized then we can't explain how there is any actuality in the series at all. Therefore because such a series has actuality but cannot in principle have its actuality explained, it is incoherent- the whole notion of a causal series of this sort breaks down without something that is essentially actual, and not just accidentally so.
The fact of the matter is that something is being posited in the series that none of the members can account for.
Temporal priority isn't the only kind of priority. There is temporal priority, priority of presupposition ( one must be prior to two because to have two things you must also have one thing). There is priority in demonstration ( the premises are prior to the conclusion). There is priority of value, and priority of "nature"- which is the causal priority of a cause to its effect in the simultaneous moment. Thomas is talking about the 5th kind if priority here.
>>329509
Is not the Aristotelian concept of actual and potential an induction from naturalistic observation? Aristotle argues that the senses are the source of all knowledge, so if modern observations contradict this understanding, you cannot defend it by saying its a purely metaphysical claim not related to physical observations.
>>335642
It still functions as a metaphysical principle insofar as it is a general feature of reality ( change) as opposed to something specific from a particular discipline like physics or biology. The latter requires the former metaphysically insofar as metaphysics is the science of being, where physics is the science of physical beings and biology is the science of living physical beings,etc. We can read metaphysics off of nature as well, physics is something derivative from that reading.
The text is a bit too small for me, what exactly was being denied from modern science ? Usually what happens is that it is shown that the modern science doesn't actually stand as an argument against the metaphysics, but rather the conclusions that are derived from the science that are said to contradict the metaphysics are faulty.
>>335663
basically it goes into the problem of motion. If you've read metaphysics you know Aristotle was very concerned with this, and dismissed older theories for not providing an explanation of movement.
on a the subjects of chains of causes, The middle text points out that the examples cited in the left are discounted by a modern understanding of physics. the right column says this does not matter since the metaphysical principle is not dependent on physical phenomena.
I say that just throws Aristotle's theories on their head, at his point were just taking stuff we like from his work and using it ad hoc to justify a concept of God.
>>335694
If it is the comment about Newton's physics then that comment is solid. Newton's laws only give us a mathmatical formulas about what is happening, not why it happens or how it happens. Newton actually believed the same as Aquinas did, that God was sustaining things in each moment that they moved with causal power. He just wasn't interested in doing metaphysics and wanted to get a mathematical abstraction that experiments could be done with. "Laws of nature" are just generalizations we use to unify individual phenomena, invoking a law of nature isn't enough to explain physical phenomena. Rather the "law of nature" is explained by the physical phenomena itself. That is where the green text commentator erred, by not understanding what it is that science actually does, and what it is that metaphysics does.
Edward Feser has a good paper on this topic ( the problem of motion).
http://faculty.fordham.edu/klima/SMLM/PSMLM10/PSMLM10.pdf
From what I'm seeing, the general problem with the green text is not that science they invoke is wrong, its that they don't actually understand the science in the first place, and where it is and is not relevant to the argument at hand. They also show a massive inability to grasp what Aquinas is even saying or what the Aristotelian concepts even are about.
