Perhaps, the purpose of the sport of baseball is sport. You know that "sport" is something other than "military action", or preparation for military a...
You finally see the contradiction then? Matter for Aristotle is "never a principle of actuality", that we agree on. Yet under your interpretation, Ari...
OK, so the question is, will you adhere to the analogy? As civil laws order social behaviour through the means of the free will choices of human being...
I don't think I said that the soul is moved. It is said to be "actual", or active. Change and motion are descriptions of material bodies, the soul is ...
To say both, that matter is a "dynamic potency", and, "never a principle of actuality", is itself contradictory. Your second statement is a correct re...
OK, so my point is, that if the thing being described is reality, then why not call that thing being described "reality" rather than "laws of reality"...
OK, I agree with this, the discontinuity is with respect to form. Now the question which Aristotle asks, is where does the new form come from. It cann...
Aren't these the two essential aspects of free will.. First, we need to cancel our urges so that our actions are not merely reflections of, or "caused...
Do you think that anyone ever seriously doubted the existence of free will? And people like Libet, aren't they just trying to understand free will rat...
When something ceases to be, or comes to be, this is, by definition, discontinuity. One is when a thing which was, now is not, and the other is when a...
I don't see your point. You appear to have misunderstood me. Right, physicists expect things to continue to be, in the future, the way that they have ...
Here's a coupe questions concerning that quote from Einstein. What principle do you think he uses to claim that inductive reason cannot derive A (the ...
The appearance of gravity is dependent on the existence of mass or energy, therefore it is a property of these things. The occurrence of gravity induc...
To claim an "invariant form of action", is to make a generalization about action. How do you jump from making such a generalization about action to th...
If gravity is the property of something, (say the universe, or things in the universe), then it is not a natural law, it is a property, so it should b...
Having posted the concept, I would suggest about ten to fifteen minutes of time to reply. If the debate period was designated as two hours, this would...
Your ramblings are rather meaningless until we define substantial change. I've offered you a definition of substantial change. "Does "substantial chan...
I don't agree. As I said, I know some physicists, and they do not practise physics as if the descriptive laws of physics represent some "laws of natur...
I think we've already agreed, implicitly, to that. Let me see if I can understand what you mean here, and why I have difficulty with it. First, I see ...
Obviously, that is exactly what I said I am not doing, so your capacity for misinterpretation is overwhelming. Actually, you are making the reductioni...
No I don't think there's any surprise here. I know some physicists, and they recognize that the laws of physics are descriptive principles based in in...
This demonstrates your misunderstanding of the categories of matter and form. This is a categorical separation, it is not a dichotomy of dialectical o...
Did you read earlier in the thread where I quoted Aristotle's primary definition of the soul. It's Bk.2 Ch.1 You seemed to be arguing that if the soul...
No it doesn't show this as false. It says that the soul is not in motion. As a general principle for Aristotle, forms are actual, and as such they are...
Right, strictly speaking, "movement" cannot be attributed to the soul. Movement is what is attributed to material bodies. But what is at issue here is...
That's not surprising. As I've told you already, it is strictly implied within the concept of matter, that prime matter is impossible in reality. It m...
My point was that this is completely different from dfpolis' position that laws are inherent within matter, so no such "accidental change" is possible...
Not at that point in the book, but in many other places, especially in On the Soul as I've already told you, he describes this associated form as the ...
Actually there isn't really any foundation in reality for your concept of "laws of nature". We have descriptive "laws" such as the laws of physics whi...
You describe this in a way completely different from dfpolis. You describe matter as complete freedom, whereas df describes it as having laws, constra...
I already explained this. In these cases there is a form inherent within the material body, a source of activity called the soul. It's quite well expl...
So the laws cause matter to behave the way that it does, by informing it? I assume that they exist as information then. How could matter interpret the...
If these laws are immanent, within matter, as dfpolis claims, and they act within every piece of matter, how is it possible that the very same law act...
No, I am saying that things which will be are not part of the universe. I am not saying that they "will not be part of the universe" when they come to...
This is a faulty representation. Things which "will be" cannot be represented as part of the universe, because possibilities and choice will dictate m...
I don't see how "universe" could be conceived of in this way. "Universe" generally signifies the collective existence of all physical things. These th...
What do you mean when you say that these laws are "operative"? You say that the laws are immaterial yet they operate, acting to control matter. Here's...
Not going in circles, we're delving deeper into the same issues. It seems to be that our principal difference on this issue is the following. I think ...
"Passive" means not active, inert, it can also mean that which is acted upon.. This is consistent with "it does not, itself, change". However, "it doe...
Essence is a form, not the matter. The form of a thing is "what" it is. When we come to know things we abstract their essence, and this is an instance...
Read some Aristotle, there's a very good model for interaction between the mental and the physical. To deny this just indicates that you haven't read,...
Look then, at Physics i,9, 192a, 28 -35, what he says of matter: Notice, how matter is defined as outside the sphere of becoming and ceasing to be, su...
I'm not playing sophist. I want you to tell the problem you apprehend, with two substances interacting, so that I can address this problem directly. A...
I gave you one reference, but there's many scattered through Aristotle's work. The problem discussed here is the categorizing of the contraries. The o...
Well what else would you call it. The thoughts are caused by something which is thinking, and I normally call this thing "I". Don't you? I don't see w...
OK, we have a thought. Where did the thought come from, what caused it? It is impossible that it willed itself into existence, because that would impl...
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