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Thomas Aquinisas First way. Argument from Motion

I have tried to do that, Ramoss, in my conjecture on the law of thermodynamics.
When energy is applied to a closed system it degrades.

At the time just 'before' the big bang, can you show that the universe was a closed system? And, can you show that before the big bang, the 'time' that existed was entropic?
 
It clearly sounds like you are forcing the issue by shifting the burden.

And that is a clear cut fallacy.

You lose.

End of debate.

Aquinas is dead, you defended him, it is up to you to bear the burden.
 
Shifting the burden is still shifting the burden.

You may not like Aquinas' proofs but they are still valid philosophy.

In fact they are even more valid now that we can PROVE everything in space is in motion.

Then what use is philosophy?
 
If you are going to chime in on Ramos' side you need to obey the rules of debate and avoid the fallacies of rhetoric.

Here are the rules...

http://www.debatepolitics.com/forum-rules/

For the sake of argument, let's accept that there is a 'first mover'. Now, your evidence that the first mover is 'God'? You gave it the capitalisation. I suspect that this is an equivocation and that to make it fit any kind of reality you will have to define 'God' in such a vague way that you get God=>god=>some force=>beyond our understanding. How about we try testing some falsifiable hypotheses instead of talking about how we might count how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?
 
Philosophy is a lot of smart rich guys speculating about what is possible on the fringes of science and religion.

Not really. Relevant speculation about what is possible on the fringes of Science is pretty much being done by Mathematicians and Theoretical Phycists. Rich, well yeah, I'll give you that one; William Lane Craig appears to make a nice living from the lecture circuit recycling this crap.
 
Here are the rules...

http://www.debatepolitics.com/forum-rules/

For the sake of argument, let's accept that there is a 'first mover'. Now, your evidence that the first mover is 'God'? You gave it the capitalisation. I suspect that this is an equivocation and that to make it fit any kind of reality you will have to define 'God' in such a vague way that you get God=>god=>some force=>beyond our understanding. How about we try testing some falsifiable hypotheses instead of talking about how we might count how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

Empiricism.

You are arguing for empiricism.

What if the God(s) do not want you to know them ??

Then your empiricism goes out the window.

And it becomes sophism.

Same as Ramos' sophism.
 
Empiricism.

You are arguing for empiricism.

What if the God(s) do not want you to know them ??

Then your empiricism goes out the window.

And it becomes sophism.

Same as Ramos' sophism.

Sophism? Too funny coming from an argument grounded in reification and sophism.
 
At the time just 'before' the big bang, can you show that the universe was a closed system? And, can you show that before the big bang, the 'time' that existed was entropic?
No Ramoss, because there is no time before the big bang.
Let's just talk about this universe, for now.
 
Sophism? Too funny coming from an argument grounded in reification and sophism.

Sophism is anytime you morph two things that don't mesh for the sake of something that sounds good and would sway a jury of imbeciles.

Meshing empiricism (science) with philosophy and using the notion of no evidence found for the residence and location of God as a refutation argument against the 5 or 6 philosophical proofs of God is sophism.
 
No Ramoss, because there is no time before the big bang.
Let's just talk about this universe, for now.

The Biblical notion from Moses in 1450 BCE as stated in Genesis/Bereshet that "In the beginning (bereshet) ... the Earth (Eretz) was void and darkness was upon the face of the deep" tells us that Moses the general and prophet believed everything was created from scratch with nothing existing beforehand.

The ancient Greeks from about the same time frame (1500 BCE) believe that matter already existed and always had but simply was unorganized until Gia (the Earth) created herself, then gave co-existence to the Heavens (Ouranis) and together this sister-brother couple gave birth to mountains, oceans, rivers, light, darkness, and all things. Eventually the Titans where then born, and after them their Olympian children.

I wish Moses had gone into more detail though. Moses simply leaves it as a given that God existed and therefore presumably always existed, and therefore it suggests that like the Greek and European philosophers believed that God was the first God and alone. We simply do not know.
 
No Ramoss, because there is no time before the big bang.
Let's just talk about this universe, for now.

Isn't there?? There is no time from the universe before the big bang. But, to make things work out, Hawkings used 'imaginary time'. Can you show that there isn't a kind of time in it's own reference outside of the expansion event? And string theory predicts time 'before' the big bang
 
Sophism is anytime you morph two things that don't mesh for the sake of something that sounds good and would sway a jury of imbeciles.

Meshing empiricism (science) with philosophy and using the notion of no evidence found for the residence and location of God as a refutation argument against the 5 or 6 philosophical proofs of God is sophism.

Well, as Mr Apisa found out, ungrounded philosophical ramblings lead you all over the place. You make the mistake of assuming that putting your feet firmly on the ground is not a higher aim than simply counting the number of angels that can dance on a pin head. That is up to you, my accusation of reification and sophism stands.
 
Well, as Mr Apisa found out, ungrounded philosophical ramblings lead you all over the place. You make the mistake of assuming that putting your feet firmly on the ground is not a higher aim than simply counting the number of angels that can dance on a pin head. That is up to you, my accusation of reification and sophism stands.

You sound like you are a British Empiricist, similar to Bertrand Russell was (before he died).

Apisa is also Empiricist however less so in the actual experiential sense and more so in the skeptical sense.

That's ok as long as you don't try to sell it as a law of physics.

But that's what he sells.

Everyone really needs to carefully read Russell's "History Of Western Philosophy" so that they can keep philosophy, science, empiricism, and religion separate at all times.

We have all kinds of interestingly unique characters on this website.

Take Tosca for example -- she is a classic Romanticist philosopher almost like San Tomas Aquinas himself. You should watch when she and Apisa go head to head.
 
Isn't there?? There is no time from the universe before the big bang. But, to make things work out, Hawkings used 'imaginary time'. Can you show that there isn't a kind of time in it's own reference outside of the expansion event? And string theory predicts time 'before' the big bang
I know there are new ideas, fringe theories and predictions, as science is changing all the time. Even scientists hold differing "opinions" on these matters. They try to use mathematics to validate their theories, but there are differences of interpretation even among mathematicians.

Part of what you said implies that the laws of physics are different in different epochs, a theory which some scientists also speculate on. Note the key word, speculate.

Since the laws and logic of physical reality are wholly different at the quantum level, as in what may have occurred within one planck time of the big bang, I suggest we do not go there if we are to discuss the natural condition of things. Else, we will only run into paradoxes and absurdity. So to avoid that I shall stick to the reality that we know and have proven. In that sense, whenever you put focused or discontinuous energy into a system, it spreads out over time to become homogeneous, so that eventually the discontinuity no longer exists. It will stay that way forever, unless some new perturbation occurs which would have to come from outside.

"Therefore each thing in motion is moved by something else."
 
The Biblical notion from Moses in 1450 BCE as stated in Genesis/Bereshet that "In the beginning (bereshet) ... the Earth (Eretz) was void and darkness was upon the face of the deep" tells us that Moses the general and prophet believed everything was created from scratch with nothing existing beforehand.

The ancient Greeks from about the same time frame (1500 BCE) believe that matter already existed and always had but simply was unorganized until Gia (the Earth) created herself, then gave co-existence to the Heavens (Ouranis) and together this sister-brother couple gave birth to mountains, oceans, rivers, light, darkness, and all things. Eventually the Titans where then born, and after them their Olympian children.

I wish Moses had gone into more detail though. Moses simply leaves it as a given that God existed and therefore presumably always existed, and therefore it suggests that like the Greek and European philosophers believed that God was the first God and alone. We simply do not know.

Moses also implied that before creation there was no time, that time and energy are things created.

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 2And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.


Also that energy came first, and material came after.
And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
 
Moses also implied that before creation there was no time, that time and energy are things created.

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 2And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.


Also that energy came first, and material came after.
And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

I noticed that as well.

Moses gives the impression that God/YHVH was the first self created God who perhaps always existed, and who created the energy first (let there be light) and then the matter (let the waters above the firmament be separated).

We are simply given no true idea how many centillion millennia passed from then until 1450 BCE.

Empirically, it would seem that with all the galaxies we have discovered, that by now there would be many Gods and many worlds.

But if only one God, then why does He insist on living alone? I sure wouldn't if I had a choice.

Therefore there are hints at Moses' own personal philosophy, but he does not write about it.

He seems more focused on re-training the Hebrews not to be like the Egyptians. But he utterly fails at this.
 
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Time may simply be an illusion.

I think of time as heartbeats.

It can also be thought of as the internal nuclear oscillation of cesium.

Something pulsating.

But as such like the waves of the sea it does not really exist.
 
You sound like you are a British Empiricist, similar to Bertrand Russell was (before he died).

Apisa is also Empiricist however less so in the actual experiential sense and more so in the skeptical sense.

That's ok as long as you don't try to sell it as a law of physics.

But that's what he sells.

Everyone really needs to carefully read Russell's "History Of Western Philosophy" so that they can keep philosophy, science, empiricism, and religion separate at all times.

We have all kinds of interestingly unique characters on this website.

Take Tosca for example -- she is a classic Romanticist philosopher almost like San Tomas Aquinas himself. You should watch when she and Apisa go head to head.

I can't imagine anything I'd want to watch less than that...
 
Thomas Aquinas' first way is the "Argument from Motion". It is as follows



Is this argument reasonable and rational? What are the weaknesses of this argument? What are it's strengths? Do you find this argument convincing, if so, why? If not, why not?

I haven't read any of this thread yet but the weakness is glaringly obvious: it assumes that time must have had a beginning. there does not need to ever have been a "first" mover if time is infinite.
 
The First Way: Argument from Motion
1 Our senses prove that some things are in motion.
2 Things move when potential motion becomes actual motion.
3 Only an actual motion can convert a potential motion into an actual motion.
4 Nothing can be at once in both actuality and potentiality in the same respect (i.e., if both actual and potential, it is actual in one respect and potential in another).
5 Therefore nothing can move itself.
6 Therefore each thing in motion is moved by something else.
7 The sequence of motion cannot extend ad infinitum.
8 Therefore it is necessary to arrive at a first mover, put in motion by no other; and this everyone understands to be God.


Is this argument reasonable and rational? What are the weaknesses of this argument? What are it's strengths? Do you find this argument convincing, if so, why? If not, why not?
IMO it was reasonable... at a time when being an atheist meant you would be drawn and quartered. It also made more sense at a time when we did not realize that it was effectively impossible for something to truly be at rest.

Logically though, this argument has a few issues.

Point 4: The transition from rest to motion can be classified as paradoxical (per Zeno and, outside of Aquinas' experience, Nagarjuna)

Point 7: There is no reason why motion needs to start. There is nothing contradictory or paradoxical about the objects in the universe always being in motion, and not having a beginning. Even our narrative prejudice, which demands that we always perceive events having a beginning and an end, is merely a human construction.

Point 8: This is special pleading.

Even if we accept Point 8, this ultimately tells us nothing about the First Mover. It can't tell us that it is conscious, or powerful, or benevolent, or still exists, or has any interest in organisms, let alone that the beliefs of a specific religion are correct. It's a bit of a Pyrrhic victory, IMO.
 
Sorry, this is the Aquinas thread now...
;)

Yet, it is related to the claim about 'time and motion'. They are, naturally linked. And aquinas was using the idea of 'first mover, and motion' as part of his argument, which, is being shown that it can not be assumed to be true.
 
Yet, it is related to the claim about 'time and motion'. They are, naturally linked. And aquinas was using the idea of 'first mover, and motion' as part of his argument, which, is being shown that it can not be assumed to be true.

In your opinion.
 
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