Natural Hearing (Aristotle's Physics)
10. Simplicity, Pantheism and Digressions: Einstein, Hegel, Shakespeare, and Reflections on Reason
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/3-natural-hearing/010-simplicity-pantheism-and-digressions-einstein-hegel-shakespeare/

[0:00] Now Anaximander here is the second Milesian, huh? And you might say that Anaximander is, I won't say necessarily a pupil of Thales, but he's aware of the thought of Thales, huh? And Aristotle in his biological works he mentions that Anaximander said that water animals come before land animals, that life began in the water rather than in the dry land. And if Anaximander said that, you could see how he could have been influenced by Thales, because Thales was especially emphasizing water as the beginning of living things, right?

[0:44] So it'd be a reasonable deduction from that to say that life began in water, and later on it was on land, huh? And I suppose modern biologists would tend to, you know, agree with that thought too, huh? But Anaximander is said to have pointed to the frogs who begin their life as a kind of fish-like thing. They call it a newt, I guess, and they kind of swim around, and then they become kind of a semi-what land animals.

[1:09] Now you see in that example confirmation of the deduction that the land animals came after the water animals. And life began in the water. Yes, it's very interesting, huh? But instead of saying water is the beginning of all things, Anaximander says very strangely that the apeiron, the unlimited, the infinite, is the beginning of existing things.

[1:36] Now you say to yourself, well, what the heck is that, huh? And at first sight, it might appear that Anaximander is not a natural philosopher because natural philosophy, as Aristotle and Einstein both say, it begins and ends in the senses, huh? And water is something you can sense, huh? But the unlimited is not something you've sensed. So how can he be talking about this as an actual what philosopher?

[2:12] But does following your senses mean you can't talk about something you can't sense? It means you can't talk about such things except through the things you can sense, right? But if you can reason from the things you can sense to something you cannot sense, that's not opposed to following the road from the senses into reason. So like in the modern scientists when they

[2:43] follow the path of an electron or something in a Wilson cloud chamber, right? You don't see the electron. What they see is the what undulations of water particles in the path that it, took, right? So they're deducing something. Thing about the path of what they do not see, through what they what do see. That's not contrary to natural science. Okay. So following your senses, in other words, that's proper to the natural philosopher, yes.

[3:15] But following your senses doesn't mean you can't reason from what you sense. Um. So if you reason what you sense and reason well from what you sense, you're not outside of natural philosophy or natural science. So we might ask ourselves: Is there anything in our sense experience that would lead us to the conclusion that the beginning or the origin of things is the unlimited? Okay. Now, before we try to answer that question, we have to ask a little bit about what does the word unlimited mean?

[3:58] And of course, it's a negative meaning, isn't it? It means not what limited, right? Okay. But there's two ways in which you could call something unlimited. Huh? You could say it's unlimited in some quantitative sense,

[4:20] or in a qualitative sense. Huh? The formless is unlimited. Not limited to any what quality, right? Okay. Or what you know goes on forever, or something that has an infinite multitude or something that would be unlimited in a quantitative sense. Huh? So it could mean unlimited in quantity or unlimited in quality or even both, right? Okay. Now the question is: Is there any reason to think that the beginning of things is unlimited in either or in both of these senses?

[5:03] Huh? Now, when you come back to the sense of unlimited quality and say, "Hey, Thales was in fact thinking that already, wasn't he? " He was thinking that the one matter of which all things are made can't be limited to any quality. Quality, like red wine is limited to being red, or sugar is limited being sweet. He saw he had to take something formless, huh? And he chose what water, right?

[5:32] Right. Okay. Which seems to be shapeless and colorless and tasteless and so on, right? But has he gone all the way? Is water entirely without qualities? Huh? Well, in its natural environment, at least, water is definitely wet, and we even think of it as being cool in its natural environment. Huh? So water is not entirely qualityless, is it?

[6:06] It seems to be wet and cool. So you still got the problem, haven't you? If the beginning of all things is wet and cool, and everything is made out of this same thing, everything should be wet and cool. How do you get anything dry, made out of the wet? How do you get anything hot, like fire, made out of the cool? You throw water on the fire; it puts it out.

[6:34] How do you ever get fire started? huh? See? But we live in a world with hot and cold things, wet and dry things, right? Sweet and bitter things, and so we live in a world of contraries, huh? So maybe Thales hasn't gone all the way. is a wonderful thing, huh? But now, if you go all the way and remove even wet and cool, you have no qualities left whereby you could describe the beginning of all things.

[7:05] But you could say it's not limited even to wet and cool or any other quality, Because otherwise the whole universe would be limited to that one thing. So it is profound what he's saying, isn't it? Okay.

[7:24] Now, is anything in our experience that would make us think that the origin of all things is unlimited in some quantitative sense? Well, every spring, what happens? New things spring up, right? And it seems to be no end. It seems to be endless new things coming to be in this world. They never stop coming to be, do they?

[7:56] So if things keep on coming to be forever. Without end, then seems the origin of things must, in some quantitative sense, be what, endless or infinite?

[8:10] So there is something in sense experience that leads us to think that the beginning of all things is unlimited in maybe both of these senses.

[8:22] So strange it may seem, right? Logic seems to be drawing us in that way. Now, the second thing that Anaximander says in DK one

[8:41] is extremely interesting, and we think that this thought is in the other Greeks too, but we have it explicitly in Anaximander. That from which existing things come to be, he says, is also that into which they are corrupted by necessity.

[8:58] So whatever things are originally made out of, when you break those things down again, you end up with what you started with. Now is that reasonable to think that?

[9:13] I started to give this simple example to students. Suppose you buy your little boy a bag of wooden blocks, right? And you can build all kinds of things out of these wooden blocks, like I did as a kid, towers and ships and even slot machines. And

[9:35] now I build all these things out of it, but when I knock it down, right? Would you expect me to have a Lego set?

[9:44] No, you expect me to have a bunch of wooden blocks, right? Okay. But now if I buy my little boy a Lego set, you know, plastic, what those are, and he builds all kinds of things out of Lego set, and then can knock them down, take them apart, right? And he knocks down one of these things he's made, taking apart. Would you expect him to have wooden blocks?

[10:08] What would you expect? Lego set, the very thing you began with. Now if I buy my erector set, which is kind of made out of steel or iron, and make all kinds of things out of that, right? But now when he breaks those things down, takes them apart, would you expect to have a Lego set or a wooden blocks? No. So it seems that whatever is the beginning of things is also that to which, when they break down, they what?

[10:36] Return. Okay. And as we go on to some of the later thinkers, you'll see some of the reasons more. But if you you know knock this wooden building down, this wooden thing into a Lego set, since Lego set is not made out of wood, right? Where did it come from? You got something out of nothing, right? And what happened to the wood? Blocks, as one of the later thinkers will say, what is cannot cease to be by being cut.

[11:12] Can you cut something up into nothing? You cut something up into what it's made out of. So if you can cut something up into nothing, to be made out of nothing, which is stupid, huh? See, so whatever is the beginning of things, it seems reasonable, is also their what end, huh? So here's in the words of an Anaximander, the idea that the beginning of things is also their end, and that's very interesting for the Christian too, huh?

[11:47] Because we also think that the beginning of all things is also their what end, huh? I am the Alpha and the Omega, he says, beginning and the end, huh? But notice, huh? Beginning and end would not have exactly the same meaning. When we say that God is beginning of all things, we don't mean that He's the matter which all things are made. We mean He's the maker of all things, huh?

[12:11] And when we say God is the end of all things, we're not talking about their destruction, huh? They're already broken down into, but He's the end in the sense of a purpose, right? But nevertheless, there's a kind of a circle in reality, huh? And even the circle that we have in in theology and God, huh? Is in a way reflected here in matter, right? Whatever is the beginning is also the what end, huh?

[12:39] But I'm much rather have a beginning and end in the sense of God than beginning and end, you know. We talk about that even, you know, on Ash Wednesday we say, "Dust thou art, and to dust thou shalt return," right? You see, circle there, right?

[12:57] And so this is the first insight that we have in. The reality is basically circular. Of course, that's basically the order in theology. You talk about God in Himself, and then you talk about God as the beginning of things, the maker of things, and then you talk about God as the end. You see it very clearly in the Summa Contra Gentiles.

[13:27] One of the psalms says, "Know that the Lord is God; He made us as we are." His people, the flock, He tends. That's the three things, right? Because God's providence, you know, is tied up with His ordering all things back to Himself. He's also our maker. So you see something like that here.

[13:52] Of course, in another way, God is unlimited too, but not in this sense here. God is one, simple, unlimited, beginning and end of all things. Some similarity here. Thomas Aquinas speaks of the Greek philosophers as what using Aristotle's phrase, "coerced" by the truth itself to think that the beginning of things is in some way unlimited, but not really understanding the way in which the beginning of things is unlimited.

[14:20] But in some way, God is unlimited, but in a different way than man would be. God is one and simple too, but in a different way than matter is. But there is some distant likeness there. The mind is moving towards God without knowing it.

[14:38] Now that second statement in DK one is the reason for the statements in DK two and DK three, which are basically the same thing. If the beginning of things is also their end, if the beginning of things is that to which they return, then that beginning of things is never what corrupted, right? The nature of the unlimited, he says, is everlasting and does not grow old. The unlimited is immortal and indestructible.

[15:15] Of course, that's another attribute of God that He's everlasting, immortal, indestructible. It's kind of amazing to see this, huh? Of course, it's of great interest to the scientist too, because the scientist he takes as his basic laws the laws of what conservation, right? And they see something as what always remaining throughout what change.

[15:42] It's always conserved, like energy or something of that sort, huh? So our mind is is already, you can say, naturally moving towards something that is eternal, unchanging, as the origin of things. Already, you see that here, huh? It's very interesting to see that.

[16:04] Ultimately, we try to understand the changing in terms of something unchanging. Kind of anticipation of the final argument that there'll be, you know, for the unmoved mover. But our mind is already moving in that direction. The scientists move that way. Heisenberg and other scientists say that the most basic laws of physics are the conservation laws. Everything is based upon something that always remains. As if the mind naturally thinks that.

[16:40] They reduce Newton's three laws of motion to the conservation of momentum. Now, right? That's the basic way they do it in science: conservation of energy, conservation of momentum, and angular momentum. I give you some old passages here from the modern scientists. Interesting to compare, you know. Could you could you understand the unlimited in this in this context as an undefined also as a universal? Well, it's the same word.

[17:11] Undefined. The word "finis" in Latin means "end" or "limit," right? So, same same word, really. In Greek, it's the "apeiron," and in Latin, "infinite," and in English, "unlimited." But you're negating the idea of limit, huh?

[17:32] Now, the last sentence we didn't explain in the first fragment again of Anaximander, for they render justice and give up injustice to another according to the order of time. Someone might say, "Well, what? What's using words like justice and injustice and talking about the natural world?" But we do the same thing. We talk about laws, huh? Because laws first used in human society in the city, huh? See, man is by nature a political animal, social animal, and a sign of this is that he has language, huh?

[18:09] And of course, we have names for the things then that are in our common life. And one of the things we need in a city is law.

[18:18] And if you go out here on the street and you see people driving the right side of the street, in England you see them driving the left side of the street, you realize it's a different law in these two different countries, huh? But that law produces a certain regularity in the way people drive. And so when they turned their minds to the natural world, and they found some regularities in the natural world, they had no name for that, so they borrowed the word law and spoke of a law of nature, huh?

[18:52] But still, that's not the first meaning of the word law. And that's why, although the biologist or the chemist or the physicist is always talking about laws and the laws of physics, the laws of this, we don't call these men lawyers, huh? We don't say they're in the legal profession, see, because you're still thinking about the original meaning of law. And you even find the modern scientists speaking of obey, huh?

[19:20] You see, the scientist saying that the electron obeys the laws of Newtonian physics when it's out in open space, so to speak. But when the electrons inside the atom obey, it's a different set of laws, the quantum laws, right? See, but obviously the word obedience—you don't stop and think about it—that's obviously borrowed from human what? Society and applied to something different, but that in some way resembles that, huh?

[19:49] And we also use sometimes the word debt, huh? So if I'm running up the stairs, the biologist might say you built up a what? Oxygen debt, huh? If I haven't gotten enough sleep for the last couple of nights, I built up a what? Sleep debt, huh? But debt is originally a word taken from what? Justice and injustice and so on in human society, huh? So he says, for they render justice and give injustice to one another according to the order of time.

[20:24] He's using words like we do, right? We just don't stop and think about the fact that we do this, huh? We used to kid the physicist out at St. Mary's College. And what do you mean by quantum jumps, huh? A quantum electron doesn't have any legs. How can it jump? Don't get so angry. See, but you're always borrowing these words, huh? Jump, huh? That's taken from the legs, huh?

[20:50] So we're no different than than the Greeks, right? We just don't stop and recognize that we we carry words over like that, okay? So that's an Anaximander, huh? So what does that mean? That last, that third sentence for the rendered justice. Well, it'd be something like, as they say, what we talk about when we talk about a

[21:21] paying a debt, right, huh? Compensate, compensation, right? Your body will compensate for one thing, right? That's paying your debt, huh? So it's justice and injustice, right?

[21:40] So I don't get my breath, right? You know, there's injustice there, right? They have a debt that should be paid there. Apparently, got enough sleep the last few nights. I built up a sleep debt, huh? I owe myself some sleep tonight. Not a legal obligation, but but it's like that, huh? Okay.

[22:10] Now, I mean, we should stop here now before going to Anaximenes huh? Okay, time because you want to start around five, right? Okay. So we'll start with an Anaximenes next time, huh? Now

[22:29] we've had a little allusion, but we'll do again here to some of the scientists when they talk about unity or fewness or simplicity and conservation. And they don't only talk about the mover. So you want ten copies? Is that what you need, or what? Yeah. Okay. Five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.

[22:52] You might, you know, kind of look these over, and then we'll make some we've got references to them. As Wordsworth say, I am as true as truth, simplicity, and simple is an infancy of truth.

[23:14] What I do here under unity, fetus and simplicity, I give some references to the great scientists of the 17th century. There, at the beginning of modern science, Galileo, and then Kepler, and then Sir Isaac Newton. are, the three biggest names in science in the beginning. And of course, Newton is so important that the physicists of the 20th century call the physics of the 17th, 18th, and 19th Newtonian physics.

[23:42] Not that he did it all, but he was kind of the model. And then I jump to the physicists of the 20th century, starting with Max Planck, who was the father of modern physics. He has that title because he proposed the quantum hypothesis in December of 1900. Right, and that began the great changes in physics. And then I have other men like Max Born, who got the Nobel Prize in the 20th century for

[24:09] explaining what the waves really mean, the, wave mechanics. And then Einstein, whom of course we need no introduction to, and Sir James Jeans, the British astrophysicist, Schrodinger, the guy who perfected the mathematics of wave mechanics, and Heisenberg, who formulated the greatest change in physics since Galileo, Copernicus, Newton. But the man who worked in quantum theory with Bohr and Weizsäcker was the physicist who explained why the sun doesn't burn out quickly.

[24:47] And and then a couple references to conservation there, one from Heisenberg and one from the American physicist Rothman. And then a little thing of Weizsacker talking about energy in particular. Later on, we'll look at those little references to the moderns on the mover, because later on we'll meet what the Greeks had to say about the mover, right? And we'll make some comparisons to what there's two things that Heraclitus says, one that Empedocles says, and one that Anaxagoras says, and we'll compare the four things.

[25:22] But don't look at that right now if you don't want to, but look at those first five pages anyway, right? Because that's very relevant to the first men that we we come, and as we get into movers later on with Heraclitus, we'll eventually look at what the moderns say about the movers a bit, right? Okay, these are kind of like you know the secondary things. The main thing is the Greeks, huh?

[25:46] But I like to make these comparisons. They say that Niels Bohr, right, the scientist who worked with him, that he had an attitude towards nature like that of the first Greeks, huh?

[26:00] Einstein said, "What we reverence ancient Greece as the cradle of Western science, right?" And Schrodinger there says that in his book, "Nature and the Greeks," science is the Greek way of looking at things. That's not a definition of science, but it's a great compliment to the Greeks, huh? He says, "No one has had science who has not come in contact with the Greeks."

[26:28] So they have a great respect for the Greeks, huh? And Heisenberg especially, huh? My friend Warren Murray was talking to Heisenberg one time, and Warren Murray referred to one of these, you know, fragments of the first Greek philosophers, and Heisenberg says, "Oh yeah," he quotes it in Greek, you know. I couldn't quote these in the Greek, I looked at the Greek, but I mean I couldn't just come out like the Greek like that, you know.

[26:53] So it's kind of amazing to see the scientist, huh? Knowing these things that well, huh? Okay. Sometimes you get people, you know, nowadays you think these guys are outdated and interested. You find the greatest mind of the century interested in these guys. You.

[27:20] Reason, to that. Just a quick question, if I may. Sure. You ever mentioned Boethius being between Augustine and and Thomas? What was his time and place? Just. Um, about four eighty to five twenty-five, something like that. And was it was the Augustine's a little bit? He's closer to Augustine in time. Yeah, but what about the place? Was he a Roman? Yeah, he was. Yeah, he was associated with Rome and then later.

[27:50] the Ostrogoths and so on. Yeah. But you see, you see, he he was a just man making enemies. Because he was stopped. People from doing unjust things, and so they said, "Let's get rid of this pain in the ass." And so they they ganged up on him and falsely charged him and had him thrown in prison and eventually killed without even. Was he a layman? I assume he was layman, yeah.

[28:16] Okay. There was a there was a a local cult of his you know of his sanctity, you know. They never made him official, but he wasn't a cleric. No, no, no, no, no. He had sons. Or a religious. Yeah, yeah, no, he had sons who, who reached eminent office too in the later Roman Empire. So, but he's quite a man. He tried to make available

[28:44] Greek philosophy, you know. But he got translated, you know, Aristotle's logical works. but he didn't get through all Aristotle's works, but he translated a lot of these early things. He studied philosophy at Alexandria. There with the the Greek schools there in Alexandria. But he wrote in Latin, of course. Yeah, he wrote in Latin. Yeah, yeah. And

[29:09] he wrote both philosophical and theological works. The definition of person is taken from Boethius. When Thomas is going to discuss the persons of the Trinity you go back to the definition of person and he's very important, very important.

[29:27] And Thomas's commentary on the De Trinitate you know one word of Boethius and Thomas, will have a whole article on it. You know, on a page or two, you know. So I mean it's really you know. I mean, Thomas takes Boethius, you know, very seriously. He takes his conclusions basically, but

[29:49] give the reasons for them. For yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's learning from Boethius too. I mean, yeah, yeah. And Boethius, he's really an interesting thinker. Even in the Summa Contra Gentiles you know, when Thomas goes through at the end of the first book, and he's showing the the happiness, the blessedness of God, huh? And then he recalls even you know the false happiness, which has only a shadow, you know, of true happiness.

[30:20] And even if you consider God's happiness from the point of view of false happiness, he excels, right? It's really beautiful what he does in it. It's interesting in that book. Thomas quotes a lot of Dionysius. Yeah, yeah, Dionysius. He thought Dionysius

[30:37] was the Dionysius that Saint Paul converted at Athens, right? Yeah. So, not that I'm so sure that's the same Dionysius, huh? But so Dionysius, you know, was brought back from his works were brought back from Constantinople by Gregory the Great. I think it was when he was, you know, diplomatic. I think especially that book one deals with God, right, and is the Via Negativa. Yeah, apophatic. So, yeah, that's yeah, yeah.

[31:04] And Thomas has a commentary on the on the divine names of of Dionysius, huh? I guess he often refers to Dionysius' work on the, on the angels, huh? But he didn't comment on that directly. But I I wonder Albert the Great Thomas, huh? I wonder whom he considered him to be. Thomas? No, Thomas. He thought that Dionysius was the one disciple of Paul. Yeah, so so he had a great respect for Dionysius because of that, right?

[31:35] Yeah. But but in his own right, Dionysius is you know very very wise. But Dionysius writes more in the Platonic style of writing, you know. Thomas says it's more difficult for him to expound that, you know. And someone writes more like a Neoplatonist but he has great respect for him. Okay, thank you. Okay.

[32:01] All you beasts, wild and tame, praise the Lord, now some psalms Psalms of praise. Interesting. Some of these animals, so you know. I always find the cat more interesting. You know, more more of a contemplative animal than the dog. You know, the dog is is too democratic,

[32:26] huh? The cat is more aristocratic. The cat is more a lazy hunter, right? Which is by definition of a philosopher, a lazy hunter. That's the truth, you know. Kind of kind of a aristocratic thing. There was a little boy there used to used to be you know a little grocery store. We go across this wooded area to get there. There was actually a mansion on the hill there, and kind of rundown, but the but the wooded areas around the mansion. I used to own the whole block, you know, and we'd always cut through the wooded areas, you know, and we'd be playing as kids, you know, so on.

[33:08] And I remember one time going through there, and it was a kind of place where there was like an old steps going up, like a sidewalk, and then it all overgrown and so on. And I went up there one time, just kind of playing, and I was a kid. And there, at the end of it, underneath the tree, was a mother cat with her whole litter of kittens.

[33:26] Boy was I I'd never seen this before, you know. I'm kind of, you know, amazed. And I think the mother cat there was even apprehensive of my presence there, you know. And I could see her getting up, you know, kind of, you know, arching her back, you know, a little bit, you know, ready to protect her little one. And I kind of felt the the menace of her, you know.

[33:43] And so I, was kind of fascinated, and, I turned away and ran, ran away, you know. But I mean, I just remember the impression it made upon me. And then my grandmother, you know, up to her grandmother, she had an old cat there, you know, used to play with the old cat too, though. So, but for some reason, the cat kind of you know, attacked me as an animal.

[34:02] but kind of interesting. they're really nice when they're kittens. you see, they're so playful when they're kittens, you know, and and they kind of, you know, arch up their back, you know, kind of play with each other. Really kind of fun to watch them play, but they they get old, you see. One writer, Dominican,

[34:27] he says spiritual writers. He says he thinks the differences between them originate in the different philosophies, that give rise to different spiritualities, even in Christian writers. And he mentions Plato and Aristotle, as, leading to different, even practical conclusions about spiritual life, the approach.

[35:02] Have you thought about this question? You, as far as, theological or spiritual writers, some that, yeah, you know how that would affect, or some writers like Bonaventure seems to say in some places.

[35:24] in his journey of the mind to God, he seems to talk about as if that being, the general one, is God. Yeah. It's easy to confuse those two? right? Confuse what is said of all with what is a what cause of all, right? And that's behind, you know, all this pantheism too that you have in in human thought, huh? If you identify God with what is said of all, you're going to be, in a way, identifying God with what all things, huh?

[36:00] And. That's kind of um uh almost like a neat tendency to even mind to do that sort of a thing, but you'll see in the passage from from Einstein here, right? That his notion of God is what pantheistic, huh? And when I compare Einstein later on as well with Anaxagoras, huh? You see, at the end of page seven there, huh? It's one of the texts of Einstein, huh?

[36:39] He says, "Certain it is that a conviction akin to religious feeling of the rationality or intelligibility of the world lies behind all scientific work of higher order. That's very interesting, right? Because he sees a similarity there, right? Because the religious believer he thinks that there's a superior mind, right, divine mind that is responsible for the world and therefore the order of the world, right, and therefore its intelligibility, right?

[37:08] And the scientist who's doing higher work, he has to be convinced that the world is what is ordered, that it's intelligible, understandable, right? And so on. He says, "this firm belief, a belief Bound up with deep feeling, in a superior mind that reveals itself in the world of experience, represents my conception of God." Now that that's something like what we'll see in Anaxagoras, because Anaxagoras has the idea of a greater mind that's responsible for the ordering of the natural world," huh?

[37:39] But then Anaxagoras goes on and and gives a reason to say that this greater mind is is separate from things; it's not mixed with them, right? Einstein doesn't give any any reason for what he goes on to say, right? But he says, in common parlance, this may be described as pantheistic, and he he refers back to Spinoza who has that same confusion. So for Einstein, that greater mind is kind of mixed up with things, huh?

[38:07] He doesn't give any reason for saying that, huh? And so, in the absence of a reason, one attributes it in part, at least, to to custom, huh? And De Tocqueville in Democracy in America, in the chapter on the influence of democracy upon religion, right? That's the main point he makes that it encourages pantheistic notions of God. And he remarks of how German, you know, philosophy is so pantheistic, and how French literature is so pantheistic, right?

[38:38] And you can certainly see that, as I say, if you if you look at the incipient Civil War, and you look at you know the corrections of the Germans. And I don't know if you ever seen that book by Cardinal Siri, the one on on where he takes up Rahner but but they're they're all you know very ambiguous passages from time to time that they're pantheistic in the way they they write.

[39:02] And these other people have been, you know, if you follow the Pope speaks and so on, you find from time to time other people being, you know, corrected for that. But you know, to take a be an example there in Star Wars, which is so popular with everybody, right? The Force be with you, which you become a part of the Force after you die, right? Maybe the dark side, maybe the dark side, but the point is this is a pantheistic notion of God, right?

[39:27] And it's not too solid any thinking really, but just kind of the idea that people breathe in, huh? That's osmosis, huh? And I think perhaps science too, to some extent, the way it proceeds, huh, leads to pantheism, huh? And and and perhaps it's the idea that that in science, at least the mathematical science, equality is a fundamental thing too. This idea, you know, of a greater mind that's really separate from things, is very undemocratic, huh?

[39:58] See, so when I compare Einstein and Anxagoras, they both come to the idea of a greater mind as a natural philosopher, as a natural scientist, not as a believer of some religion, right? Because Anxagoras, as you know, was charged with impiety for saying that the sun was a stone on fire, right? Of course, the sun is the god Apollo, as you know, so it's impious, right? And and Einstein, although he was Jewish in origin, he was not a believing Jew, nor was, as he says here, to become a Catholic or anything else, right?

[40:36] Christian. He said, denominational traditions I can only consider historically and theologically insignificant for me, right? So he's like Anxagoras. he's arriving at the idea of a greater mind as a natural scientist, natural philosopher.

[40:51] That we respect is similar, right? In both cases, they're coming to it from the order, the intelligibility of the world. But then they disagree that Anxagoras says that creative mind is not mixed with things, but he gives a very good reason for saying it isn't. Extremely interesting reason. Einstein in the passages like this, where I see him talk about this, never gives a reason, and therefore, in the absence of a reason, one is inclined to think that he's influenced by the customs of the modern world.

[41:21] So even by democratic customs lead to that, but I think scientific customs to some extent too. But de Tocqueville is very clear about that, you know, this is really a danger in democratic times. And and you know de Tocqueville is the greatest author on you know contrasting democratic and aristocratic customs, huh? But in the case of Anaxagoras it's not aristocratic customs. He has a reason for saying that the greater mind is separate, huh?

[41:53] And it's a very profound reason. We'll meet that in the great fragment DK 12. You see, Hegel, in a sense, is pantheistic, huh? When he identifies the being that is sort of all things with the the one who says "I am," he does it explicitly in the logic, huh?

[42:24] And kind of a funny thing reminded me of you know Hegel's notion of being there. You know, I tell you this story. There, Warren Murray was telling me this at the American Catholic Philosophical Association one time, and they had some session on theology and philosophy, whatever it was. And Warren's giving a paper there, but anyway, he talked about the distinction between nature and art somewhere in his paper, huh?

[42:48] So then the question: creative theology and the questions, and some of the company says, "Well, the philosopher doesn't distinguish between nature and art." And so Warren says. Why not? Says one, the philosopher considers being, and at the level of being there's no distinction between nature and art. Warren says, well, that's the being of Hegel, right? That distinction is that's the being that passes into nothingness, huh? You know, Hegel's system, huh?

[43:17] That's into none being, right? Because that's you know, he talked about the most confused notion of being, right? But that means there's no distinctions at all, right? So, I think it's a stupid, stupid question, right? But I mean, but I mean, it reveals again what what Hegel's doing, right? He's talking about the being that is so confused that it seems to say nothing, right? It's almost like saying, you know, this is something.

[43:41] Well, what have you said? Told me it seems almost nothing because something is so vague, right? It could be anything. It could be more more confused or indistinct in what you're saying than what's something.

[43:56] So something seems to be saying nothing, right? Distinctly about the thing, so it kind of gives this illusion that something passes into nothing, right? Being passes into non being, and then you get becoming, right? It's a mixture of being and non-being for you, and a contradiction.

[44:15] He makes the old mistake there that Aristotle refutes in the in the sixth book of the Physics. huh? It ran all the way through the Middle Ages. There, that apparent contradiction in becoming kind of gives a bit of article on that in the Laval Théologique in French, the paradox du devenir par la contradiction and where he goes back and shows all the back to Physics of Aristotle, right, where the solution is.

[44:43] But it bothered them in the Middle Ages all the time because they couldn't solve it, and Thomas solves it using Aristotle, right? Then Hegel makes the same mistake. He makes the same mistake,

[44:58] and Aristotle's solution is very subtle, right, but very profound. But anyway, going back to Hegel, I mean, his notion is therefore really pantheistic, and Thomas, you know, has said explicitly in Summa, you know, that God is not the esse formale omnium, and there is you know many reasons for this.

[45:27] But in a sense, you're confusing what is said of all with what is a cause of all. There's some similarity. Said of all, cause of all because what is said of all in some way refers to all things, and what is a cause of all, so you can mix up the two, right? But I enjoy putting out that Shakespeare sees a

[45:51] difference between these two, and therefore he's wiser than Hegel, right? And Shakespeare actually puns the two meanings. I think I mentioned that too before. Yeah, I don't forget. Well, it's in it's in the play "Troilus and Cressida," and it's when Cressida comes over to the Greek camp, and she's kind of a you know good-looking girl, say, and Agamemnon, who's the general of the Greek army, kisses her, and then Ulysses wants to get in the act, right?

[46:29] So she's been kissed by the general, but she hasn't been kissed in general yet. So he kisses, and then they all say, "This is the start of the downfall of Cressida," you know. She ends up, you know, in the old story, you have a loose woman right, A harlot, huh But unfaithful to Troilus and so on. But very interesting play there, but it's Shakespeare's

[46:54] black satire on humanity, right? But anyway, it's it's it's not really tragedy; it's a black satire. It's not the classic tragedy. It's just a satire, which is a comedy, but it's a black satire, right? Shakespeare has a white satire and a black satire. Love's Labour's Lost is the white satire, and Troilus and Cressida is a black satire. I think his best comedies, are good nature comedies, you know, The Comedy of errors and Merry Wives of Windsor, and The Shrew right?

[47:27] I think that's better kind of comedy. But anyway, A lot of fun in the Troilus and Cressida, huh, Shakespeare in there has given the best understanding of of the foolishness, but the strong influence of fashion. That's absolutely amazing. what he does there. It's absolutely amazing speech on fashion there by Ulysses. It's incredible. how wise Shakespeare is, right? But anyway, among other things, I mean, he's putting the two names of general, right?

[47:57] She's been kissed by the general, but hasn't been kissed in general, so. You know, if you take you know the example there of an army

[48:07] and the way "soldier" is general, right? Because it's said of everybody, right? In general, everybody in the army is a soldier. In general, everybody's soldier, but doesn't mean everybody is is the general of the army, Douglas MacArthur or somebody like that, right? You see, so when I say you know that that Douglas MacArthur or whoever it might be, he's he's the what general of the army. He's general in the sense of a what?

[48:39] cause right? He's a cause right He's the general of the army. He's commanding the army, right? But "soldier" is not commanding the army. It's not a cause at all, But it's said of everybody in the army.

[48:53] So Douglas MacArthur commands everybody, or Agamemnon commands everybody, right? It's pretty crazy, anyway. The problem of Achilles, and why "soldier" is what said of everybody, right? It's not a cause, you know. So I wouldn't confuse "soldier" with Douglas MacArthur, well, he was a soldier, but you know,

[49:21] is a rather basic mistake, right? Mister Hobbes is doing, but Thomas recognizes that mistake as as one that men make, right? And say that you know, the chapter goes exactly to refuting that. It's amazing, you know. I mean, I remember more from Shakespeare than the modern philosophers. This is kinda funny, you know. In a sense, you know, to see Shakespeare punning on these two meanings that it was confusing, right?

[50:11] I mean, whatever you think of punning as a form of humor, right? I mean, apparently the Elizabethans are very fond of that, right? And'cause we're not, we tend to groan at puns um people nowadays. Well, everyone thinks that the pun is a form of humor, and somewhat out of fashion now. But there is something more intellectual about recognizing the different meanings of words.

[50:43] The same way with "amphiboly," right? The word of God is about the word of God. Because you have to stop and think, right? There are two meanings: the word of God.

[50:56] And then you know you can you can give a sophistic argument say well the Bible is the word of God the word of God is the Son of God therefore the Bible is the Son of God You have to stop and think about these two different meanings of the word of God so whether you want to make it work or the wisdom of nature is about the wisdom of nature wisdom of nature in the sense the philosophy of nature is about the wisdom that nature shows and what she does huh So reflecting divine wisdom really so the wisdom of nature is about the wisdom of nature You say the word of God is about the word of God but there's different meanings there huh

[51:35] or I like to say the knowledge of reason is a knowledge of reason but not every knowledge of reason is a knowledge of reason

[51:52] So the definition of reason there in Shakespeare is a knowledge that reason has about itself right but not every knowledge of reason is a knowledge every knowledge of reason is a knowledge of reason but not every knowledge of reason is a knowledge of reason funny contradiction right you know but maybe it's kind of amusing but at the same time you need to stop and kind of think and

[52:19] so when Shakespeare puns upon these things right he sees that now when he puns he puns upon the word ground as I was mentioning earlier he also puns upon the word understanding which makes you stop and think that maybe there's a connection between the etymology of understand and what it means and in English you see to understand something especially means to know its cause huh but the English word for cause is ground which so so if it's in very good so he puns both upon the word ground and upon the word understanding He makes you stop and think about these things huh in the way that the moderns don't think and mix up these things. Things, huh?

[53:01] So maybe Homer got got Thales's thinking because he said that they swear by the river Styx, huh? So nice teachers of the Greeks, huh? Because you have one sentence and you can kind of you know expand upon the one sentence, like a seed, huh? You start to see all the things from.

[53:40] You see, you'll find later on Aristotle stating explicitly the principle of fewness, huh? That fewer causes are better if they're enough, huh? Sometimes they call it the principle of simplicity, but it runs through modern science, huh? But you know the way Shakespeare has there, fewness and truth it is us. He couples those things, right? Conciseness there, huh? Brevity is a soul of it, and so on. I am as true as truth's, simplicity, and simpler than the infancy of truth.

[54:14] Nature loves simplicity and unity. That's in the beginning. Then you go to the 20th century and you say the genuine physicist believes obstinately in the simplicity and unity of nature, despite any appearance to the contrary. But notice there, he's talking the natural inclination because despite any appearance to the contrary, that would be a reason against it, right? But he's convinced that there is, huh?

[54:39] In the context where he says that in the book, there is he's talking about the periodic table, right? That 192, whatever it is, elements are just too many. It can't be 92 first matters, right? And and they this is science, right? They realize there there had to be more unity than that. This is too many, and they begin to notice how you know the atoms seem to be multiples of the hydrogen atom, right?

[55:03] But not exactly. So, but they kind of suspected there must be some kind of you know unity, and and if they reduce it to proton, neutron, electron, that makes more sense, you know, to them three, and they can they can deal with three, but 100 or 92, whatever it was originally, huh? Just too many, huh? Unless you say the same thing, right? The same thing you still have in in Kepler in the 17th century.

[55:30] Nature loves simplicity and unity. With all those rules that that our friend gives based on the principle of fewness, it's pretty bad way of stating simplicity, but they often call simplicity.

[55:51] When two hypotheses are possible, we provisionally choose that which our minds would judge to be the simpler, on the supposition that this is more likely to lead in the direction of truth. Sir James Jeans, the British astrophysicist.

[56:09] Or Schrodinger, talking in his book nature and the Greeks, Einstein's marvelous theory of gravitation, based on sound experimental evidence and firmly clinched by new observational facts, which he had predicted, could only be discovered by a genius with a strong feeling for simplicity and beauty of ideas.

[56:30] The attempt to generalize his great successful conceptions, so as to embrace electromagnetism and interaction of nuclear particles, are informed by the hope of guessing to a large measure the way in which nature really works, of getting the clue from the principle of simplicity and beauty. In fact, traces of this attitude pervade the work in modern theoretical physics.

[56:51] You see something of that natural inclination of the mind here in these great scientists, but in a way, you see the mind is naturally inclined towards God because He's one, simple, unlimited. It's kind of amazing that you know when Thomas takes up the substance of God, right? In Summa, it's arranged around five attributes of God, and the order of Summa is he shows that He's what simple, perfect, unchanging.

[57:27] Excuse me, unlimited, unchanging, and one. In these first philosophers, you'll see four of those five, right? Looking for something one, simple, unchanging, unlimited, four of the five, not perfect because they're thinking in terms of matter, which is basically imperfect, right? But the mind, you know, Thomas Thomas may talk about God being unlimited. In the Summa Contra Gentiles at the end of that chapter, he says that the Greeks, using Aristotle's phrase in the first book of Physics, coerced by the truth itself to think that the.

[58:01] beginning The beginning of things was in some way unlimited, right? But they were not understanding exactly the way in which God was unlimited, huh? But they were moving towards God. How amazing to see that! The human mind is naturally looking for something one, simple, unchanging, unlimited. It's the beginning of things, huh? Then they realize God is also perfect, right? But four of the five things of Thomas, you know, in both Summas right?

[58:31] he has those same five. It's a little different the order in the two, but still the same five. But four of the five appear at least in the same words, huh? Here, and then they do that circle, right? That's the rest of it, huh? You talk about God in Himself. You talk about those things: these one, simple, so on. And then you talk about God's beginning of things, and God's end of things, right?

[59:00] You know, those ways of speaking are not that far removed from the way we naturally think. That's interesting. Speaking of naturally, tend to think certain things

[59:29] because of what the mind is. Yeah. You know, when I go back to the to the exhortation to use reason, right? And we talk about the five reasons that he gives for using your reason, right? And you know, he had two reasons in reference to God, remember? Yeah. Okay, The reason is God-like, right? So when you use your reason well, you become in some way like God, huh?

[1:00:00] And then that you're obeying God's plan, right, huh? When you think about those two, they go together, right, huh? It's God's plan in giving us reason to use our reason, right? And it's God's plan that we become what God-like. Right, everything's together, right? This is a sign of the truth of that. It's really kind of amazing to see that.

[1:00:31] Maybe not, you know, act or be a beast huh You know, let's see. Other side, huh? What's marvelous about the Greeks is they can say so much in so few words. That's why wisdom stayed alive with them. The moderns can't say very much, and they take so many words to say a little bit they want to say. That they kill wisdom, right? It's all done.

[1:01:02] The the what what was it that Merchant of Venice, you know, I can't remember the exact words. But we're talking about what's his name there? Guy who's with him, Belmont.

[1:01:19] His name not, but he's kind of a joker, you know, and so on. You know, it's like you know, a needle hit in a haystack, right? What they talk about, right? You know, the wit and you know the wisdom in what he says, right? You got all this verbiage, right? A little bit of wisdom, and you it's like searching all you know all day, you know, and then find some little thing that's not worth the searching, and you can't get anywhere, right?

[1:01:42] It's it's like some of the modern composers, you know, some of the old pieces, the one little nice thing in there. Not very bright, anyway. You get all the jokes, you know. That's that's the moderns.

[1:02:01] So, what would be the reason why would there be a reason that why philosophy began at that time in that place and not earlier? Well, I mean, you can't really say that it had to appear, but you know, the fact that these were

[1:02:26] originally colonial cities, right, meant that they had to what break a little bit loose in their customs, right, and think about what kind of city they wanted, and so on, right? So, it could have that kind of effect upon them.

[1:02:41] But why did he reach one? Who knows? Or another man, right? Yeah, I don't know. Someone's quoting Mother Teresa the other day. to me. I guess it was Mother Teresa she said, "You won't have peace until you stop killing your children." Your children, right? Why have we become so, you know, degenerate? I don't know. This country, huh?

[1:03:26] Hard to say. huh? I suppose that the seeds were there, you know, but we certainly went as degenerated in the 50s as we were in the 60s, you know. you know, now we're just.

[1:03:43] I was going to, I was saying to my colleagues the other day. If I was teaching ethics this semester, I'd give them a paper. You know, who's worse, the abortionists or the the terrorists? Right. And basically, I think there are four reasons for saying the abortionists are worse than the terrorists. The first and most obvious reason, is, of course, they've killed many more people than the terrorists have, Right.

[1:04:03] They kill in one day as many as the terrorists killed in, you know, trade buildings. So that's the most obvious reason why they're worse, right? Okay. The second reason is that it's worse to kill innocent people than those who aren't so innocent. And the abortionists are killing more innocent people than the terrorists are.

[1:04:29] Okay. The third reason why why the abortionists are worse is that the it's worse to kill those who are closer to you, right? It'd be worse for me to kill my mother, let's say, right, or my daughter, or something like that, than to kill a stranger woman, right? That'd be bad enough, obviously, but but it's worse to kill your mother than to kill some other woman, right?

[1:04:54] And so the closer someone is to you, the worse it is, huh? To kill your own brother and so on, right? Than a stranger.

[1:05:03] And of course, abortionists are what they're killing their own. You know, killing their own children, their own offspring, right? So that's even worse, isn't it?

[1:05:16] Um, and then the fourth reason is that the abortion is more corrupting the country morally than the terrorists, right? The terrorists are kind of uniting Americans. There's some good good coming from this, right? You know, Americans are are uh, sacrificing themselves for each other and helping each other, and you know, and the patriotism in a sense is stirred up, etc., etc., etc. Right? So there are some good effects, but abortion, I don't see any good effects at all for that at all.

[1:05:44] Right? I mean, just just just corrupting the whole the whole moral order here. You know, the whole understanding of what's right and wrong. I mean, just you know, you can kill your own child, you can kill anybody, really. And so we, those are four very good reasons why the the terror the abortionists are. Worse than terrorists, right? You know, but I can push people right into that topic right away, you know, rather than don't even ask whether the abortion is wrong, you know, just ask who's worse, you know, and get them thinking about that way, you know.

[1:06:18] They give a chance to think, you know, that it's a physical way that abortion is okay. you know. It's uh... uh... Yeah. In one of Bush's speech, I forget the exact phrase, but it was striking how he talked about um, you know, justice will be executed on murders of innocents. Yeah. yeah, Yeah. Yeah. I know. Yes.

[1:06:55] Who's more innocent than the baby? Yeah. Yeah. Just I don't know what's going to happen, but this country. But anyway, I think the terrorists are there to kind of scourge us, you know. but they're not gonna We're so we're so dense, you know. So we're not going to, you know, see this. You know, the warning, huh? Who knows how?

[1:07:25] Like God used the Assyrians here to chastise the Jews or something, you know. He's not. He's not. I've heard that he's done this before, right?