Natural Hearing (Aristotle's Physics)
13. Reason's Inclination to Unity and Simplicity: From the Greeks to Einstein and Aquinas on God
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[0:00] What sense it's infinite. Okay, that's a beautiful way to end up those last two fragments, huh? To say something is going to anticipate what we're going to understand later on. Yeah.

[0:18] At this point, I want to stop with these and and look at this secondary reading, which I've not very much turned into, but with the exception of the last part there, which is on the what movers, right? The moderns on the movers starting on page five, right? That part moderns on the movers, we'll look at that after we've looked at Empedocles and what Anaxagoras, after we've seen all the Greeks talking about the mover.

[0:47] Okay, but up to this point, they've all been looking for one simple, eternal in some way, unchanging, right? Beginning of all things, and maybe they think of it as being unlimited too in some way. Okay, and to some extent they may have a reason for this, but maybe even more so, they're listening to reason when they when they do this.

[1:19] So I say the earliest first philosophers, Thales and Anaximenes, Pythagoras and Heraclitus, especially looked for something one, simple and unchanging, underlying all change, following the natural inclination or reason. We can see in the following text the same natural inclination or reason in the great modern physical scientists,

[1:44] and of course Shakespeare, he's just reflecting this in a way, fewness and truth, tis thus. When we go back to Aristotle, we see the principle of fewness, huh? Which can be stated this way: fewer causes are better if they are not. And you'll sometimes call this the principle of simplicity, but this is, as Einstein will say, the underlying principle of all natural philosophy, from the Greeks all the way through his own work, and for Sir Isaac Newton this is the basic principle.

[2:27] But sometimes they use the word simplicity, but also Troilus says, I am as true as truth's simplicity, and simpler than the infancy of truth. You're going to see this in the scientists. Now what I've done here is not to take from every century, but I take from the opening century of modern science, the 17th century, and the three great minds there, Galileo, Kepler, and Sir Isaac Newton, and then I go to the 20th century and take.

[2:56] Great scientists there, and you see that same tendency, huh? In the first century, in the last century, everybody's got all the whole gamut, huh?

[3:07] Now, in Galileo here, he's studying in the dialogues concerning two sciences. He's studying what is called naturally accelerated motion. So, if a stone falls off the cliff, it's going to fall, and as it falls, it's going to naturally go what? Faster and faster, right? Okay. Now, Galileo's trying to understand this mathematically, huh? And knows what he does, huh? He says, in the investigation of naturally accelerated motion, we were led by hand, as it were.

[3:41] Well, see, isn't that the expression? You'll find that in Thomas too. They call it manuductio huh Monsignor Dion was always talking about manuductio, gave many courses on manuductio. Okay. We were led by hand, as it were, in following the habit and custom of nature itself, in all her other various processes, to employ only those means which are most common, simple, and easy. Now, you got to be a little bit careful about that last word, easy, because the simple is not always, but simple itself is not always easy for us to understand, huh?

[4:18] Okay. For I think no one believes that swimming or flying can be accomplished in a manner simpler or easier than that instinctively employed by fishes or birds. When, therefore, I observe a stone initially at rest, falling from an elevated position, and continually acquiring new increments of speeds, why should I not believe that such increases take place in a manner which is exceedingly simple and rather obvious to everybody?

[4:45] If now we examine the matter carefully, we find no addition increment more simple than that which repeats itself always in the same manner. So, what does he finally conclude? You get equal what increments of speed in equal what units of time, right? Non equal distances. That's about the simplest way it could increase its speed, right? So he's led to the simplest way it could be. Okay. Now Kepler, the second great name in modern in the first century, Kepler spent what ten years trying to find a simple geometrical figure to fit the observations of the paths of the planets, huh?

[5:38] And eventually, he found he could do it with the the so-called ellipse, huh? And of course, he also has an equation governing that thing. But notice he's spending ten years convinced that he will find something very what simple at the end. And he says nature loves simplicity and what unity, huh? Now later on, I have a quote from the 20th century from that simple thinker Max Born to refer to before, and he'll say the genuine physicist believes obstinately in the unity and simplicity of nature despite any appearance to the contrary.

[6:16] But notice that's obviously the natural inclination of the mind, right? Because despite any appearance to the contrary, that'd be a reason to think it isn't that way, right? Say, but your reason is still what inclined to think that there is unity and simplicity.

[6:36] Now Sir Isaac Newton united the work of Galileo and Kepler. Sometimes they speak of terrestrial mechanics and celestial mechanics, and he united all. But he's still using the word philosophy, of course, for what the whole of natural science. I mentioned now the use of the word natural philosophy. Now this is his major work, and of course it's such an important work in the history of science that the great physicists of the 20th century called the physics of the 17th, 18th, and 19th century classical physics.

[7:08] Doesn't mean the Greeks, but classical physics, or they call Newtonian physics, huh? Because he's the great model for this, huh? And if you look at the four rules, they're all in a sense referring to this, but it's most clear in the first rule. We are to admit normal. We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances.

[7:33] To this purpose, the philosophers say that nature does nothing in vain, and more is in vain when less will serve, for nature is pleased with simplicity and affects not the pomp of superfluous causes. So he's saying it's called simplicity, but it could be better called fewness. There, huh? He's saying fewer are better if they are sufficient. Nature doesn't use more than is necessary, and we'll see Aristotle using that principle many times, huh?

[8:00] Okay. Okay. Now to show that that still continues in the 20th century, I go to Max Planck, who's known as the father of modern physics, the father of the physics of the 20th century. Now, Max Planck is the man who, in December of 1900, proposed the quantum hypothesis, and that's regarded as the beginning of the physics of the 20th century. Now, Planck was studying what they call what black body radiation, and using the older theories, he was running into absurd consequences like infinite energies and other things that shouldn't be.

[8:39] That don't make any sense at all, right? In order to untie these absurdities, he saw the need to say that, put the simplest way possible, that energy cannot be given or received in just any amount, but only there's the smallest amount of energy you can give or receive. You either give or receive that amount or some multiple of it, nothing less than that. And he knew something was this is something different than Newtonian physics, but but Heisenberg in his lecture there on the history of quantum theory, he says Planck went for a walk in the park with his son.

[9:16] He says, I think I've discovered something as great as Newton, you know. But five years later, Einstein got the Nobel Prize for using the quantum to explain the photoelectric effect, so that light involves the quantum. And then 1913, Niels Bohr applied it to the atom to explain the stability of the atomic emissions. So nothing in the physical world by 1913 was found without the quantum. So he's he's the father of modern physics.

[9:47] He's called again that title. But notice what he says here: as long as physical science exists, the highest goal to which it aspires is the solution of the problem of embracing all natural phenomena observed and still to be observed in one simple principle, which will allow all past and especially future occurrences to be calculated. And then later on, you can see the different page numbers today. This is a collection of Max Planck. Papers that I have.

[10:17] The chief purpose of each science is, and always will be, that's very definite, right? The unifying of all its great theories into one which will embrace all the problems of the science and afford a solution to all of them. There are a couple of passages then where he's saying that the goal is always this what, unity, huh?

[10:39] And then I love this next thing he says here: the more general a natural law is, the more it covers; the simpler is its form. That's really a marvelous thing, huh?

[10:53] And I sometimes, to begin, then I go back to Euclid, huh? And my favorite theorem, number five is my number. Number five in book two, huh? Remember that theorem, number five, book two.

[11:12] Well, well, Euclid states it doesn't arouse the most wonder, And imitate Zeno there, where Aristotle, when he's commenting on the arguments of Zeno there in the physics, and some of them are really, you know, essentially the same argument, but the way it's stated, it arouses more wonder. And Aristotle says he said it with a quadam tragodia, with a certain tragedy. And Thomas, in his commentary, says a certain magnification of words to arouse wonder, right?

[11:54] And so you know the Achilles, the fastest runner of all, could not catch the rabbit, huh? Or the turtle, right? You know, you know the theorem in the second book where Euclid says if you cut a line into equal and unequal what segments, right? The square contained by the equal segments, if you made a square out of them, right? Using those as the sides, will will be equal to the rectangle contained by the unequal segments.

[12:36] They have those two, right, filled in that way, plus the what square on the line to the points of section. Okay. Give me that theorem. You get that far in Euclid? Now, now I want to move your wonder. What this is pointing out is that among rectangles, huh? The square will always have more area than any oblong

[13:16] with the same what perimeter. And the difference will always be equal to a square, the square on the difference between the longer or shorter side and the side of the square. I'm not going to try to prove it right now, but let me just exemplify it

[13:37] with some simple examples. As you depart from the square, let's say a square which is five by five. Well, then the perimeter is what, twenty, right? Okay. Now, as you start to elongate it to keep the same perimeter, let's say you

[13:59] make it four by six. Well, your perimeter is still what, twenty? And now, as you go further away, it's a three and seven. Now your perimeter is still twenty.

[14:19] And then, let's say two by eight. The perimeter is still twenty, huh? Okay. But now, if you look at the area, it keeps on getting less and less and less. So the area here is five by five or twenty-five. Here the area is four by six or what, twenty-four? Here the area is three by seven or twenty-one. Here the area is sixteen, right? That's kind of an amazing thing, right?

[14:52] With the same fence, so to speak, right? You're getting less and less area. As you depart from the square, which is simplest of all. So for the same perimeter, the square contains more area, and always difference, he says, by the difference between the longer or shorter sides of the oblong, the square that. So the difference between five and four, or five and six, is what one. One squared is one.

[15:21] That's the difference. Three or seven both differ from five by two, and two squared is four. That's exactly. the difference. It's always different by square. Two and eight, the difference between two and five, or eight and five, is three. Three squared is nine. You see? Okay. That's kind of amazing thing, huh? And they say in ancient times, the geometers would sell land to crooked geometers by perimeter.

[15:47] Okay. And they knew what you're getting more land. You see? The dummies thought, "Well, we got the same amount of fence, it must be the same amount of land, right?"

[15:57] Now, you've been shown this has always held, say, universally, though, in that theory. But now you realize that you realize it's also possible to have, let's say, two by ten.

[16:19] Here the perimeter is what? Twenty. Yeah. To have more perimeter, but the area is what? Less. Twenty. Less twenty, and here the area is twenty-five. So it's possible to have less perimeter and more area. That sounds crazy, doesn't it?

[16:42] But the simplest of all rectangles, the square, has more area for the same perimeter, and because of that difference, it can even sometimes have more area for less perimeter. That sounds crazy. I say, you know, if you want a fence in a thing for the little tots to play in, right? And you've got so much fence, you buy down in Spags or someplace, and well, if you put a square, they have more room to play in.

[17:10] Maybe make a rectangle. So he's like, you know, smart. And they talk about the dummies in ancient times. They're trying to estimate the size of an island by how long it took to sail around it. A lot of indentations, it could take longer, right? You know, than the other great area. But now this is this is is is very interesting because you see the likeness between that and what the great Max Planck is saying.

[17:43] The more general an actual law is the simpler it is its form, huh? This is simpler the square than the outline because all the sides equal, but it contains more what area. And sometimes I use that to manifest by analogy there Shakespeare's words there that brevity is the soul of wit, huh? But the wise man says more with fewer words. That's analogous to it having more area with less perimeter.

[18:17] Wouldn't it be a beautiful thing, huh? So you show this, and then you show that thing about the wise man says more with fewer words, whereas the Bible says the fool multiplies his words, and so on. Then you go to to what Max Planck says here, but then I sometimes jump to God, huh? And I say, do you know what we show about God first? We show He's the first cause of all things, right?

[18:46] So His causality extends to all things in some way. What's the next thing we show about Him? Simplest. He's the simplest thing there is. You see how similar that? The more general natural law is, the simpler is form. The more universal cause is, and God is the most universal cause there is. The simpler it is, God is the simplest thing there is. But all that's anticipated by this simple geometrical thing, where the square is the simplest of rectangles, but it contains the most area, and can even contain more area for less.

[19:25] So I love that statement of Planck. Beautiful. Then you had the one I referred to before, right? Where Max Born is saying the exact thing that Kepler said in the 17th century. But I think the way he states it here, you can see it's it's the natural inclination of reason, the genuine physicist. That's the real article. He got to know. He was one of them, huh? And he was associated with all the genuine guys like Einstein and Bohr and Heisenberg and so on.

[19:58] In fact, I learned from Max Born that Heisenberg had hay fever, right? I had to go to the ocean to get away from hay fever. All these little details. Yeah. See, so he knows the genuine physicist. He's one of them, and he knows them. But he believes, obstinately, in the simplicity and unity of nature, despite any appearance to the contrary. Now Max Born, the context where he happens to say that, he's talking about what we call the periodic table of elements, and how in the 19th century was it they had how many elements?

[20:30] At least 92, I guess, originally, and then a few more, around 100 almost. See, that can't, that can't be 100 first matters. That's too many, right? And then they noticed that some of the atoms seemed to be multiples of hydrogen atom, almost numerical multiples. You know, there's more unity than than 100. That's, you know, that can't be. So even though they didn't have evidence that there's any kind of unity, they didn't know we'd get about electron, proton, neutron, let's say, where you could might reduce 100 to three things, right?

[21:07] But 100 is just too much, right? You know, their mind was convinced there had to be more unity than that. What's amazing, you see people like, you know, Kepler, they're spending 10 years at least, at least 10 years trying to find a simple, you know, you know, they're really drawn by this. How do they know there is? They don't know, but their mind is inclined. There must be some simplicity.

[21:34] Heisenberg in some of his books, you know, I don't know if I've got the quote in here or not, but you know, one of the physics auditoriums in Germany, you know, the simple is the seal of truth, you know, it's mottos up there in Latin, you know. Yeah. Now Einstein, the evolution of physics there, which is the nearest thing to kind of a history of science. Einstein, in the whole history of science, and notice where it begins from Greek philosophy, right?

[21:59] To modern physics, there have been constant attempts to reduce the apparent complexity of natural phenomena, the apparent, right, to some fundamental ideas and relations. This, he says, is the underlying principle of all natural philosophy. This is principle of simplicity or fewness that we've been talking about.

[22:19] Now the next reading from Einstein there, one of these little collections. There's essays in science, essays in physics, but they're just kind of names that the editor gives. They're a collection of papers and talks of Einstein. And this talk, if I recall, is one he gave at Columbia University. So he had both professors and students in the audience. And explains that simple doesn't mean necessarily easy. Okay, As I say you have to be a little careful about Galileo there.

[22:48] We are seeking for the simplest possible system of thought which we will bind together the observed facts. By the simplest system, we do not mean the one which a student, and that's because it's down there in the audience, will have the least trouble assimilating, but the one which contains the fewest possible mutually independent postulates or axioms. The principle of fewness. Fewness in truth, as the great Shakespeare said, huh?

[23:13] And that first quote, huh? But notice you can say that a fortiori about God. God is the simplest thing there is. That doesn't mean he's easy to understand. He's the most difficult to understand, right? But he's the simplest thing. Simplicity doesn't mean easy, so you got to be careful about that, huh?

[23:39] Now, on the method of theoretical physics, lecture that Einstein gave there in England, there I think it was at Oxford. But anyway, this is regarded as most important statement of his method, huh? But these fundamental concepts and postulates, which cannot be further reduced logically, form the essential part of a theory which reason cannot touch. It is the grand object of all theory to make these what irreducible elements as simple and as few in number as possible, without having to renounce the adequate representation of any empirical content, whatever.

[24:16] That's a very nice, good statement of it, huh? As few as possible, right? Okay, simple. You see that same tendency, right? That's why the physicists who worked with Niels Bohr, you know, some of them in their essays on Bohr said that he had the attitude towards nature like that of the early Greeks, huh? That's what they admired, huh? In the early Greeks, that tendency for unity and simplicity.

[24:44] It's like having a computer program. That's what I used to do before I came here. Yeah. You start out a lot of times, you do a piece of code and it does what you want it to do. then you go back. And you keep honing it down, and then you appreciate when you see other people's code. It's real small and concise and does exact same thing. Yeah.

[25:02] Yeah. To some extent, I mean, the computers get smaller and better. Oh yeah. You see, I have in our home a kind of a big old computer there that I use a lot, and I have this little one that I bought from my daughter when she was in. Rome. Home and so on, and that's got twice as much power. You know, it's a big one. You know, but it's you know a tenth the size.

[25:24] You know. Okay. Uh Sir James Jeans, the the British astrophysicist. When two hypotheses are possible, right? They both fit the facts. We provisionally choose that which our minds judge to be the simpler, on the supposition that this is more likely to lead in the direction of truth.

[25:55] That's interesting, huh? What you realize is that how they're being led by that, and so they don't they don't see among the two hypotheses that that one fits the facts better than the other, but they will naturally take the one that's simpler if there's more than one that fits the facts.

[26:18] Now Schrödinger, I mentioned him before here, Nature and the Greeks, huh? One of his books, huh? In that book, Nature and the Greeks, he says, science is the Greek way of looking at things, and no one has ever had science who has not come in contact with the Greeks. That's quite a compliment to the Greeks. Einstein's marvelous theory of gravitation, based on sound experimental evidence and clinched by new observational facts which he had predicted, could only be discovered by genius with a strong feeling for the simplicity and beauty of ideas.

[26:55] As you see in geometry at first, right? You know, you look at the Pythagorean theorem. That's very simple, right? The square on the side opposite the right angle was always exactly equal to the square. So the simplicity and beauty of those things, and you're struck by that all the time in these theorems that Euclid gives. Or the fact that was given before how how not only is the simplest one larger or have more area, but the difference is always simple too.

[27:22] It's a square on the difference in the other sides and the side of the square. The attempts to generalize his great successful conception so as to embrace electromagnetism and the 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, huh?

[27:50] So sometimes they call it the principle of fewness, or sometimes the principle simplicity, or but that the beauty, huh? There's a beauty to those things. In fact, he says traces of this attitude pervade the work in modern theoretical physics.

[28:09] Now in the reading here from Heisenberg, huh? This collection there, philosophic problems in nuclear science. Okay, now a nice reference to Pythagoras. The school of Pythagoras found that the condition for two strings to sound in harmony was that their lengths must be in a simple ratio, like that ratio we saw two to one. This means that a totality of sound appears to the human ear to be in harmony only as certain mathematical relations are realized.

[28:38] The listener may not be conscious of this. This discovery represents one of the strongest impulses in human science. In the last resort, he says, the whole mathematical natural science is based on such a conviction. Modern science has retained confidence in a simple mathematical basis for all regular relations of nature, even of those which we cannot as yet grasp. You know, Heisenberg did, right? Heisenberg is the man who invented quantum mechanics.

[29:09] But he did all kinds of things. He was the first man to say the nucleus had protons or neutrons in it. You know, when they discovered experimentally the neutron in 1932, Heisenberg, what can I say? He guessed that the nucleus was actually composed of protons and neutrons.

[29:28] But he's the man who formulated the greatest change in the physics since Newton, the principle of indeterminism that we'll talk about later on. But notice what Heisenberg goes on to say here.

[29:42] Mathematical simplicity ranks as the highest heuristic principle in exploring the natural laws that any field opened up as a result of new experiments. And what does heuristic mean? It comes from the Greek word heurein. Actually, the Greek word would be like heurein, but you have a mark so in English, heurein. It means to find, yeah. So it's it's the principle of finding or discovery, right? The highest heuristic principle in exploring the natural laws in any field open up as a result of experiments.

[30:26] In such a case, the interrelations seem to be understood only when the determining laws have been formulated in a simple mathematical way. Now, Weizsäcker is the scientist who was originally, I think, a pupil of Heisenberg, but he's the man who perfected the theory of the origin of the solar system. But he's the man who explained why the sun can go on so long burning without burning out.

[30:54] We do not have any more than Kepler did an empirical rational explanation for the fact that it's a fact, I'll say, that precisely those laws of nature which maintain themselves in experience are again and again distinguished from all other conceivable ones by a peculiarly high degree of mathematical simplicity. The often cited principle of economy of thought explains it the most why we look for simple laws, but not why we find them.

[31:25] Now, conservation has something to do with what we saw, Anaximander. But we think all these guys had this in mind that whatever they thought was the first matter, they thought of that first matter as eternal and always remaining throughout change, although maybe under different what forms. Okay. I have just two quotes here: one from Heisenberg and one from the American physicist Milton Rothman.

[31:59] Heisenberg is saying any coherent set of axioms and concepts in physics will necessarily contain the concepts of energy, momentum, and angular momentum, and the law that these quantities must, under certain conditions, be conserved. I think the three laws of motion of Newton that some of you, you know, were taught, they're reduced to the laws of what to the conservation of momentum. Those laws, you study them. Rothman says the same thing.

[32:27] Most basic of all the laws of nature, from the point of view of modern science, are the conservation laws. That's somewhat similar, right? To seeing the first matter as something right unchanging, huh? And later on, when you come to the first mover, the first mover is changing too, huh? Rothman begins his consideration of the basic laws with those same ones that Heisenberg singled out. Then I have finally a longer passage from Weizsäcker just unfolding, you know, how a scientist will stand in his head to keep the conservation.

[33:02] He takes the striking example of their energy, huh? I guess there's a simple explanation that they say. You know, scientists will say, you know, you dummies don't know science. See, you see a a cart going down the hill here, right? See, and you think it's losing height, right? And gaining speed as it goes down, right? So some height is being lost, and some speed is being gained.

[33:37] But you dummies don't realize that what's happening is the potential energy is being transformed into what? Kinetic energy. Kinetic energy, right? Okay. Now, as it hits the bottom, you've lost all this height, but the kinetic energy is at a maximum. Now it starts up again, see? Okay. Now it's losing kinetic energy, huh? But it's gaining back in potential energy what it lost in what? Kinetic energy, huh?

[34:08] So eventually it gets up here to the top here, and so you didn't lose any energy at all, did you? Right? All the potential energy you still have that, you see. But you had some of it in the form of potential energy, sometimes in the form of kinetic energy. Yeah. Okay. Now, you dummies, you know, they have no far-reaching mind. See, you might say, ah, but it doesn't get up to quite the height that it started from, huh?

[34:32] You see? So I've lost all the kinetic energy, but I haven't gained back all the potential energy that I had to begin with, huh? But you dummy, you feel the you feel the the tracks here, and you'll notice that they feel what warm. Ah, that's another form of energy. That's heat energy, huh? And eventually they make a what mathematical equivalent between heat energy and mechanical. Energy, and this is important when you talk about a locomotive, where you have heat energy and mechanical energy being what turned one into the other, right?

[35:10] So it's kind of amazing now with these conservation laws. which you might say, I don't see anything in common between height and speed. You, they're quite two different things. But the scientists will, what. have. Two forms of energy, right? You know. So you stand on his head to keep things from to be conserved.

[35:36] Now I could add, I haven't done it here, but you could add the idea of the unlimited. Because even Shakespeare, talking about Mother Earth, says, "Whose womb immeasurable and infinite breast feeds all." And they had a tendency to think of the first matter as unlimited, but the equations in modern science, they have a what? Something infinite about them, because from one equation you can deduce an infinity of different what?

[36:06] Realities. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Force equals mass times acceleration. So, by doing numbers for one of these or two of these, you can calculate an infinity of other numbers. Something infinite about that.

[36:20] So, if you look at these four things here, one simple, unchanging, and infinite, huh? It's very interesting when you look at Thomas's treatise on the substance of God in the Summa Theologiae.

[36:38] It's arranged around five attributes in the Summa Contra Gentiles. God is one, simple, unchanging, unlimited. The one that isn't among those four, of course, is the God is perfect. Now it's not that God is unlimited in the way these other things are unlimited, but it's not purely by equivocal. This sense. So

[37:07] it's kind of interesting to think about that. If you study theology long enough, you begin to see that that everything you want to say about the substance of God can be put in around those five. So the eternity of God is tied up with his being unchangeable, and his being everywhere with his being infinite, as being the measure of all things with his being one, and his goodness with his being perfect.

[37:37] But four of the five are already kind of anticipated, right, in the natural inclination of our mind. Our mind is naturally moving towards something one, simple, unlimited, or infinite, and unchanging. And God is all four of those things, plus he's what? Perfect, right? But they're thinking of the first cause at first in the sense of matter, and of course, matter would be something imperfect.

[38:06] So that one would be would be added, huh? When you talk about the higher kinds of cause, but but four of the five, at least in name, I already see the human mind looking for that, huh?

[38:22] So, in terms of natural inclination of our mind, you can see that in the Greek philosophers, even the materialists, and you can see in the modern natural scientists, that our mind is naturally seeking something one, simple, unlimited, unchanging, huh?

[38:40] You see how kind of how naturally Thomas, you know. thinks out God Yeah, yeah, yeah. You look at you know question two, of the Prima Parser, right, the existence of God, right? Okay, then he goes into substance of God, and that's in questions three through eleven, right? Well, question three is on the simplicity of God, huh? And then four is on the perfection of God, and five and six are on his goodness, right?

[39:13] And then he talks about God being what infinite or unlimited. To which he attaches another question on his being everywhere, and then he takes up God being what unchanging, and he attaches to that a question on his being eternal, and then finally that God is one, huh? But four of the five, at least in name, are already seen in this natural tendency of the mind. Now, here's Thomas is going to be giving what reasons for saying that God is all these things, huh?

[39:44] You see, but our mind is already inclined to think that he would be that way anyway. But he built that into our mind, huh? It's sort of marvelous to see that.

[39:57] So we'll look at the section. We're the moderns in the movement until after we looked at Empedocles and Anaxagoras, right? Then we'll look at the section on the mover. We'll see it all together, right? Okay. So next time we'll start looking at Empedocles, huh? That's where it's Empedocles.

[40:20] Would. Part of the meaning in saying that our mind naturally inclines to this is because these things are, you know, our mind itself is. I may, I may have simple. You know what Augustine says, you know, that's meant for themselves, and our heart is restless until it rests in thee right. Our heart is made for God, right?

[40:48] And it won't rest until it's in, rests in God, but our mind is made for knowing God, and so the mind, you would say, is is naturally inclined towards God without realizing it first, right? It's interesting, you know. I'm kind of struck. We'll see later on. when We go back to Aristotle. Interesting phrase that he has when he's talking about the Greeks. There, one point where he says that they're forced by the truth itself.

[41:18] It's kind of a famous phrase. And I noticed in the Summa Contra Gentiles when Thomas is taking up the infinity of God, he gives all the reasons, you know, for the infinity of God. Quite a few, about 16 reasons, crazy number. Anyway, but then at the end, you know, he goes back to the early Greeks, right? And he uses that phrase again, in the first book forced by the truth that the beginning of all things is infinite?

[41:46] But then they realize that the beginning is an infinite body. They realize that the infinite thing they're looking for was something other than a body. It's that same phrase, "forced by the truth itself." And you can see it kind of, you know, Max Born in the unity and simplicity, the same thing. The genuine physicist, and he knows what the genuine—physicist is. he's the real thing. He's known the real physicists like Einstein and Bohr and Heisenberg.

[42:12] These guys are really something. So the genuine physicist believes obstinately in the unity and simplicity of nature, despite any appearance to the contrary. That's the natural inclination of the mind, right? The mind, huh? And you saw the Max Planck saying that, huh? So long as physical science exists, right? This will be, huh? Always its goal. You know what he says there about the more general law is the simpler its form is, huh?

[42:42] It's very much like the more universal cause is the simpler it's what is the cause, huh? And you know, as you go up, you know, among the angels, huh? The angels get simpler and simpler, but but but more powerful and more universal in their causality, you know. Until you come to to God, right? And God is the first cause, the most universal cause, and He's the simplest thing there is.

[43:11] Like Saint Teresa of Avila says, you know, God is altogether simple. And the closer one gets to God, the simpler one becomes. It's kind of amazing, isn't it, by the simplicity of saints, huh?

[43:26] It's kind of a reflection there, you know. that we're getting closer to God, right? So the mind, you know, when Aristotle is comparing in the book on the poetic art, he takes up tragedy and epic first, huh? Because they're somewhat similar: tragedy and epic. They both represent men, you know, greater than us, in some way, and they they both arouse pity and fear and so on and so on.

[43:55] And but then he he raises the question: which is a greater form, tragedy or what? Epic, huh? And although he thinks that Homer is the greatest of the poets, he thinks that what tragedy is a higher form than epic, huh? What's the reason he gives, huh? Well, one of the reasons he gives is that tragedy, with less words, right? You know,

[44:28] achieves that effect of, you know, the purgation of pity and fear, but it takes epic this whole long thing, right? Okay. Of course, the epic also has less unity than the tragedy, huh? So he's saying that tragedy achieves the same effect, but with fewer what? Words with fewer scenes with fewer, right? See, so he sees the power of that, huh? Just like we're saying about computers, you know, the computers get smaller and more. Effective, right?

[45:02] The radius got smaller and better, you know. Even the relation between the you have mentioned that today. between the simplicity and beauty. Usually, even in art, more simple, more beautiful. Yeah, yeah. In music, maybe I like classical music, but not the modern classical music. No, not at all. I love the Baroque styling. Yeah. Classicism, you know, Haydn, Mozart before the Bach, Handel, you know. I was driving up today, and they played Haydn's first symphony.

[45:37] W W C Y. One of the most, yeah, yeah, yeah. They play Haydn's first symphony. I don't know two or whatever it is. You know, but it's playing the first symphony there. Nice little piece, I don't know. how old he was when he wrote it, but it was a really nice little piece. 101, maybe. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Known at least numbered. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, in simplicity, there is beauty.

[45:59] Yeah, yeah. Because it's even obvious that the drama, you know, like Sophocles' plays or Shakespeare's plays are superior to all the the the the novels, right? Now the novel is not a very concentrated form. And

[46:19] so, even though we're accustomed to to, you want to go back? Shall I open? You can. Yeah, we're accustomed to. Would you want to dinner? Would you like to go? He just found something up in the door. So they're good. Yeah, we're accustomed, you know. You just have to be,

[46:40] you know, the plays are much more concentrated. The pleasure you get from them, right? You know, the presentation of them. Oh, the Gregorian chant is beautiful. Yeah. It's very simple. Sure. All right. Sure. Musical.

[46:58] Yeah. Okay, I have to leave. Okay. Thank you. See ya. See, I thought a lot about these. In fact, I gave a paper one time comparing the two Summas, you know, where they consider these five attributes, right? But you know, I've had them in my mind for a long time, you know, and you know, Thomas didn't really say how he arrived at those five. huh? You know, he doesn't think, you know, But he said you know, consider the substance of God first, right?

[47:33] And then, you know, I thought this was five things if you consider right. My number five again that I'm caught up with, but you know, I was kind of struck by how four of the five, right, are so explicit in the what early Greeks and even modern scientists and the the natural tendency of our mind is reflected in these men and their thinking, And you know, you kind of kind of helps you to see, you know, that these are the the basic things, you know, to see, But because they're thinking more of matter, you know, the cause most known to us, they don't see the idea of perfect.

[48:15] But then you know that when I got to to study wisdom and so on, you realize that there's really two criterion that Aristotle has, two criteria actually to say for the end of our mind.

[48:41] Now the end is always better than what is for the sake of the end, right? So the end of our of our knowing must be, you know, better, right? Aristotle argues in the De Anima, in the in the beginning the De Anima, that knowledge of a better thing is better knowledge, and therefore the end of our knowledge would have to be, therefore, the best knowledge, and therefore the knowledge of the best thing.

[49:09] Okay. But then in beginning the metaphysics, he reasons that the end of our knowledge must be knowledge of the first cause, because we know the way things are, but not why they are. The mind has not yet reached its end. And. If the cause has a cause, right? Okay. So the end of our knowledge must be knowledge of the first cause.

[49:37] Now if the first cause is also the best thing there is, then everything harmonizes. huh? As. Aristotle says in the Ethics, "With the truth all things harmonize." Well, when you realize that the first cause is God and God is the best thing, well, then you you realize everything fits together. But those who who make matter the beginning of all things. Then the first cause is not the best thing, is it?

[50:06] And it's kind of funny when Marxists say mind is the highest product of matter. You see, well, mind is something higher than matter, right? And and man's you know divinity that you know that Marx attributes to man, right? Man is the most you know man is human mind is is is divinity, right? Well, because of his mind, man is has his appearance of being the divine, right?

[50:36] So, that but the mind is not the beginning of all things, it's it's this matter, this imperfect thing, right? So, so you've got what they call schizophrenia because the mind is is is is all its thinking is to get to the first cause, and all things to get to the best thing, not the same thing. So you're you're divided, right? Schizophrenic. And and so eventually realized that that the natural tendency of human mind is both to know the best and the most beautiful of all things, like he speaks of the beautiful, right?

[51:14] In those texts, right? And is to know the first cause. They must really be the same thing, right? And then you bring in the four with with the idea of perfect. Then, in times you get talking about perfect, then you attach consideration of the good and the beautiful to that. The good and beautiful are basically the same thing. So,

[51:39] so you can see in the very natural tendency, the mind wants to know the best thing, the most beautiful thing there is. You know, Plato is interesting there in the dialogue called the Symposium, right? Have you read that dialogue? When Socrates goes to the higher love matters, huh? Then you go all the way up to what the beautiful itself, huh? And the beautiful itself is really the same as the good itself that he spoke of in the Republic.

[52:10] The really beautiful itself is what God. But that's like you know Aristotle says the end is to know the best thing, right? The most beautiful thing. But you can't do that. The end is to

[52:27] know the first cause, either. So, the first cause must be the most, the best thing, most beautiful thing. Then you have the fifth attribute, right? The divine substance. It's one simple, unchanging, unlimited, and perfect. You know, different the good and the beautiful itself.

[52:58] Does Augustine begin there? It was in the Confessions. He begins. Too late have I come to know thee, thou ancient beauty. Isn't that where he begins? Kind of repenting or kind of regretting this wasted years, so to speak. Too late have I come to know thee, thou ancient beauty.

[53:25] Well, it's interesting too, you know. And when you study the four kinds of causes, you realize that in some way the maker is responsible for the the matter and the form. In the end, is responsible for the maker.

[53:45] So the wood gets to be the wood of a chair, and the shape of a chair gets to be in the wood, due to the carpenter, right? But the carpenter does that for the sake of sitting. So the end is the cause of all the other causes, being causes. So the end is called the causa causarum right? The cause of the causes, huh? Of course, the end is always better than what is for the sake of the end, right?

[54:13] So when Aristotle shows that God is the first mover or the first maker, he goes on to show he's also the first end. See, but if he wasn't the first end, he wouldn't be the first cause. But the end is always better than what is for the sake of the end, right? So if he's the first cause; he must be the first end. and if. He's the first end; he must be the best thing there is, because the end is always better.

[54:36] You know, the end of all these things, you know, fit together and harmonize, huh? And. But see, that, the mind is already tended into those to something in a way, perfect too. Only it tends towards a cause. within you,

[55:06] it strengthens you, you know, prepares in a way to see the reasons that we give to for these things. The reasons why God is simple, the reason why infinite, and so on, right? But it's not, it's not like it's pulled out of nowhere in a sense, like like you know. I never would have thought that he would he would be like this, right? We look at the the natural theology fragments.

[55:32] Maybe I'll give you those sometime, you know. But there's one from Xenophon which I think is marvelous. He's talking first of all nobody really knows God, right? But then he goes on to find this what he thinks God is like, and he says the whole of God sees, the whole of God hears. Okay, well, you know, God doesn't mean have eyes or ears, right? But everything that God has is really one and the same thing, huh?

[56:03] So there's no distinction of parts in God, huh? So it's kind of interesting the way he speaks. The whole of God sees, the whole of God hears. See, in you, this is one part sees, this part hears, and so on, you know. And this part loves, and this part understands, you know, and so on. But in God, the the

[56:25] understanding and the will are one the same thing, right? The whole of God understands, you could say. The whole of God loves, huh? You could say he's he's

[56:41] understanding itself, but he's he's love itself too, right? But it says how does Xenophon know it? It seems to me that he's he's thinking that he's naturally inclined that way to think that way, our mind, huh?

[57:00] Just like we, you know, we think about the soul, which is the most godlike part of us. We think of the soul as something finer and thinner and more subtle, right? You know, even that you know, thinking of the soul as being this air-like substance, right? That penetrates the body. Because in some way, the soul is in all parts of the body, right? But it's not like a airy substance spread through the body.

[57:26] And but we actually think of the soul as being something finer and thinner than than the body. When you argue that the goods of the soul are better than the goods of the body, you know we say well the soul is better than the body, therefore the goods of the soul are better than the goods of the body. But the soul is better than the body when when we say the soul is more godlike.

[57:58] Nobody thinks that the body is more godlike than the soul, do they? Ain't nobody thinks that way. You know, not too sure what the soul is, or too sure what God is. You know, the soul is more godlike. It's somebody jumps into theology without ever having natural philosophy or knowing anything either about eternal science. You see, then it's like they're being you know out of the blue, right?

[58:42] Talking about God was one, you know, talking about the specific God first, and then talking about the reflection of God, and we'll talk about the God being infinite, and then we'll talk about God being unchanging, and we'll talk about where do we get these five things, you know? But I mean, this kind of naturally occurs to the mind in which you've gone through natural philosophy and experimental science to some extent.

[59:04] It's naturally. What else are they going to talk about? What else are you coming to, right? I mean, if if you look at the second Vatican Council when it talks about Thomas there,

[59:28] and it's not that Thomas says a great deal about God that was not said in one way or another by the church fathers, but that he what unifies it and orders it so well.

[59:39] And even in church documents, you know, you might find a number of things, you know, said about God that he's eternal and that he's simple and you know, but but and then he's unchanging and like that, but they don't see that unchanging and eternal go together, right? So so Thomas orders these things, right? And so when you want to talk about God more deeply, you want to talk about the way Thomas has ordered and divided it, right?

[1:00:14] You talk about his existence first, and then you talk about his substance, and you talk about his operations, right? And you talk about the substance. You do it around these five things.

[1:00:35] That's that's where Thomas master comes in, right? Exactly how to divide and order these things, and nobody else seems to know exactly how to do it, right? You know.

[1:00:48] I mean, even Aristotle. I mean, I think Aristotle sees all these five things about God, you know, but I don't see where he brings the five together the way Thomas does in this clear way in the Summa, right Thomas is talking about these things in some length, and then he he sees he sees that if you want to talk about the substance of God, you ought to have five parts to your consideration, right?

[1:01:09] You see. I think you could add something to what Thomas says, like like it might be interesting to have a question on whether God is the measure of all things, huh? Right. And you know, in the laws, there's that famous saying played a lot in the laws, you know, where he says,

[1:01:33] was it Protagoras? Yeah, Protagoras said that man is measure of all things, and he said, no, no, God is the measure of all things, right? Remember that in the laws? Yeah, but he's got a beautiful text, right? You know, because that's kind of you know what modern humanism is, right? Man is the measure of all things. He said, no, no, no, God is the measure of all things, right?

[1:01:52] So that's a very interesting attribute of God, huh? But if you know the metaphysics, there, it's a property of the One to be a measure, huh? You see that first of all, the One and number, and then later on, and the One, right, that's convertible to being. So I think if you want to talk about God being the measure of all things, it would be interesting. Thomas has written in an article on that.

[1:02:12] I mean, he talks about some places, but you could attach that to his being One, right? See, it would fit into that that basic division, right? You know, he attaches to his being perfect that he's good, right? He attaches to his being infinite that he's everywhere. He attaches to his being unchanging that he's infinite, right? I mean, excuse me, that he's eternal, right? He doesn't attach anything to simplicity, or to his being one, right?

[1:02:41] But he could attach. that. That is the basic nature of all things. See, so he's still following that basic way he divided it, and then you look at the at the other Summa the Summa Contra Gentiles, he has the same five. You know, the order is a little bit different. That's I wrote a paper the one time, the little difference in the orders, right? And there's something to be learned from both orders, very interesting.

[1:03:02] See, but basically it's divided around these five. See, and Thomas knows how to divide things. in order the rest He knows how to do that. You see, I mean, how would he ever have done it without having done this? You know, I don't see how he would have. Nobody would have done that. Augustine doesn't really do it that way. He doesn't. I mean, doesn't order it that way.

[1:03:29] Well, you know, and nobody else I don't think did before Thomas. But since he's following nature, nature's in that direction already. Pick an example on Thursday to the students. Right. Okay. And you don't know anything you don't have in your mind, right? Okay. So therefore, all you know what's in your mind. Mm-hmm. Therefore, you don't know anything outside of your mind.

[1:04:21] Well, notice, huh? It is true that everything I is known by me, right? Mm-hmm. And it's known by me when it's in my mind, right? But does it follow from that that therefore everything I know is only in my mind? No, no. This is the first kind of mistake outside of words, right? The mistake of the of the accidental.

[1:04:49] Notice when I define square, let's say, as an equilateral and right-angled quadrilateral, that definition is in my mind. But I don't put in the definition. So they're taking something that is accidental and making it belong as such.

[1:05:11] That distinction between as such and what happens is a distinction that people often overlook. But you have to see that distinction. I was taking a very simple example with the students in class there, where I said,

[1:05:32] "Do carpenters play the violin? " Little boy asked, "Mama. " "Mama, what do carpenters do? Do they play violins? " What would Mama say? Something new, perhaps. Yeah, but that would be something accidental. Something happens. It's not, in so far as he's a carpenter that he plays the violin. Sure, some carpenter might happen to play the violin, but you wouldn't say that carpenters play violins because of that, would you?

[1:06:03] So you're distinguishing between what the carpenter, as such, as carpenter does, what the carpenter happens to do. Okay, but I think what the accidental deceives us is where it's necessarily found there.

[1:06:19] We'll come back to that when we get putting back Aristotle, because in a way Plato's involved in that a little bit too. And this is the kind of mistake that Aristotle,