Natural Hearing (Aristotle's Physics)
31. Heisenberg on Natural Language, Number and One, and Student Questions on Nature and Motion
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/3-natural-hearing/031-heisenberg-on-natural-language-number-and-one-and-student/

[0:01] Yeah. You know, in this one lecture here, the development of philosophical ideas since Descartes. This is the different lectures of Heisenberg he's talking about Descartes, right, and his distinction between the res cogitans and the res extensa.

[0:24] And he sees difficulties in Descartes' way of thinking, right? On the other hand, the difficulties of the separation could be clearly seen from the beginning. In the distinction, for instance, between the res cogitans and the res extensa, Descartes was forced to put the animals entirely on the side of the res extensa. Therefore, the animals and the plants were not essentially different from machines. Their behavior was completely determined by material causes.

[0:51] But it has always seemed difficult to deny completely the existence of some kind of soul in animals. I actually didn't say that. And it seems to us that the older concept of soul, for instance, in the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, was more natural and less forced than the Cartesian concept of the res cogitans. Even if we are convinced that the laws of physics and chemistry are still valid in living organisms, one of the later consequences of this view of Descartes was that if animals were considered simply as machines, it was it was difficult not to think the same of all men.

[1:32] Yeah. That's amazing you did that. for Tobin. You know, I mean, that you know, doesn't go very far, but you see that, right? You know, it's kind of a weird thing, huh? And do we go through the papers on confused and distinct from the moderns? Did I bring those in or not? Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but that one in here where he talks about

[1:55] the influence of this thinking here. That's why they cut up quantity with substance, in part man. Yeah, we had a hard time putting man together. once he divided him that way, huh? Um.

[2:17] This one here, you know, where he's saying, keeping in mind the intrinsic stability of the concepts of natural language, right? In the process, what was before that? Is the passage I had before the last lecture? Furthermore, one of the most important features of the development and analysis of modern physics is the experience that the concepts of natural language, vaguely defined as they are, seem to be more stable in the expansion of knowledge than the precise terms of scientific language.

[2:51] They're saying the vague is more stable and therefore more certain, right? Than the precise, huh? And then he goes on here later on. He says, keeping in mind the intrinsic stability of the concepts of natural language in the process of scientific development, one sees that after the experience of modern physics, our attitude toward concepts like mind or the human soul or life or God will be different from that of the nineteenth century.

[3:22] Because these concepts belong to the natural language and have therefore immediate connection to reality. Since the general trend of human thinking in the 19th century had been towards an increasing confidence in the scientific method, right, and then precise rational terms, right, and led to a general skepticism with regard to those concepts of natural language, which do not fit into the closed frame of scientific thought. For instance, those of religion.

[3:58] Modern physics has in many ways increased skepticism, but it has at the same time turned it against the overestimation of precise scientific concepts, against the too optimistic view of progress in general, and finally against skepticism itself. This

[4:19] the skepticism against precise scientific concepts does not mean that there should be a definite limitation for the application of rational thinking. On the contrary, one may say that the human ability to understand may be, in a certain sense, unlimited. First thing that Heisenberg said said, right? The mind is unlimited, huh? But the existing scientific concepts cover always only a very limited part of reality, and the other part that has not yet been understood is infinite.

[4:46] Whenever we proceed from the known into the unknown, we may hope to understand, but we may have to learn at the same time a new meaning of the word understanding. We know that any understanding must be based by and upon the natural language. He sees that, you know, it's amazing, because it's only there that we can be certain to touch reality. He sees the great truth of that, and hence we must be skeptical about any skepticism with regard to its natural language and its essential concepts.

[5:15] Therefore, we may use these concepts as they have been used at all times. In this way, modern physics has perhaps opened the door to a wider outlook on the relation between the human mind and reality.

[5:28] It's kind of amazing that, I mean, like like most of these great physicists, and not all of them, you know, I mean, none of them are believers, as far as I know, you know, but

[5:42] you know, doesn't close the door the way you know some would. It's interesting to think in some ways. A lot of wonderful things in Heisenberg, you know.

[5:58] Louis de Broglie says that too, you know, because sometimes you see it just from the fact that the precision of modern science is done by idealization, thing, and that departs from reality. You know, I mean, they all say that that happens. You know, even Einstein the way he sees that.

[6:25] That's how we're most unlimited. We're able to abstract. Well, I mean, the the the best fundamental reason for saying the mind is unlimited is that it knows the universal, right? You know, you have to know the mind by its activity, right? And its activity by its object, right? And what you said, this thing is singular when sensed, but universal and understood.

[6:56] Activity by its object. Yeah. if you ever study the soul? You know, after we do some of this work here in natural philosophy, in the eight books of natural hearing we go study some things in the soul, but the soul is known by its powers or abilities, right? And its powers or abilities are known by the acts which they are an ability, and the acts are known by their what objects, right?

[7:24] Okay. So, because we know the universal, right, then we know something of the unlimited ability of the mind, because universal covers an infinity of things. If I know what an odd number is, as I do. I know that no odd number is even. I'm in some sense knowing an infinity of things. And since I can engulf in confused and distinct, I can even start to know them distinctly too, right?

[7:51] But in general, knowing an infinity of things, the senses don't, right? I mean, the eye doesn't know sound, and the ear doesn't know color, right? Huh? And it doesn't know the universals, so doesn't have that universality. The thing

[8:12] you see in man's always inventing something new, you know, an outward sign of the infinity of his mind. Huh? We see it in language, huh? To express any number of things. The object of the mind is knowledge. What? The object of the mind is knowledge. Well, the object of the mind is what it is, huh? Activity by its object, we know. Mind activity. Yeah, the basic idea of the mind is the what it is.

[8:44] And for our mind, you know, it's the what it is is something you can sense or imagine, right? And then through that we kind of understand, you know, immaterial things by analogy and by negation, but.

[9:04] we go, from we take the natural world. But knowing what a man is in some way, you know, all men, past, present, future, right? Man is son of all them.

[9:19] Knowing what a number is, you know, in some sense, all numbers. Every number is composed of ones. One is no exception. It's not a number.

[9:45] See, you know, if you say number of two and three, it's univocal, right? If you say number of two and one, it's what? Equivocal, but equivocal by reason, huh?

[10:02] But Euclid, you know, when he defines number, he defines it as a multitude composed of ones, right? So one is not a number in the first definition of it, right?

[10:16] But see, but if you call one a number, it would be purely equivocal because you consider there to be a likeness, at least of what? Analogy, right? Because one is to two, let's say, is three is to six, right? So one can have to a number the same ratio the number has to a number, and that's why there's reason to call one a number, not purely equivocally, right?

[10:43] Why you wouldn't call point a line? That would be purely equivocal, because a point can't have to a line the ratio that a line has to a line, can it? Because the point is no length at all, but the one can have to a number the ratio the number has to a number. So it's it's more like a number, right? And there are theorems in Euclid which which depend upon using number in that equivocal by reason sense.

[11:11] You know, it's that. You know, I'm thinking the theorem that says that numbers prime to one another are the least of all numbers; they have the same ratio. Famous theorem. Oh, you have to be one one only. Yeah, there there you have to consider one to be a number, right? Because it you know, if you have the ratio of uh let's say three to six, two to four has that, and so on.

[11:49] But they don't measure those, do they? See, if you go back to one to two, you can measure them all by one to two, huh? That's not a theorem, right? That the least numbers in the same ratio measure all the rest: the first to the first, the second to the second, right? I mean, you know, if you take two and three, in that ratio, they're the least, right?

[12:13] There's no well, at least this and that, right? And you know, if we had a ratio four to six or eight to twelve or ten to fifteen, you could measure the first by two and the second by three, right? But if you took this ratio here, two to four and three to six, two and four would be the least numbers in this first sense of number, right?

[12:38] They have a ratio, but they wouldn't measure them. You got to go all the way down here, right? Yeah. So they're using the word number equivocally to to be said of one as well as multitude, but it's not purely equivocal, so. And you can show that because in two ways you can show it. Because we define number by one, right? The multitude composed of ones or units.

[13:06] So one is in the definition. There's that connection right there. And secondly, you can have the ratio to a number that a number has to a number, right? Yeah. But there wouldn't be any reason to call point a line unless one of these crazy mathematicians thought maybe. But a point, what? Insane.

[13:25] A line is not composed of points. And and a point cannot have to a line the ratio that a line has to a line, right? But a number is composed of ones, right? And a one can have to a number the ratio that a number has to a number, right? So there's two two connections there, right? So it's not purely equivocal. We call one a number.

[13:59] You can take one away from a number. You can take a number away from a number, right? I can subtract two from six and get four. I can subtract one from six, right? Can I? You know, so many ways. One is not a number, but it's not a number in the same sense as two, three. It's not multitude composed of ones.

[14:30] Um, following up on my questions from last week, I'm just trying to figure out, like, on. I'm really trying to learn about nature, you know, properties. How we can tell what nature is by the effects. Yeah. Now we talked about a lot of them come under quality. Mm-hmm. They all, they go back to qualities for different divisions. You've had a quality, ability or inability. Yeah. Okay. Well, what else would these fall under?

[15:05] What other? But if you go back to the definition of nature, right? You see that the key thing in the definition of nature is motion. Motion. Yeah. Yeah. And Aristotle will say in the beginning of the third book when he's going to start to investigate the definition of motion, right? Mm-hmm. He says nature is defined by motion. So if motion were unknown, then nature would be unknown, right?

[15:29] Defined by motion. Yeah. Nature is the beginning and cause of motion and the rest, remember? Yeah. Mm-hmm. And then which it is first is such a bad thing. So in the eight books of natural hearing, there he's studying nature in general, right? He's going to reason out later on in book six that what moves is a body.

[15:53] And so when Thomas talks about the subject of natural philosophy, he'll say ens mobile or mobile thing, right? Not body. Because you show that the mobile is a body. So it's by property, huh? And then when he begins the next book on the universe, he starts off by saying, "Well, natural philosophy is about bodies and so on, right?" But that's because you showed that in the sixth book of natural hearing, right?

[16:23] Okay. But then I say later on, when you're studying things in particular, you study them by the way they what change, right? What they do, right? Motion. I mean, a tree is different from a stone at first because the tree is observed to grow, right? Mm-hmm. The stone doesn't grow, right? Mm-hmm. And the tree absorbs things too and

[17:03] reproduces itself, right? Stones start reproducing itself. Little stones with their little kidneys running around it, little beautiful thing. So does motion fall under one of the ten highest genus?

[17:21] No, Aristotle takes up motion there in the categories after the ten, right? Because it's found in more than one. Okay. There's change of place, which is found in the category of where. Okay. And there's change of quality, which is found in the third species of quality. Change of quality.

[17:52] Third species of quality is yeah, sensible quality. Sensible. And then there's change of quantity in the sense of growth. And then there's change of substance too, but the Greeks before Aristotle didn't see that as possible.

[18:25] Change of substance. See, when you get when you get to the thirteenth reading there, Aristotle will start to talk about the first matter, right? But the Greeks before him thought of the first matter as some actual substance. So therefore, matter as an actual substance in all forms would just be accidents, right? What about? They can't understand substantial change, and they can't understand substantial form or the soul.

[18:57] Why the limit changing alteration to change in sensible quality? Change of shape, change of habit, ability. When would that fall under nature? To ability and ability.

[19:23] Um. Well, change a change of habit to be something a little different, you know. That's really a question now for Book Five, okay? Okay.

[19:45] But like nobility, that seems to be part. We can reason what that falls. Go stand there. Okay, let's go story here. Why is he in slow?

[20:54] Okay, visionaries are Christ, right? So, just think about it. They asked me again this year. I was toying with the idea you know, Friar Laurence on stumbling. That would be kind of a catchy title, isn't it? Uh huh You see? And there's two statements that he has about stumbling, in Romeo and Juliet. And one is this: Wisely and slow? They stumble that run fast. I could give you a whole lecture on that.

[21:28] And the other one is. for. Not so vile that on the earth doth live, but to the earth some special good doth give. Nor aught so good but strained from that fair use. Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse. You know, Buddha's extremely profound, you know.

[21:54] And, uh, the, uh, notice that particular phrase here that's important, the second one. Revolts from true birth, true nature, right? Stumbling on abuse, huh?

[22:15] See, see, it must be developed there, right, huh? Is that where you gave us the example where an alcoholic isn't true to himself? Well, it's... Yeah, yeah, yeah. Doesn't follow the religion. Yeah. Is that Yeah. follow on this? Yeah.

[22:32] By natural deeds to breed unnatural troubles, as he says in Macbeth. See, see Shakespeare, you know, when he's, when he's, uh, talking about what the play should be, right? You know, it's, I think Kittredge is correct when he says, you know, that it's always been understood that Shakespeare was stating his own opinion about what the play should be in the advice that Hamlet gives to the players, right?

[23:03] And it certainly fits my experience of the plays very much. He says, or step not the modesty of nature, huh? For anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, end, huh, both in the beginning and now, was and is to hold as to where the mirror up to nature, to show virtue of her own face, scoring her own image, in the very age and body of the time is form and pressure.

[23:32] Let's give Shakespeare the benefit of the doubt that he knows enough to look before and after, right? He's perfectly ordered those things, right? To show, to hold the mirror up to nature. That's first, right? Show virtue of her own face, scorn her own image, huh? Now, scorn there is a metonym for what? Pride. See, because scorn is the effect of pride. Shakespeare's always pointing that out, you know, pride and scorn.

[24:03] You know, contempt for others is the effect of pride, and pride is the what? Queen of all the vices. So to avoid the sounding pedantic, like a, or, you know, to be teaching explicitly, you know, to show virtue on feasts and scorn your image, to show virtue and vice is what he's saying there, right? Okay. And the very age and body, the time, reform, and pressure. No, the reason why it's perfectly ordered is that nature is the measure of virtue and vice, huh?

[24:33] Because the virtue is a habit in accordance with nature, right? And the vice is not in accordance with your nature, huh? And then the age, really, you know, the, the score for an age, right? You judge an age, you characterize an age by the virtues or what, vices that predominate in that age, huh? You see? So you judge whether something's a virtue or a vice, or an action is virtuous or vicious by nature, and you, you judge the age as, you know, better or worse by the virtues or vices that are predominant in that age, huh?

[25:19] So it's perfectly Mm. Mm-hmm. See? And now it's reflected in this thing, because Shakespeare knows that the word nature comes from birth, huh? So he says, revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse, right? You know, to abuse something is to use it against its what? Nature, right, huh?

[25:46] Mm. Mm. The best way to judge an age is by the virtues and vices. Predominate in it, yeah. Yeah, yeah. But to judge the difference between virtue and vice by, by nature.

[26:12] Ah, we judge by nature, yeah. I can see in the, in the exhortation to use reason there, the chief good of man, his very end or purpose, is tied to what he is. If his chief good were not, were but to sleep and feed, for example, he'd be no more than a beast, right? Or as I say, you know, what is a beast if his chief good is to grow, a plant no more.

[26:46] So, uh, um, you see there's a foundation in nature, right, for, for what's good or for what's bad. Yeah. How do you, what's the best way to convince someone that the end is better than the means to logic? Well, you first show it by induction, right? Induction. Induction is an argument from many particulars, right, to the general. So you say, which is better, to take medicine or be healthy?

[27:18] Okay. Okay. Which is better, to study or to know? Okay. If you could be healthy without taking medicine, you wouldn't even bother with medicine, would you? To study or to know? If you could know without studying, you wouldn't bother to study, right? My son Marcus, he's little, he says, why can't we be born knowing everything, you know? I said, you ought to be born an angel. That's what an angel is.

[27:43] See? But what is better, a house or making a house? Right? Okay. Those are pretty clear. Yeah. So y- y- you could go through many examples to show that the end is better, right? Which is better to have money or to make money, you know? Yeah. Well, if you're working for the sake of making money, and that's all you're working for, the sake of money, and then you don't enjoy what you're doing, you know?

[28:13] The money's obviously better, right? Mm-hmm. Okay. Now, y- you can show this, um, by syllogism too, right? And there you start from the, uh, the something more general, right? And you start from the famous, uh, proposition that is usually stated by Aristotle and Thomas with the brevity of wisdom, right? That on account of which more so. That on account of which more so. That on account of which more so.

[28:46] Yeah, propter quod unumquodque tale illud magis But I usually expand it and state it a little more fully for the students to understand it, right? And I say, when the same belongs to two things. When the same belongs to two things,

[29:46] okay, but to one of them because of the other, it belongs more to the cause. Now, I usually illustrate this with some very simple examples to begin with, right? I say, if hot is said of the fire and the air around the fire, okay? Fire and air. But the air around the fire is hot because of the fire. Which is hotter?

[30:24] Fire. Yeah. Fire. What was the second line? Mr. Pencil? No, no, I got that. In the air around. I say, if hot is said of the fire, in the air around the fire. Yeah. But the fire, the air around the fire is hot because of the fire. Yeah. Then the fire is going to be hotter, huh?

[30:54] Okay. Yes. Okay, that's clear. Or sweet is said of sugar in my coffee. But it's said of my coffee because of sugar, which is sweeter. Sure. Yeah. And if wet is said of what? Water and the dishcloth, but are the dishcloths because of the water, which is wetter? See the point? Or salty is said of salt in French fries, but are the French fries because of the salt? Then, which is saltier, right?

[31:39] Okay. Mm-hmm. Okay. Now, um this you can see the reason for that, though, right? Yes. Okay. Now, this is very important applications in philosophy, and important one in logic, for example, is that if known is said of the premises and of the conclusion of the syllogism or argument, but the conclusion is known because of the premises, right?

[32:13] Which is more known? The premises. Yeah, yeah. And you can add that you know that if the premises were not more known than the conclusion, it wouldn't prove the conclusion through that, right? Yeah. Okay. Okay. And

[32:36] if you're standing on the edge of the cliff there, right? I come with a pole and I put the pole against your back, and then shoves it off. You go down to be dead. Who pushes you off the cliff? Me, the pole.

[32:52] Yeah, because you're the cause. Why? I didn't touch it. You're the cause. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because the pole moved you insofar as it was

[33:08] moved by me, right? See. You're the cause. You're the cause of the pole. And since the pole as well as me pushed you off, but it pushed you off because of me, right? So I'm really more responsible than the pole, right? Right. She punished me rather than the pole or something at the same time, right? I said. Okay. Um.

[33:40] Well, now we apply it to the good, you see. If good or desirable is what good means, define things there. If desirable is said of the end and of the means, right? But the means are desirable for the sake of the end, right? Then which is more desirable? The end. The end, yeah. So it's just your famous principle here, right? Good or desirable is said of the end and the means, like say health and medicine.

[34:15] But it's said of medicine because of health, right? Then health is more desirable than medicine. So I show it by induction first, because that is more easier, more proportionable to that argument, right? And then I show it by syllogism this here. Ah, yeah. Because. That's pretty clear. Yeah.

[34:41] Then I apply it to the disagreement between Socrates and the Athenians, right? And I argue that the outside goods are for the sake of the inside goods, and then

[34:57] I show that by induction. Outside goods for the sake of. Yeah, I show that by induction, like I showed you a little while ago. And then the end is better, so those two I syllogize that the inside goods are better. Now, if you know enough to know that matter's for the sake of forms, you'll find out that about in the nature and the and the body, therefore, is for the sake of the soul, right?

[35:22] Then you could syllogize. Oh man. You know, but usually what I do at that point, you don't know that much about the soul or the body, but I've already reasoned out the end of man, right? That's the act with reason done well throughout life, right? The first book in ethics. So the goods of the soul would be the same as the goods involved reason, right? They're obviously closer to the end, therefore they must be better.

[35:48] I don't seem to enter into definition of the end, but you say it's the act with reason by virtue, right? And the virtues are the goods of the soul, so. And then we, if a man admits that God is better than man, right, which is only probable, you know, then the godlike goods are better than the merely human goods, right? So Shakespeare said nobody thinks the body's more godlike than the soul, and reason itself is godlike, as they see in the introduction, the vegetation, right?

[36:24] Or then we reason that man is better than the beast, but the goods of the body are the ones we share with the beasts, right? The goods of the soul are the ones that are proper to us, so. This is never a way to argue. Yeah, I can see.

[36:43] But you know, someone is pressing and say, "But okay, you probably admit that God is better than us, right? " But you ask, "Why is God better than other things? " Right? One way you can say, "Well, he's because he's the end of the universe. That's why the end is better, right? " You know.

[37:03] That's one way of reasoning. You know, maybe another reason of the statement that the end is better. Well, he's the end of the universe, so he's better than everything else.

[37:14] But you can also reason from the whole being better than the part. God is universally perfect. Down. Hmm. His perfection is not limited to any genus. Oh. There's, though,

[37:30] if we study the fifth book of wisdom. Aristotle distinguishes the sense in which God is perfect from the sense in which creatures can be perfect, and then in the twelfth book he demonstrates that God is perfect in that way. Perfect. The creatures are perfect in the and other things are perfect when they lack nothing of their kind, right? But God's lacking nothing, you know. What do you mean, means?

[38:12] So I think understanding what is better in general, the two most general propositions are the end is better than the means, and the whole is better than the what part, right? Okay. But you study, you can say more generally if you wanted to that the perfect is better than the imperfect, right? Well, you study what perfect means, you'll see that the meanings it tie into what whole and to to the end.

[38:42] Oh. See, but in a way, when you see that the whole is better than the part, you see the part is for the sake of the whole, so you can be two steps on the way to the to the end business, right? So usually the proposition I emphasize is the end is better than what is for the sake of the end.

[39:15] I'm studying the theory, a general theory of relativity. when Father Anthony's bringing me to this, and you know, space and time, relatively slow down as you get closer to an object, and space becomes curved. Now, does that mean that, like, a ruler becomes what would happen to a ruler or something as it got closer to the sun? Would it actually bend?

[39:48] We don't know that. So maybe so. In space, I thought space was something had to be material. That was my concept. They said there are few people in the world who understand relativity theory, and Einstein is not one of them. Some. I remember

[40:21] the time when when when McCarthy was at West Point, you know, the relativity theory come out, and the professor had to talk about one day. Did I tell you about that story? Yeah, but I forget. Yeah, the professor, you know, came into class and he says, "Does. MacArthur and MacArthur was like the best student, right? He said, "Do you understand this theory?" And MacArthur says, "No, I do not, sir."

[40:44] And the professor says, "Neither do I." Class dismissed. These military professors are more manly than the rest of us. I was going to I was going to read the obituary there for Monsignor Dionne you know, Albert Dionne yeah, and but they're according to Father Stromberg, you know, who knew him and taught taught with him, and so Dulac was not afraid to admit he didn't understand something. You know, he'd say, "I don't understand this," you know.

[41:21] It's a good side of me, you know. These don't,