Natural Hearing (Aristotle's Physics)
46. Aristotle's Arguments for Nature Acting for an End, and the Objections
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[0:00] But you have to be aware of those and how much they influence people. Okay. But now finally we come down to the arguments for or against, right? And we have to try to understand those arguments, and then weigh them in whichever side we think the truth is. Before our mind can rest, we have to answer the arguments on what other side, right? Okay.

[0:33] Aristotle gave the five or so main arguments for saying that nature does make things for an end, and that's the first text I've given you there. And then I've given you three main arguments that you hear in various forms in the world against nature acting for an end, apart in ancient times and more modern times. Then I restated Aristotle's arguments, expanding on some of them, and actually taking his third argument and making two separate arguments out of it, right?

[1:09] So eventually I gave you six arguments there, right? Since six outweighs three, but in quality as well as I think in quantity, then I replied to the three arguments on the opposite side, right? Okay. The first thing is to go through the arguments.

[1:32] Now. Sometimes I take Aristotle's five arguments, and as I say, I make two arguments out of the third one, so we end up with six arguments. But now, the first two arguments of Aristotle have something in common, right? They're separate arguments, and each is a good argument, but together they're even what strong, right? Okay.

[2:02] And the first two arguments are based upon observation of nature's production of the good, and something about nature's production of the good and the way it produces the good that leads our mind to conclude that nature is directed towards the good, right? It just didn't happen, right? Okay. Then Aristotle's third argument, which I've made two arguments out of,

[2:36] and therefore our third and fourth arguments that we give, are arguments drawn from human art acting for an end, right? Okay. And two different ways you can reason from what we all know that human art acts for an end. How we can reason from that to nature in fact acting for an end. Okay. So my third and fourth arguments will have that in common. They both start from something everybody knows that human art at least acts for an end, and two different ways of reasoning from that: one going through all the arts or making use of all the arts, and the other making use just of those arts that help nature.

[3:22] Okay. Then Aristotle's fourth argument, but our fifth, since we made two out of that third one, is what I call the inductive argument, right? And we'll try to do some justice to it, but the more intimate your experience is of even the lowly insects that he calls upon, right, the more convincing that fourth argument is of his or our fifth argument. Okay. But it's very much an inductive argument.

[3:57] And then his fifth argument or our sixth argument is going back to something we saw before about matter being for the sake of form, right? It's a little more general argument, and the first two arguments, and even the third and fourth, or and the fifth one, all leads up to that. The emphasis is more upon seeing this in living things, right, in animals and plants. Right. That last argument is a more general one, huh?

[4:30] Okay. But in their purpose is more obvious in the biological world than in the what the non-living world, huh? Okay. It's hard to see a purpose for water, for example, unless you relate it to living things, right? With an eye or an ear or teeth, it's kind of hard to deny in their purpose, huh? It's interesting that the great physicists like Niels Bohr, for example, or even Heisenberg, huh?

[4:57] They're quite open to the idea of in their purpose in the in the living world, right? And more so than some biologists, right? I mean, some it's kind of funny because here are biologists imitating, you know, they have this respect for the for the physical scientists, huh? Because that's the oldest part of modern science, is they try to imitate it, right? And imitate its its neglect of end, right?

[5:20] Even though they're very subject matter, but seem to call them back to the end or purpose. And some just very recently, some biologists, huh? Like Denton and so on in Australia, have started to bring out they didn't have to answer an end. But the physicists, the great physicists like Bohr and And Heisenberg were already open to this, huh? So in a sense, it's interesting how the great minds sometimes see better than their followers, their fawning or flattering or enthusiastic followers see the limitations of their ideas, huh?

[6:05] They say that Sir Isaac Newton didn't think he knew why the apple falls to the ground or the stone falls to the ground, huh? That the editor of his works there made it appear as if what Newton had found the cause, gravity, right? But Newton himself says I don't know why they fall to the ground, but I can calculate, you know, the way in which they fall and so on, right?

[6:29] I think it's an interesting point because when Albert Einstein went to England, he gave his famous talk to Newton, right? And he said he admired Newton more for knowing what he didn't know, than for what he did know, right? Where everybody else thought that Newton found the reason why the apple fell on his head, and Newton himself says I don't know. You see, I think it's an interesting example, but there are many other examples of that in history, right?

[6:58] Where the great mind, right, sees how far he's gotten better than his what, you know, admiring and somewhat indiscreet enthusiasm of some of the followers, right?

[7:22] Okay. So let's look at the first two arguments, huh? Now the first argument is based on the fact that nature, and animals and plants, you might say,

[7:45] produces the good almost all the time, almost always. It rarely what fails, right? Okay. So if you look at the parts of your own body, and they are well arranged and well ordered, right? Okay. And look at the body of an animal, right, or a plant. The parts are where they should be, right? Ears and so on. Teeth there in the mouth, and on the side of your body or somewhere, right?

[8:21] Inside your stomach or something. And the so-called defective baby is not the usual baby that's born, right? And even the so-called defective baby has, well, maybe one or two organs that have a problem, and it can be very serious. But how many organs are there that are not defective, right? Okay, in themselves, they may be affected by the one that is defective, but you see. So I mean, almost always, nature produces the good, right?

[8:58] Okay. Now, if nature was producing the good by luck or by chance, it wasn't directed towards the good. You'd expect it to produce the good what? Rarely. Rarely, like the things that happen by luck or by chance, right? Okay. Because Aristotle is taking this up after he's shown what luck or chance is, right? But you can get to the good by luck or by chance, but it's something that happens what?

[9:26] Rarely, right? Okay. By nature, in animals and plants, produced is good good almost always, huh? So this is the fact of experience, right? Okay. And we'll develop that even more when we come back to the what? Um, when the reply to the third argument against. Okay. But just to dissipate that a bit here, right? I always take a very simple example in class, and I say, you know, wooden chair there, you know, one of the legs there is broken, huh?

[10:02] And you want to replace that leg, right? Now, if I go down to the wood shop there and I cut a piece of wood at random, right, just any length, what are the chances of my getting the right length?

[10:17] Well, it's really only one length that is right for that chair, right? And there's an infinity of lengths that are too long or too short, right? So if I'm not intending the right length there, the the good, right? Just cutting, you know, you'd say practically nil on my chances of getting what? The right length, huh? And that's an extremely simple thing, though, compared to an eye or ear, you know, all the things that be right and not only in their size but in their arrangement, right?

[10:52] Yeah. So if nature was not directed towards the good, it certainly wouldn't produce the good almost always, would it? Okay. You see that? That's the first argument, and since you can put it in the form as Aristotle's having an either or, right? If nature produces the what? Good, because it's directed towards it, or it produces the good by what? Chance, right? Unintended, huh? The things that happen by chance happen rarely, but nature produces the good almost always, right?

[11:24] Therefore, it must be directed towards the good, huh? You see that? Okay. So it's based upon the way nature is seen to produce the good, huh? Now the second argument is based upon another fact of the way nature produces the good in animals and plants. And that is that nature produces the good

[11:53] by going through an ordered number of steps, such as to result in the good. So, the production, let's say, of a piece of a broccoli plant, right? Nature doesn't start just anywhere; it starts with a particular seed, right? And then, from that seed, eventually develops the the plant, or in the case of an animal, an animal. And there's a definite series of steps it goes through, right?

[12:38] And in the book of embryology, we what actually enumerate the steps, right? So you talk about where the human body is at a week, or two weeks, or three weeks, right? When the heart starts pumping and so on, right?

[12:52] So, such as nature operates, Aristotle says, right? So, is it apt to act right? So, by going through an ordered number of steps, such as to result in the good, it must be what acting for the sake of the good. And he compares it to what we do in art a bit, where if I follow the recipe for lemon meringue pie, is it by chance a lemon meringue pie rather than a chocolate cream pie?

[13:17] No, there's an ordered number of steps there, right? Starting with these ingredients and going through these steps, such as result, if you follow correctly, to end in a lemon meringue pie, right? And it's not by chance then, right? To end up with a meringue pie. So nature does the same thing there; goes through an ordered number of steps, such as to result in something good. And again, that's contrary to the idea of nature just happening to produce this, huh?

[13:49] Because when things just happen, anything might lead anything, right? I might run into your car and end up burying you. Was the example I gave there from the newspaper reader? You said it me.

[14:04] I'm going to go to the restaurant and meet somebody I haven't seen for ten years, right? But I might have met this person in any of those numbers of ways, right? So the fact that nature is apt to, go through an ordered number of steps, such as to result in the good in animals and plants, is a sign that that's the way it's apt to operate in.

[14:29] So, notice those two are separate arguments, and each one I think is good. And but together they're even stronger, right? The fact that nature both produces the good most of the time and it does so in an orderly way. Both of which are contrary, to which is happening to produce the good.

[14:53] Now, the third and fourth arguments—they kind of the two ones out of Aristotle's third one. The starting point, of course, is something we all know: that human art acts for the good, it acts for an end. How can we reason from human art acting for an end for the good to nature also? Right. Well, one way of doing this is to reason from

[15:25] all human arts, okay? And two things we notice about all human arts. Excuse me, rather, we're around, getting a little back. what The argument is going to be is basically this: we know that human art acts for an end. What we're going to point out is that human art cannot act for an end without imitating what nature is doing. Okay.

[16:02] Now, if human art just sometimes acted in the way nature acted, you'd say, "Well, that's an interesting coincidence, right?" You know. We're going to try to show that human art, which we know acts for an end, cannot act for an end without imitating what nature is already doing. Right. Now, what is it that nature already does that human art has to imitate in order to itself act for an end?

[16:35] What we see in animals and plants: that nature makes each part out of a material that is suitable for its function. So, I always take the mouth, very obvious example. It's made my teeth and my tongue out of a different material, right? Or it's made my heart and my bones out of a different material, right? And I'd be in a sad state if my teeth were made out of what my tongue is made out of, and vice versa, or if my heart was made out of bone, what my bones are made out of.

[17:09] I'd get a contract and so on, right? And if my bones are made out of what my my lips are made out of, I'd be on the floor, you know, in a pile you see. So, as a matter of fact, in the parts of my body, and the same with the parts of the cat's body or the tree, nature has made that part out of a material suitable for its function.

[17:33] As a matter of fact, the second thing that nature has done is to give that matter a form that is suitable to its function. So, nature has given the teeth in the front of my mouth a different shape than the teeth in the back, and the shape in front is suitable to bite a piece of apple off, right? And the shape the teeth in back is suitable to chew that apple off, right?

[18:03] And if you feel the inside of your teeth in front here, it doesn't go straight up, but it it's like that, curved back, right? But one straight up, you'd be getting food stuck there all the time. And when it's like that, curved, when you bite it off, it starts to go back to the what chewing teeth, right? Okay. So those are the two things we see nature doing, huh?

[18:29] Now, can human art act for an end without making what it makes out of materials suitable for its use? No. If it made the chair out of paper, you'd be on the floor every time you sat on it, right? If it made the saw out of cardboard, right, it wouldn't serve the purpose of sawing wood, right? So nature or human art, which we know acts for an end, right, it cannot act for an end without imitating nature's making materials, things out of materials suitable for the function.

[19:05] Likewise, human art cannot act for an end without giving that matter a form suitable for its use, like the chair, right, or the saw, you know. Okay, that doesn't give the pillow the shape of a saw, or the saw the shape of a pillow, right? You've got to do its function, right? So the force of this argument consists now in seeing then that it's impossible for human art to act for an end, and we know for sure that it does act for an end, but it's impossible for it to act for an end without imitating what nature is doing.

[19:46] Now we say imitating, doing something like it, but something that nature originally had done, because nature is older than us, huh? Now the fact that not only is it always, but it's impossible for human art to act for an end without imitating nature, that's a very good sign that nature must be acting for an end.

[20:09] Sometimes I take an example from philosophy. A little bit of the argument. The most commonly used work in introduction to philosophy is the apology, right? And you'll find most philosophers, you know, talking about what Socrates kind of the model of what a philosopher is, right? One of my colleagues is saying that today, you know. And now, if you can't philosophize without in some way imitating Socrates, right?

[20:46] That's a pretty good sign that Socrates must have been doing something like what philosophy, right? Is it? You see the point, right? Okay. So here we're giving a sign, a very good sign that nature is acting for an end, is the fact that human art, which we're sure is acting for an end, cannot act for an end without imitating what nature is doing. That is to say, making what things out of materials suitable for their function or use, and giving those that matter a form suitable for the function of that thing.

[21:30] Okay. Now the other argument from human art acting for an end is taken from those arts that what help nature, right? Like the ones we mentioned before, the medical art, for example, or the art of farming Other examples would be the art of farming, right? The art of gardening, right? So seeds will fall to the ground and grow into plants without man, right? So what is the farmer doing?

[22:05] He's helping those seeds to grow into plants and healthy plants and so on, right? The doctor, right, is helping woman nature to push the baby out of the woman, right?

[22:21] The midwife magician is helping the mind, right, to give birth to thoughts and develop its thoughts. Now, like all arts, these arts that help nature are acting for an end, acting for the good. But you can't act for an end or the good in helping another, right? Do what it's trying to do, if that other itself is not trying to do something good or act for an end.

[22:52] Sometimes I take a homely example, you know. I say sometimes when you're hired, you know, first day on the job, they're kind of breaking you in, you know, and they'll say to you something like, you know, looking for you to do, go over and help Joe there, okay? You know, you're going to help somebody who's there. Well, if you can't figure out what Joe's trying to do, if Joe's not trying to accomplish anything at all, how can you go over there and help Joe, right?

[23:17] You know, you got to in some way see what Joe's trying to do, and then you, you know, like you suddenly, you know, spontaneously go over to help somebody, right? You've got to kind of see what they're trying to achieve, otherwise we wouldn't be acting really purposely helping them, right? So if the human arts that help nature, if the medical doctor there is acting for an end or a purpose and helping nature do what it's doing, then nature must be trying to do something, right?

[23:41] Okay. Now the fourth argument of Aristotle, but our fifth one, very interesting. I call it the inductive argument, and as I say to the students, we can't even justice to it in the classroom. It's interesting Aristotle goes all the way down to the insects there, right? Because action for an end is so familiar to us with the what cat or the dog that we sometimes don't aren't struck by it.

[24:13] When we go down to these lowly insects and we see action for an end, then we're really struck by it. And Aristotle makes a very interesting observation. He says, "So much does action for an end appear in what the bee or the ant or the other insects do that some people wonder whether they have a mind, right? Okay. " And that's what Aristotle is saying, right? He's not saying that the insect has a mind, right?

[24:41] In fact, we know what a mind is, as we've been taught by our teacher, Anaxagoras. You might eventually conclude that the insects don't have a mind. You know, look at how we do that. Aristotle's not even asking whether they do or do not have a mind, right? He's saying the fact that people wonder whether they have a mind is that they associate action for an end with a mind, right?

[25:04] And so much do they see action for an end here that they wonder whether they have a mind. these insects, right? Okay. Now, I said to really do justice to this, you'd have to go and study the insects, you know, in some detail, right? Like Aristotle did. And next best thing would be you know to get a book on on the spider or the ant and read in detail, right, what these things do, you know.

[25:34] And I'll give a few simple examples. Let's say the the spider net, right. Okay. They have all kinds of different ones, right? Okay. One is designed like this, kind of concentric circles around what a center that has spokes radiating out, right? Okay. Now, when they study this, they find out with one of the spiders that the circular ones all have a sticky substance on them, but the spokes running across those circles don't have anything sticky on them.

[26:16] Oh. Now, say, ah, when a fly lands, let's say here, and gets stuck, um, and the spider, let's say, is down here, kind of looking conspicuous, right? Mm. What's important is to get over quickly to that fly, and it's struggling to get free, right? Mm. And before it does, get over there so quickly and start to what? Wow. So lasso, so to speak, around it, right? Mm.

[26:47] And secure it, and now having you know a delicious source of food here, right? Okay. And what's important, therefore, is to get over there quickly, right? Mm. Now, if it put sticky stuff on all of these things, it couldn't get over there quickly. But as it is, right, it can go quickly down here and over here, and then be close enough, right? Mm. Now, the spider does have something that if it gets caught, it can release itself, right?

[27:14] Mm. But still, it would be impeded with stickiness, huh? See, it's not intelligent, right? Mm. See, you know. Um, so you can see, uh, you see, they have, they figure that out. They have a mind, right? Mm. See what I mean? Okay. Um, another example, one that let's say Fabre would use huh, this one insect would find another kind of insect, and it would go over and it would squeeze the head of the other insect, and it would squeeze the head of the other insect enough to paralyze the other insect, put it in a coma, and say if it was us, but not enough to what?

[27:56] Kill it. Interesting, huh? Mm. Then would go and dig a hole, and would keep on running back and forth in the hole to the paralyzed victim until the hole was big enough for the victim, then go over and grab the victim by the antenna and pull it over to the hole and drop it down into the hole, and then would deposit its eggs on top of the victim, and then would cover it over, right?

[28:26] Now the little ones hatched, right? Mm. A ready-made supply of food there for their infancy, right? Now, if it had squeezed the head so much as to kill it. The animal would have died, and corrupted, and been unsuitable food for the young. Right? If it hadn't squeezed it enough, it just got up and walked off. Okay. So just the right amount to paralyze it. Isn't that intelligent, huh?

[28:54] See, does it have a mind to do this, right? So you might wonder, right? See, you see the importance of what squeezing it just the right amount. And Fabre tried to imitate that, wanted to see if he could squeeze the victim, you know, just the right amount. Oh. And either he didn't squeeze it enough or too much. He always did know. Like it had a doctor's hands, you know.

[29:17] So you know. So just the right amount of pressure enough to make it paralyzed. See. Um. You might wonder, right? See, but so much does action for an end appear there, right? A reason why it squeezes the head, right, and squeezes it just the right amount, and so on, right? Um. Such would be food for the young. See. Now, I might mention here as kind of a footnote, not important for this argument, but.

[29:52] Um. Does it have a mind, right? You see. You know. Well, in observing it, Fabre noticed that it always pulled the victim by the antenna, right? Okay. So one time when it was digging the hole there, he decided to take his little trippers off, cut off the antenna of the victim, right? So back comes the thing, and it's all ready to hold now, right? And

[30:22] reaching for the non-existent, but antenna, right? And finding frustration, went back and filled the hole, and that was it. Ah ha. Now there's a million and one other places it could drag the what? Ah. Victim by right. And surely, if it had a mind to figure out that you didn't want to kill the victim, but just paralyze it, and this is amount of pressure you have to use to do it, if you could figure all that out, surely you'd figure out that some other part of the body could drag the victim by, right?

[30:53] Um. I say, even our stone age, you know, the man would whack him over the head and drag her by the hair, right? I'm sure if the hair came out, he could figure out he could drag her by the leg or something else, right? I think my brain, you know, is it? See. So you might eventually conclude, right, that that insect doesn't have a mind, right? It doesn't have this infinite thing that the great Anaxagoras said is the first characteristic of the mind, right?

[31:23] No, Aristotle is not reasoning from the insect having a mind or not having a mind, right? But from the fact that what it's doing is obviously for the sake of something, and whether that's By its own mind or by a greater mind—that's something that you wouldn't even ask until you first saw. See the fact that is clearly doing something for an end.

[31:51] Now, take a third example. Right? They have a beehive here. In the morning, the bees go off in all different directions. Right? Okay. As if out foraging for nice things. Now, this bee goes out here, and it finds some nice flowers here, and then it knows the bee would come back to the hive, right? And do something they didn't know. Kind of a they call it dance, right?

[32:24] But some kind of a motion, right, in front of the hive. And all of a sudden, a bunch of bees come out and go flying after that thing, right? So obviously, this bee that found a nice thing has come back and made known this to the other bees, and even the what direction to go, right? See very intelligent, right? Okay. Now, how do they get the the right direction, right?

[32:50] Huh? Well, the scientists begin to suspect that they might be using the angle from the what? Sun, yeah. The angle of the line drawn from the let's say the sun is up here.

[33:15] The angle of the line imaginary line from the sun to the beehive and from the beehive to the flower, right? And therefore, by this angle, they are directed to it, right? Of course, you got to check your hypotheses, right? So one way they decided to check it was immediately after the dance and before the bees started off, they would cover up this thing with some kind of a cloth, right?

[33:45] And for like two hours, and then they took it off. The bees would shoot off, but in the wrong direction. See? Well, in two hours, the sun had come down here, right? So they were in fact they could calculate they were using it at the same angle as before, but because the sun is lower in the sky, they had the wrong angle, right? See? I know to direct somebody angles seems something intelligent like like we would do, right?

[34:19] People, you know, the army does that, you know, they get the maybe not there. Um, but if they could figure out angles and how direct you know each other by angles and so on, surely they could be intelligent enough to realize the sun. and, of course, the time changes its thing, right? So you might conclude that the bee doesn't have a mind, right? What's important to see here is that Aristotle is neither reasoning from the bee having a mind, right, or from the bee not having a mind, but being a product of some greater mind, right?

[34:54] He's not reasoning either one of those. See, you wouldn't even ask, right? Does the bee have a mind, right, or is it a product of mind, eventually, unless you first saw that what it does seems to be obviously the sake of something? So you're constantly struck, huh? As you're into the details, this, but you have to into a lot of details, like the ones I'm touching upon here, in the superficial way, right?

[35:21] So I say to students, you can't really do justice to this argument, right? In a class, you have to really go out and observe these things, right? And if you don't do that, at least get a book by someone like Fabre or somebody who's observed these things in some detail, and you're struck by it in their purpose again and again, huh? And notice, in regard to the inductive argument, again, too, it's interesting that we call a living body a what?

[35:51] Organic body, right? You see that that phrase. But people have forgotten what the word organ comes from. It comes from the Greek word organon, right? Which is the common word for what? Tool. That's why they call Aristotle's logical works, the organon, right? Because they're the tool of philosophy.

[36:16] Yeah. So what you're saying, really, is that a living body is a body composed of what? Tools. And what is more obviously for the sake of something than a tool? Right. So we have spontaneously in a way, spoken of the living body as an organic body, a body composed of tools. See why in a stone or something like that you don't see, you know, a body composed of tools, right?

[36:46] So my teeth are tools for biting and chewing, and my eyes are a tool for seeing, and my heart is a tool for pumping blood, and so on, right? My legs are tools for walking, and so on. My cat's claws are tools for grabbing his victim, and so on, right? Okay. So inductively, there, right? You know, induction means what? Many individuals. we see that the living body is a body composed of tools.

[37:13] How can you speak of the living body without ever thinking of end or purpose, right? Now the last argument, Aristotle, his fifth argument, but our sixth argument, goes back to what we saw when we were studying matter and lack of form and form, right? We saw there that matter is for the sake of form,

[37:46] just as in general ability is for the sake of act. So form is the end of matter, right? And sometimes, when Aristotle is presenting that too, he'll make a analogy to the three arts that you have in every industry: the art that prepares the matter, the art that forms the product, and the art that what uses the product. And of course, clearly, the art that uses the product commands the art that forms the product, because the formed product is for the sake of the use.

[38:30] But the art that forms the product commands the art that prepares the matter. So in my father's company, where they made farm machinery and things of that sort. Sometimes the engineer would say, you know, we've got a new idea. We're going to see if it's any good, right? We're going to make something, and they're going to test it on the farm, right? So the use of it will reveal the defect, just like Detroit might discover a defect in the automobile, right, when they call them into them.

[38:58] Okay, so they redesign it, right? So the one who uses the product demands the one who forms it. But my father's company, being the one that forms the product, they would tell the steel company, or whoever it is, what size steel they want, or what breadth they want it, and what thickness, and so on, right? You see. So just as the what formed product is for the sake of the use, so the raw materials are for the sake of the formed product.

[39:23] So matter is for the sake of form, right? Its ability is for the sake of act. But nature's operation is such as to what form matter, right? Okay. Now you might say, wasn't there an exception to that when I eat my food? Aren't I breaking the food down and taking away the form? Yeah, but if you look at the whole picture, I'm breaking it down to reform it into muscles and bone and flesh and so on, right?

[39:49] So ultimately, nature is trying to form matter, right? If there's some truth that you know we have more formed animals, huh? In the course of time, right? Then even in the course of time, there's more and more form. Okay, if you had simpler forms of life, as we'd say, right? Which are like almost like one-celled animals, huh? And then more more form as time goes on. So that's the the last argument, right?

[40:22] It's a little more abstract, you might say, the argument, right? But I mean, it's it's applicable even to the nonliving world, right? Frankly, huh?

[40:37] So these are Aristotle's arguments for saying that end or purpose, the good, is in fact the cause in the natural world. That nature is making things for an end or a purpose, huh? You

[40:53] know, it's kind of funny in a way to be denying that. You know, it's like at the end of it, by saying, you know, that my eyes aren't for the sake of seeing. It's true that I use my eyes to see, but they're not not for the sake of seeing. They weren't made for for me to see with something. Yeah. That kind of strange, huh?

[41:14] Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And and and the cat, you know, the claws. There, I mean, it's true. The cat catches the mouse with the claws, but I mean, not for the sake of catching mice.

[41:30] You know, kind of unreasonable to think that, isn't it? You know. No. So, would you say that it's really, it's really self-evident? These arguments are. Well, if you think about what you sense, right, in your own experience of your own body, right, and the body of the cat, and so on, pretty hard to deny, right? Okay. Let's look at the arguments on the other side anyway. Okay.

[42:05] Now, the first two arguments are saying that either that nature cannot be acting for an end, or that in fact it's not acting for an end. Okay. The third argument is a different kind.

[42:29] Now you could argue this way: action for an end requires a mind. Okay, and that's certainly highly reasonable, huh? Because the end is a kind of strange cause. huh? How can sitting be a cause of what the carpenter is doing now? Because the sitting doesn't take place until after the chair is made, right? So how can something that doesn't exist be a cause of what does exist?

[43:11] Right? Sounds crazy. I mean, the cause is responsible for the existence, right, or coming existence of another. So how can something that doesn't exist be responsible for something that now exists? Right? Well, it seems it's got to involve a mind, right? It's because the carpenter has in mind sitting, right, that he's making the chair the way he's making it, right? Okay. And you can see in the history of Greek philosophy, it's Socrates who starts to look for end in the natural world after he read Anaxagoras that there was a greater mind, right?

[43:47] Okay. So it's certainly highly probable that action for an end requires a mind, but nature doesn't have a mind. Even insects, as in those examples I was giving, right? Okay. The insect had a mind to figure out that if you'd squeeze the head enough to paralyze but not to kill? Surely could figure out some place to put eggs besides the antenna. Okay. Um, and even for a tree, who would think that the tree is out there, you know, saying, "Well, I can't move around like a plant.

[44:27] How am I going to get my seeds? Well, I'll put my seeds in something that the wind will catch and go around, or I'll put my seeds in something that will stick to a person's pants and you know, brush it off at some distance, or I'll put my seeds in an apple that an eagle will take and. spread the seeds around, you know. Nobody thinks that, do they?

[44:46] Huh? Okay. So, if action for him requires a mind. Nature does not have a mind. Well, then, how can nature possibly be active for an end. That's a very common argument, right? Okay. Anthropomorphic, you know, you know, like the ants, there's it, In C. S. Lewis, is it, the trees, Tolkien, yeah, the ants, yeah, the, you know, they're reading into the trees' minds and so on. Yeah.

[45:12] Okay. So that way, that argument is saying that it's impossible for nature to act for an end, right? Would have to have a mind to act for an end, but doesn't have a mind, right? Okay. Now, another argument is saying that nature, in fact, does not act for an end, right? And that's based upon the idea that the end and the Buddha is the same, and we saw that even in Aristotle's we can Take Aristotle's premises from him, right?

[45:47] The end and the good are the same, but nature makes defective babies. Nature what? Kills people with tornadoes and earthquakes and all these things, right? But nature produces bad things. So we can enumerate these things

[46:05] Okay So notice this argument is different from the first one I gave. This argument is saying that nature, in fact, is not acting for an end because the end and the good are the same thing, and nature is making something bad, like an earthquake or you know disease or defective baby. You know, what's the purpose of this? You know, I said,

[46:31] okay. Now, the third argument, which is perhaps in some ways most common, is not saying it's impossible directly that nature act for an end, or in fact it it isn't, because what it does, but we don't need this fourth kind of cause, right? The first three kinds of causes are enough by mathematical chance, right, to explain the good, and therefore we can invoke the principle of fewness, right?

[47:08] Fewer causes are better if they are what? Enough, right? Okay. Now, how do they try to show that matter, form, and mover by mathematical chance are sufficient to explain the good? Well, apparently this began with Empedocles, right, where this mindless love kept on bringing together, right, earth, air, fire, and water, and most of the time it made these crazy combinations, right? But does so over over and over again millions or billions of times, so eventually it happens to bring them together in a good combination, right?

[47:46] Well, all those crazy combinations are going to what? Perish, right? The mermaid perishes because she can't live in the ocean because she has lungs, right? Can't breathe in the water. She can't survive on land and have any legs, right? So the mermaid disappears, right? Before it's already those even crazier combinations in the mermaid, right? Okay, unicorn, you know,

[48:09] that stuck in the tree, you know, was an easy prey for its enemies, right? Okay. So that's a very common one, right? I was teaching at Saint Mary's College, first real full time job there. We had a very top biologist for a year, you know, and he was in space biology.

[48:36] He got tired of working for the government, so he went into, you know. Do research. So, but he just needed a job you know jobbed you know quickly. So we were able to have him for about a year, you know. Then afterwards, he got his own research project with about I don't know how many assistants, and he could do anything he wanted to. He's supposed to be the top biologist, right?

[48:59] So I talk to him about this sometimes. He could never quite say why he was opposed to his saying "yes, right? He couldn't quite formulate his argument, right? So finally, one day I said, "Occam's razor, isn't it? " You know, that's kind of a phrase, you know, where you may have heard, you know, Occam, you know, said, "One should multiply beings, without necessity, right? " Causes. So it's basically this third argument, right?

[49:27] That matter, form, and mover are enough, right? They think to explain the good by mathematical chance in some way, right? That there is so many what tries, you might say. I shouldn't say even try because that may imply right before the end. But nature keeps on producing things until it hits upon something good, and all the other ones what perish, right? Okay.

[49:57] Of course, there is some evidence. Without hypothesizing, there is some evidence that nature, at least in some cases, does produce the good by mathematical chance. The most obvious example of that is the production of huge number of seeds, right? They say if all the mushroom seeds we produce, the whole world would just be covered with mushrooms. Let's see, but there is so many seeds thrown up, you know, blown here and there by the wind, right?

[50:23] That some of them land on good ground, right? And then that kind of plant survives, right? Okay, not because they're being directed to good land, but just so many of them, right? Okay, some are bound to it where they can do it. That's why it's hard to you know eradicate dandelions, right? You know, when a dandelion sends all these things out and you've been a girl, right?

[50:44] That they're always there, right? Or some neighbor doesn't get his deadlines out, so you know the rest of us get repopulated. You know, I'm one of these. One of the trespassers, obviously, because I don't get all my deadlines out, so I keep the neighbors in supply. So you see, okay. Now, third argument is a little different from the first two, right? This is in the sense of saying what's impossible for nature to back in frame.

[51:09] It doesn't have a mind, right? It doesn't have a mind to have a frame, right? This is saying, well, in fact, it is not acting for an end because the end and the good are the same, but it's producing something bad, right? Okay. The third argument is not saying, in fact, it can't be doing so, but we don't need this fourth kind of cause. It's saying that, you see, and

[51:39] this kind of as Einstein says, the underlying idea of natural science and the Greeks all the way down to us. You know, fewer causes are better if they are enough. And so Aristotle himself using that, right? Okay. But do they have fewer causes, or just replace the fourth with mathematical chance? Isn't that a fourth cause? No, no. You're just talking about that's an aspect of the what third cause, right?

[52:05] Keep on producing over and over again, right? So eventually one of them hits the lucky number. Okay. Now, the fourth that argument consists is are in fact the first three causes through mathematical chance enough to really explain the good in nature, right? Because if they're not enough, then you can't invoke the principle of fewness, right? Yeah.

[52:35] Okay. Now maybe we should leave for next time to reply to these arguments, right? Yeah. Okay. It's almost five o'clock. What time was you stopping? So weigh these arguments, right? As they say, six is more than three, but you have to weigh the quality of the arguments. You know, I think those three are the main arguments I've heard in one form or another, right? Yeah. But the third one, you know, as I say, goes back in form to Empedocles, huh?

[53:02] When Aristotle discusses Empedocles there in the second book, he gives us the full thinking of Empedocles, right? That we see a little bit of in those fragments, huh? And Warren Murray, my friend, I was explaining it to some modern biologists. Well, that's my theory. What is? Maybe in a more sophisticated form, but basically, you know, the theory, right?

[53:27] And so, like, when they when they see now in the seeds in nature, but they see sometimes you know random mutations, right? And maybe you know nine out of the ten random mutations result in something that's even worse, right? But that one that resulted in something, you know, it survives, huh? Of course, they they they see that all the time with fighting these bugs and germs, right?

[53:52] They get a medicine that kills, you know, nine nine or nine nine nine nine out of a thousand, and so all the bugs are killed off except for the one that is resistant or happens to be resistant to that medicine, and then all of a sudden that what multiplies, right? And now you got that's that's a real problem now, you know. That's why they they say they shouldn't be giving this medication all the time when it's not really necessary, right?

[54:21] Because that speeds up the what elimination of the majority of them, but you know results in the remainders, you know, being able to multiply and come back, and you're back in the same mess you were to begin with.

[54:44] So there seems to be something, you know, like achieving the good, right, through mathematical chance, right. So there seems to be, you know, a little probability, right? You see, that maybe you could explain the good by mathematical chance with mindless causes, right? And if you can, well, then we shouldn't add a fourth kind of cause, huh? Now it's interesting, Aristotle, in one argument there that we saw used twice, in comparison of Empedocles and Anaxagoras as to their explanation of things coming to be forever, right?

[55:29] He actually praises Empedocles, right, in comparison to Anaxagoras, that he can explain how things keep on coming to be using a limited multitude of causes, where he takes Anaxagoras an unlimited one. So not only does Aristotle see the principle of fewness, right? But even, you know, interesting enough, is praising Empedocles, right? In one matter, in fact, in the matter of matter, over Anaxagoras, right? But when it comes to following or not following Empedocles as to sufficiency of matter, form, and mover, Aristotle doesn't, right?

[56:09] And that itself is interesting, right? Because it shows Aristotle doesn't have a closed mind on the fact of principle of fewness, right? In fact, he's one of the first thinkers, if not the first thinker, to state it clearly, right? And to even use it, and to use it for the man who's going to disagree with, right? But he doesn't see that those three as being sufficient, so

[56:33] I have to examine whether they are sufficient, right? Okay. You weigh those two, and you have these sleepless nights. I tell the students, you know, now I'm going to. They come back to class, you know, after a few days, but I know you had a bad time, you know, weighing these arguments because because your whole life depends upon it, doesn't it? You know, I don't know whether pulling their leg or not, but your whole life does depend in a way upon the answer to this question, right?

[57:01] I mean, they may be consistent in their thinking, but I mean that's not particularly good, right? To have eventually, you know, these these things work out, right? You know,

[57:18] when they start doing things, you know, I mean, abortion leads to euthanasia, you know, not even voluntary euthanasia, not you have Halton and so on, but the government admits they've been killing people without even asking them.

[57:37] I mean, it's logical from the principle, right? Okay. How was the president's speech? Did you hear it? Good speech. Good speech. Yeah. Actually, I put a pro-life thing in there, but I don't know if anybody caught it. Did he ever speak to the marchers? at all Yeah, he's, yeah, that was a different thing, but not not in the speech here, you know. Yeah, right. Right. He spoke about protecting all life, you know.

[58:04] He didn't didn't deduce the consequence of that, but. No. Well, I forget. I don't think they pick it up right away, you know. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Is it right? You see.

[58:21] And but I mean, if people, you know, are following the plot mainly, that's their main. You know, like you're reading a dram, seeing a drama, they won't appreciate the opera, right? See. So you can say that the dramatic thing has been subordinated to the what? Musical element, right? You see. It's kind of a kind of a everything being changed into something musical in the opera. Now you get to the.

[58:43] To the ballet, right? See, now the ballet is is a fusion of what the dance with music, right? They go very well together. But in in ballet

[58:55] is the which is which is predominant in ballet. Someone dancing the stage there, so you can hear the music better. So you can follow the music better. No, the music is there for the sake of the dance. See, okay. So the higher art has been what Subordinated to the lower, right?

[59:24] So Tchaikovsky's music there, you know, the ballet it's very good ballet music, right? Huh? But it's not the best music in the world, huh?

[59:38] Of course, you know I think it's interesting, you know, that the representation of the emotions by the dance cannot be as what deep or as subtle as in music, right?

[59:53] So the tendency, you know, of the higher was joined with the lower to be brought down to that level, right? It's like an adult playing with a kid, right? Well, the kid, the adult's more apt to you know play the kids' game, then the kids play the adults' game, right? You see. I see that all the time with

[1:00:23] with men, women too, you know, where women are more socially inclined than men, right? You see, and sometimes the men will be engaged in a philosophical conversation, right? You know, kind of ignoring the society in which they're moving, right? Now, where the woman is going to be always kind of bringing the man down to the more the more what social aspect of things, right? Huh? I remember when when my brother Richard, of course, was a philosopher, and my cousin Dow was a philosopher, right?

[1:00:57] Same age, they went to school together, and we'd be at Thanksgiving, you know, the big family thing with the with the you know cousin and everybody, you know, and my brother Richard and my cousin and I'd want to get into kind of a philosophical conversation, and and and Aunt Margaret would say, "No philosophy today," you know, and of course, you know, there is a time, you know, and of course, and and even when I was

[1:01:22] in graduate school, you know, sometimes you know you have these social functions, right? Like like at Laval there'd be what they call the vin d'honneur, you know, kind of a social thing, and my brother Mark used to kind of joke about it because all these philosophers stay around, and they really rather be talking philosophy than making small talk, but they're trying to you know they figure it's not the case, you know, the time for everything, right?

[1:01:41] And it may not be the time to be trying to philosophize, you know. And but they're people who obviously would rather be engaged in this kind of conversation, right? And uh, of course, uh, uh, remember uh, Monsignor Dionne coming to one of them and being there, and some social function, and of course Monsignor Dionne just couldn't make that kind of small talk, see? So he he happens to be into somebody's wife, and she's trying to talk to him.

[1:02:12] You actually can read the face of his ears, right? And I kind of saw this, like, come over. can I ask you a question? Oh yes, yes, yes, yes. I went kind of a sound on, you. I said, ask me a question. Everybody's all breakfast and getting stuff out of you know they're all crowded around you know and asking him questions and now he's relaxed, see? You know, but the the point is, you see,

[1:02:37] when men women associate in a sense, the man's going to be kind of drawn down to the woman's level, right? You see, I mean, it's just just kind of a kind of an inevitable thing, right? You see, so I think when when you have this union of natural science and technical science, technical science doesn't really become a natural science, although it gets a certain vigor from its what association with the natural science, right?

[1:03:04] But Heisenberg, you know, you know, he just he's obviously what happened, right? You know, he said it turned us away from a contemplative attitude, right, to a pragmatic one. It turned natural science into in a way technical science.

[1:03:23] That has something to do with our fallen human nature tending toward the call? Well, that's behind everything. Seems like. And the democratic then and wonder. Yeah, Heisenberg talks about why the Americans are more addicted, to, you know, to the practical than to the thing. He sees as as a result of the pressure of democratic times, right? You're looking for something to to simplify things, to make them easier, and so on, right?

[1:04:02] It's amazing, man. All the things we invent, you know, from washing machines, you know, to computers and all these other things, right, to people's things, you know, easier for them, you know. And but something that makes something a little bit easier or relieves a labor of people that's that's applauded, right?

[1:04:22] But he says, you know, with everybody, you know, with lots of people involved, though, in the scientific procedure, he says there's going to be some men for whom the the inborn desire to know, well, you know, a man like Einstein or Heisenberg himself, you know, or Niels Bohr, you'll see that, right? But that's that's nature, right? How hard it is to hide the sparks of nature, but I mean, for the most part, the impetus behind this is for what you can do with it.

[1:04:50] You know, that's why government and industry are supporting science, right? What you can do with that. When Warren was a chemist at Minnesota Mining, he said, what are you doing, Warren? We're developing a new glue, you know.

[1:05:11] Or as I said, this guy I was talking to about the space biology, right? While everything was directed towards you know those particular problems that you're running into in space, right? But for for a biologist who has really what a curiosity or wonder about you know biological things, this is this is kind of confining, right? It's being more to these particular practical goals or problems, you know.

[1:05:36] So that's why we happened to get him for a year because he just got fed up with it, you know. He needed to shower right away, you know. But we.