Natural Hearing (Aristotle's Physics)
56. Aristotle's Physics IV: Time Is Not Motion, but Something of Motion
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/3-natural-hearing/056-aristotles-physics-iv-time-is-not-motion-but-something-of/

[0:01] the alarm would go off, you know, because they, you know, check you out, you know, and you have to unbutton your buckle too to make sure there's nothing there. So a little bit of a

[0:14] thing. Okay, shall we begin? Name of the Father, the Son, Holy Spirit, Amen. God, our enlightenment, guardian angels, strengthen the lights of our minds, order to illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. Saint Thomas Aquinas, Angelic Doctor, and help us to understand all that you have written. Name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen. Because you happen to see the address there of

[0:51] John Paul II there that he gave in Kazakhstan to the representatives of culture, art, and the sciences? Do you have the Pope's speech here? Do you have that? It's in that latest Pope's speech, you know, but it's. Back several months, I was I was sh I'll have to bring it in and read'cause I'm interested in the things he has to say. But he's quoting some author there from Kazakhstan, saying some interesting things.

[1:18] So, but I'll wait to have the text in front of me so I can read the little things he said. So we're up to the sixteenth reading, I believe, right? In the fifteenth reading, we saw before I went south. They call you people you come down for the winter to escape the snow. What their nickname for them is? You hear it all around there. They call them snowbirds.

[1:51] Oh, you know that house belongs to a snowbird. You know, they come down the winter time and they go up. It's a kind of a nice name. It's going to be sort of a funny, funny name.

[2:09] Okay, so we saw the difficulties in fifteen. The difficulties about how time even exists, right? And the difficulties about the now and how it can what cease to be, right? And if doesn't cease to be, other problems. Okay, so now we got to start to approach the definition here in reading sixteen.

[2:38] So what time is, and what is the nature of it? He says at the beginning of this is likewise unclear from the things handed down which we have gone through before. And now he gives two, not too deeply thought out opinions about what time is. For some say it is the what movement of the whole, right? The circular movement of the whole what sky around us, huh?

[3:08] But others say it's the sphere itself. Now he gives a couple of reasons against that first opinion. And yet a part of going around in a circle is some time, but not a going around in a circle. That's kind of a interesting thing, right? If you say that time is the circular motion, right? Okay, then a part of that circular motion would not be what a circular motion, and therefore a part of time would not be time.

[3:50] Okay, but just as part of a line is a line, so it seems part of time is time, huh? Yeah. Okay. For what is taken is a part of going around in a circle. But it is not a going around in a circle. It's not a circulation.

[4:08] Further, he says, if there are many heavens and time was likewise the motion each of these, then many times will be together, right? We have these many circular motions apparently around us, huh? So if time is a circular motion, then there are many times simultaneous. It just doesn't seem to agree with what we think about time. Now the other opinion, of course, is more gross. He says, huh?

[4:34] But all things are in time, and all things are in the sphere of the whole. Because of that, it seems to some that time is the sphere of the whole. But this statement is too stupid to look into the possibilities of it.

[4:50] No, this is obviously equivocation on two meanings of in, right? All things are in the world, right? So they're contained in the in the sphere apparently, and all things are in time, right? Therefore, time must be the whole sphere, right? Well, two different senses of what in, huh? And

[5:15] incidentally, Melissus there we didn't look at that part in the first book, but Melissus, he confuses the two senses of in too, huh? And not the two senses of in, but the two senses of what limit, right? He says that being never came to be, so it had no beginning, right? It's without any, and therefore it has no end, right? Therefore, it's what unlimited in size, right?

[5:44] But he confuses the sense in which it has no beginning and no end in time, with having no beginning, no end in its what size, right? So in this here, you have a somewhat similar confusion there, huh? Some sense of in as in place, and then in time. In time, yeah, yeah. Everything is in time. Everything is in place, right? Therefore, everything is in the same thing, right?

[6:15] But in doesn't mean the same thing when you say things are in time, and you say they're in place, right? Okay. Yeah. We're in this room, in this day, in this year. Doesn't mean the same thing. But notice those are not two different central senses of the word in, as we spoke last time. Right. The central sense he gives of in there, the first one is in place, and then he leads back to that in time.

[6:43] When you say leads back, we don't mean he simply says it's the same meaning, but it has a certain similarity, right? Well, as Plato says, beware of likeness. Huh? Likeness is a very slippery thing. And Aristotle, when he writes the book on Sophistical Refutations, he says that. In general, deception takes place by means of what, or because of likeness, right?

[7:13] We mix up things because they are alike, and that shows kind of a connection too between what deception and the imagination, because imagination is taken with the the likeness of things. That's got what Joachim of Flora in trouble there, right? You know, and he's trying to see the likeness there between what, you know, Christ's prayer, you know, that they may all be one, as you and I are one, the Father and I are one, but the Father and Christ are one in a greater, in a different way than we can be one, huh?

[7:53] And so he got in trouble overextending the the likeness between those two, and so his his his mistake there was corrected in the was it the fourth Lateran Council, right, the one at 1215. But that's the the one where the Lateran council teaches that you can never note a likeness, you know, between the creature and God without the same time noting a greater what, unlikeness As far as he means that kind of what infinite distance there between the creature and God.

[8:25] I told you about the time I had a student from Saudi Arabia in one of my classes. Oh yeah. And he objected to to Shakespeare saying that reason is godlike, huh? And so I want you know to explain to him, you know, in what sense we would speak of likeness of these things. I was giving him that text, you know, so that kind of assuaged him a bit, right?

[8:48] That we're not as crazy and as heretical and impious as we might appear to him. You know. Okay. Now in the fifth paragraph there, he's going to start to approach in his own now what time is, huh? And the starting point is to see that what there's some connection between time and what Motion. motion or change, yeah. And even in those two opinions given before, the one that he considers a little more than the other, right, is the one that ties up time in some way with motion.

[9:29] As if that's more plausible, right? Than to confuse time with place. So that's kind of the the loose thread you might say where he starts to unravel this. But since time seems especially to be motion and change, this ought to be looked into, right? Okay. Now let's just stop there for a moment, huh?

[10:01] You know, Sir Isaac Newton and others speak of the flow of time, don't they? And you hear the expression tempus fugit, time what flees, right? Wasn't that a sign that we see some connection between time and motion, whatever that is, whether time is a motion or in some way, I'll connect with it? Time waits for no man. See? Seems to imply that, right? Okay. Or take Shakespeare's beautiful what simile, huh?

[10:41] Where he says, like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore, so do our minutes hasten to their end. Each changing place with that which goes before, in sequent toil all forwards do contend. Okay. So notice he's comparing the minutes of our time to what the waves, one of which is crashing against the shore. Before, after another one, right? So you're thinking there is some connection there between time, right?

[11:18] Like is the waves make towards the pebble shore? It's like a motion, right? So do our minutes hasten to their end? So as many signs in the way we all speak about time that we think of what it is being somehow connected with motion, right?

[11:38] But now the next step is the question: Is time itself a motion, or is it something of motion, right? But not motion itself, okay? And he's going to what reason against it being a motion?

[12:03] But then because it's connected with motion, if it's not motion, it must then be something what of motion? Of motion, yeah. And then you have to investigate what it is of motion, huh? Okay, but this is the first thing: is it what? Motion. Yeah, yeah. And I was mentioning something like that when we talked about motion itself, right? Is motion the thing in motion?

[12:36] You know, and Galileo talks about the falling to the earth and so on, naturally accelerated motion. Is it the falling that falls? Say when they kicked the football, right? Is the flying that goes flying through the air? Was it

[12:59] flying that flew through the air was an airplane? To the best of my knowledge, it was an airplane, right? Going through the sky, huh? Okay. We're

[13:10] taking off from Melbourne, and they and they were running down, you know, to take off, and somebody's seat belt wasn't working, so they all went all the way back and delayed us an hour until they could either fix the seat belt to get someone to agree to get off the airplane. I said, what the heck? I was going to say just get a rope and tie them down.

[13:38] If you're worried about them, but I frankly I don't want to take the you know take the legal responsibility of somebody you know flying through through inner space. So we delayed an hour that time, yeah. Anyway,

[13:56] okay. Notice the first argument he says in that fifth paragraph again. But since time seems especially to be motion and change, this ought to be looked into. And now he argues the change in the motion of each thing, however, is only in the one changing, right? Or where the one moving and changing is, huh? But time seems to be what everywhere and among all things, right? So if you're walking down the hall and I'm walking in the woods, right?

[14:35] Your walking is what in the hall where you are, right? And my walking is in the woods, right? But at the same time, right? And that seems to be both in where you are and where I am at the same time. So that's one reason why he argues about it being simply a what motion or change, huh? Even he said it was the motion say of the sun around the earth, right?

[14:59] Ah, where is that motion? It's up there where the sun is, right? You're assuming the sun's going around the earth, okay? See, why time seems to be down here and everywhere, huh? Okay.

[15:13] Further, he says change or motion is faster and slower, while time is not faster and slower, huh? Now, let's stop again on that for a bit, huh? Because you hear people say that the time went what? Yeah, well the time went fast. Did the time went fast?

[15:37] It seems like you just got there, you know. When the students are seniors now, like around graduation time, you know, you always hear some students saying, "It's like I just got here yesterday," you know. As a freshman now, he's he's graduating and going on other things, right? But it's a common you know statement of people, huh? Okay. And I suppose that's very common. People coming back in vacations too, you know.

[16:02] Just back in the job, you know. Okay. But notice if time, the fact that we speak of time as going faster or slower is a sign that we think a bit of time as being a what? A motion, right? That could go faster or slower, huh? Just like you could walk faster or slower, so time could, you know, go faster or slower, right? You know. Okay.

[16:33] But as he points out, fast and slow are actually determined what? By time, right? For the fast moves much in little time, and the slow little in much, huh? But time is not determined by time, huh?

[16:53] Neither as regards how much it is nor as regards how it is. It is clear then that it is not motion. Okay. And he says for the present let there be no difference for us to say motion or change, huh? Notice Aristotle speaking there, right? Just like in the proemium there to Metaphysics (wisdom) right? When he's distinguishing art or science from what experience, and he made no distinction there between art or science, but he says, kind of a footnote there that, quoting the text, you know, we've spoken in the Nicomachean Ethics, right?

[17:31] In the Ethics there about the difference between what art and science and foresight and so on, right? But he's not concerned with the difference between them there, but just the fact that what they have in common that distinguishes them from experience, huh? Okay. Well, here he's not yet concerned with making any distinction between motion or what change, huh?

[18:01] So, notice in those two arguments, he's he's reasoning that time is not Motion or change, right? And therefore, in a way, he's going to conclude that it's what something of change, right? But he takes, in a sense, the other what alternative that it's nothing to do with change, right? And rejects that, right? For neither is it without change, right? It's not change, but it's not without change.

[18:31] Okay, just like we could say about motion, right? Motion is not the thing in motion, but it's not without the thing in motion, right? Therefore, it's something of the thing in motion, huh? Okay,

[18:54] just like you might say the shape of my body is not my body, but it's not without my body either. Therefore, the shape of my body is what is something of my body, huh? Okay,

[19:13] or imagine you know say what I want to say there. My shape, okay, my shape is not my body, but it's not without my body. Therefore, it's something of my body. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Now, what is it of my body? Say, well, it's the termination of my body or something like that, right? Okay, it's a limit of my body or something of that sort. Okay. So likewise, he's saying something like that here, right?

[19:45] It's not change or motion, but neither is it without change or motion. Okay. Yeah. For when we do not change at all in thought. Kill Mountains, right? Yeah. What's his name? Winkle. Rip Van Winkle. Oh, Rip Van Winkle. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a very, it's a very famous story, right? But it, it appears in the, you know, it's in the collection called what? The Sketchbook, right? Yeah. Okay.

[20:14] Just as the Legend of Sleepy Hollow. A lot of times when they pull out the Legend of Sleepy Hollow or Rip Van Winkle, and you get them in a separate what? Edition, right? Story, right? So if you go down to the Hudson, one of the main bridges across the Hudson is called the what? Rip Van Winkle Bridge. Oh man. And it's near where the Catskills are, right?

[20:35] Where the story is taken place. And in that area, sometimes they they buried, you know, a treasure that people can try to find. So sort of interesting, huh? But notice what happened to Rip Van Winkle. You know the story, huh? He went up where? Up into the mountains, right? To hunt or something. Okay. Yeah. He ran into these strange characters, right? And he had a swig of their whiskey and so on.

[21:03] He fell asleep, and this is sometime before the what? American Revolution, right? And he was asleep for what? Ten years, I guess it was, huh? See. So he wakes up. He thinks, "What? Oh my God!" I say, "I'm going to be in trouble with the mistress, Mrs. And you know, his gun is rusted and everything, right? And he goes down to the village, and things look different, right?

[21:32] Things have changed, and different people living in the houses and and so on. And they kind of think he's kind of a madman, right? And and the old sign that's been there of King George, huh? Oh yeah. Now it's got some guy called George Washington, you know, on the sign. They painted over it and it's George Washington instead of George the Third, wasn't it? And you know, there's some kind of a political rally going on, and who are you for?

[22:01] I'm for the king, he says. He's trying to get in trouble with, you see. So he gradually he begins to realize that he's spent all this time has passed, huh? See. Um.

[22:19] I knew a man who was in the Second World War. I was in the the airplane flights over what Normandy, huh? Oh wow. And he was only like a kid, like 17 years at the time. And gunner, I guess, was his position. But he says the first day went over there. We didn't hit too many targets because we were flying pretty high. Second day went over there.

[22:45] They they told us to fly low. Hit your targets. So he said you you would you know go to confession and communion. Maybe, but that's it. You wouldn't really eat anything to speak of because you just what? You know, you get so tense, huh? And then when you get off the airplane, huh? As you walk off, they have little cups of scotch for you to drink, right?

[23:08] To calm you down. And he didn't care for scotch, you know. But one time I come back, and he takes the two scotches, right? And goes to bed, just exhausted, right? And he's stuck for two days. So sometimes people in the hospital or something are wrong. You know, they sleep for a couple of days. I mean, you know, none of this is possible. But but you wake up and you think it's what the next day, and it's actually what two days.

[23:36] But you're not aware of any what motion going on. So it's as if what there's been no passage of time, okay? For he says, for they join together the later now and the earlier now, making them one, right? So when he fell asleep, right, and when he woke up, right, they take as being more or less the same now, huh? And if it's the same now, then there's really no what time in between, right?

[24:15] Um, just as if the now was not other but one and the same, time would not be, right? So since it's being other is hidden now, you take as being one and not two. There does not seem to be time in between.

[24:40] That's interesting, huh? Because you've got to see the earlier and the later now as being two nows, right? Before you're aware of time, right? And that's going to be connected with time and what number in some way, because two is the first what number, right? Unless you have two nows, you don't have any what time, right? Huh? Just one now, you'd have no time, right? And the person's been asleep, right?

[25:16] But now when he, he falls asleep now and he wakes up now, and there are two different nows, but he's what thinks they're the same now. Did I doze off? I'm sorry. Apologetic like that, huh? When I was in when I was in college, there there was a um, used to have these kind of windows where you kind of crank them out like that. This one classroom had a kind of a loose window, and this one student had fallen asleep, you know.

[25:53] And the wind blew the window and banged like. That right, and he said, with some kind of a swear word, you know. As a priest teaching the class, oh, he's apologizing for.

[26:08] But some people, you know, they doze off and they don't realize they dozed off, right? And so they think, you know, the same now, right? It's really later now, so not aware of the passage of what time. Okay.

[26:27] So he's at the top of page five now. If then it happens to us not to think there is time when we do not distinguish any change, but the soul seems to remain in something one and indivisible. And when we sense and determine, then we they're true nows, right? Then we say there has been time. It is clear that time is not without motion. That should be or, I guess, without motion or change, huh?

[26:59] Okay. So the conclusion then is: it is clear then that time is neither what motion nor without motion, right? Okay. As I said there, with with the definition of motion itself, or with my shape and so on, right? Huh? You could proceed in a somewhat similar what way, huh? Okay. But it's not this, but it's not without this, huh?

[27:39] Okay. What is poetic meter? Is it syllables? Just syllables. Say. Some kind of syllables. Say. But is it without syllables? No. See. Poetic meter is not syllables, but it's not without syllables.

[28:26] Therefore, it's something what of syllables. Okay. The next question is: Well, what is it of syllables? Well, it's an order, right, of accented and unaccented syllables, huh? Or it's an order of long and short syllables, maybe in Greek or Latin, but in English meter, it's an order of what accented and unaccented syllables. Okay, you have one accented syllable, one unaccented, or vice versa, right? Or two unaccented, one accented, or the reverse of that.

[29:07] Those are the main ones. So there's a lot of things that have to be defined in this way, and even when we study the definition of soul, sometime, right? The soul is not the body, right? But it can't be defined without the body.

[29:31] Okay. That's why it's difficult to understand the human soul, because human soul can be without the what body, right? Unlike the other souls, huh? So that's kind of a special thing, isn't it? Right?

[29:53] It's not a body, but it can't be defined without a body. But it can be without a body. It's kind of strange, you know. Well, with Thomas in the commentary on the soul, there he compares the definition of what the soul to the definition of an accident, not because the soul is an accident, right? But because, like an accident, has to be defined as something what of another, right?

[30:29] That's why Aristotle in the seventh book of wisdom, when he's talking about definition, he says that either only substance can be defined, and accident cannot be defined, or accident is defined in another sense of the word definition than substance, huh? Because the word definition means what? Limit. It comes from the word limit, yeah, Finis in Latin means end or limit, and in Greek, you see sometimes the word horos, o r o s or omicron rho, but with an H with an accent, but that means limit in Greek, right?

[31:17] See, or sometimes they call it a horismos huh It's like the word for what horizon, right? The horizon is that line that what separates the sky from the earth, right? Okay, so it's the idea of a limit here, but the idea of a limit seems to mean what? When you draw the city limits of Worcester, all Worcester and every bit of Worcester is inside those city limits, and no bit and no part of Worcester is outside those city limits, and no other town whatsoever, right,

[32:02] is at all within that what city limits of Worcester? I live in Shrewsbury, but no part of Shrewsbury is within Worcester. Worcester tries to, you know, to swallow us up because we're kind of wealthy suburb, you know, but Shrewsbury always says no, and we have much better, you know, snow shoveling that than the city Worcester has, you know, in our side streets and so on. So, but when you define an accident, you have to what put in its its limit something other than itself, because you have to define it as something of another.

[32:43] It's something of something that isn't, and so you have to bring in something other than itself into its definition. That seems to be contrary to what a definition is. So you don't really have a definition. Of accident, or if you want to say you have a definition of accident, it's a little different meaning of the word, right? Yeah. So those things that have to be defined as something of another, um,

[33:15] they have to be defined that way because that's what they are. And that's why we say, in logic, as Monsignor Dionne taught us, you can't what entirely divorce logic from things and have a purely formal logic like the modern logicians want to have, because something as basic as definition, you have to take into account the difference between something can be defined just by itself, right, and something that has to be defined as something of another.

[33:53] You see that? And so you have to take into account somewhat what it is that you're defining, huh? And not every, you know, not every difference in things gives you a different kind of definition, right? But surely there's a difference in the kind of definition you need for what

[34:16] defining a substance and for defining an accident or defining something that is something of a what of another, right? Okay. And maybe when you define something like blindness, that's again another kind of definition, because that's really the negation, the non-being of something else, right? It's not something of another, but it's the negation of it, huh?

[34:50] So notice how the connection now between the last sentence in the sixteenth reading, it is clear then that time is neither motion nor without motion, and now the starting point in the seventeenth reading for the next part of the investigation. Since we seek what time is, right? We must begin to grasp what it is of motion, right? Okay. It's not motion, but it's something of motion. What it is of motion, right?

[35:25] For we sense motion in time, what together, right? And notice Aristotle's way of proceeding here. You know, I kind of borrowed and imitated back in

[35:42] the first book of Natural Philosophy there when I was pointing out that changes between contraries, and the first way we see the changes between contraries is by induction, right? And we see in the fragments of Heraclitus how he's already making that induction, dry things, you know. Wet things dry out, and so on. Healthy becomes sick, and so on. And then you see Plato in the Phaedo giving that induction, right?

[36:13] It's more full than you find it in the fragments, but the same thing basically. And that's the basic way Aristotle is coming to that by induction. But then sometimes I give a second way of kind of manifesting this. Remember what I did? My ten o'clock, eleven o'clock example.

[36:33] Remember that? I said if you're told that X is, let's say, soft at ten o'clock, and it's what, cold at eleven o'clock, would you recognize that a change had taken place?

[36:55] X, whatever X is, right? X is what, soft at ten o'clock. It's cold at eleven o'clock. Would Sherlock Holmes, know that a change had taken place?

[37:14] Well, the same thing can be what? Soft and cold. Soft and cold, like ice cream, let's say. Likewise, if you were told that at ten o'clock X is what,

[37:32] hot, right? And at eleven o'clock it is hard, right? Would you know that a change had taken place? No, because it could have been all along a hot stone, right? So would have been hot at ten, and would have been hard at eleven, right, without having changed at all. But if you were told that X was soft at ten and hard at eleven, then you'd know a change had taken place, right?

[38:00] Yeah. Okay. Well, or if you knew it was what, cold at ten and hot at eleven, right? Okay. But it's because they're opposites, right? So in a sense, I was saying you don't really perceive change unless you see some kind of what, opposition, right? And that's kind of a sign that what, change involves opposites, right? Okay. That's kind of imitating what Aristotle does here, right? Where he says that we don't what, we sense motion and time together, right?

[38:38] Okay. So it's not exactly a proof that they're together, but. Well, it is a proof? but it's only a sign of it, right? Proof in the sense of a sign, right? That we don't perceive it any other way, right? The two are somehow connected. Yeah.

[38:58] Just like if I said, you know, we never perceive motion without perceiving something in motion, some body or something, right? Okay. This guy whacks the ball, and presumably in the infield there, you don't see the ball at all.

[39:23] How would you know that it's knocked out of the ballpark, right? You wouldn't know, would you? I listened to the St. Paul Saints and all the little kids, you know, here on the radio, and that ball is way, way up in the Coliseum. Because I know the Coliseum was kind of a Greek temple, you know. I imagine this ball going to top this Greek temple, you know, but it's some kind of roller rink right outside the Lexington ballpark, right?

[39:56] So the ball got knocked out of the ballpark. it'd be. up there Coliseum You know, but no, if you couldn't in some way what see the ball going out of the ballpark, right? Or you know, it is going into the the stands at the other side, right? And kind of grab the ball and so on. You wouldn't perceive the motion, right? You know. Okay. If it was dark, and we underwent nothing through the body.

[40:32] that's again the not he, but some motion was in the soul. Right away, it would seem that some time had been. Okay, now you reminded there a little bit of what Richard II there, right? Richard II, you know, loses his throne, right? To Henry Bolingbroke, and the play, right, and ends up in what prison eventually, right? Eventually, he's he's killed, right? Prison there, but but he's what weeping, right?

[41:03] And so this way, he's aware of the passage of what time, right? Okay. And and Shakespeare actually says now has time made me her what numbering clock, right? Oh. And we'll see the importance of number here later on as he gets into talking about time, huh?

[41:30] But also, when there seems to have been some time, at once some motion seems to have been. So we see where the sun has gone down the sky, right? Or the clock has gone around more, right? Huh? Or the sand has fallen through the what?

[41:47] Through the thing to the lower one, yeah. Thus, time he says is either motion or something of motion, huh? Okay. Since it is not motion, as we saw in the previous reading, here it must be something of motion. Okay.

[42:08] Okay, now in the next paragraph, right? He's going to point out how distance, right, and the motion over this distance, and the time it takes to go that distance, right?

[42:35] How in the way that before and after the continuous character of one of these follows upon the continuous character, right? And the before and after in the other. So if I start down this road from here to there, right, my motion from here to here will come before my motion from here to here, right? Okay, and you can divide it similarly, right? Okay, and this just as this part of the road is before that part of the road, so the motion over this part is before the motion over that part, huh?

[43:15] And likewise, the time it takes if we get from here to here is before the time it takes for you to get from here to there, right? Okay. Now, this is something that is going to examine more fully in the what sixth book, right? We're going to look at after this because the sixth book is the book about the continuous, huh? But there we'll see how close is the what the continuity of distance and the continuity of motion over that distance and the continuity of the time it takes to go over that distance and the how a way the before and after in one is followed by before and after in the what other, right?

[44:04] Okay. And but here he's not trying to go into this fully like he will in book six, but he wants to get the idea of the before and after here, right? Because that's going to be important for what understanding time, right? Okay.

[44:27] Since the moved is moved from something to something, and every magnitude is continuous, motion follows the magnitude. Because the magnitude is continuous, motion is also continuous, huh? And because motion is time is, huh? As much as the motion, so much does the time always seem to have been, huh? Okay. Of course, sometimes we what measure the motion? It seems by the what

[45:07] time, and sometimes in a way vice versa. Okay. Because we can go what along a distance in more time, right? And vice versa, to go along a distance it takes more time, right? Okay. Now remember what the continuous is, huh? What what is the the definition of the continuous, huh? That which is divisible forever. Yeah, yeah. And actually, we said before there's also a definition of the continuous that we give in logic, right?

[45:44] Okay. Common limit. Yeah, that it's a quantity whose parts meet at a common what boundary, right? Huh? Okay. But then we meet this other definition in book six, but he's touched upon it several times already. A continuous is that which is divisible what forever, right? Okay. I notice, huh?

[46:12] If you can divide forever this line or this road down which you're moving, right? Won't you be able to divide the motion forever, right?

[46:30] And therefore the time forever, right? Okay. Now, I think we showed a little bit that before. We come back to just a little bit here.

[46:45] Sometimes Aristotle will show that the magnitude is divisible forever, and then reason for that that the other two are divisible forever, right? Sometimes he will what take a couple of these together and use them, right? So he uses the idea of the what faster and slower, right? Okay. And we all know that some bodies are faster and some are slower. In race, you can see this, right?

[47:15] Okay. And you say, now what does it mean to say that this body is faster? Well, it means that it what covers the same distance in less what time, and the slower body covers the same what distance in more time. Yeah. Now could you use that to show that both time and distance are divisible forever?

[47:46] Or you can say, okay, we're present by a line in both of these time and and distance. You say, okay, this distance is covered by the what faster body in that time,

[48:02] okay? Or let's start the other way around. Okay, let's do that. Okay. Now, at that same time, the slower body is going to cover the same distance. Less distance. No, if it covers the same distance in the same time, it'd be just as fast, right? So if it's slower, it must cover not the same distance but a lesser distance, right? I don't care how much lesser that is, but it's got to be lesser.

[48:26] Okay. Now, if the slower body is covered this distance in that time, how long did it take the faster body to go this lesser distance? Less time. You can't say the same time because if it were equally fast, you'd be contradicting yourself, wouldn't you? Right. Therefore, it must be in a what lesser time. I don't care how much lesser, but it's got to be a lesser time, right?

[48:51] Okay. Now, if the faster body in this lesser time covered this distance, then in this lesser time, the slower body would cover what? Less distance. Less distance. Now, did the faster body cover that lesser distance in the same time? No, it would be fast, right? Be tired, right? So it must be less. Less. So all you have to do is alternate those two, and you realize that the time the distance must be divisible what?

[49:25] Forever, right? Okay. Notice you can kind of make an analogy there when you start to talk about thinking, right? See, if thoughts were what continuous, right? Then the thinking would be what continuous, right? But if the thoughts are not divisible forever, right then the thinking is not what continuous, huh?

[50:08] Are our thoughts divisible forever? No. And one way we saw that was in reasoning or defining, right? If you know something by reasoning or defining,

[50:27] not every part of the definition, not every part of every definition, is what able to be defined, right? I know. So when you define something, you in a sense break it into more particular thoughts, right? You see. So when I define the square as an equilateral and right-angled quadrilateral, I have three thoughts there: quadrilateral, equilateral, and right-angled, right? Now, if each of those could be broken down into other ones, as some of them certainly can, and this went on forever, then thoughts would be what divisible forever, right?

[51:10] Okay. But if that were so, would you really ever understand what anything is? No. So thoughts are not divisible forever. Now, likewise, the syllogism, right? If you have every C is B and every B is A, therefore every C is A, you can kind of break down every C is A into every C is B and every B is A. But if they are turned broken down into something, and that into something else, then these thoughts would be divisible forever, right?

[51:51] But in that case, you'd never come to what know anything by by reasoning. Okay. Now, there's other ways of of kind of seeing that thoughts are not continuous because because of this infinite divisibility,

[52:15] you never have a next longest line, right? Or a next what shortest line, right? This line is longer than that, right? But whatever length is longer than you could cut that in half, right? So which is the next longest line?

[52:51] Well, there's there's no simply next of those you could say. Yeah, this is yeah. This is not, but you could have another line there between those, right? Because it continues, it's divisible forever. You never come to a next longer line, yeah. Or a next shorter line, right? And that's a difference—a difference between lines and numbers, right? Because if you have the number seven, there's a next greater number, right?

[53:23] Which is eight, and there's a next lesser one, right? Okay. But in the case of lines, there's no next longer or next, right? Now, you ever notice in the text of Aristotle sometimes, or in Thomas, you know, we use the word next, right? Next.

[53:46] But in the case of of the definition, in the case of syllogism, is there a next thought? huh? Let me take my example here. Every

[54:03] every mother is a woman, and no man is a woman. Every mother is a woman, and no man is a woman. What's the next thought? No man is a mother. No man is a mother, right? Okay. No man is a mother. Is there

[54:37] some statement that comes between these two? Between the premises, and I'm getting to write this very clearly. Every mother is a woman, and no man is a woman. Is there some statement that comes between the premises and the conclusion? No. So there is a next thought, right? Okay. Now the same way in defining, right? You start off with quadrilateral, and then you add to that equilateral, and you add to that right-angled,

[55:22] and now you've got to what? Square. Square, right? Is there some thought that comes between these three and square? No. So you see the likeness there of defining and what syllogizing, right? So there is a next thought. Next thought, yeah. So thoughts are not what continuous, right? They're not divisible forever. That's one sign. That's the basic reason. But also the fact that there's a next thought. While in the case they're continuous, there is no next.

[56:05] Is there? So if you, you know, by kind of analogy, say that thinking is moving over your thoughts, right? But the thoughts are not continuous, therefore the thinking is not what continuous, huh?

[56:40] Now sometimes we do speak, and I do. I think it's kind of interesting way of speaking. We do speak sometimes. I do of continuous definitions, right? I do speak of continuous syllogisms, right? But sometimes we use the word continuous in talking about numbers too. Even example I gave you there, we speak of what

[57:06] you say. Four is to six, as six is to nine. Two is to three, as four is to six. You might say that four is to six, as six is to nine, is in continuous what proportion, right? What does that mean? Well it means that the end of one ratio is what? Beginning of the other. Yeah. See? Why here, the end of one is not the beginning of the next, right?

[57:32] But this doesn't mean it's continuous in the way we define continuous, right? But there's a certain likeness because of what? Well it's another aspect of the continuous. The parts meet at a common boundary, right? So you might say, you know, that this point here is the end of this line and the beginning of that, right? Or the line, the border there between the United States and Canada, well, it's the end of the America, United States, right?

[58:03] And the beginning of Canada, right? Huh? So the end of one being the other. So when the conclusion of a syllogism is a premise in another syllogism, right? You see it all the time in Euclid, right? You know, you've done the first book of Euclid, right? The conclusion of one syllogism or one demonstration is a premise in the next one, right? So it's a continuous reasoning, we say, right?

[58:29] But you got to be careful that the word continuous there is not in in exactly the same sense, is it? And the same when we speak of a line of thinking, right? Or I'm always following Heraclitus and the Greeks and Aristotle and Plato in speaking about a road in our knowledge, right? But a road in the original sense is something what? Continuous. Continuous, yeah, yeah. But that's a certain what likeness, huh?

[59:00] Because it's a before and after in our knowledge, right? And we first see before and after in the what? Yeah, yeah. But he go back to the to the basic text there on before and after, on the word before in particular, in the categories we read. there, remember? the first meaning of before he gave was before in time, right? Okay. Now to that sense would be reduced before in what motion, and before in what magnitude?

[59:36] or place. Yeah, in place. Yeah, yeah. And notice again to go back to that simile of Shakespeare, how closely they're related, right? He's talking about time, right? He says, like, like, like, as the waves make towards the pebbled shore. So do our minutes hasten to their end. Each changing place, which that which goes before,

[1:00:09] okay, Most changing place, right? How closely connected those things are. Time there with change and with what place, right? Okay. So now the second sense of before was what? Ours being. Yeah. This can be without that, but not vice versa, right? What's the example Aristotle gave there?

[1:00:47] Numbers. Yeah, he said one can be without two, but two cannot be without one, right? Coming to us, he takes an example from arithmetic right? An example, therefore, of a before and after that is without motion, right? And without the what, continuous, right? The kind of you know, my old teacher Kasurik used to say, you know, you can tell how well a man understands by the examples he chooses.

[1:01:17] And he kind of used to say, you know, when Aristotle or Thomas gives examples, you can always stop and say, hey, why does he give these examples? I mean, there's a significant choice of examples, huh? But he says, if a modern Thomas gives examples, I wouldn't bother to look for any reason why he does. Of course, modern philosophers they like to give an example that kind of strikes your imagination, you know, like a firecracker or something, you know, or.

[1:01:46] But but but it doesn't really illustrate the point, you see, clearly. So Aristotle's examples so carefully chosen, right? You know, it's like when Thomas comments on on in the text there of Aristotle when he gives examples, say of the efficient cause, the mover cause, right? And he gives the example of the father, right, and the advisor, right. And Thomas says, "Well, the significance in his choosing these examples, because the father is an example of a mover by nature, right?

[1:02:21] And and the advisor by what reason, right? And the two main movers in the world around us are nature and reason, huh? " Um, and is choosing the father and the mother we saw for other reasons was significant, huh? Because the mother is more associated with matter, huh? Mater, materia, but the father is is the mover, the maker, and that's why we call God father rather than mother, huh?

[1:02:50] Because he's a cause in the third sense, huh? So you see how carefully chosen are the examples of of Aristotle. And then he comes to the third sense of before, which is before in what? Reasoning. Yeah, the discourse of reasoning, huh? And in some ways, it's more like the second, right, than the first.

[1:03:18] Okay, but because we start with the first, we we compare the later things to that, right? And you can see that, you know, even in mathematical philosophy, where you know Euclid will call the what we call the factors, he'll call those the what? Sides. Sides, right? You know, the sides of six are two and three. Now, you have some background and education there, but you know, in the academic world today, someone said, "What are you know two and three to six?"

[1:03:50] They'd probably say what? Factors. Factors, yeah, that's what I, you know. But you know, it's much more concrete to say that the sides, right? And of course, we still keep the the words what square number, cube number, right? But the word square there is obviously what equivocal in arithmetic and in what geometry, but there's a likeness between the two, huh? Yeah, likeness between the two, huh?

[1:04:26] It's kind of marvelous that you know, you know, in a way, it's it's false in a way, but in another way, it's marvelous that geometry is named from measuring the earth, right? Because it shows that it began with something very concrete and sensible. Why would they take it as much more abstract? And so Euclid starts with the geometry, and then he goes to the what? Science of numbers in books seven, eight, and nine, but the the language reflects that, right?

[1:04:58] When we speak of the sides of a number or the square number or cube number, or we speak of this, you know, continuous proportion and so on, huh? Okay. And so we do the same thing with thinking. There, we we carry the word road, right? Okay. But when we speak of a road in our knowledge, the continuous carry to the road is not the reason for carrying that word over.

[1:05:29] It's the what? Before and after, right? Huh? In the road, right? We speak of a road in our knowledge because there's an order in our knowledge, a before and after in our knowledge, huh? But not a before and after in something strictly speaking continuous, right? You know. Otherwise, you have to go through an infinity of things, to know anything, etc. Okay. So,

[1:06:15] So notice in