Natural Hearing (Aristotle's Physics)
62. Continuous, Touching and Next; Reason and the Brain; One Substance and Immanent Activity
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/3-natural-hearing/062-continuous-touching-and-next-reason-and-the-brain-one-substance/

[0:00] Okay. But nevertheless, there's an order among these three, right? And in the case the continuous, the two what? The end of one is the beginning of the other. They have a common what? Boundary, a common limit, right? In The case of the touching, do they have one boundary? No, no. But their limits are what?

[0:32] Together. Together. Okay. Okay. Now in the case of the next, in order to be next, do you have to be touching? No. No. No. And you know, the stock example is always that of houses, right? My next door neighbor, right? Okay. But my house is not doesn't share any wall with the house next door.

[1:04] Like the wall in you might have a wall in the house in a way that's shared by two rooms, right? I say. And you know, in Quebec, you know, you have these houses in Europe too, I suppose, but Quebec and Americans have it with it. But the houses seem to be what? Right together. I don't know whether they really share a wall or the two walls are touching, but but where I live in Shrewsbury, there the houses are not but touching even, right?

[1:34] But you can speak of the next house, right? Okay. But the next house in your house between them, there is no what? Yeah. Yeah.

[1:50] And are thoughts more alike? You know, the you know, the strict sense, like the continuous and the touching, are they more like the next? Like

[2:08] all three. I don't know what you're thinking. Yeah. If you have a syllogism here, like every mother is a woman, no man is a woman. Is there next thought that comes to mind? Huh? Yeah. Put two together, as we say. The next thought is going to be no man is a what? Mother. Mother. Yeah. Yeah. But are these thoughts touching each other? Do they have a boundary, right?

[2:40] Do they touch at a point or a line or a surface? And maybe if they're not touching or continuous, maybe the thoughts are not really what? In a in a body.

[3:00] Because a body is something it seems that is continuous. And of course, even the syllogisms and even the definitions of continuous thing don't seem to be continuous.

[3:18] So, if you take the definition of square as an equilateral and right-angled quadrilateral, does the genus there quadrilateral, and the differences equilateral and right-angled? Do they meet a common boundary at a point, a line? No. So, definition seems to be not continuous, right? And yet, it's a definition making known a continuous thing.

[3:53] And this is a sign, therefore, that our our reason, by definition, the universal reason, right, is knowing a continuous thing in a way that is not continuous. And it's known most perfectly in the form of a definition, right? And now you say, well, why should reason know a continuous thing in a non-continuous way? Is that because of the thing being known?

[4:27] No, the thing being known in this case is continuous, right? So that doesn't explain why reason knows a continuous thing in a non-continuous way, does it? The thing known? No. But therefore, it must be due to the knower, right? But the knower itself is not a what? Continuous thing. Whatever is received, as they say, is received in the receiver, according to the condition of the receiver. It's good to know that as a teacher, you know, you give a lecture to 30 students, whatever it is, you know, and and then you give them an exam or something, right?

[5:08] And they've all heard the same thing, you know, but some have received more, and some received it in a kind of a mixed-up way, you know. It's it's amazing how they do twist things, you know.

[5:25] How their imagination is a jumble, you know. That's why you have to pray for the angels to straighten our images, right? To straighten their images. That's part of what they do for us, according to Thomas. And that's why I put that in that that little prayer. But

[5:43] so, when when a continuous thing is received fully into my reason in the form of a definition, it's received in a non-continuous way, right? And so, what is received is received according to the condition of the receiver. And you're receiving a continuous thing, right? In a non-continuous way. And your reason is not a continuous thing. And if a body is something continuous. then you can syllogize there in the second figure, right?

[6:17] That reason is not a what? A body, right? Huh? Okay. Okay. But sometimes, you know, someone says, "Well, yeah, but a blow on the brain interferes with what? Thinking, right? Alcohol going to the brain and other substances interferes with thinking, right?

[6:52] So isn't then the brain the organ of thought? Not necessarily. At least you need the brain, I think. It shows some connection between the brain and thinking, right? Huh? Okay.

[7:17] But to show that the that the argument there is not necessarily so that because a blow on the brain, let's say, interferes with thinking, therefore the brain is the organ of thought, right? Like a blow on the eye interferes with seeing, right? In fact, if I see you guys double, if I start pushing this, I push it too much, you won't see at all. So, so it seems that the eye is the organ or something the organ for sight, right?

[7:41] Huh? Okay. But for the example I always take for this, what? Go ahead. Yeah. So suppose you and I were in a room with no windows, right? And the only light was a little light bulb in the center of the room, and the light bulb was on, right? We could see each other, right? And then whack! I whack the light light bulb, and it interferes with my seeing you, doesn't it?

[8:10] Okay. Therefore, the light bulb is what the organ of sight, right? Say. So there's two ways interfering with my seeing you, right? What's the difference between these two ways, huh? If you leave the room right now, huh? You're going to interfere with my seeing you, right? Not because my organ has been hurt, but it's on the sight of the object, right? Say. And the light bulb there, the light is something to do with the object of sight, huh?

[8:47] So when you say that a blow on the brain interferes with thinking, is it interfering with the organ, right? Or with the object in some way?

[9:00] And in the fact that doesn't interfere with it doesn't tell you which it is, does it? Now, if by separate argument like the one I was giving you from the continuous, right? You can prove that the reason is not a body, then the brain cannot be the organ of universal thought.

[9:23] Therefore, it must somehow be on the side of the what object, right? And when Aristotle is studying the proper object of our reason, he says it's the what it is of something you can sense or imagine, right?

[9:42] And of course, what it is is something sensed or imagined, like what is a glass or what is a man or what is a triangle or what is a square is something universal, right?

[9:56] And he makes a comparison there, right? He says, just as the object of my eye is the color of something out there, right? So the object of my reason is the what it is of something I sensed or imagined, okay?

[10:16] And so, if you interfere with the extra. object, right? Then I'm not going to see the color of you if you take away you, right? Or take away the light, and okay. And so, if you take away the image, right? Um, then our reason, when at least we're in the body, huh, doesn't understand that, right? I have to picture, you might say, a triangle to think about what a triangle is, okay?

[10:50] But nevertheless, by thinking about what a triangle is, is not in the image, is it? Any more than I seeing the color of of your clothes there is in your clothes, right? That's on the side of the object, not on the side of the of the power that is seeing, right? Seeing is over here, right? Okay. Um.

[11:16] So Aristotle understands what the object of reason is. He can see why we don't think without an image, right? Okay. And you know, in Boethius, when he's talking about there in the De Trinitate, how do we know God, right? In his divine nature. Well, there's no image of God in his divine nature, right? And so, the objection, you know, says we can't think then about him because there's no image of him, right?

[11:48] But that's why we think of God what? Negatively, right? He's incorporeal. He's not a body, right? He's simple, meaning he has no parts and no composition, right? He's the unmoved mover, right? Huh? So, um. Uh. And even if you think about the angels, right? We'll say they're a they're immaterial substance. The philosophers usually call them separated substance, right? But meaning separated from matter, huh? So, um. In thinking negatively, uh, by way of negation, you have an image, right?

[12:33] If I think that God is not a body, right? I have an image of a body, but I'm negating it and talking about God and saying he's not a body, right? Okay.

[12:47] Yeah. Do you say then that um? With regard to reason, reasoning, um, the brain would be instrument of the rational soul. What would be? Brain, with regard to reasoning, is an instrument. I say it's it's it's it's basically on the side of the object, right? Okay. But you have to understand, you know, it partly through that analogy I was giving you, right? See, I can see the black of your clothes, right?

[13:26] Okay, and the black of your clothes is in your clothing, right? Okay, but my seeing the black of your clothing, right? That seeing is not in your clothing, is it?

[13:44] It's in my eye and my power of seeing, right? Well, as the exterior thing is to the eye, right? Whose color is being seen, or whose sound, or whose smell, or taste, right, is being sensed, right? So is the what thing sensed or imagined, right? In a way, to the reason, because the reason is understanding the what it is of something what sensed or imagined, huh? Just as the eye is seeing the color of something out there, so just I don't see the color of something out there without that thing being there, right?

[14:27] Huh? So I don't understand the what it is as something imagined without imagining something, okay? But by the understanding of what it is in the form of a definition, as we do most perfectly, of something imagined, that understanding and that definition are not in the body. See, just as my eye and my seeing are not in your what? Yeah, the thing out there whose color I'm seeing.

[15:00] So it's very subtle, right? So see, many people. I remember having a a student in class, you know, years ago teaching the three books about the soul, and he was convinced that the brain is the organ of thought. But everybody says that kind of, you know, I mean, you pick up the news magazine and they're right on the brain, and they talk about the brain, and that's what you think, you know.

[15:21] I mean, it's a common thing, right? And so I was giving him, you know, the argument that you know a blow in the eye interferes with seeing, therefore the eye is the organ of sight. Blow in the brain interferes with thinking, therefore the brain is. Kind of stating his argument for him, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then I gave him this light.

[15:44] And then you realize, right, that that's not the only way, right? You can what interfere with what a power's act, right? Huh? Okay, okay. Now notice uh. If you put that down, you know, kind of logically, sense, you could say that

[16:13] if the brain is the organ of thought, okay. Then a blow on the brain will interfere with thought. Okay. That seems to make sense, doesn't it? Hmm. Okay. Now notice, in if then statements, you're not saying that something is in fact so, right? Or that something is not in fact so. You're merely saying if this is so, that that is so, right? Okay. Just like if the eye is the organ of sight, right?

[17:06] Then a blow on the eye will interfere with what? Seeing, right? Okay. Now, but a blow on the brain does interfere with thought. Okay.

[17:27] Therefore, the brain is the organ of thought. Now, is that a good syllogism? Quite a good argument. See, most people hearing that say, "Oh, yeah, that makes sense." Doesn't it? Is that a good one? What's wrong with it? Same type that scientists come up with all the time with their theories. Okay. Forming the consequent. Yeah. Yeah.

[18:10] You're arguing the form here, right? If A is so, then B is so, and from the what affirmation of the consequent, right? Okay. And we saw when we studied logic that doesn't follow necessarily that what A is so, right? Okay. And we can show that isn't always the case by at least two kinds of examples, right? When A is something, for example, less universal than B, right?

[18:49] If I am a dog, then I am an animal, right? I am an animal. Both they're true, right? They're if I am a dog, right? See. Or when you have an effect that could follow from more than one cause, right? You know, my standard example: of classes if Berquist dropped dead last night. He'll be absent from class, right? He's absent from class. Therefore, he dropped dead.

[19:18] Well, my absence from class could have many clauses, right? The student can see that, right? So even though being absent from class is a true consequence let's say I'm a dog being dead last night, you can't infer from my being absent in class that that is in fact the cause of my doing that, right? So tell them that's wishful thinking, but it's not logical thinking. You got to do logical thinking, you know, not wishful thinking.

[19:53] Um, I know it's not the matter here, you know, and it still just we can distinguish between the matter and the form, right? And you talk about the form, you're asking, does the conclusion follow what necessarily, right? See, you talk about the matter, you're asking are the premises right, true or false, or are they necessary or probable, and so on, right? Okay. So here you can say that the form is what defective, right?

[20:25] Even if the matter is okay, you don't have to even bother to examine the matter. But the point is, if the matter is good, right?

[20:36] Then the student is going to be apt to think, right? That it follows, huh? Okay. Now, if you give a student, you know, something like this, huh?

[20:56] If a man, why did I go back to the formula? To leave that, okay? Now, if you want to turn this around and argue this way, right? Turn around and say, if a blow on the brain

[21:32] interferes with thinking. Then the brain is the organ of thought. But same sequence here. But a blow on the brain does interfere with thought or thinking. you see Okay. Now, is anything necessary from those two premises? Two arguments here If a blow on the brain interferes with thinking, then the brain is the organ of thought. But a blow on the brain does interfere with thought with thinking.

[22:32] I should say. Therefore, the brain is organ of thought. What are you syllogizing in this form? Here you're saying if A is so, then B is so. A is so. Does it follow then that B is so? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Here the form is good, right?

[23:01] And now is the matter good, right? Well, we admitted that a blow on the brain interferes thought, right? Both of these, right? But is this if then statement necessarily true?

[23:20] Is the only way to interfere, even with a power's act, a power that has an organ, right? Is the only way interfering with it to what Interfere with the organ.

[23:36] If I step around the corner here, I'm going to interfere with your seeing you, right? I'm interfering with your your eye. So either the form is good, but the matter is not good, in the if then statement, right? Or else the what matter is good, but the form is no good. Okay, not as bad as Malices there, where the matter is not good and the form is not good either.

[24:13] Then you're really in trouble, right? Either one of them is a defect. You see what I mean? So sometimes you know I call it out for students. You know, I'll put both these on the board, right? And you say, well,

[24:32] there's a defect in both of these speeches, huh? But in the one case, it's a defect in the form. The other case is a defect in the matter. And you have to avoid both of those, huh? Just like in in calculating, huh? When you add, subtract, multiply, or divide, right? If you have a wrong number, then the result is not going to be good, right? Or if you have the right number, but you didn't add correctly, either one can have a problem.

[25:12] It's the same way with statements, huh? You don't add up to nothing. We have to what you think it adds to. Okay. Notice how we how we we borrow the words from calculating, like add up, right? So what's that asking for? How do you think of that? The figure first meant you know calculating, right? And I'm always telling students, you know, put two and two together, right?

[25:48] It's a little harder to put two and two together, right? But it shows that counting, calculating, it seems to me, are more known to us, huh? Than defining and reasoning.

[26:00] We tend to borrow words from that. In fact, the Greek word syllogism, you know, comes from to calculate, huh? So it has that sense, huh?

[26:10] I reckon that's so. The heavily toxic experts, the Aristotle talks like a fool, right? Okay. Stop. We'll come back to this when you go to the first and the third book on the soul. But

[26:43] you don't understand the continuous well, right? You can't understand, you know, well, all the reasons we have for thinking that reason is not a what body, right? Huh? Okay.

[26:57] And through seeing that reason is not a body, through seeing that our soul has some power that is not in the body, that it does something not in the body, that you realize that the existence of the soul is not entirely what immersed in the body. It's not tied to the body. If the soul had existence only in the body, right? It would only do what it does only in the body, huh?

[27:28] No, and Descartes says, you know, I think, therefore I am, right? Huh? Okay. Well, notice, son, you have to be before you can do something, right? Okay. And but notice, you're going from is doing something to is being in this case, right? It makes sense, doesn't it?

[27:59] In the second sense of before, right? My being is before my doing. I can be without doing something, but something can't do something without being.

[28:16] Aristotle remarks in the ninth book of wisdom how people will say about something that doesn't exist that they want it, or they think about something that doesn't exist, right? But they don't say that what doesn't exist moves around, do they?

[28:34] That's the first meaning kind of reality that things move, right? Huh? But the fact that they move, they do something in a way, right? Ah, it makes it clear to us that they are, right? Huh? Okay. But but notice, in the discourse of reason, the third sense of before, we might go from something doing something to its being, right? But in the second sense of before and being, being is before what doing, right?

[29:07] Second sense of before was in being, right? One can be without two, but two cannot be without one, right? Okay. I can be without doing something, but I can't do something without being, right? So if I'm doing something, I must be right. Okay, but reason to sense is going backwards here, right? As far as we're healthy. So the the being, the existence of the soul is less known to us than what the soul does, huh?

[29:36] And so we have to reason backwards, as um Sherlock Holmes says, right? Okay. But it's because you have to be before you can do something that if you had being or existence only in the body, right? Or as Thomas, you know, I think that's a nice way of expressing that. If your being or existence was immersed in the body, right? Like something that's underwater, it's got a nice image here, right?

[30:07] If your being or existence was was only in the body, then what you do would only be in the body and through the body. You see? But then when you find out that understanding. Universal understanding what a triangle is, right? Understanding what a square is, is not in the body. That the definition itself is not in the body, huh? And one way you see that is facing the definition is not continuous, right?

[30:41] Then you realize that not everything our soul does is in our body, okay? And therefore, since you must be before you can do something, right? The soul's being or existence is not entirely what in the body, right? See, it has an existence, in other words, that the body doesn't fully what share it, huh? Okay, but you have to reason as it were backwards, huh? As far as reality is concerned, from the fact that it does something, understanding universal, not in the body.

[31:31] Interesting. And Bob O'Gro was telling me about, you know, some of the I don't know. So, one of the Canadian brain people, you know, on the curse. One thing they do is try to map the brain, right? And they stimulate with a wire or something or some other different parts of the brain, and then they say, you know, what are you experiencing now, right? Saying, you know, I'm experiencing anger, you know, or chocolate or something, you know, or anguish or something, you know.

[32:08] And so they start, you know, map the brain see this way, trying to, you know, see what different areas of the brain. You know, it's very hard to do. I mean, you know, they always seem to be unable to really pinpoint these things. Um,

[32:25] now obviously, if you if you stimulate a part of the brain and you have an image of a triangle, right? You might start thinking about a triangle, right? Okay, so it gives you the impression that you're thinking about a triangle, therefore in that part of the brain, right? But you're actually what imagining a triangle, right? In that part of the brain, huh? See, but that you're not actually thinking there.

[32:54] See, but because they're so closely tied, right? And it seems like, oh yeah, when I stimulate that part of the brain, I thought about what a triangle is, right? Okay, but what he could never find was a place of the brain he stimulated where the guy says, "I just made a choice."

[33:12] So he concluded that the will is not what. In the brain, right, and supposed to be something immaterial, right? Okay. Of course, you wouldn't have a will unless you had a reason, right? But but it's kind of interesting. I just that kind of exterior way of approaching these things, that they come to the conclusion that the will is immaterial before they see that the reason is immaterial.

[33:44] Sort of interesting, huh? Okay. Just if I understand something right, by not just understanding the universal, but understanding anything, is a process that's really immaterial, right? So to understand something, that's an immaterial activity. We see that the senses and the imagination know only the singular, right? Correct. And so you don't really see the immateriality of the reason clearly until you see that it it knows universal. Then you see its immaterial character.

[34:27] But a reason doesn't really know the singular. Universal reason doesn't know the the singular directly, right? It has to come back to the image to know it, huh? And never stop to think about that as kind of a, you know, coming back to the origin of its own thinking, right? Going back to the image, but doesn't know it as more directly. But the senses and imagination know directly the singular.

[34:53] But by by saying okay, understanding universal, right? That's that's immaterial, and since it's immaterial, therefore it can't be in the body. Therefore, taking place outside body. Therefore, it shows that our our understanding, at least in the sense of the universal,

[35:15] there's something separate from the body there. Yeah. Then I guess it can exist separate from the body, since it can since it acts separate from the body. Yeah, yeah. The point is that you're you're not understanding universal in the body, right? Okay. But but how do we know that, see? Well, one way will be by seeing that the definition is not continuous, right? There are other ways of seeing that too.

[35:46] To see that the that you have to understand what is necessary to have many individuals, right, of the same universal kind. You know, how can I have how can I have you know two circles, right, exactly the same size, right? Okay. Well, like I was mentioning, the first theorem of Euclid, right? Huh? You make two circles, right? It's your thing. But one circle is here, and the other circle is there, right?

[36:23] But that involves part outside of what part, right? And it actually involves actually the continuous, huh? And it's kind of that's that's one aspect of continuous, huh? You see, the continuous is that whose parts are joined at a common boundary, right? Like in say the circle there, the two semicircles, right? Or like in the case of a parallelogram, we're always you know pointing out that the diagonal divides into equal parts and so on, right?

[36:54] But you see, they have a common boundary. You mean they're both kind of what outside of that, right? They're outside each other, I should say, right? If this is the boundary there, it's the end of this. Let's say the beginning of that. Well, then this part is outside that part, right? Say, but you're really starting to think again the continuous. You think of part outside of part, and so God or an angel or even the soul that's separate from the body, right?

[37:20] The soul in itself doesn't have part outside of part, huh? It's not continuous, huh? So there's something about knowing the singular, right? And what's involved in that part outside of part and that sort of thing, the continuous, right? So that you don't see that from the understanding that knows the singular in some way, you wouldn't know that it's immaterial from that so much. And that's why the senses and the and the the imagination you know the singular directly, right?

[37:58] But the universal reason separates what's common to the many singulars, right? And so it's leading aside what individualizes this circle as opposed to that circle. In fact, ly one is here and the other is there. But it's abstracting from that continuous character, although it's understanding what it is in a general way, right?

[38:26] So we'll come back there and we talk about the soul. I just kind of kind of put your appetite in here, right? To show the importance of this, ultimate for understanding, right? Negatively, as you have to the immateriality of of our soul, but you know the immateriality of the angels or God Himself, right?

[38:50] Well, this is true about understanding the universal. In that form, it's understanding in an immaterial way. Does that mean then there's a type of understanding that takes place within us that is immaterial? I mean, evidently. No, I wouldn't want to call that understanding. No, I want to call that sensing of some sort. Yeah. So if I were just to think of a particular circle in my mind right now, yeah, busy, I can, you know, you form an image of it.

[39:16] Yeah, that's in imagination. Yeah, yeah, that's not understanding. No, no, yes. You see, but people generally tend to confuse what what we would call the inward senses, like the imagination, there, with with reason, right? And you get to the third book of the soul when Aristotle starts to go. You talk about the senses in the second book, but the third book he starts to approach reason, right?

[39:39] That's where the third book begins, where it does. But he's going from the outward senses to the inward senses, and then he wants to what distinguish reason from not only the senses, which is fairly obvious, but to separate reason from the imagination. Now you read these these English philosophers like John Locke and so on, and or just certain people in general, and they use the the word idea, right?

[40:07] You know, and I get idea, and idea is kind of diffusing thought and image, right? You know my example class, I say if the flash has an idea, it should be a thought. but if your girlfriend says to you, "Don't get ideas." She's probably talking about images. You're not doing much thinking at this time.

[40:37] But you can see in Locke a confusion between thought and what image, because John Locke is trying to understand, you know, general idea of triangle. I mentioned this before. And so, now if you define triangle generally, you say it's what a let's see, it's a figure contained by three straight lines.

[41:08] Now, um, so you might say, well, three straight lines, or even two straight lines, they got to either be equal or unequal, don't they? See, what about these three straight lines? Are they equal or unequal? Which are they? Well, if you say either one, you're going to be in trouble, right? If you make these three straight lines equal, it's not going to fit the scalene triangle. It's not gonna be common to scalene triangle as well as the, you know, equilateral triangle.

[41:36] If I make the three of them unequal, they won't fit the equilateral triangle. I think just two of them, you know, so on. Um.

[41:45] Okay, so Locke doesn't know what to say, you know, and so he ends up by saying it's all and none of those. That's an apparent contradiction, right? And then Berkeley coming along next, he says, "Well, that's that's absurd. Therefore, there are no general ideas."

[42:09] Now, I think I was you know using this to exemplify one thing there before, right? The fact that he doesn't understand ability, right? And the proper answer to this is that those three straight lines in the general definition of triangle, they are able to be equal or unequal, right? But they're not actually one or the other in the definition. Okay. So he doesn't understand ability. That was one problem, right?

[42:38] But there's another problem, and that is that he's in a sense trying to imagine triangle in general. See, now any individual line or pair of lines that you imagine, you have to imagine either two what equal lines or two unequal lines, right? Any two lines you imagine will be actually equal or actually what unequal. There's no other possibility, right? See, and so he's in a sense trying to imagine, right, what he should be understanding.

[43:19] And that's where he gets in trouble, right? See, if I picture a man, right, I can picture in my head, my imagination, a white man, right, or I can picture a black man, or a yellow man, or a red man, or something, brown man, I guess, right? Picture green men too, but maybe they don't exist. Okay, but when I understand what a man is, right, that's the material at that point.

[43:51] I'm understanding something that is common to the white man, the black man, right? But can I imagine a man, you know, without imagining someone, you know, a male or a female, even, right? You see, but black or white, short or tall, or you know, see, yeah. But my image of a man is never my thought of what a man is, right? So Aristotle's going to be distinguishing between thinking and what, imagining, right?

[44:21] Between thinking and sensing too, but that's easier to see. But you'll be distinguishing between thinking and imagining, and it's kind of subtle the way Aristotle proceeds because he'll start with what is more known to us. See, he doesn't start with the fact that the thought is something universal, the images are something singular. That's that's true. That's kind of hard to see for the average person, right, at first, right?

[44:46] Where Aristotle begins is very proportionate to us. He says, "I can imagine a terrorist in the next room about to come in here, right? Right? I can imagine that, right? he's got a black thing he's got a Kalashnikov? Whatever it's called. And

[45:07] but do I think there's a terrorist in the next room? No, no. See, I have a certain freedom in my imagination, but I have to have some reason to think that there is a terrorist in the next room, right? Yeah, real solid evidence. I see. that's very simple to see, see. And and the second thing Aristotle points out that if I think there's a terrorist in the next room, I'm going to be afraid, probably, see, trying to hide under the windows.

[45:35] Right now, I can imagine a terrorist in the next room by a man, right? You see, isn't it? And or else, you know, I can imagine myself what winning the million-dollar lottery in class, right? But I don't think I won. See, I haven't even bought

[46:02] a ticket, right? So, so I have no reason to think I won. I even could have won, right? And secondly, just imagine myself winning a million dollars. I don't get particularly creatively excited about it. But if I thought I won a million dollars, you know, I'd jump around here, you know, and invite you all for a drink and so on, and so you know. You see, that it's a very concrete way Aristotle has to say, and there is a difference there, right, between thinking and what imagining, and I think there is that difference there too.

[46:37] I am talking about in a contemporary belief, you know, that imagination is better than reason, you know, but in Disneyland it says, you know, some other people see, somebody sees around, you know, imagination is more important than knowledge. Oh, you see, but one thing about imagining is it's a freedom to imagine instead of thinking. One of my former colleagues there used to like to quote a passage from Plato.

[47:08] I don't know if it's in the Republic or not, but it's, um, passage from Plato is an opinion without a reason is an ugly thing.

[47:20] So he, used to quote this thing in class, you know, and he says, "Don't pawn your uglies off on me." So it's kind of like putting the students on guard; they got to have a reason for what they think. You see, a lot of times people they just what imagine something, and if the image is vivid enough, it it seems real, and

[47:43] that's it, huh? You know, the uh, I used to go for walks, and you know, maybe a Saturday, or Sunday afternoon with the three children when they're little, and I used to try to kind of spice it up. We had a lot of woods around the area there, and so on, and you'd see on these trees sometimes just a little red ribbon. I guess they put them up for snowmobiles for the winter, or something.

[48:05] I don't know what they're there for, but I'd always pretend that the Indians had put that up, right? And try to give a little bit, you know, and so as they, you know, they got older, of course, they realized that there were really no Indians around the neighborhood, but that was kind of a game with them, see. But finally, I've been telling them the story about Indians, and we had kind of traveled this certain distance, and we were looking down about something we hadn't seen really before.

[48:33] It's kind of, I don't know what they really were. It's kind of Quonset huts, you know. There is Indian places, you know. Well, my my oldest son and and my daughter were older, you know, knew that, you know, but but the youngest one he got started to get really scared We had, a you know, so I think the, imagination can seem very real. You see, well, it seems though that even with imagination though it it seems as though some of that could be immaterial activity because if I were to imagine, you know, understanding in the universal sense, so you have an activity that's outside of the material, but but the with the angels they're incorporeal.

[49:23] Can they imagine things? I mean, they must be. No, no. They don't imagine. They only know truth. No, but the angels know singulars but not through senses or imagination, huh? But so, for like, if you think of the human beings, like when we die, all right, you're separated from your body. There's no chance of imagining things at that point. I mean, you can't let your imagination go about anything.

[49:47] They don't have imagination, no. You wouldn't come up with a novel or anything at that point. No. Wow. That doesn't come till next next uh, course, Ah. Yeah.

[50:00] That's interesting. And notice, notice, you cannot imagine a thought. You see, you see, see, people sometimes, you know, see the the drawings are a little light bulb on, you know, so. But you can't really imagine a thought. It doesn't have any shape. See. I say this you know Can you imagine a thought with Is it a circle or is it a square or is it a you know is it a cylinder?

[50:28] Is it a you know circle? I mean a sphere or a cube? What shape do your thoughts have? Don't have any shape, is it? But there's a real danger therefore, of what we call false imagination, right? When you try to imagine things that cannot be imagined, right? And try to understand them. So if you look at Eric Thomas's work on the De Trinitate, there's Boethius but apropos of the text of Boethius, you know that in theology one ought not to what try to resolve the imagination, right?

[51:03] You're going to be automatically what deceived that way. But notice the the freedom of the imagination is one thing that they what like and it fits kind of democratic customs, huh? Where they kind of worship the idea of freedom, huh? So you may recall the phrase of Aristotle there, where he spoke of the Greeks using contrary or speaking of contrariety and change, right? And they all came up with contraries in some way, right?

[51:35] You remember that? And and you know when you look at the Chinese and the the Book of Changes there, they're using contraries too. And the moderns use contraries, huh? And Aristotle says this seems to be forced on the mind by truth itself, and that's really the perfection of the mind of the reason when it's in a way forced to think something cannot be otherwise, huh? Well, the imagination keeps a certain what freedom, huh?

[52:12] Can imagine things other than they are. huh? C. S. Lewis says something interesting about that, you know, where he's going to some part of England that they've been to before, huh? And he's picked up by an uncle down there somebody, you know, that's related to him, huh? and they start you know driving back from the station or where it is, and C. S. Lewis says, "remarking, you know, they didn't think you know that this part of England was like that, and he's kind of amazed to see this, right?

[52:42] And the guy says, "well, what right did you have to think that, you know? " He was kind of a tough-minded guy, right? But you know this happens, huh? Even before you go to some place, you know, you imagine it to be a certain way. You get there, it's it's it's it's not that way at all.

[53:08] But right that you had to think that it was this way? You see, you got to have a reason for thinking it that way, right? See, but I've often, you know, I mean everybody's experienced, I think, imagining things.

[53:21] Even you're going to meet somebody you never met before. You imagine them to be a certain way. Yeah. So can you say then that the brain is the organ of imagination? Part of the brain, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. These ones that are tied to the singular, some way.

[53:49] So, like the two semicircles, are they in mathematics? Is it right? There's no way to distinguish between continuous and touching. You couldn't have touching in mathematics. It becomes it becomes difficult to do. Yeah, there, yeah, yeah.

[54:18] Unless you distinguish an actual semicircle. But we we speak, you know, even in math, we say that the you know circle touching a circle at one point or you know, yeah, but there's not really a difference, is there? Not as clear as it would be in the natural world, no. Okay. This answers the question whether the the two have become what one or not, yeah.

[54:56] But it's difficult to see. You have two points unless one is here and one is what there, right? That happened in in modern physics because in quantum physics there because um

[55:13] they can't pinpoint the particles anymore. Not just in in practice, but in theory, they can't. Oh. I mean, they they can't they can't have particles that have both a what an exact momentum and an exact position, right? And have to and they're related mathematically. The accuracy of these two. And so, as they say, as Schrödinger says, Schrödinger says, the the atoms or the particles become blurred, and we don't mean just in our knowledge, but in reality, they're not

[55:50] identifiable individuals anymore. That's kind of striking when you see that because you know the average person has got kind of a naive view of man as kind of a collection of atoms and molecules. In which case, we wouldn't be one thing; we'd be just what. Bunch of little things. Yeah, we are. We'd just be a collection of substances, right?

[56:14] But I think you know, if you talk to students in class, you kind of get them. That's what they think, right? Now I ask them, you know, is is man one substance? Or, you know, like Empedocles says, or Anaxagoras, a mixture of many substances, huh? And they more have to say a mixture of many substances, huh? Yeah. Not really one thing, huh? Yeah. If that's so, then there's no birth or death, you know how Empedocles and Anaxagoras are saying, and perhaps all them, all you have is a mixture and separation of things, huh?

[56:49] And therefore, you go to the funeral home and say, "Oh, I see a separation," you know, and you're talking about, you know, baby comes into the world, you know, just a new mixture. I see, right? You know, and so you know, when Bertrand Russell's running around the world, they're trying to stop atomic war, you know, and all these conferences. What's the difference? Just a rearrangement of atoms and molecules.

[57:12] I mean, what's you know, no big deal, right? It's like you know, Burke was putting on a black band, you know, at the end of his class because his class has died. You know, that's that's emotional about just separation, and they're going to be they still exist, the students, right? They're going to be you know, mixed in different combinations and so on. And these guys want to have you know their ashes spread over the ocean or something, you know.

[57:38] It's like you know, you know, all we're doing is mixing these things, you know, and separating them, see? But do you really, you know, there's two things here, right? One is do do you really think of yourself as being many substances, right? Do you really treat yourself or behave that way, right? You know, if I lost an arm or a leg or something, right? Better not give me a tooth pulled once.

[58:05] I mean, if I lost an arm or a leg, and I really, I'd really hate that, you know, you know, and have part of me missing, right? But but but what will me be? I mean, would it, you know, See, I mean, really, if that comes to a combination of abs and balacus, the losing of my arm is like, you know, part of the city there of Worcester has disappeared or something, you know?

[58:30] But the other parts okay. No, it's that's that's me. Or you know the I give lectures sometimes on the principle subsidiarity, you know, that the folks talk about a lot. But you really find in the second book of Aristotle's What politics, huh? And um I give them this example, saying, to try to bring out that the unity of a man is different from the unity of a what family or unity of a city or something.

[59:04] Sorry. The example is to use you know with college kids especially. I'd say now, suppose you know a student from Holy Cross comes over, you know, and beats up some student at Assumption. Okay. Now it'd be right for us to go back over and find some. Any Holy Cross student beat the hell out of him, right? You know, is that just? See, or you know, or if a Palestinian goes kills a Jew and then Jew goes kill Palestinian, right?

[59:35] Is that just? See, okay. So now, suppose I hit you, right? You going to have to hit me back with on my fist, or would you feel that you could, you know, hit me back here or here or somewhere else? Huh? I said, well, you hit me here. My chest never hits you. Huh? Chest hits you. You know, you should hit the hit the the knuckles there, right?

[1:00:12] Perpetrator. You see? Well, nobody would would take that seriously, would they? You see? I hit you. Was in my hand, right? But if I'm just, you know, many substances, this is just

[1:00:29] another multitude there, right? You see? You see? But the people of Florida going crazy, and then punishing people of Washington or somewhere, or Oregon or someplace, because people Oregon went crazy, right? That doesn't make any sense? Does it?

[1:00:52] Frenchmen go crazy, go punish the Spaniards. That's not fair, is it? The Germans run amok there under Hitler, then we go go and destroy Switzerland or something. All part of Europe, isn't it? Why not? So you really have a unity that Europe doesn't have, right? That Assumption College doesn't have, right? You know, the individuals make up this.

[1:01:30] Like later, later what's her name? Havisham there in Dick's novels, right? She don't take revenge on all, men, because some man left her at the altar, right? You know the story there, The Great Expectations. Give me

[1:01:46] a little Dickens there. Yeah, he's our greatest novelist, right? English novelist, huh? Okay. Now there is a there is a way you can also kind of you know try to lead people back to what they really do know that they are one substance, huh? And the best way of doing this, I think, is by seeing the difference between activities like seeing, hearing, understanding, reasoning, and so on, and activities like lifting and pushing and pulling.

[1:02:35] So what's the difference between those two? Well, take an activity like lifting, an activity like pushing, an activity like pulling. Compare that now with an activity like seeing or hearing or reasoning or something of this sort.

[1:03:09] What's the fundamental difference between an activity like lifting, pushing, or pulling, and an activity like seeing, or hearing, or reasoning? One is physical. Yeah, yeah. But seeing and hearing might involve the body too, right? More fundamental difference of looking for in these two, huh? And the ones affecting something outside. Yeah, yeah. Here you're acting upon something outside, right?

[1:03:46] Well, seeing and hearing or reasoning are activities that remain within the one seeing or hearing or what reasoning, right? Okay, so the scientists call those imminent, but that's just kind of Latin word meaning remaining within, right? Remaining within the doer. Okay. So if I see you, is that affecting you in some way? No, you might not even know I'm seeing you, right? Okay. But if I push you or pull you or lift you, then you are being what Affected upon by me, right?

[1:04:25] Okay. Now, is it possible for you and I to lift something together that one of us could not lift alone? Now I know these bad boys who used. to, on Halloween night, they'd take somebody's Volkswagen, right? Enough guys, they can lift the Volkswagen and put it up on top of the guy's garage. So he wakes up one. Damn! The hell am I supposed to do? Like Volkswagen's up on top of the roof, right?

[1:05:01] Plus, you know, bad thing to do. I was doing kind of funny, nevertheless. Or if we had to tug a rope, right? You see, you got let's say five guys on that side, right? Maybe I by myself couldn't pull those five guys over the line, right? But if some of you guys come and help me, right, together we can pull them over the line. Something that no one of us could do by himself, right?

[1:05:27] Okay. Now, what about these activities, though? Right. See, can you and I together see something that one of us alone cannot see? I mean, suppose you had a painting there. I take this painting I just bought, you know. And if we put a curtain here, right, going like that, so you can see the left side, but not the right side, and I can see the right side but not the left side.

[1:06:05] Could you say that that painting has been seen? No. Someone would have to one must have to see both parts to say the painting has been seen. While in the case of the activity, truly the Volkswagen has been lifted as the poor guy discovers right. Even though no guy could do it by himself, right? And one guy doesn't have to do it by himself to have the Volkswagen lifted, right?

[1:06:42] And that when together we can pull those the other team over the line, right? Something no one of us could do alone. But one and the same person has to see the whole painting, right? Before the whole painting is being seen.

[1:07:05] The same way in hearing, right? You got a nice melody of Mozart, right? And you hear the first notes, and you hear the next notes, and I hear the next notes, right? Is that melody really been heard? No, it's got to be really one and the same person that way. Here's it right. The same way in reasoning or calculating, right? If I know that every mother is a woman, right, but I don't know that no man is a woman, right, and you know that no man is a woman, but you don't know that every mother is a woman, right?

[1:07:53] Can we together syllogize that no man is a mother? No, one of us would have to get both of those premises into his head, right? Before that conclusion could be syllogized, right? Or if I knew the length of this table, but not the width, and you know the width but not the what length? Could we together, with my never knowing the width and you never knowing the length, could we together calculate the area?

[1:08:36] No, see you see the difference between that right, huh? You and I cannot together calculate the what area, right? One of us just knowing one, not the other. One of us at least has got to know both. But you and I can lift something that one of us alone cannot, right? We can, true. Well, it's because you're acting upon something outside of you, right? But the imminent activity, it has to be within one person, right?

[1:09:13] Now, if I was really, in the strict sense, many substances, right, and each atom molecule was really a distinct what substance, right, that you and I are distinct substances, right,

[1:09:27] then there would be no such thing as what seeing, hearing, reasoning, right. But before you, before you see this now, people really do think of themselves as one thing, right,

[1:09:59] and therefore there is such a thing as Aristotle said, substantial change, right. And that's very important later on for understanding the soul, for understanding matter, right,

[1:10:15] because it's not until you know about substantial change that you see there's a distinction between. First matter and these actual substances that we call matter too, but our matter being a secondary sense, not the original one. And before you see that there's such a thing as substantial form, right? And that division necessary when you approach the definition of the soul, because the soul is going to turn out to be substantial form.

[1:10:47] Aristotle was the first man to really what see that, right? Was it is it the council was it Vienna was it yeah the big one there, Council Vienna that the church officially you know said the soul was is that substantial form. But you know people had a hard time understanding what the soul was. They either make the soul something accidental, like the organization of a house or something.

[1:11:15] The harmony of the body is as Simmias suggested in the Phaedo, or else he made it a what an angel, and a material substance imprisoned in the body, right? Okay, there were crude notions in that, but none of them were true ones, right? They couldn't see there's something formal, but in the genus of substance, there's something substantial, but not like a complete substance, right?