Natural Hearing (Aristotle's Physics)
67. Which Definition Comes First? Circularity in Aristotle's Reasoning
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[0:00] I'm thinking of I've been away from Book Six a while. I've been teaching for a while. Then I went to my advanced course, but there weren't enough students. So, but when I think about you know kind of away from the text, right? What always comes to my mind is something we'll meet later on in the in the third reading, right? Where Aristotle is showing

[0:23] together, you might say, that time and distance are divisible forever, right? And the way he shows it is from the fact that there are bodies that are what faster and slower, right? Okay, and that the faster body covers the same distance as the slower body. In less time, so that divides the what time, right? And then the lesser time that the faster body went this distance, the slower body necessarily goes a less distance, right?

[1:00] It can't go the same distance at the same time, because it would be slower. And therefore, you divide the distance, right? And then that lesser distance, the faster body had to go that lesser distance in less time than the slower body did, otherwise it would be faster. So therefore, you got to divide the time again, right? So there might be some way of like that, right? To show that time and distance together are must be divisible forever, right?

[1:25] Is it? So seeing that to some extent, independently, right? Then you can what argue from the first to the second? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I noticed that you know when I studied the two Summas, you know, and the two Summas when he talks about the substance of God, I mentioned before there's five attributes of the substance of God, in both Summas that he divides the consideration around. And the order in the Summa Theologiae, he shows that God is simple, right?

[2:04] And then that he's perfect, right? And then that he's infinite, and then that he's unchanging, and he's altogether one, right? Okay. Now he does the same five in the Summa Contra Gentiles, but he first shows that God is unchanging, and then perfect, and

[2:29] no, no, he's unchanging and simple, and then perfect, right? And so on, right? So he doesn't reason from he doesn't reason from God being simple

[2:52] uh, to his being unchanging in the Summa Contra Gentiles, the way he reasons in the other one, right? Because he shows that God is unchanging before he shows that God is simple, right? Okay. And you can show to some extent that God is unchanging before you show he's simple, right? But you can also show that he's simple before you show fully that he's unchangeable, is it? So depending on which one he shows first, he reasons, you know, from that to the other one to some extent, and so I get a paper on this one time, you see, and on the difference there, and there's something to be learned from both orders, right?

[3:35] Is it? So actually, in theology, it's some tricking order, but it gets a little complicated. Forget all these ones, but just take the two sumas, you know. So. You might be a little more involved. This, you know, and the question that he raises there in the possibilities, right?

[4:18] You can never kick it in, right? So, what's the answer? Well, I'm saying first reasons from the definition of continuous, right, to the second, right, okay. But then it seems to me at the end he's more reasoning from the second to the first, right? And and basically that's the way I usually do it, right? Seems to be more more basic that way, huh? Okay. And in in a way, you know, as you were trying to hint there, maybe at first part, you know, in a way it sets the stage for the reasoning, right?

[5:08] But explicitly does it towards the end of the chapter there. But you could reason the other way around. Either take this as a probable statement, right? Like it seems to you, you're imagining that way, right? The folks in the line, it seems to my students that way, right? Okay. Or you might be able to what? Have some reason to show that this is true, other than this reason down here, right?

[5:39] Okay. And in that sense, the reasoning from the first as known by this other reason, right? Okay. Although he hasn't shown the other reason at this point yet, right? Okay. But

[6:01] later on he does, right? Give an argument that seems to be dependent on this other one, See? So, insofar as you can give a reason for the first independently of this other reason, right? Then it's not so you can circularly reason the reasoning for that back to this, huh? I know. When I was thinking about the the

[6:33] the first road in our knowledge, right? Huh? It's something like this, huh? And I'd say now, the students, what is the first road in our knowledge, huh?

[6:46] Well, I say that the first road in our knowledge is the what? Natural. Road from the senses into reason, right? Okay. Now you ask me, why is that the first road, right? And I'm going to answer the question why. I'm going to give a reason in the form of a what syllogism, right? I'm going to give you the what middle term, right? Okay.

[7:14] So I say the first road in our knowledge is the natural road in our knowledge, and the natural road in our knowledge is the road from the senses into what reason, okay?

[7:33] Now the minor premise there and the major premise can be manifested further, right? See, minor premise is that the first road in our knowledge is a natural road, right? Okay. What do you mean by by nature, right? In this context, what do you mean the last sense of the word nature there? What a thing is, right? Okay. The nature of the thing is what it is, okay.

[7:59] And why should the natural therefore be first? Well, a thing must be what it is before it can be anything else. So obviously the nature of things was first and then. So now it's obvious that the first road will be the natural road, right? Okay. Now why is the natural road the road from the senses into reason? Well, of course you mean the natural road for man, obviously.

[8:28] What's the nature of man? What is he? It's a two-footed animal with reason, right? Okay. Now because he's an animal, of course he has senses. That's what defines animal, right? But he's not just an animal. He's an animal that has reason, right? And as we know, in the generation and development of something, what is generic or general comes before what is particular. So he obviously or naturally goes from what his animal nature, right, from the senses into his what reason, right?

[9:02] Okay. Could you manifest that? That last. Well, you know we usually go into biology a little bit there, right? Huh? Okay. And so you know, you know, when you have a fertilized egg, you know, the first thing you see is not sensation, but you see what cell division and growth, right? See what we have in common with the the plants, right? And then the senses you know develop much later, right?

[9:31] And then finally the reason comes, huh? Now, now sometimes you know, I I argue though that if the road from the senses into reason is a natural road in our knowledge. Then it must be the what? First road, right? So my mind kind of goes around this, huh?

[10:05] Is it the first road because it's a natural road, or is the natural road because it is the first road? I think so. First road because it's the natural. I think so. Yeah, yeah. That's what the middle term is basically that. But the other way, right?

[10:30] Now, you can reason though from it being the natural road to it being the first road, or could you reason from it being the first road to it being the natural road? Both, yeah, yes. When I ask the question, "What is the first road in our knowledge?" You know, you understand what you mean by "first," don't you? What is the road that's before every other road in our knowledge, right?

[11:05] And so, I'm going to reason from its being the first road, to its being what? Naturally, you know. But if someone, you know, without even asking the question about what is the first road in our knowledge, right? If he asks, you know, out of the blue, is there some road we naturally follow in our knowledge? You know, and he figured out that the natural road was right.

[11:38] So now he knows the natural road in our knowledge is a road, the senses into reason, right? Then he might syllogize: the natural road in our knowledge, excuse me, the road from the senses into reason is a natural road in our knowledge, and because it's a natural in knowledge, it's got to be the first road in our knowledge. Therefore, you know.

[12:06] But again, you might know from experience to some extent that the first road that a child follows is what? From his senses, right? The child is is is sensing, right? And he's doing any thinking at all. He's thinking about what he senses, right? Okay.

[12:26] So you might, in some way, know that the road from the senses into reason is the first road that the child travels, right? Without thinking explicitly yet that this is a natural road for him to travel, right?

[12:50] So you might go from being the first road to its eventually being the natural road, eh? But they're kind of convertible in a way,

[13:13] you know. To reason from philosophy being a knowledge of what and why, a knowledge of causes that its beginning must be wonder, because its beginning is wonder, it must be a knowledge of causes. Both, you can do both ways.

[13:40] I was talking to students there in wisdom there the other day, talking about the private road of science, right? And I say, you know, basically when you talk about the Private way of proceeding in this or that science. You talk most of all about the way of defining and the way of what demonstrating, right?

[14:02] Now, why are those the main things to talk about, right? Defining and demonstrating how you define, how you demonstrate in the science. Well, defining, I said, answers the question what. What is it? Demonstrating answers the question why is it so, right?

[14:25] Now, why are the questions what and why the essential questions for the philosopher? Well, you all learned, you know, from the Theaetetus and from the Metaphysics that philosophy begins in wonder, right? Wonder about what things are and why they are and why they are, right? Okay.

[14:46] So you might reason from wonder being the beginning of philosophy, and wonder being a desire to know the cause, know what and why. Well, in philosophy, must be a knowledge of what.

[15:02] Why. Yeah, must be knowledge of causes, right? If it's successful, right? Okay. But in the proemium to wisdom that we saw earlier in together, Aristotle shows that wisdom is a knowledge of causes, and even a knowledge of first causes before he talks about wonder being the beginning of philosophy, right? You know. So could you know that philosophy is a knowledge of causes without having considered that wonder is its beginning?

[15:39] And so, I said, if philosophy is a knowledge of causes and it's a knowledge desire for its own sake, as he says, or points out there in the proemium too, Remember that? He's comparing the man of experience and the man of art or science. He says the man of experience might succeed in doing something better than the man of art or science. Remember that. And the reason for that is that the man of experience is close to the singular, right?

[16:14] And when you take his example, when you cure somebody, you don't cure a man, but you cure this man here, you know. And I took the example, you know, of how sometimes the patient doctors himself better than the nurse or the doctor. You know, I took I took the example there of my wife the Demerol, right? And after a woman gives birth to to a baby, they they get discomfort, so they give them this Demerol, which is kind of a painkiller or something, right?

[16:46] So, gave my wife the usual dose of Demerol and gave her these violent headaches, right? So she got to know. Herself, right, and so the next time she had a baby, you know, just give me, you know, this amount, not the regular dose, and that relieved her discomfort, but

[17:07] so the nurse, the doctor, would be what, not relieving her discomfort as well as she herself, right, even though they possess the art of science, right. But the point is, the art of science is something kind of universal. This is the standard dose, and everybody gets that, right? I was telling an example of the psychologist that I knew when I was a freshman in college, you know, where he said they were enough psychologists to get to know the patients.

[17:32] So when they put you in the the mental home, you know, you were what? They would classify you, right? And you get the the treatment for that type, you know. And he thought it often made them worse, right, than better. But quite an admission, right? You see, but no, in a sense, what they would give my wife there in Demerol would actually make her what more uncomfortable, you know, you know.

[17:59] So, but then Aristotle goes on to say, "But the man of art or science, we think, is more knowing and wiser because he knows why, right? " And then he stops and manifests that, you know, in in many ways, you know, that the chief artist we all think is wiser, you know, the doctor than the pharmacist, right? And because he knows why, right? See, so he's manifesting.

[18:23] The wisdom consists not so much in doing, right, but in knowing, right, and in knowing why, right. Okay, if wisdom is more knowledge for its own sake than what practical knowledge, right? Say, and and all that's being shown independently of wonder being the beginning of philosophy.

[18:48] Aristotle shows later on in in the third reading there, in the premium, he reasons from wonder being the beginning of philosophy to philosophy, or wisdom being a looking knowledge, right. If it had begun in hunger or thirst or the desire to get wealthy or the desire to to be warm or something, right, it would have been something practical, right. But the fact it began in wonder, right?

[19:18] But could Aristotle have reasoned that because wisdom is a knowledge that's desirable for its own sake and not for the sake of of making or doing, right?

[19:33] That the desire to give rise to it must be wonder rather than hunger or thirst or something else. Couldn't he reason that way? You know.

[19:53] Because wonder is the desire to know, for its own sake because wonder—is the desire to know. Yeah, yeah. But if you knew, you had heard. You know, the wonder is the beginning of philosophy, right? And you read, you know, Plato and, particularly the Greeks, and you saw the wonder in these men, right?

[20:28] You could reason from wonder being the beginning of philosophy that it's going to be knowing causes, right? You know. A little more complicated, right? Mm hmm

[20:53] You know Let's go over this again you know I can't think of these things too much you know but You know, I can't agree with these things too much, you know, But De Koninck you know, was De Koninck when I had him. DeConnick had been teaching the physics, you know, since the nineteen thirties when I had him. I was up there for the first time fifty eight to sixty, you know, and then I went back, went out a few years at Saint Mary's, and I went back for sixty three sixty four, the school year.

[21:25] But he had been teaching these things for twenty five years, and he said he always saw something new every time he what went through it, right? He said, you know, and he says, what I was saying, he said, you know, he says they read the physics, you know, they books on a weekend at Columbia. Did you know that? There's no idea, you know, of these things,

[21:56] and it's always a question of how much time you spend on on a reading, you know, with with students sometimes because sometimes they they they don't realize how much is in a text, right, or how important it is, right, and and they want to you know cover more words, you know, that sort of thing, you know.

[22:33] So I said, look, he wrote this again. I was kind of struck by it, but seems to be something kind of what the way Thomas explains the commentary that Aristotle is reasoning first from the first definition continuous, and, then from the second definition, right? And then at the end there, when he's bringing out something that can't be supposed,

[22:56] when he says the very in the last paragraph, it's clear that everything continues to be divisible to things which are always divisible, right? And then, for if into indivisibles, right,

[23:09] the indivisible will be touching the indivisible, and that's impossible, right? So there is kind of what arguing from it can't be into indivisibles, right? From the absurdity that follows from that, it's not divisible into indivisibles. Therefore, it's always divisible into things that are divisible, right? So he's arguing just the reverse way, right?

[23:35] But now look at the third paragraph from the bottom there. Further, if a thing is divided into those things in which it is, it would be divided into indivisibles, right? But nothing continuous is divided into that which is without parts. See, he's giving us a reason, right? That nothing continuous is divided into that which is without parts. Or to put it in a more affirmative way, everything continuous is divided into that which has parts.

[24:04] Everything continuous is divided into that which is what? Divisible, right? Huh? It's always divided into something that's divisible, which is another way of saying it's always what? Divisible forever, right? And because of that, it can't be divided into indivisibles. Right?

[24:26] Yeah. So he seems to be arguing in the reverse order in that third to the bottom paragraph, and then in the very bottom paragraph, right? You know. So I don't know, Thomas missed that circularity. It doesn't seem to stop in remark. It's kind of, you know, you see the way the the the thing is laid out, you can see that there seems to be there a circularity, right?

[24:54] And then, you know, you know what I would say is that, you know, I myself, I reason more from the second here to the first, right? The reverse, right? Okay. You know, when I try to understand this and actually do that, so the way he's reasoning at the bottom there, right? But the first one, right,

[25:21] could be taken as probable, right? Okay. I'm sure you can see it before, back in Book Three, right? Or, as I was saying earlier, right? Um, there are reasons that can maybe be given for the first one, independently of the second one, right? Okay. I think there's a little bit of that in our thinking, right? Huh? You know.

[25:55] You know, as I said, I saw that when I was studying the five attributes of God, right? You know. See, Thomas in Summa Theologiae, he will reason from God being simple to God being unchanging, right? And I talked about that way of reasoning a little bit when we're doing that in the philosophy of nature, right? Remember how Aristotle shows in the eleventh reading there, the first book, that there must be a third thing in change besides the two contraries.

[26:30] Remember that? And that, you know, if the hard becomes soft or the soft becomes hard, there must be something in the hard besides the hardness.

[26:45] The hardness itself cannot become soft, can it? There must be in the hard not only hardness, but some subject in which the hardness exists, right? They can lose the hardness and acquire the opposite, but softness, like like butter, for example, right? Okay. Now, if there wasn't a real distinction between butter and its hardness, could the butter ever become soft? Say. Say.

[27:14] Or take, you know, those examples. You know, can the healthy become sick? Can health ever become sickness? Say. But something that has health can lose the health it has, and acquire the contrary, what sickness, right? So that when you say the healthy becomes sick, as we do, right? See, if you say the healthy cannot in any way become sick, then the healthy will always be healthy, right?

[27:44] And if the sick in no way can ever become healthy, because the sick cannot be healthy, right? Then the sick will always be sick. Tough luck. If you say, right? See. So you force it says it's a third thing in change, right? And it might be the body in this case, right? That is able to be healthy, able to be sick, right? But not at the same time, right?

[28:11] And when it's actually one, it's still able to be the other. But if it becomes the other, it ceases to be the first, right? And that way, we saw that what changes is necessarily composed, right? Okay. And you're going from you know also confused knowledge of what you mean by healthy or sick, right? Because the word healthy, the word, the single word healthy, doesn't distinguish between health and that in which the health is.

[28:39] It's not really the health that becomes sick, but it's that in which the health is that becomes sick, right? So you're forced to the truth that what changes is composed, right? And so if you can show that God is simple,

[28:57] which means not composed, right? Then you can syllogize in the second figure that God does not change, right? So the major premise is whatever changes is composed. God is not composed, therefore, right? And the great, you know, Socrates, the great Plato, there sees that in a way in the Phaedo, right? And he says one point: what sort of thing is if it can change? Well, it's the thing that's composed, he says.

[29:27] And what thing would seem to be unchangeable is something that's simple, right? And it makes some sense, right? Because you destroy things by what taking them apart, right? Um. And he's kind of hinting maybe the soul is something simple and therefore indestructible, right? But he doesn't really. You know, bring out argument to prove that the soul is simple, right? But you know, he sees that connection between simple and unchangeable to some extent there, and changeable and composed, right?

[29:58] Then, I see. So Thomas, you know, in the Summa, in the second question, he shows the Summa Theologiae. Now, second question, he shows the existence of God, right? Third question is the what simplicity of God, right? And then

[30:17] later on, after he takes up perfection of God, he argues to God being what infinite, and then God being what unchanging, right? But he reasons from his being simple to his being unchanging, and he reasons from his being infinite to his being unchanging, and he reasons from his being universally perfect to his being unchanging, right? But he's showing all those things before he shows that God is unchanging.

[30:45] He can't quite do that. in. The Summa Contra Gentiles, because the first thing he does is to show that God is what, unchanging, right? Okay. Now, now part of the reason I think why why the order is different there is if you look at the Summa Contra Gentiles, you'll see that the argument for motion for the existence of God, the argument for the unmoved mover, is much more what, developed, right?

[31:18] In both Summas, there's five arguments for the existence of God, and in the Summa Theologiae, the first one is from motion, second one is the one for the efficient cause, right? But in the Summa Contra Gentiles, the first and the second argument are both from motion. Okay. He has two separate arguments from motion to the unmoved mover. Plus, when he's showing the the the one of the premises, right?

[31:46] In the Summa Theologiae, he has one middle term, right? Summa Contra Gentiles, three different middle terms, right? Um, he syllogizes in both, you know, from the definition of motion, but he also syllogizes on things we learn in the sixth book, which are motion depending upon a mover, right? In the Summa Contra Gentiles. So it's much more fully developed, the argument for the unmoved mover, right? In the Summa Contra Gentiles, then the Summa Theologiae, it's, much more developed.

[32:19] And therefore, it's kind of natural to go from the proof of existence of God to the attributes of God to take up first God being what, unchanging, right? And it's almost, you know, Thomas is very quick with that in the Summa Contra Gentiles, because it's been so thoroughly taken up the arguments of the unmoved mover, right? He almost goes, you know, starts almost almost with with God being unchanging, almost taking for granted, and going to being eternal and so on, right?

[32:44] Okay. And then he he so so the order is different there, right? Ah. So. I think I think you know you know if if you study Euclid, you might find something like that in Euclid, right? It might be possible, right? Convertible. No, the convertible, but it might be possible that you know theorem A, let's say, is used to prove theorem B, and

[33:30] and then B is used to prove something else, right? But it might be possible to prove B by something other than A, right? And then use B to prove A, right? Okay. Okay. Or if you use B to prove C, let's say, and C could be proven by X as well as by B, right? Well? If you prove C by X, and it's convertible, as you're saying, right?

[33:58] You know, You know, the first theorems in Euclid you know, the first grand convertible theorems, and you know, the fifth and sixth theorems, right, in, the first book. Now, the fifth one is that if you have two triangles,

[34:26] not two triangles, one triangle. If your triangle and the two sides are equal, he's going to prove that these what angles equal, right? Okay. And then the next theorem, sixth one, is in a way reverse. If these two angles are equal, then he's going to prove that those two sides are equal, right? Okay. Now,

[34:57] could you could you prove this from this or what? Don't be begging the question. These theorems, in a way, are what? Convertible, yeah. And one thing about his his showing that that the reverse is true, right? My brother Mark used to say, if ever hear him say this, it kind of shows that that this thing is what a property in strict sense, right? That belongs to a sausage triangle the way we define the sense of symmetry, right?

[35:42] In fact, you can turn it around, right? Okay. To give you example, what I mean here, doesn't he turn around the the forty-seven forty-eight turns around the the Pythagorean

[36:00] theorem? If you're given the reverse, right, that the square on this side of a triangle is equal to the squares on those sides, that therefore the angle here is going to be what? Right angle. Right. Okay. In fact, you can turn that around. Most of convertible means logic. Every A is B, and every B is A, right? Okay? Well, property strict sense is of that sort, right?

[36:29] Like every two is half of four, and every half of four is two, right? Well, I said that two is is less than ten. But not everything less than ten is 2, right? That would be a property in the strict sense, right?

[36:43] Okay. So the fact that it's convertible is a sign of that, right? Okay. Um. When the cases assume they're convertible, sometimes I guess here they're shown separately, aren't they? Huh? Here isn't this shown from the other one?

[37:04] All right. Can't remember. Yeah, I think he takes the back of this and then constructs a right angle and on. Oh. Yeah. Doesn't reduce. Yeah. But you know, if you could prove one from the other, right? Huh? Okay. But in fact, you've proven one. You've proved, you know, in fact, either one from the other, right? You either one to prove the other one by it. But you could find another way of proving the other one.

[37:37] You know, then you could you could reverse it the other way around, right? Well, a little bit of food for thought, anyway. So. Time for revision. Tell you what, that's right. He's doing

[38:16] here. Showing it. Well, you know, I want to speak more knowing that I know. Um. But it seems to me that one does, in fact, reason more, right, from

[38:37] the impossibility, right, of making the continuous out of indivisibles, right, to the continuous being divisible forever than the reverse, right? Okay. But if the continuous is divisible forever, at least it's something probable, right? Okay. One can reason, right? Therefore, in the reverse direction, can reason from the probable, like like the way Thomas solves that problem in there, right? Or like I was saying, when you get to the third reading here, and we see him reasoning from the fact that one body is faster, another body, and one body is slower, right?

[39:30] He reasons from that to both the distance and the time. Being divisible forever, so he has a reason, you know, that can be given. He hasn't given yet why the continuous is divisible forever, or that the continuous is divisible forever,

[39:54] and therefore he, to some extent, knows that right, independently of the fact that it's not composed of indivisibles. So he can reason, you know, to know the latter, right? You see, okay,

[40:15] okay, and I have to think about more, but but I think the the the way that say reason more from right, perhaps gives you more why it is so, right? You know, than the other right.

[40:42] And this argument that from the faster and the slower shows that they must be divisible Forever, right? But I don't know if it explains as fully why they must be divisible forever, right? Well, you see the impossibility of putting together the continuous from the indivisible, right? And then you see that it must always be divisible into divisible things, right? You see, you can't put together from nothing.

[41:13] You can't put it together from the indivisible, right? Therefore, it must be put together from divisibles, right? You're kind of seeing, you know, or it seems to be more why just so, right? Okay. In that case, when you're seeing more why, you're arguing actually from the division in logic to proving that this division in natural philosophy is that right? Well, I don't know that. You're reasoning from what the indivisible is, right?

[41:45] What the point is, right? You see, you see that the point has no parts, right? And you see that the point has no edge or limit, right? And therefore, you see the impossibility of

[42:15] composing the continuous out of it, right? Okay. You see also the impossibility of its being continuous in the first definition from that same thing, right?

[42:29] How can that which has no limit have a common limit? How can two points share the same end, the same limit, the same boundary, when they don't have any limit or boundary, right?

[42:50] The two semicircles can share the same limit, right? The diameter. The two parts of the straight line can share the same limit, which is that point, right? Which is the end of the left part and the beginning of the right part of the line.

[43:06] Right. Because that limit has to be something other than that of which it is a limit. The axiom we're talking about, right? It's interesting to see if we went back the axioms here, right? It's just like in that sixth theorem, in Euclide, the way back to the whole is more than the part, right? It resolves all the way back to the axioms. So from those things, you're seeing both that can't be put together, right?

[43:41] Isn't that first definition, right? Yeah, because both the definition of the continuous and the definition of the contiguous—the touching there—implies that the things that continue are touching, that they have what? There's something different than their limit, right? And their limit is either one or their limit is together, right? Their limits are together, right? But but they have your they have a common limit, or they have your limits together, right?

[44:14] We suppose that you have a limit, right? And that limit is something other than yourself, right? And a point can't have a limit other than itself; it can't have a limit at all. It's a limit that has no limit. You know, you know, and and if you're taught CCD or that sort of stuff, you know, it's kind of a common thing. You always have some kid in class, you know, well,

[44:48] who made me? God made me, and they always say, well, who made God, right? Well, nobody made God, right? But and but often have a kid said, but everything has a cause, right? Everything, you know, Have you ever had an experience teaching CCD or something like that? They always say that, right? And but notice, you could show in all honesty that that's not even true about the limit, right?

[45:11] Huh? Everything has a limit, right? No. See, the point has no limit. That must go on forever, no? See, but notice, if every limit had a limit, then what?

[45:47] The infinity of limits to limit anything. Now I was struck by it, you know. I was going over the Aristotle's eight arguments there against Anaxagoras you remember those, And sometimes I divide them, you know, into groups. And I put the eighth and the fifth and the first argument together because they have in common that they're based on the principle of fewness or simplicity, right? Okay, and you know, one's a comparative argument with Empedocles, that Empedocles explains the same thing with six principles, and it takes Anaxagoras and infinity principles to explain the same thing.

[46:27] You see, and and then he explains how the principle of Anaxagoras is really complicated because if everything is inside of everything, infinitely small pieces inside each one of those pieces of everything is infinitely everything else. And stage one of those, and so on forever. You can hardly be more complicated, right? You know. And you know Einstein himself, you know, says, you know, this is the underlying principle of all natural science, from the Greeks all the way through my work and beyond, right?

[46:57] And you know, read, you know, Sir Isaac Newton, after whom the whole physics, you know, was referred to in the 17th, 18th, 19th century. The 20th century physicists call that Newtonian physics, right? He's the model, right? But that's rule number one, you know. If you look at the rules that he gives in there, rule number one of all his thinking, that's it. Rule number two is another variation of that.

[47:18] Rule number three, you know, that's it. That's the fundamental rule. And and and yet, you know, they they're terribly afraid, you know, that there might turn out to be an unmoved mover, right? Or there might be an uncaused, right? Cause a cause that has no cause, right? See, but no, it's the alternative to that. Apart from the proof that there is an uncaused cause, right? The alternative to that position that there's a cause that has no cause, right?

[47:46] Is that every cause has a cause, right? Once you say every cause has a cause, every mover has a mover, right? Then you're automatically positing what? An infinity of causes to explain anything, right? Which on the very surface of it seems to be what? Contrary to the principle of simplicity, huh? Now Max Born, huh, is a great physicist there, huh? Got the Nobel Prize, you know. He's the man who explained the what?

[48:17] What the wave function really means. He solved the problem. But but he's a man who stands at the center of modern physics because he worked with Einstein in Berlin, right? And they were main, you know, lifelong friends. And you can buy the correspondence, you know, Born and Einstein, you know, because Born, you know, sided with Heisenberg and Niels Bohr, right, and the Copenhagen interpretation and and Einstein on the side.

[48:44] So he stands at the center, but he was very much associated with what? Heisenberg and and Bohr, right, in the development of quantum theory. And in fact, he's the guy who who told Heisenberg that Heisenberg was trying to put his theory into mathematical form, and he was groping, you know, for the kind of mathematics that already been developed in Göttingen, right, and Born and told him about that, right?

[49:05] You know, this might be this kind of strange math over here, and sure enough, that was exactly the thing to use, right? This matrix matrix stuff, you know. And

[49:19] so he's a guy who stands at the center of quantum physics. I mean, he's a great physicist himself, but he knew and worked with all the other great ones. He's some very interesting things to say, huh? But in that book, The Restless Universe, right? He has the statement that says the genuine physicist believes obstinately in the unity and simplicity of nature, despite any appearance to the contrary.

[49:42] You know, and but the context where he makes this was in his discussion of the 19th century when they had kind of perfected the periodic table of the elements, right? And you had about what? I guess originally 92 elements, and then you know gradually crept up to about 100. You know, but you know that just seemed too many. 92, 92 basic kinds of matter, right? That many, you know, it's too many.

[50:13] He says the genuine physicist believes obstinately in simplicity of the unity of nature, and so they they figured there must be some more unity behind that, right? And and the clue was that the hydrogen atom, which was the lowest, right, the other ones seemed to be almost numerical multiples of the hydrogen atom. Oh, see, that made them you know you know guess there must be something you know that's being repeated here, right?

[50:42] That's simpler, right? Than 92, fewer in number than 92, right? Okay, I say if 92 seems too many, obviously infinity seems too many, right? You know, you know. But our mind, in a sense, naturally inclines that way, right? You know, we I always give the two great hypotheses about day and night. One is that the Earth turns on its axis, and the other is that the Sun goes around the Earth, right?

[51:12] But both of those two famous hypotheses, right? They both assume that there is just one Sun, right? Why doesn't somebody propose that there are three hundred sixty-five Suns every year? You know that would explain three hundred sixty-five days and nights, right? But if you can explain with just one, why have three hundred sixty-five? Thousands and thousands as the years go by, right? You know, see, our mind just naturally inclines.

[51:42] You know, if one Sun can explain it, why use more than one, right? And these are two, you know, possibilities in explaining day and night by one Sun. The two alternatives, right? Without saying which one is correct or which one I think is correct,

[52:00] I point to the fact that despite all the disagreement as to what is the cause of day and night, they agree on using just one Sun. One Earth You know, As opposed to being that you know, the Sun is you know, succushier or it's extinguished. You know, when it has to be shot across the sky, you know, the fire is extinguished down there. Of course, if the Sun was ordinary fire, you'd have to have a new one every day, right?

[52:26] Because it would be quick burnt out by the time it got across the sky. So Aristotle was right in thinking, you know, the Sun is not ordinary fire anyway, right? What else do we know about besides ordinary fire?

[52:49] So likewise, if every limit had a limit, right? You'd have an infinity of limits to limit, anything. Genuine physicist, you know, the real article, you know. Mind just kind of naturally rejects that. It's kind of amazing that the moderns want to, you know, that they're so afraid of what God might possibly be.

[53:18] You know, I ever tell you about the the Weizsacker you know, Weizsacker was the student of Heisenberg, right? There is very interesting thing on on infinity there that the belief in the infinity of the universe.

[53:40] In modern times, started in the Renaissance, right? And Aristotle, and you know, and the medieval scholastics following him and so on. Thought the universe was finite, right? And then the Renaissance, they went back to the idea, you know, the early guys that the universe was infinite in extent, right? Well, then the 20th century, when Einstein, you know, invented the theory of general theory of relativity, and they started to study the cosmos, you know, then they were amazed; that it seemed more plausible that the universe was finite rather than infinite, right?

[54:18] And what characterized physics of the 20th century was discovery of all kinds of limits. You know, there's a maximum speed, apparently the speed of light, the smallest amount of energy, and so Weizsacker was giving a lecture one time, and all these limits that are appearing in modern science, and this older physicists got very angry, you know, about this, and so Weizsacker went to see him privately afterwards to see why he's so angry, you know.

[54:47] Did he have some objections to new theories? Well, no, he didn't have any objection he could give to them, but he just didn't like the idea of all these limits. And so Weizsacker began to reflect on that, see, and he says that this belief in an infinite universe, right, came in in the Renaissance at the time when they stopped giving up the study of theology. So when they give the study of God, who's infinite, right?

[55:15] You see, and all the left is the universe, but, the human mind can't be satisfied with something limited, and so there's no God, but only the universe without God, the universe has got to be infinite, you see, and then when it turns out that the universe is after all finite, then they're completely frustrated. It's kind of interesting, though, you know. You know, it's in it's in his book there, The World View of Physics.

[55:44] You read a collection of a number of papers, but that was very interesting, you know. And when Thomas talks about the ancient Greeks and going up to Aristotle, right? You see, they began, you know, our mind naturally looks at something infinite, right? And they thought of the material world, which is all they knew about, as being infinite, right? But then they began to have reasons to think the world was finite, right?

[56:07] And then they realized that it had to be something immaterial that was infinite, right? And infinite in a much different way than the matter was, huh? And you see, already Anaxagoras beginning that, right? Because he thinks of the greater mind as being unlimited. That's the first thing, right? But in a much different way, right? So instead of the model going in the reverse direction, see, they give up infinite God, and now nature has to be substituted for God.

[56:33] So they have to attribute to nature, in some sense, what you attributed to God, this infinity, you know. It's kind of interesting. It's kind of funny that the whole modern science is based on this principle of simplicity, and to deny the unmoved mover or the uncaused cause, the first cause, is to force yourself to be very complicated Infinity of causes to explain anything, right?

[57:14] The mind, the mind, as he's saying, the genuine physicist believes absolutely in the unity and simplicity of nature, despite the contrary. Right? The mind naturally inclines to the idea of some, you know, simplicity, right? And therefore, it should be naturally, you know, wrong this idea of there being, you know, infinity of causes for everything. You know, before you get a reason why it is Hey there, Orange.

[57:49] Good to see you. It's coming in now.