Natural Hearing (Aristotle's Physics)
74. No Motion or Rest in the Now, the Divisibility of What Moves, and Boredom and Loneliness
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/3-natural-hearing/074-no-motion-or-rest-in-the-now-the-divisibility-of-what-moves/

[0:00] Now I said the first thing you want to show, you want to really show two things in this reading. One is that there's no motion in the now, right? Okay. And then secondly, he's going to show that the thing that moves is itself divisible, right? But in showing that first thing, he wanted to show first that the now itself is something what indivisible, because that's going to be necessary to see why there's no motion in the now, and he's going to show there's no rest in the now either.

[0:31] Okay. That's very easy to see in the next paragraph how you can reason that out. That nothing is moved in the now is clear from these things. If it were moved in the now, something could move faster or slower, right? So let the now be in, and let the faster be moved in it the distance AB. Therefore, the slower in the same would be moved less than AB, as a distance say AC.

[1:06] Since then the slower has moved the distance AC in the whole now, the faster will be moved in something less than this. If not in something less, it would be faster, would it? So the now would be divided. But we saw that was impossible because the now is indivisible. Hence, there is no being moved in the now, right?

[1:33] Now, he's going to give, as Thomas explains in the commentary, three arguments to say there is no rest in the now, right? Now, you've got to realize that he's using the word rest here as the what opposite of motion, right? But opposite in what sense of motion?

[1:56] The contradictory, or the privation, or the contrary. Think it's privation. Privation, yeah, yeah, yeah. In the strict sense, we say something is at rest, right? That is able to move, right? And when is able to move, and how is able to move, right? But is not in motion, right? Okay. So you got to be careful now if you say that God, you know, rested himself on the seventh day, right?

[2:30] I say, or you say God, you say God doesn't move, right? God is the unmoved mover, so God's at rest. Well, not in the sense he's talking about rest here, right? Not a lack. See, just as God is not what deaf, right? See, but does God have the sense of hearing? No, contrary to Xenophon, right? Do you see the fragment of Xenophon? Beautiful fragment. He says the whole of God sees, the whole of God hears.

[3:10] Okay, That's kind of interesting, huh? Because? Although he doesn't, you know, have senses, right? You say the whole of God understands, right? The whole of God loves, right? There is no composition at all in God, right? That's kind of marvelous, huh? That he sees that, huh? Couldn't quite get it right, you know. I think he says, you know, xenophon.

[3:37] There's a mark of Aristotle that kind of dismisses Xenophon, and and I remember talking to Kasurik one time, you know, I said, "How can he do that? " You know, you see these fragments of Xenophon. I've got no explanation for it? Maybe there's two xenophons, or what, you know, but in this notes, they, you know, the fragments we have from the from Xenophon, right? You know, they're really extremely interesting.

[4:00] Yeah, interesting. I collect those in another group of fragments called the Natural Theology fragments, right? It's kind of marvelous to see this, huh? Yeah, marvelous.

[4:16] But neither is there rest. Now the first argument, and the main argument, is the one from understanding what we mean by rest in the sense of a what, privation or lack, right? For we say that something is at rest which is apt to be moved, that is not moved when and by what in the way it is apt to. Okay.

[4:42] Whence, since nothing is apt to be moved in the now, neither will it be at what rest, right? Okay. You see that? As I say, don't get hung up on the what word, right? Huh? Remember I was talking before, and I was saying

[5:06] talking about the word unlimited. Okay. And when Thomas talks about God being unlimited, this is one of the five attributes of the substance of God, right? God is unlimited, right? You want to use the Latin word,

[5:30] God is infinite, right? And Thomas is always careful to explain that unlimited is not a privation there, a lack, right? That okay, but if you say that a line is unlimited, right? Then it's a privation or a lack, right?

[5:57] But when you say it of God, it is a negation, but not a what privation, huh? Now sometimes we we have a very clear word for the privation, see? So I wouldn't say that this piece of chalk is blind, huh? I don't think even in daily speech a person, would say this piece of chalk is blind, right? Okay. But if someone asks me, "does this piece of chalk see me?

[6:25] Does it see anybody? Does it see anything? " I have to say, by the axiom of what beings and unbeing, right? I have to say it doesn't see, right? That's a mere negation, right? It doesn't see, right? But blind means now you don't see, but this is the sort of thing that what should see. Yeah, that is by nature apt to see, right? And should see and wouldn't see, right?

[6:56] Okay. Now if I didn't see through these things here, then you'd say I'm what blind, right? I don't see through my hand, but is my hand blind? Huh? Well, what is not apt to see through his hand, right? The hand is not lacking something it should have an eye in the middle or something, right? See? Missing an eye here, like poor Oedipus right? Or like poor, King Oedipus, both of them you see Oedipus right It's his eyes put out, huh?

[7:38] Who was that? Creon Yeah, yeah. I see him on the stage, you know, Christine. He's like got a red bandana, clothed in that design.

[7:53] It's a horrible scene, you know. But kind of do it to move it off the stage. So this man is now blind, right? Of course, the poet likes to say, you know, that he didn't see the truth until he was blind, you know. That sort of thing, you know, and play with different senses, huh? But no, since word "unlimited" is not like the word "blind," it's not so clearly in our language, signifying what a privation rather than negation, huh?

[8:25] You got to be very careful with the word "limited, huh? So instead of "God," you'd say what? Negation, right? What you're negating there is that his what perfection is not limited to any genus in particular, right? Huh? But if you said the line was unlimited, then that would be more of a lack, right? Because a line is apt to have an endpoint, huh? When Aristotle is

[9:01] talking about the three forms of the the three main forms of the beautiful in the fourteenth or fifteenth book, I think it is of of the wisdom there, metaphysics, and he says limit is one of the what forms of the beautiful. See Well, God is not unlimited in the sense as opposed to that, right?

[9:28] Aristotle's thinking of the creature, right? Huh? Okay, there's so many limits always for the creatures, huh? And as the great what? Sherlock Holmes says, right? That story, the Norwood Builder. You know that story? The Norwood Builders got a vendetta against a woman, right, who had turned him down in his early years, and he's plotted a horrible revenge, right, to make it appear that he's been killed, right, in the fire by her what son?

[10:03] And all the evidence points to his her son, and he's got he's framing the guy in the sense you might say, right? Okay, he's done it very cleverly, and everybody's convinced that the son has committed the murder, and he'll be tried and executed, right? It's a horrible revenge, isn't there? And even Holmes is a bit taken in by it, right? But then the Norwood Builder he does one more thing to make it so, Holmes notices right, and the whole thing unravels right.

[10:37] And of course, Norwood Builder, being a builder, he can have a secret compartment in the house and so on. And finally, when Holmes realizes what he's done, right, and his guess is that he's concealed because of the dimensions of the walls and so on, right. And so he he starts a little fire up there, you know, and the two of them go, "Hurry, hurry!" Of course, they're putting it out.

[11:01] Here's the man supposed to be burned up, you know, days ago. So anyway, in the after conversation that you have between Holmes and and Watson, you know, and Holmes is kind of talking about how clever this guy was, you know, and he had me fooled for some time. Then he said he lacked the supreme gift of the artist, knowing when to stop. And that's what's marvelous about you know.

[11:29] I heard it said you know by Barth and other people about Mozart, right? He always knows when to stop, see? And I heard it said about

[11:42] it was Titian, I think, you know. He knows exactly when to stop, you know. So that limit that is a perfection of a thing, huh? That's why we used to always say, you know, the old the old soap operas, you know. Yeah. Or even these these ones you still have for kids, you know, Jack Armstrong and so on. you know they're before your time. I might have listened to them, but you hear about these things.

[12:06] But they always have to have something you know that's about to happen or something that gets you curious at the end of each episode because they want you turned to the next week to get the advertisement and they end the play right. So the thing just goes on kind of you know forever, right? Like these soap operas do, you know, on TV, you know, that it never ends, right?

[12:25] And it's a very unsatisfactory thing, always going on, right? Yeah. And and here it comes to an end, but but so that thing has a what? A privation, right? It doesn't have a limit. It's able to have a story It can have its limit It can end, right? And what? It should have. It should have. Yeah. Yeah. Like a game, where, you know, where it's not resolved who's won, right?

[13:00] You know, there's something incomplete about that, right? Hasn't reached its end, right? Now he's been knocked out or whatever it is. You see. So why I mentioned all this here because I tried to say that the word "unlimited" is more ambiguous, you might say, or more equivocal, right? Than the word "blind" is, right? Now we might say you know about someone who's blind, you see. Aristotle points this out that the words "do not see" at first it sounds quite strange when you hear him saying this, but he says "do not see" or "does not see" has two meanings.

[13:46] In one case, you're negating the what? The act of seeing. Other case, negating the ability to see. See. And sometimes you know when there's a blind person there and he's going to make an awkward, you know, mistake. You know, socially, you know, say he doesn't see, you know. Yeah. We said you know want the person to realize he's blind, so you know take that into account. Don't you know assume this person can see, right?

[14:12] You know. But so when you say he doesn't see, that means what? In this context, it has the meaning. of, He's blind, not that he's what. It doesn't understand. He's not actually seeing you, looking at you, you know. I don't see you. you know, looking in the other direction, or, daydreaming, or sleeping, or something, right? Then I don't see you, right? That's it. He doesn't see. We often use that in that sense, don't we?

[14:40] And and there, the word "don't see" are not as clear as the word "blind." Right? Do you see the point? See. And of course, you might use the word "doesn't see" even for the piece of chalk, right? So you get very careful with the word "unlimited," right? And so I make the same point about the word "rest."

[15:01] See. Because you might say, is God in motion or at rest? Neither. It might seem he's got to be one or the other, but if you are taking rest as a privation, right? It's neither, right? See, if I say, does this piece of chalk see or is it blind? Well, it's neither. See, either sees or doesn't see, but not the other, right? So he's not concerned with God's rest here, is he?

[15:36] He's concerned with the, but yeah, the mobile is resting, right? And that's say what privation, okay? So if it can't move in the now. It cannot what. Rest. In the now, because nothing is apt to move in the now. There is no motion in the now. There couldn't be. See, so it's not a lack, is it?

[16:02] Further, if there's the same now in both times. The second argument now, and it could happen in the one to be moved and the other to rest through the whole. And what moves through the whole is moved in everything of it as it is actually moved, and the resting is similar. It would happen that the same rests and is moved. That's a little bit like the argument that the past will be in the future, the future in the past, right?

[16:25] For the now is the same extremity of both times. Now the third argument goes back to what rest means here. Further, we say that rest, which has itself and its parts in the same way now as before, right? Now, notice, we contrast rest with change, right? Don't we see that change? We see a thing has changed when it's different now than it was what before. So you got to have a before and after in change, right?

[16:56] And we say something rests when it's the same now as it was before. See, and that means you got to have a before and after, right? In the first meaning of before and after, of course, is time, huh? Okay.

[17:13] Further, we say that rest, which has itself and its parts in the same way now as before, right? But in the now, there is no before. So there's no rest. It is necessary, therefore, that what is moved be moved in time, and that what rests be resting in time. Right. This is a preparation for a discussion of the divisibility of motion. Right. Because if all motion must be in time, rather than now, and all time is divisible, that's going to be one way of talking about the division of motion.

[17:49] Right. So, it wants to clarify the fact that there's no motion in the now. Right. But at the same time, as I say, that helps us to understand, as we were saying earlier, how little reality motion has. Right. Remember one time. Years ago, you know, they had some of these demonstrations downtown, Worcester. You know, I don't know for these things. So I'm driving off the campus, and the student there at the thing trying to hitch a ride.

[18:16] Say, well, I have to get a ride, obviously, right? And where are you going? I'm going downtown. I said, Why going downtown? That's where the action is. But

[18:28] you could say that that's where the motion is, right? Yeah. You know. And Aristotle talks about that in the ninth book of *Wisdom*. You know, of how people, you know, think that motion is more real, right? Oh yeah. And and if you're you're in motion, you're doing something, right? Yeah. And I told you kind of a funny story One philosopher I know he says, if I'm sitting there in our living room reading my book, right, my wife doesn't interrupt me, see, because I'm obviously doing something, right?

[18:56] Yeah. You see me moving up and down the page, right? But if I stop to think about what I've read, you know, then she thinks I'm doing nothing. Because you can come in for a small talk. you know. You see? But I mean, anybody who who does philosophy, you know, properly, you know, is most probably. Maybe is that when he stops reading, right, and and thinks, and you know, gets a hold of something, right, or thinks it out or something, right.

[19:24] Yeah. It doesn't seem to be doing anything, because he's just stuck. A lot of times, though, this is true of the practical man, you know, in a sense. He sees you sitting in a chair there doing nothing. Um, that's not doing anything.

[19:42] But but you might be what thinking, and you really are doing something, but you appear not to be doing anything to the to the world, right? Huh. Motion seems what real, real, yeah. Aristotle says there that people will say about what is not real that they thought about it, they wish things that aren't real sometimes. They never say that it moves, but it's not real. It's only what is real moves, you know.

[20:14] But you see that how that came to dominate, you know, the thinking of the moderns, right? You know that they all think that what. Everything is historical, right? And then that you know that kind of kind of sum up the existentialist. You know, man has no nature; just is a history, right? See, so reality is what motion. That's it.

[20:41] I mean, Hegel says what philosophy is the history of philosophy. See, everything is is historical, right? Everything is in movement, right? This is this is the common thinking in modern times, right? So that the only thing that seems real to them is what is historical, what is what is progressing, what is moving, you know, right? You see, my son and I used to joke about that. You know, it's a fact of academic life.

[21:13] If you want money to do research, right? You can get it much better if you're traveling. If you're sitting still, right? You see, because if you. asked for money to sit in your house or your room and think something out. you wouldn't give me money for that at all, right? If you had to visit ten museums or ten libraries or travel, you know, you see. And anybody who travels to conferences, apart from the, you know, large amount of nonsense that goes on at the conference So, they spend so much time, you know, traveling there, you know, and they get exhausted, you know, and the quality of the conference.

[21:50] And all this motion is, is, is, you know, you know, if you stayed home and read a good book, you'd be learning more. Right. And everybody, you know, has been thinking about something different. Is at some other point, so you know, you can't really connect very well. You know, you have to explain, you know, what you were thinking about before before you get to this point, which is interesting.

[22:09] If you've been thinking about these things leading up to it, so I mean, if you sat home and read a book, you get a more continuous thing, you know. It's like I always said to you years ago. You know, if you want to understand what's going on in the world, I mean, so far as you can understand that, the a good news magazine is better than the daily newspaper.

[22:32] You get a little more continuity with the magazine article than with the newspaper, eh? You see. And then you know later on you need a book reader, you know, but you have to takes time to really see things are connected, right? And and the newspaper is just kind of a blur, you know. But the newspaper is probably better than the TV. The TV, you know,

[22:58] at least repeat themselves. You know. There's a lot of motion, there, you know. Yeah. Now we could say there's something just in act in the now. Can we say that something is imperfect act in the now?

[23:23] Well, maybe what imperfect act are you talking about? The imperfect act of this motion. Because there's really no motion in the now. But is the thing that's moving in the now? Is the difference between the thing that's moving in the now and the things? There's no motion in the now. See. Well, the thing that's moving. If you just take one now in the motion. If you divided, pick one now.

[23:59] And and the thing that's not moving, take the same now. So if I was moving past this chair, we took the now when I was at the chair. Yeah. Would I be in the place in that? Would there be a difference in the now, the way I'm in that place, than the way the chair is? Would I be imperfectly in that place, even in the now?

[24:31] What's the problem? See, because you really are in motion only in time, and you really only have rest in time, right? Couldn't I say? Couldn't I say at least that that that now belonged to the time in which I was in motion? Yeah, I could. I could say that, and and then at least would that would that be anything? I think that's as close as you can get.

[25:08] But when you are moving, you are not. You move through places, but you are you are not in a place in the same way. Even I am just wondering in that. Not rested any place, yeah. Because I mean, it's only the now that is.

[25:40] Yes, the point is, you can't rest. You can't rest to rest and going through a room right without taking some time to rest. But you can't be in a place in the now.

[26:03] In a way, since he can, yeah, yeah. So, are you in a place in a different way in the now that's part of the motion, and in the now that's part of the rest?

[26:22] Well, it seems there is a difference there, yeah. But how you want to state that, I am not sure. If you say you are imperfectly in the place, or the other one is. Yeah, but the other one are they perfectly in that place in the now?

[26:41] There is no other time for that to be. Well, the thing that at rest in that place in the now is what he's saying. Because

[26:53] you have to be at rest in the in time. So God can't be at rest in this sense, here can he? Because he has no time. God's got no time at all,

[27:11] right? You know that. His divine nature has no time at all. Because he never runs out of time either, but he has no time to do anything. Now, if you take a photograph, something's still, and the other thing's moving, and the other past film, they both look like there. But you know, some people, you know, those who think, you know, that continuity is composed of infinity of indivisibles, right?

[27:41] You know, they have kind of a problem there, you know. But are they really saying, you know, that it's at rest in each one of these indivisibles, right? See, you might speak that way, but maybe that's not really being at rest in the strict sense, is it? See, it just it's it's more negation of motion, right? See, but well, with the photograph, is that from that it looks like both things—the one in motion, the one that's still—they both exist in the place where they're at at that moment of time of that now.

[28:22] They both exist in those the respective places. I don't know if you can say whether or not it's imperfect, you know, being in that place. Which I think one emphasizes to to to understand the imperfection of motion. One understands the fact that there is no motion in the now, right? And the past is no longer right.

[28:49] That's before the now, and the future is after the now, right? So then you see that that motion hardly is right, and that's going to be important later on. You know, maybe I don't know if we do you know book seven eight, but what we will do is look at the when you get through with book six, right? We'll look at the

[29:11] the Summa Contra Gentiles It's just the part where he the first two arguments for the essence of God, which are based on what kind of like a summary of book seven eight. But he will reason sometimes in the definition of motion, right, to the dependence of motion upon a mover, right, that nothing moves itself, right. But he's going to reason from these things here too, and see.

[29:35] And part of it will be the fact that what you know, really, in a sense, have motion, right? Because it isn't in the now. If the genus of motion is act, what would the genus of the now be? With the that modern question. Well, we'd probably, you know, define the now as the limit, right? See, limit, or else, or else negatively, right? See, just at the point.

[30:15] Now, the point sometimes we see, like Euclid says, the point has no parts, right? Okay. But sometimes they have something positive, it has position, right? Okay. But they also sometimes speak of the point as the limit of the line, right? And this is the way you know. It kind of helps you to understand we're going to talk about God, right? Because sometimes we talk about God using a negation.

[30:41] We say God is unchanging, right? God is unlimited, right? Okay. Other times we say that God is what the beginning and the end of all things, right? You know, see. So we know him by by kind of a relation to other things, right? Not because he has a relation to other things, but because they have a relation to him, right? And so we understand him relative to them.

[31:11] Would the genius be a limit then? You what? The genius of now. Well, I say if you define the the now as the limit of the past and the future, right, then you'd be. defining. as a limit of something, right? Just like saying the point is the limit of the line, right? So the now is the limit of the

[31:31] past in this direction, right? And the limit of the now in the other direction. I mean the future in the other direction. Strange that.

[31:46] Now, now I don't know if one this last paragraph, maybe should stop right here, right? Let's look a little bit this last one here, but we can maybe deal with some of the difficulties Thomas says about it later on. Everything changing necessarily is divisible. For since every change is from something to something, and when it is in that to which it has been changed, is no longer changing, right?

[32:16] And when itself and all its parts have not changed from that from which it changes, for what has itself and its parts in the same way has not changed. Necessarily, something the changing is in this, and something else in the other. For it is not possible to be in both or in either. I say that which it has changed first by the change from white into gray, not into black.

[32:41] For it is necessary that the changing being either of the extremities is clear. Then that everything changes is divisible. Now. That seems most clearly the case of of the what change of place, right? If you take the first place beyond, suppose you have this thing here, right? And we'll divide into equal parts here. We'll call this first part AB

[33:11] and the second part BC, right? Okay. Now, let's say there's a body that is equal to this first part, right? Rectangular body, right? Okay. Now, when that rectangular body is entirely in AB, right? Okay. It's not yet in motion, is it? When it's entirely in BC, which is also equal to it, the motion is over, right? Not moving, right? So it's moving from AB to BC. It must be what?

[33:46] Participating in both. Yeah, must be partly in AB, right? And partly in what? BC. Because when it's wholly in AB, it's not yet started to move, right? See? When it's wholly in BC, it's no longer moving, right? Okay.

[34:09] So therefore, it must be in motion in the third possibility when it's partly in AB and partly in BC, right? See? Just like you know, if you take, I'll make a little more real example, maybe. You know these trains, right? Okay. And you got these various, you know, things, and you got finally here the the engine, right? Okay, and you can see this, do this, like, it went by, it's occupying track at the same length as a train, right?

[34:43] Now, if you take the immediate, basically goes into next, right? Okay, if you take one again equal, if you wanted to, you have to equal necessarily, but equal to the length of this train, when the whole of this train is in this part of the track, it doesn't start to move yet, right? When it arrives at its final destination, right? Let's say it's over here, and the whole of it is in this part here, and the change is over, right?

[35:10] So it must be in motion then. Now, when the whole is here, the whole is there. when it turns to it, its part is here and part is in there, right? And therefore, the thing that moves must be what divisible, right? Okay, this is the way you start to show that it's a body, right? It's divisible, and as Thomas says, he's going to argue later on from the fact that motion is in time to its divisibility in one way, right?

[35:40] And from the fact that the thing that moves is divisible to its divisibility another way, right? Okay, there's some very subtle problems Thomas reasons in the commentary there if you look at it, but maybe talk a little bit about those next time again. But but this argument here is very clear as far as change of place at least is concerned, right? Okay, but the example he's touching upon there of the alteration, right?

[36:07] Say, if the color which is next to white is let's say gray, right? You know, to simplify our example, there gray is in between white and what black, yeah. So when the thing body is entirely white, it hasn't begun to alter yet, right? This thing, and when it's entirely gray, the alteration is taking place, right? You mean entirely black? Yeah, could be that too, go all the way.

[36:38] Let's take the one he says it's next, right? You see, okay, and let's say gray is what's next to the white. Well, then when it's somewhat white to partially black, let's say it's getting gray, then it's changing, right? Well, it's entirely of the new quality, and it's no longer changing, right? Okay, but it's not as clear there as with the change of place.

[37:13] So when I'm growing, you know, from being five foot tall to being six feet tall, right? Am I five foot tall or six foot tall? When I am growing, I am being five foot tall to being six foot tall. Neither, neither. Between. Yeah, the in between, right? Something, right? In between, huh? So he's he's bringing out this way something divisible, right? But as Thomas says, it seems most fully in the what change of place, right?

[37:45] And Thomas says in this book he's dealing with change as it's continuous, right? And there is a way in which what change of place is the most perfectly continuous of any change, yeah.

[38:00] And and most of all, change of place. What seems to be a circuit of motion, in the sky around us, huh? It seems to be no break at all, right? Okay. So this is all laying as the groundwork for discussing more particular divisibility of motion, right? It also does as I say cast light back upon that definition of motion, but a barely existing thing it is. Aristotle, you know, you know, raised that question at the end of the treatise on time.

[38:38] You know, would there be time without the numbering soul, right? See, and he says, you can say more that there is a number of chairs in this room, even if they've not been numbered. And you can say there is a number of hours if they've never been numbered, huh? Because the number of chairs in this room, the multitude of chairs in this room, right, exists even without me here, right?

[39:10] Okay, the number of stones in the forest, right? See, but the what ten hours don't really exist together, do they? Without the soul, in a sense, numbering them together, right? So it's like something doesn't fully exist without us, right? But that's but that's because in itself it barely is.

[39:41] How can it really be when it can't motion when it can't be in the now, and the past no longer is, and the future is not yet, right? You know, very strange existence, right? Same with time. You know, it was in the Confession that Augustine says, "You know, no one asks me what time is. I know what it is, but someone asks me what it is, I don't know.

[40:10] " It kind of sounds like the characters in the Bittanian Dialogues. you know, well, I knew what this was until I talked to you, Socrates, right? That's true. That's true. I distinctly remember that's when I stopped reading confessions when he started talking about time.

[40:42] Well, Augustine talks about matter, right? And he says, you know, if I could say it's something that is a nothing, or a nothing that is a something, that's how I would say, you know, but it's not exactly correct to say it's something that is nothing. But you're trying to understand the potency, you know, that is matter, right? And that really is hard for us to understand, but difficult to understand because of what it is.

[41:10] It's not actually anything. When you get through some of this, maybe next time be appropriate. I know, or else the end of the book six one or two, you know, where you know the modern. Physicists used to talk about the instantaneous velocity. Oh yeah, yeah. And they're they're trying to what unify straight line motion and circular motion. And straight line is tangent to a circle at a point.

[41:36] So you you speak of instantaneous velocity. Well, as a result, partly in quantum theory and so on, they begin to wonder, you know, wasn't this wasn't this after all fiction? Because there's really no motion there in the indivisible, yeah. So how can there be velocity, right? Which implies motion, right? Maybe maybe the the quantum physics there was based upon a a fiction, maybe a useful fiction, right?

[42:07] You know, but nevertheless, say what a fiction, yeah, yeah. They talk about when they talk about instantaneous velocity, don't they? Maybe talk about it in terms of say a limit and say so the velocity would be the the instantaneous velocity is this, and that's because if the thing stopped going around say in the circle and continued at that point, yeah, yeah, that's what it would have. So you can see it as a limit, sort of limit.

[42:39] It's not a contradiction. But strictly speaking, is any motion there at that point? No, you know, no, isn't. Sure, I mean, shouldn't be something interesting to say. You know,

[42:59] the the development of quantum theory, you know, led them back to what to the problems of Zeno, right? Oh, you know. And Louis de Broglie, you know, talks about this. And and one of the books he talks about there in Einstein and the preface of the book, you know, these things everybody enjoyed most, you know. You know they they they don't know Zeno too well. I don't know know this stuff at all, really.

[43:26] But they they realize there's some affinity between what they discovered, you see. And in a sense, what's in quantum theory is that you can't what you can't pinpoint a body, right? And attribute to it these dynamic properties at the same time with accuracy. That's a sense of really no motion in the indivisible, right? So that's kind of a kind of the body's always coming back to these things from the particular, you know.

[43:58] To come back to the general from the particular, you know. And then we can meet them coming back, you know, because we're going forward.

[44:14] So. we have a ride back Do you have a ride back Right, right. I think so. La Val, Notre Dame, you think? Oh, yeah. But is it

[44:25] your monastery now, or what? Saint Saint Mary's, we're at the other end of Peter's. Yeah, just you know, and so on. And but Saint Jacques, you know, when he'd have Moncea in the car, you know, he'd take advantage of having him in the car, you know. You know, we'll discuss these things, you know, son, and he'd drive Montier crazy because he'd always be drinking. Oh man! So finally, Montier had had it forbidden to talk philosophy with these thinkers.

[44:51] You know, it was fun when I was up at La Val. Just like they would have postman's rights there every month, you'd set your watch by them. Yeah, yeah. Likewise, they had all sorts of bus strikes. Yeah. And when I first got there, there was a bus strike. Huh. I had a place to live. It was about three miles or so from the university. Yeah. Anyway, I just started hitchhiking.

[45:17] I could barely speak a word of French. Yeah. But so it's easy to say Université La Val, and telling him where my home was that was another thing. But it was so easy to hitchhike up there, even when the buses were running. I just continued to hitchhike. Yeah, yeah. You're going to find it hard now. To be a philosopher, right? Okay. And it can be kind of a kind of maybe a frustrating thing, you know, in a sense, right?

[45:47] That they can aspire to something, right? Say now, the question is, when you talk about in ethics, you're especially concerned, eventually, with the question which is better to things, right? Okay. And

[46:08] you can show, let's say, that the contemplative life is better than the practical life, right? Okay. But does that mean it's better for every individual? Say, you know, Thomas is always quoting the great Gregory the Great, who was a master of understanding of morality, right? He says there are men, he says, of an active temperament, right, whom being forced into contemplative life would be harmful to them, right?

[46:39] And there are men of a contemplative temperament, right, forced into a practical life, they look kind of crazy, right? You see. And so, I remember my brother Richard actually got married, you know, say one time to me, and Marcus Ace was there too, you know. But you know, his wife would be frustrated, you know, sitting around all day leading this kind of contemplative life that we, three breakfast boys, were used to, right?

[47:11] You know, in other words, she's got to do things, you know, you know. Would they need to be done or not? Because gotta do things, right? And and even

[47:28] you know, Petru Lukie is yeah, Petru Lukie's saying to me, you know, that he needed a more active life in a sense, you know. He couldn't simply simply be a professor, right? You know, or simply be a thinker, you know, and kind of you know realize his own his own temperament, right?

[47:45] So. That's what you were explaining to me the other week. I mean, when you go from ethics, let's say, to to domestics, or from ethics to political philosophy, right? Say, well, it's a common point, you know, that we make, and sometimes you know Saint Paul makes it too when you compare the the body politic with the human body, right? You know, the eye is a better thing than an ear, right?

[48:16] The eye is a better thing than the ear. Yeah, yeah, and the eye is a better thing than a finger, right? Say, but would it be better for me to have, you know, ten eyes and no fingers, right? Say, well, obviously in the body there is better that I have this diversity of parts, right? What this means: some of my parts are more noble than others, right?

[48:42] My hand is really more noble thing than my foot, you know. It's closer, associates my reason. There's my foot, but would I be better with four hands and no feet? Say, say, okay. Say, now sometimes you know when you're showing the student the excellence of the philosophical life, right? Well, everyone's a philosopher, nothing

[49:09] to do. Well, that's true, right? You see, we we need we need farmers, right? And we need auto mechanics in our society, right? You see, we need cooks, right? We need violinists and pianists, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, right? You know. So a society, a city, would not be better if he was a philosopher, right? See, in fact, you said about any occupation in a sense.

[49:39] If everybody was a auto mechanic and nobody a farmer, that would be bad too, right? If everybody was a farmer and nobody a a cook or nobody a a violinist, right? If everybody was a violinist, it wouldn't be any good either. I mean, so it's no objection to philosophical. Everyone's a philosopher, you see. But but that means that

[50:04] it's better for the city, right? That some people do things that are better, and some things do people that are that that are lesser, right? Two things, huh?

[50:16] But nature seems to have what you know, cuts in people, offers certain things, right? See, so I think you know that you know I follow Hegel in this respect. You know, I mean, Hegel puts fiction in the highest, right? And then next to poetry is music, right? And then comes painting, and then sculpture, maybe at the bottom, right? You know, among those arts, right?

[50:45] But would it be better for Mozart to give his life to being a philosopher or something, right, rather than music? See, would it been better for us if Euclid had done metaphysics instead of geometry? I don't think so. We're better off that he he was so good at geometry, and if he didn't, you know, and Mozart did music, right? And someone else invented champagne, Tom Perignon, I don't know what it was.

[51:18] and so on, right? You know, someone else, you know, learned how to make. food more edible so right. So we need all these people, right? See, so if you consider someone simply as a man, you know, a rational animal, right? You know, you might say, well, this is better to do than that, right? When you when you descend to a particular man, right, you descend to the to the city or the nation where you need this diversity of things, right?

[51:50] And to some extent, people are what cut out, right? You know, you have to find their their niche of what that they can do, right? Huh? See,

[52:07] And see if I hadn't gone into philosophical life. I wouldn't have ended up thinking to be a businessman, right? Well, I think I would have gone into the to the political life, you know. But I don't know if I really would be cut out for political life.

[52:22] You know, I'm a busy working man. I love. So one of the things I could have made a mildly good businessman. I don't know if I could have. Ah. Not not terribly successful, but you know, it doesn't matter. I could have, you know, You could make a great sophist. you could really be a good sophist. Yeah, I know that.

[53:04] I, I was, you, you know, when I talk to people about about hell, you know, I tell them that the punishment of hell is not so much physical pain, bodily pain. Hmm. Um. The punishment of hell is mainly boredom and loneliness. See. Ah. In other words, whereby you sin, there you shall be punished, right? See. And really, the the misuse of our mind, right, in not you know studying the important things and doing our things to knowing things, having things, is properly punished not by bodily pain but by what boredom, right?

[53:48] Huh. And the proper punishment for not loving your neighbor, right, in a friendly way, because charity is a kind of friendship, as Thomas says, right. Um. The really punishment for going against friendship, in other words, right, is loneliness, right? Loneliness is sadness caused by the absence of a friend, right? See. Ah. And so loneliness is the appropriate punishment for abusing what. Friendship, right? Boredom is the appropriate punishment for abusing your mind, eh?

[54:27] See. Now, in a in a in a short way, you know, as I mentioned, you know, I hate correcting exams. Everybody hates correcting exams because it's kind of boring, you know. See, okay. But sometimes you don't have an exam to correct you. You could waste your time doing something like watching TV or something like that, right? See, you know, see. So,

[54:53] when you're correcting exams, anything seems extremely interesting, right? Even TV. Oh, it's fascinating just to read, read an obituary, you know, Anything out of this? You know, same, same stuff over and over again. See. So,

[55:10] but, but anyway, I think boredom and loneliness have a great influence on this life. You know, they were trying to. You know, a lot of people are trying to escape loneliness, right? Oh yeah. You know, and I remember interesting conversation with with a professor, older professor, taught Greek and so on, but he's dead now, Rest his soul, but. But he was talking about the first time he's going to get married, right?

[55:42] And uh, he's telling his father he's thinking he's, he's going to get married, right? His father said, "Well, I hope it's not that old sex business." He says it. No, he says you just get so lonely. He says, "there by yourself." See, and I think you know men, you know, seek the company of women, not because of this, obviously, sexual thing, but that's part of it, but but because of loneliness, right?

[56:04] You see, and you know, I see these things happen. You know, people go in the army, something like that. You know, and they get away from home, and they get lonely, and then they get involved with some woman. You know, loneliness, and they get in trouble. I know people who made bad marriages this way. You know, it's because they were, you know, they were lonely, right? You see, you see.

[56:24] So, but I also think that boredom is something that drives us too. See, just like loneliness does. I think they think they're very important, and I think you know I read good things because I would be bored. You know, even even the most academic subjects, right? You know, I might have a certain interest in economics, but I think I couldn't devote myself entirely to economics. I just get very bored with the thing.

[56:52] Is you know, just not very interesting really in the long run, right? And and all kinds of things, you know. That I may have a little taste for, but I mean, I

[57:06] I like history, but I mean, I couldn't put myself full time to history. You know, I just get very, but very bored. You know, kind of kind of a relaxation from the universality of philosophy, a little bit of history, right? I just got through reading my copy of the History of Florence by Machiavelli. Did you ever read that? You know, well, an interesting connection here between the fifth book of the History of Florence by Machiavelli and the Inchon Landing of MacArthur, right?

[57:41] So my friend in the politics department who knows everything, and I said, "Now what's the connection between the fifth book of the History of Florence and Inchon Landing?" Of course, he didn't know, right? But he had read, you know, what Inchon Landing was, and he had read, you know, the History of Florence many years ago, but he didn't know anything, you know. So I have been bugging him, you know, about his ignorance of these matters and and his impiety, you know, you know, knowing more about Earth and so on.

[58:08] And then I got the other other guy, the one the friend who was in the politics department, you know, and he hadn't even read the history of Florence. you know, by Machiavelli I said, "he's your teacher, Machiavelli, even. " Well, I mean, they know the the Prince and the you know the discourses, but they know the fifth, you know. So I got to sit up and I'm going to give them a fifteen-minute lecture.

[58:27] on the connection to the fifth book. And I got one of my colleagues in philosophy. I got him interested in what the connection is between the fifth. What he said in the 15 minutes, I just took me 15 minutes to get this, to get into it, you see. I actually can devote myself full time to history, you see, but a couple of these things, you know. And

[58:49] so I think you know, you know, I mean Thomas is really interesting. Yeah. And and if you're bored with Thomas, it's either you don't understand him or or you don't know how to read him. You know, you're you're reading him too fast or something. You know, you're getting indigestion. You're not reading him in the proper order, right? I mean, he really is interesting, you know. Oh yeah.

[59:13] And and never bored again. I have a colleague who's all kind of a Heidegger you know, and he's extremely boring. Heidegger he's nothing to say. And

[59:29] that about hell is fascinating because that's abuse of our intellect and our will. It makes so much sense. The not loving people with our will and abuse of our mind. Yeah. This makes it much great. In the hell, I guess you know. You know, how can you really be friendly towards anybody there? You know, they're all twisted, inclined. I guess there's nothing lovable much in them in terms of these things, and you can't you can't lose that.

[1:00:00] And and if they're cooperated with you in sin, right? You know, that's not going to make you feeling right. You helped to damn me, you know, damn you. They're going to be they're going to be.

[1:00:18] You know, you know the way Dante represents. You know, the devil all the way down at the bottom there. You know, it's it's frozen down there, right? You know, but I mean, it's just

[1:00:33] the communion of saints is quite an interesting article of faith. You know, communion of saints, and in heaven, everybody will rejoice. in everybody else's good. They'll be, you know, they they

[1:00:50] won't be envious. of anybody else's good, right? Down in hell, all it is envy. you know, it's like Sartre's play there. You know, no exit. You know, L'enfer c'est les autres right? You know but but other, you know, people will be down there. I that that's an appropriate punishment, right? You know, Mm You know when Thomas. is talking about the excellence of wisdom there in the summa there, you know.

[1:01:27] In a sense, he's quoting scripture there, right? You know, no study is more perfect or more sublime or more joyful, you know, and so on. But there's no boredom at all in this, right? Perfect, more sublime, more joyful, and he says no boredom. Yeah, he's quoting scripture too, you know. No tedium there, you know. I can attest to that. I was bored out in the world not since I.

[1:02:01] But I was thinking too, you know, of the what we call the visit to the Blessed Sacrament, right? You know. A lot of people they can't sit in church and you know make a visit to the Blessed Sacrament or something like that, right? They can't do that. We get bored just sitting there. So, but you know, I don't think the saints are ever bored, do you? You see, in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, they're never bored.

[1:02:31] They're not. I suspect most people are bored, right? You know, I mean, you know, how people if they manage to come to mass on Sunday, you know, they rush out, you know. And I never rush out. I mean, I mean, doesn't mean he says to rush out. You just stand in line, anyway, you know. And and and they're busy in the car or like that, and you've also, you know, just stay there and relax in church.

[1:02:55] Maybe, maybe you know, they they can't stay there because they would be what bored, right? They get nervous and twitchy, you know. So they gotta get, I don't get a car and go someplace, right? You see, and. Oh, is it Pascal? Somebody said, you know, all the troubles come to the world. People can't sit in their room and be quiet.

[1:03:23] But and have you ever seen Saint Alphonsus Liguori. He's a little. It's like he's got like 31 meditations, you know, for making a month of the Blessed Sacrament, so on. But but he talks about the the role that this played for him in his, you know, conversion, right, or his to a more serious Christian life, anyway, you know. But I mean, yeah, the way they describe Saint Dominic, you know, you you know, any time he'd come, and he'd travel, he'd always go when he got to a new town, he'd go to the church right away.

[1:03:56] You know, and he'd usually fall asleep. Eventually, after through the altar or something, you know, you know. But I mean, you know, these people were never what seemed bored, you know, the presence, huh?