Natural Hearing (Aristotle's Physics)
79. Moving and Having Moved, Becoming and Contradiction, Eucharist and Idealization in Science
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/3-natural-hearing/079-moving-and-having-moved-becoming-and-contradiction-eucharist/

[0:00] Well, the the order that I see in double and half, rather than before and after, at least it's an order of relation, just as if you were to do a picture where you do like a cruciform thing with four dots to look at it. As a whole, you can't say that this one's before that. You're just looking at as a whole, so you see a symmetry. So you see an order based on symmetry that there's no before and after, and so that's another type of yeah.

[0:33] But you're taking order here in the strict sense, where it means the before and after, right? You know, Aristotle talks about beauty there in the 13th book. I think it is a a wisdom, and he says, you know, the three main forms the beautiful are order, symmetry, right, and the limited, huh? So I mean, the distinction there between order and what symmetry, right? So I mean, sometimes we we generalize, right?

[1:04] The word order and apply it to any kind of relation, right? Okay, but that's not the the strict proper sense of the word order, right? So would you apply then for double and half as more of a symmetry then? No, I would say before and after is the definition of order, right? Symmetry is more a what

[1:29] a value right? Okay, Like I was talking about the symmetry of these works around the Apology of Socrates, right? You know the Meno, the Euthyphro, the Apology, the Crito, and then the Phaedo, right? Okay, Well, there are in this symmetry,

[2:01] okay. Now the odd item was the Apology because the Apology is not a what dialogue in the ordinary sense, not a conversation. It's really Socrates' legal defense in the courtroom, right? Okay. Now he had two dialogues here: the Meno and the Euthyphro, which chronologically are taking place before the Apology, right? Apology of Socrates' defense in the courtroom, right? In the Euthyphro, he's gone down to what we may call the courthouse, the King Archon's place, where he's going to find out about the charges against him, right?

[2:46] So they've been filed against him, right? In the Meno, no charges have been filed against Socrates, but one of the people later on brings a charge against Socrates, goes off in a huff, you know, and very angry at Socrates, and Socrates says, "Go off and try to calm him down for the good of Athens. "

[3:05] Okay, Then takes place the Crito after Socrates has been found guilty and sentenced, right? And Crito comes with a plot to spring Socrates right out of prison. And Socrates asks whether this is, you know, the right thing to do, right? Okay. And just and and you know, he said you shouldn't try to do this. And then the Phaedo takes place on the last day of what Socrates' life, right?

[3:37] Okay. Now, why did you have this symmetry here? Well, the first thing you notice, of course, is Apology is something different, and those are arranged around it, right? Now, the first thing you notice, of course, is that the Euthyphro and the Crito are much shorter, and the Meno and the Phaedo are much longer dialogues. It's even a quantitative symmetry, right? Okay. But and you start to read these dialogues intrinsically, you see there's a certain what connection between them, because in the Euthyphro you discuss what piety is, and you don't get too far as far as finally exactly what piety is.

[4:17] But in the Crito you have the example of Socrates' piety towards the city of Athens, where he. Argues that he should what abide by the decisions of Athens, even though they might be wrong in this particular case, but because he's you know a citizen of Athens and has agreed to live under this country and so on, right? Okay, so and this in a sense casts light upon what piety really is, which wasn't seen too clearly.

[4:44] There's a certain connection between them in terms of the of the not only the size of them but in terms of what is being discussed, huh? Okay. Well, then the Meno and the Phaedo in many ways correspond because the Meno is very much an introduction to logic, and in the Phaedo we're told that we need an art about arguments, which is what logic is. It's to my knowledge the first time where someone has explicitly said we need the the art that we call logic, right?

[5:15] Okay. In the Meno, he develops an argument from what recollection, right? For the immortality of the soul, he recalls that in the Phaedo, but then gives an even stronger argument from recollection, okay?

[5:37] In the Mino, you get the distinction between right opinion and episteme, knowledge in a strict sense, and Socrates says, "I know there's a difference between the two, which is very unusual for Socrates to claim to know anything." In the Phaedo, Cebes is pushing Socrates to come up with an altogether what necessary reason, right? Okay. And when Socrates in the Meno is asked by Mino, you know, what is the difference really between right opinion and knowledge, huh?

[6:13] Because in both cases you're thinking what is true, but he says that in the case of knowledge, what you think is tied down, and it's tied down by an account of the what cause, okay? So it's kind of introducing you to what demonstration is that we speak in logic, right? Where it's a syllogism making you know the cause and that which is a cause cannot be otherwise.

[6:39] In the Phaedo, when Socrates is being pushed by Cebes to come up with a necessary reason why the soul survives death, right? Well, Socrates says, "Well, that's a difficult thing you're asking, and let me go back to my experience as a natural philosopher, because a natural philosopher is most of all talking about clausism. That's a natural philosophy where you first you know reach the four kinds of clausism that there are.

[7:07] So you see that similarity, right? That certitude, the best reason you can give is the reason why it must be so, and that gives you the cause, huh? So they illuminate each other in various ways, huh? And in the Phaedo, Socrates is saying one opposite can never be the other opposite, huh? That's why so sure that guessing or opinion and knowledge are not the same thing, because one is certain and the other is not certain, right?

[7:36] And even if someone said, you know, Socrates, you don't know that you are just guessing, that's a difference. You'd be admitting the distinction between guessing and knowing already, right? He says that Socrates has one and not the other, right? Either Socrates knows or he's guessing. The guy is saying, right? He's saying that you don't really know or you are guessing, right? But then you are already admitting that distinction, right?

[7:58] Um. So, or again, in the Meno, you know, when when when Socrates is asked whether virtue can be taught, Socrates keeps on saying you got to know what virtue is first, right? But here he gets into a discussion of whether the soul is immortal without determining what the soul is, and so the deficiency there is pointed out to what you learn in the Meno, right? So as you read these dialogues, you are struck by the what, you know, kind of connection between the two.

[8:31] T here is kind of a symmetry in a way, right? And I mentioned how this is the same symmetry that you have in Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream." Oh. But there, you know, you begin in the court of Athens, right? And then you go to the home of the peasants who are trying to prepare a play for the marriage of Theseus and Hippolyta. And then you have the what forest scenes?

[9:02] You know, all the mix-ups in the forest, and then you go back to the house of the what peasants? Peasants, and finally up in the court again, right? So, in terms of the place where it takes place, you have this perfect symmetry, and then I noticed, like in say a Mozart mass, maybe most masses, there are five things you put to music, right? Oh. The Kyrie, the Gloria, the Credo, the Sanctus, and the Benedictus, and the Agnus Dei, right?

[9:36] The Kyrie and the Agnus Dei are prayers asking for the mercy of God, for the mercy of God. The Gloria and the Sanctus and Benedictus focuses more upon glorifying God than asking for His mercy. I don't have something to add in the Gloria. but basically, they're praising God. The Quedo is the odd, a different one, right? It's actually a professional belief; it's not really a prayer.

[10:05] So you have that same symmetry, right? So in a sense, you know, my arm. you wouldn't say maybe one arm is before the other. I might be strong on the other, but I am symmetrical because one arm is more or less the length of the other, right? On the leg, against the length of the other, right?

[10:24] You know, my eyes, my ears, and spectacle, right? Yeah. And so it's a little bit different. The idea of symmetry than that of what order. How is limited related to the beautiful? Limited, the third one. Well, that's a very interesting thing because.

[10:51] Quote the Sherlock Holmes there, right? Huh? In that story, there the. Norwood Builder, right? Where the man is trying to make it appear that he's been killed by somebody, right? Now he has a feud with this woman who didn't marry him years before. He's going to make it appear as if her son has murdered him, right? Okay. And burned his body, right? Okay. And he makes a very convincing case because this young man had come to see him about something, right?

[11:27] And this thing has happened to be the afterwards, et cetera, et cetera. And it's very convincing. Everybody, and even Holmes at first thinks that you know maybe the son is guilty of this, right?

[11:39] And of course, the builder is concealed in the house, right? He's concealed himself in a you know in a compartment that you know the big ability, you know how to make it a hidden chamber, right? Huh. But then one night the builder comes out and he tries to add one more bit of evidence, right? And Holmes catches that, right? And so he realizes what's up, and then he figures out they just have a hiding place in the house, right?

[12:04] So what he does is he gets some burnable material there, right? And he starts kind of a fire out there. Fire! Fire! First guy comes running out. He's caught and exposed. He's not dead at all. But anyway, in the after conversation, you know, Holmes, you know, Holmes is talking to Watson how clever this guy was, huh? You know, he really made a very convincing case. And even had him, you know, for a while, thinking that the son was maybe guilty of this, right?

[12:32] But he lacked the supreme gift of the artist, he said. Oh, and knowing when to stop. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, it's like Chesterton. He says art and morality are a lot like each other. You have to draw the lines. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now, sometimes that comparison, the beginning of the you know second book, the Nicomachean Ethics, right? We compare his moral virtue with what art, right?

[12:57] Where too much or too little is something bad, right? And of course, I see people, you know, without even thinking of what the Holmes says, you know, they praise Mozart, right? They say he's a man who always arrives at his goal and never goes beyond it, right? He always knows when to stop, right? And and I have a book by you know a critic on Venice, you know, on Venice and it's art it's a, very interesting book.

[13:21] But of course, he's praising Titian, you know, and Titian always knows when to stop, right? It just the remark about that. Knows how to Shakespeare. He knows exactly when to stop. You know, it's kind of a subtle thing.

[13:49] Most people don't know when to stop, including myself. Nowadays, songs never stop; they just kind of fade away. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. How do you get into this long discourse here? Yeah. Yeah. And I was saying you know,

[14:30] sometimes I think the word order is is is broadened to mean any kind of relation, but then that's you know a broad or loose use of the word, right? In a strict sense, it means before and after, right? But it's also something different than symmetry, right? Okay. So I explain this thing as symmetry, right? Um, I think I mentioned you know McNeill's division of world history, right?

[14:58] In the three parts, huh? The first part of world history is called the period of Middle Eastern dominance till about 500 BC, right? And then the middle part is the Eurasian cultural balance from 500 BC to approximately 1500 AD, right? And the third part is the rise of the West, right? Okay. To me, it's kind of symmetry there, right? Because you have the dominance of the East, right?

[15:24] And the rise of the West, right? Yeah, in the middle, the Eurasian cultural balance, right? Oh. You know, I think it makes a lot of sense to this division. I mean, as far as you can divide history at all, you know. Sure. And but I think it appeals to us because of its what symmetry, Symmetry, right? Yeah. It's like, ancient, medieval, modern? There's no symmetry there.

[15:47] But this does, huh? It's symmetry. And Heisenberg remarks about how, as a young man, reading the Timaeus of Plato, where Plato has this Pythagorean theory of earth, air, fire, and water, the four elements of of. um Empedocles. but he has a geometrical right explanation of them in terms of geometrical figures, huh? But he uses the what the so-called regular solids there at the end of Euclid's Elements, huh?

[16:25] So these things like the cube and the sphere and the dodecahedron and so on, right? They're all nicely what symmetrical, right? You know, which wouldn't speak of a before and after there so much, but you know, but you speak of it as being symmetrical.

[16:47] Okay. So we're down in the middle of page 12 here. Let's come back to where we were. Not only is it necessary that the changing has changed on the third paragraph there on page 12, but also what has changed necessarily was changing before. For everything that has changed from something to something has changed in time. For let it have changed in the now from A to B, or may the time from A to B.

[17:19] It has not changed in the same now in which it is in A, for it would be at once in A and in B. And it has been shown before that what has changed when it has changed is not in this. If in another, there will be a time in between, for nows are not next to each other. So, if in each now it has moved some distance, right?

[17:40] And the now before that, right? But they can't be next to each other or touching each other. There must be a time in between which it's moving, right? So, before every now, when it has moved some distance, right? It's moving. Okay.

[17:58] So, since it has changed in time, and all time is divisible, in the half it will have changed, and in the half of that again, always thus. Thus, it will be changing before.

[18:11] Further, you can show it another way. What has been said is most clear in the magnitude, and the things that are continuous like that, because the magnitude which the changing changes is continuous. Let something have changed from C to D. If then C D is indivisible, the partless will be next to the partless, which we saw was impossible in our study of the continuous. Since this is impossible, what is in between must be a magnitude and must be divisible without end, without limit.

[18:44] Thus, it changes in these before. Necessarily, then, everything which has changed changes before. There is the same demonstration, he says, in things not continuous, as in contraries and in contradiction. If you take the time. Again, let us take the time which it has changed, and again we will say the same thing. Thus, what is changed changes, and the changing has changed, and to have changed is before changing, and to be changing before having changed.

[19:22] Greek word there is "proteron," right? Same word you have categories there, and the first will never be taken, right? Okay. There is no first distance you have moved, and there is no first what distance you will be moving. Okay. There is no first time that you have moved, right?

[19:51] How much time does it take to move some distance? You tell me. Say, because any time you give me that it has what moved some distance as the first time which has moved some distance, in part that time it will have moved a what lesser distance, right? Okay. Where is the

[20:14] first time which there will be some some moving? So it's been moving for an hour. It's also been moving for half an hour, right? And for a quarter of an hour, and so on. Any divisible, right? So before it has moved any distance, it will be moving. And before it's moving any distance, it will have moved some distance. So there is nothing first.

[20:50] Strange reality. So can you say something then, like time is that which is between two nows? Yes. And since there is an infinite number of

[21:07] nows, yeah. Before any time, there is a now, right? There is no first. Yeah, there's a now now you're going to be in before you've done any amount of time, right?

[21:21] Okay. And before you're in that now, you'll have this amount of time. Suppose we try to use our earlier arguments. There's something to become as it's going from not sphere to sphere. There's a first in which it's a sphere. Suppose the door is going from not open to open. Then is there a first when it's open? Yeah, as we spoke about in the earlier reading, right? In

[22:00] in the seventh reading, yeah. There's a there's a first when it has completed the motion, right? Yeah. Okay. And that's indivisible, right? But there's no first in which it's in motion, right? Yeah. Okay. But is there a first when the door is open? It's something indivisible, yeah, yeah. You're talking about the completion, yeah. Not opening that would be. I mean, yes. It's now it's closed. Yeah. You're talking about when the door is is has gone entirely beyond the thing, right?

[22:34] No, the first. Oh, the first. It's opening, I mean. Yeah. And then there isn't now. No, because that's divisible forever, right? And even according to the door itself, right? Because half of the door is going to get beyond the beam there, right? And a quarter of before the half gets over, and so on, forever. Okay.

[23:04] But there's a first in which something is completed, right? And that's indivisible, right? Okay. We'll come maybe back to that because that's that's something Aristotle develops to get in the eighth book, right? We'll come back to that difficulty that Hegel has, right? But let's maybe finish this reading a little bit here.

[23:29] So at the bottom of page twelve, he's summing up this now. Thus, what has changed changes, and the changing has changed, and to have changed before changing, and to be changing before having changed, and the first will never be taken. And the cause of this is that the partless, the indivisible, right, is not next to the partless, right. Remember how Euclid defines a point as that which has no parts, right?

[23:59] Partless. For the division is unlimited; it can be divided forever, just as an increasing and decreasing line, son. It is clear then that what is coming to be necessarily was coming to be before, and what is coming to be has come to be, and whatever things are divisible and continuous, huh? Aristotle refers back to this. In the ninth book of the metaphysics, when he's talking about this paradox that comes up with these abilities that you seem to acquire by doing what they're ability for, you know.

[24:35] It's a question he raises in ethics too. You know, he says, "How does a man become courageous? How does he acquire the virtue of courageous? Of courage, rather. One becomes courageous by doing courageous things, right? And you become modest or moderate by doing moderate things, right? And you become just by doing just things. But if that's so. Then the objection goes,

[25:04] you must already be courageous, right? If you're doing courageous things. And so, but like saying, you know, how do you acquire the ability to play the piano? My only way to acquire the ability to play the piano is by playing the piano, right? But if you play the piano, you must be able to play the piano, right? So how can you be acquiring the ability to play the piano when you're playing the piano?

[25:31] Presupposes that you had the ability to play the piano, right? So something would be before itself. You would have the ability to play the piano before you had the ability to play the piano. What's the answer to that?

[25:46] Well, one answer we give is to say that you're able to play the piano before you've acquired the ability to play the piano in a different way, right? You see, it requires what great concentration, right? In great effort, and you, you know, make mistakes and so on, right? See, and is instability what you're doing? But after you've acquired the habit, right, then becomes easier to do it, and you don't make the same mistakes and so on.

[26:19] And the same way, in the case of courage. after I acquired the virtue of courage or the virtue of moderation, I don't have this the same struggle to do what is right as I did beforehand, right? So I don't have, and I have more stability in doing it, right? It's not like you know, ad hoc I've got to you know really concentrate in order to not eat or drink, right?

[26:43] Okay. And since before the virtue might be alcoholic, right? He has to call his buddy, you know, because he's he's got a tremendous urge to drink, you know, and he knows if he does, he'll he'll go wrong, right? Well, such a man doesn't really have the virtue, right? So it's a certain difficulty and instability. In that case, you're not able to do it with what ease are able to do it in the way you're able to do it later on, right?

[27:07] So it's not exactly the same ability before and after. But in this here, you can say, right? In a way, something like this is there, right? That after I played the piano for a while, I have played the piano, and now I have something of a what of a habit, right? So, if a kid has been playing the piano for a year, he has something of a habit, right?

[27:32] And then, but he continues to play it, and he'll have something more of it, right? Okay. So it's like this, in a sense. I have moved a certain distance, and I'm moving further, and I have moved another distance, right? So I'm kind of building up a habit as I go what, along, right? Okay. So he comes back to this sometimes, and he frees back to this.

[28:00] It is clear then that what has come to be necessarily was coming to be before, and what is coming to be has come to be in whatever things are divisible and continuous. Not always, however, what comes to be, but another sometime, is something of that as a foundation of the house, and things are not simple, right? Likewise, in the corrupting and what is corrupted. For right away, there exists something unlimited in the coming to be and the ceasing to be, and there is neither coming to be without something having come to be, nor having come to be without something coming to be, and likewise in ceasing to be and having ceased to be should be ceased, I guess, there to be.

[28:44] For there is always having ceased to be before ceasing to be, and ceasing to be before having ceased to be. It is clear then that what has come to be necessarily was coming to be before, and what is coming to be has come to be. Or for there will not be a first in which it will be. Now, let's go back to another problem here.

[29:11] This is the way they go arguments, right? Another set of arguments later, they say in this change between the contradictories. When let's say what is not a sphere is becoming a sphere, right?

[29:34] Well, there's a time in which it is not a sphere. That's represented by this line here, right? There's a later time which it is a sphere, right? Okay.

[29:51] Time which it is a sphere. Now, is there any time in between those two times? See, since it's not always a sphere, there's an end of the time which is not a sphere, right? And since it's not wasn't always a sphere, there's a beginning, right, when it is a sphere. Now, could there be a time in between those two times? Because there's nothing between not being a sphere and being yes.

[30:27] There's no alternative to be or not to be. Either are or not a sphere. So, in these two, in the last now which is not a sphere, and the first now which is a sphere, can they be two different nows? If they were, you'd have a time between them, right?

[30:52] Therefore, the last now or the last instant in which you are not a sphere must be the first instant in which you are a sphere.

[31:03] Okay. So Zeno says in that instant or in that now, you both are and are not a sphere. So it's a contradiction in what becoming, right? Okay.

[31:24] Now, that's impossible. It's something both being and not being a sphere, right? So what's the solution to that? Yeah. It's that now really isn't time because time is between the nows. Okay. Okay. But there is a now in time, isn't there?

[31:46] It must be sitting in a now in some way when you have a time that's limited, right? Because the end of a time has to be a now, right?

[31:56] So, um, in this example, you'd say there's a there's a first there's a first now in which it is a sphere. Yeah. But not a last now. Yeah. Just not a sphere. Yeah. Like Aristotle said earlier, huh? If during this time it's becoming a sphere, right? When this time is completed, which is the now, right? It has become a sphere, right? So that now, it has become a sphere.

[32:28] Okay. And there was no last now in which it was what. No sphere. Yeah. Yeah. This, in a way, is you've written that they'll say there's no first, right? But now you're saying there's no last what? Now in which is not a sphere. Yes. They

[32:52] can take the last time. That's kind of arbitrary, right? But all the way up until now, it's it's not a sphere, right? And this is the way Aristotle solves this problem of and then what Hegel has, right? That there's a contradiction in becoming, huh? Now, in in the Middle Ages, you had the same problem in theology. Because when they're talking about the Eucharist, right? There's a time in which.

[33:25] Under the appearances of bread and wine, there is bread and wine, right? Okay. So for some time, there is bread and wine on the altar. Okay. And then, in the later time, there is the body and blood of our Lord.

[33:47] Okay. Now, this time which there is bread and wine on the altar comes to an end, right? Okay. So there is a, would seem a last now, last instant in which it is is bread and wine, right? Okay. And then, since the the body and blood of our Lord is not always there, there has to be a first instant or now in which there is the body and blood of our Lord.

[34:21] Okay. Is there any time in between those two? No. So then, the last instant in which it is bread and wine would have to be the first instant which is the body and blood of our Lord, and now you have heresy. Just for one moment, you see? Yeah, that's enough to be ready, right?

[34:51] You know, saying that these, you know, coexist, right? This has been often condemned in the church. So they couldn't solve the theologians, see, you know, but Thomas solves it in the same way that Aristotle solves this,

[35:09] and there is no last instant, no last now in which it is what bread and wine, right? But there is a first now in which it is the body and blood of our Lord.

[35:30] Now, if that solves the difficulty, but is that arbitrary that Aristotle says that that there is a first now, right, in which it it is a sphere up here, or a first now in which it is the body and blood of our Lord, and there's no last now in which it is not a sphere, or this example, a last now which is the bread and wine, huh?

[35:58] Is that so? The arbitrary? It just chooses one rather than the other, right? I mean, somebody said, "Well, why can't you say the reverse and say, 'Say there's a at last now which is the bread and wine, but no first now which is the body and blood, right? And there's a last now which is not a sphere, right? And but no first now which is a sphere, that would also avoid the contradiction, right?

[36:19] " See, see that you've never had the change. Yeah, when this goes back to what we saw in the earlier reading here, right, the seventh reading, right, the first part of the seventh reading, where Aristotle was saying that when a thing has changed, it's in that which it has changed, right, and there's a first when it has changed, right, and that first is what indivisible, right? Okay.

[36:49] Well, that means that what the indivisible, which has first changed, already is pertaining to that to which, rather than that from which you're going, right? Yeah. Okay. See, and goes back to what he's saying here: that change is also leaving behind something, right? Okay. So when the change is completed, and even Hegel's going to admit, right, the change is completed in that now, right? When the change is completed, this has been left behind, whatever you were starting from.

[37:24] See. So when it has changed from this to that, it's in that and not in this, because changing from this to that is leaving this behind. And so, when the change from this to that is completed, this is the left behind, and the change from this to that has been completed in the now. So that now it isn't a term to which is changing, so it's not arbitrary Aristotle's part, right?

[37:52] They just says, well, we can't have it can't be the same now for both, right? That is obviously you're forced by the by the you know the axiom that something cannot both be and not be, right? You're forced to say it can't be the same now, right? But it's not arbitrary that he says there's only a first now which it is a sphere, and no last now which is not a sphere.

[38:19] It follows from the very fact of what he's shown there, instead of reading that when a thing has first changed, it has left behind what it was and is in that which it has changed. And it's first changed in the indivisible, as he goes on to point out, right? So, so the indivisible here, it's in that to which is changing, right? The same way down here in the case of the Eucharist, right?

[38:50] It's a beautiful example of how philosophy is useful, good philosophy as it does in what theology, right? And how you know you could run into a similar difficulty. De Koninck has a nice article on that. It's unfortunately in French, you know, but when some of the articles, but he kind of in the whole theological philosophy are in French, some are in English, right? But it's called in French "Paradoxes du Devenir," right?

[39:22] The paradox, right, of coming to be by contradiction, right, from this to that, right? But then he goes into some of the you know problems that the theologians had, which Renal is the one that is kind of remarking about Hegel there right?

[39:39] And I think I think that in some ways is more difficult to solve than the than the apparent contradiction that Heraclitus is talking about, you know, where day and night are the same thing because day becomes night, night becomes day, huh? Now

[40:01] somebody says, well, can the the do the healthy become sick? See, well, if you deny that the healthy become sick, then you got to say, well, if you're healthy, you're always going to be healthy, and that doesn't agree with our experience. I can tell you that you don't have experience, right? And vice versa, do the Sick ever become healthy?

[40:30] See. Well, if you don't admit that the sick become healthy, you are going to have to say that if you are sick, you are going to be always sick. Tough, tough luck, you know. Abandon all hope, you and I. Enter here, right? Enter, right?

[40:47] But then, what does the word "becomes" means? Yeah, I mean to break it down grammatically, it means "comes to be," right? Okay. Now, if the healthy come to be sick, then they would be sick, right? And if the healthy were sick, then something would both be healthy and not healthy. Be healthy because it's healthy, but because it's sick, it's not healthy. And because it's sick, it's sick, but because it's healthy, it's not sick.

[41:19] So both be, see. So it seems either you got to say that one opposite becomes the other, which is going to involve a contradiction. Day is night, and night is day. Or you are going to say that it could always be day. You know, don't expect night tonight because day can't become night. Now, how do you solve that apparent contradiction? See.

[41:46] Because you notice, notice if if you become a Christian, let's say, right by baptism, then you are a Christian, right? You are what you come to be, right? If you become a geometer by studying Euclid, then you are a geometer, right? If you understand Euclid, right? Okay. See. See. If you become a monk, right? You know, then you are a monk, right? Right. So if day becomes night, then day is night.

[42:19] See. I mean, if you don't mean that, why do you say it? Because it's not just the the philosophers that speak that way, you know. And sometimes you hear people say, you know, love turns into hate, you know, and you know, you know, the poets like to represent this, you know, how those who love themselves very much come to hate each other very much, or hate sometimes turns into love, right?

[42:39] You know, those who can't stand each other also start to love each other. It's interesting if you represent this in a play, right? But does love turn into hate? Could love ever be hate? See. So why do we speak that way? That isn't so. See, there is an apparent apparent contradiction, right? And Heraclitus pointed out. Maybe he does. He really think they know the same thing. I don't think he does, but he points out, and he speaks as if they were right.

[43:07] And so Parmenides said, "Well, then there can't be any change. It's all an illusion, right? " You know, Aristotle would say, "What? Well, day can't be night, but there is change, right? " So what's the way out of this? What's the answer to that? Day becomes night by accident.

[43:31] That's kind of a subtle thing to say, that isn't it? It's kind of interesting we speak that way, though, right? The hard becomes soft. The wet dries out, right? Is it? But it's a little bit like you know saying that the cook what played the piano, right?

[43:57] It's not the cook as cook to play the piano, right? But because cook happens to belong to the pianists, right? We can say that the cook, by happening, by accident, played the piano, right? It wasn't as as pianist. I mean, as cook. That he knew how to play the piano, right? And vice versa, we can see the pianist cooked dinner, right? But it's not through the art of playing the piano that he cooked dinner.

[44:32] I hope not. Right? You see? But that's kind of an unusual thing, isn't it? We speak that way, huh? So you're forced to understand this kind of distinction, huh? And between the as such, or somebody they call it, to itself, right? You could say the cook

[45:02] didn't play the piano through himself, meaning through being a cook. Okay. Another way of saying almost the same thing. As cook, he didn't play the piano, right? Okay. And so it's not really the the hard as such that becomes soft, right? But that to which hard happens, namely the butter, that as such becomes soft, right?

[45:33] But here it's a little more difficult, isn't it, to solve it, huh? Because it seems to make sense to say that the time in which you are what not a sphere is limited, right? So it has an end. If it doesn't have a last an end, it would go on forever, right? So the end of what time is the now? Any period of time is a now, right?

[46:07] So you tend to imagine that there must be a last now at which it is what not a sphere. And then you get into trouble, right? Doing that, huh? Because either that's the same or different. In either case, you get a problem, right? It's not the same now. You've got time in between, which is neither. And if that time in between it is a sphere, whether we'll put that time in between with the time that's a sphere, right?

[46:33] If that time in between is not a sphere, we'll put that with the time another sphere, right? So eventually, you've got to erase any time in between, right? And then the two nows must become one, unless two nows could be what contiguous, right? They're next to each other, but two nows never are. There's two. It's like two points never touching each other. There's always something continuous in between.

[46:55] There's always a time in between, then, right? So in this case, there's no time in between. It's got to be the same now. Now's not time at all. What? Now's not time. It's something that happens in time, or it has a limit of time. And so it seems like that that's where that problem comes in, saying, "Oh, now, it's both." But it's a little bit like if they have it in.

[47:24] In the limits that they talk about calculus or something, meeting in calculus, and they say, suppose you have a circle here, right? And you inscribe in the circle a square.

[47:43] Okay, that circle, that square, isn't equal to the circle, is it? Okay. But now, if we bisect each of these arcs and draw two lines from there, we have a polygon with twice as many sides, right? Which is closer to the area of the circle, right? And we can bisect those and draw what lines again? Huh? Bisect between these and so on. And so,

[48:22] as you keep on dividing, the polygon gets closer and closer, right? Okay. Well, then the moderns imagine falsely that a polygon with what an infinity of sides would be equal to what circle? Yeah. And then you have a straight line corresponding or coinciding with the what? With the circle, yeah, yeah. Going to have a contradiction eventually there. But really, this is a limit that you what? The circle is a limit here of these polygons constructed in this way by bisecting the thing, right?

[49:02] You can go on forever, but you're never going to reach what? Right. You're never going to get a polygon that's actually equal to the circle. Right. And

[49:14] when he kind of talks about this, he says there's a kind of what of union in our mind of the polygon and the circle, right? Because I can speak of the circle as the limit.

[49:31] The circle here is the limit of polygons constructed in this way that we indicate, right? Okay. Now, if I think of the circle as a limit of polygons constructed in that way, in my understanding, the circle is polygon, right? Yeah. And so the kind of said here, this is a faint imitation what the angels have, right? But the angels know two particular kinds of things by one idea.

[50:00] Huh? Why, for us, it always takes different ideas, huh? Yeah. See. So the idea we have of a circle is never the idea we have of a polygon, right? Right. But here we seem to have an idea of circle and polygon at the same time, right? Huh? If I speak of circle as being the limit of the polygons, right? Okay. But at the same time, we see.

[50:22] That's a limit that is never what reached, right? So, but like that, when you take the time in which something is not a what, a a sphere, right? Okay, so you got this time here. This time here, it's not a sphere, and this time here, it is a sphere. And we're saying that now, it belongs to it is a sphere, right? Okay, but as I approach that, right, I get closer and closer to that now, right?

[50:57] But I never what quite reach it, do I? It's always what a period of time, right? I'm taking it small and small, but I can never make it equal to that now, right? It's always going to be a period of time, and therefore never now. What's approaching that, right? It's kind of like an extrinsic limit, so to speak, huh?

[51:21] Isn't that? Could we say that there's no last now, just just because it's continuous? Because you can't have a last now next to the first now because it's continuous. You can't have it touching last now touching the. So just by definition, the continuous you can't have a last. So is there a last now in which I will be alive?

[51:52] No. See, but my my time on this earth is going to come to an end, right? So you might think there's a last now that I'm alive, but is there? No, there's a first now when I'm dead, right? Yes. You may not know exactly, but the change from from being alive to being dead, right? When that change is completed, I'm first dead. In other words, right? That's something indivisible, right?

[52:21] Say, but there's no last now in which I'm alive. So, but interesting, you know, with the with the Epicureans, I guess you know, some people trying to

[52:37] don't be afraid of death, right? Because death can't happen to you, right? You can't die when you're alive. There's some truth to that, right? I don't know. I don't think they saw it this way, right? But they kind of argue. that when you're dead, you won't be around. You won't you won't experience death, right? Because you're dead, you'll be. So you'll be around to experience death. But there's some truth to that, right?

[53:04] You see, you see, that I'll never be dead when I'm alive. We can kind of pun on Hegel's misunderstanding there, though, right? Hegel thinks he's he's he's dead or he's alive, right? The moment when he, in some ways, he is mentally. It seems as though, like well, with Hegel anyway, the problem is conceiving of the now as time because he's saying, "Oh, I shouldn't be saying now," and so it's as though he's looking at now as time, but it's not.

[53:41] I mean, something happens in time, but it's not time. Yeah, yeah, but the problem comes in because he has a last now, which is not, you know, a sphere, whatever it may be, and as well as a first now, which it is, right? But I'm just saying that sphere, not sphere, right? We have this now that now occupies absolutely no time. No, right. But you could be something in that now, see.

[54:12] Right. Yeah. Yeah. But the reason there's no last now does it come from? Does it come from the definition of becoming? Well not necessarily because you can do it, you know, for ceasing to be too, like my dying, right? See, and as he says, when you're changing from A to B, right?

[54:39] When you have changed from A to B, right? Yeah. You're in B, not in A. Yeah. See. Yeah. And when you first have changed from A to B, right? That change is first completed. He argues that there's got to be something indivisible. Okay. Yeah, yeah. And he says, but at the same time, when you have changed from A to B, or when you're changing in that matter from A to B, you're leaving behind A, right?

[55:09] Yeah. So they're really the same reality: that leaving behind A and changing from A to B. So when you have changed from A to B, you have left behind A, and so that indivisible when you have completed the change, you're not A anymore, right? So there's, until you have completed it, indivisible. In that indivisible, you're not what you were before. What you you become. Okay. But the same way, if you go in the reverse order, you're going from, you know, if I'm dying or ceasing to be, right?

[55:42] When I first cease to be, I am not. Right. Because I am when I first cease to be. See. And when I first cease to be, that something what? Indivisible, right? Okay. Now, is this the same scripture there? You're not talking about the damned and in in puncto in a point they descend, right? You know. See. Because something indivisible, right? You know. Yeah. That judgment maybe is not in time there, right?

[56:17] It's not in time anymore. Yeah. I guess I, you know, I keep thinking of different ways of how these errors are, but with this, it's like the sharing of the now, and he's sharing the now. It's the concept that now occupies time, so there,

[56:36] there is that cannot be the same sharing of the now between not being and being. Yeah, but but you have a problem there. See, if if you admit that

[56:48] there's a last now in which you were in the term from which you're proceeding, right? See, then you got a problem, right? Because you can either make them the same now as the one, as the first one which you are, the term which you're going, which case you have a contradiction at that point in that now, or else you make them not the same now, and you have a time in between, and you got to be one or the other in that time in between.

[57:10] So you can't really have a time in between. So that sense, there's no time between my being alive and my being dead. Right. Interesting thing, right?

[57:27] Is that the reasoning the moderns use to say that a straight line will eventually? Yeah, yeah, they speak of the polygon, right? As if you've gone through an infinity of what

[57:40] divisions here, right? So you're always getting closer to the circle, but you never reach what equal, right? Then you have really a contradiction because a straight line would be a curved line, right? Okay. You had something like that with the the instantaneous velocity, right? Because they're talking about velocity at a point, but there's no motion at a point, so there's no velocity, right? And after quantum theory, they kind of came back and said, gee, wasn't that a fiction, right?

[58:15] But a useful fiction, is it? And it's kind of strange that there is such a thing as a useful fiction. I've mentioned, you know, how Will McNeill there, he says, you know, you know, the first period of world history is the period of Middle Eastern dominance until 500 BC, right? And he speaks of the fictitious sharpness of these dates, right? Oh yeah. But if you say, you know, well, things are, you know, you know, it's kind of history is a continuum, you know, when it becomes unintelligible, right?

[58:53] Things are always changing, you know. We can't say anything, right? You couldn't characterize anything, yes. So you you make things more sharp than they are, is it? So so he calls that sharpness a fictitious sharpness, and

[59:14] Einstein and Heisenberg and Guy de Broglie, a lot of these scientists who developed physics in 20th century, say that science is based upon what idealizations, huh? And these idealizations involve a departure from reality, you know. In Einstein, in his book The Evolution of Physics, he takes the law of inertia, right, that a body in the absence of external forces, right, will either remain at rest or in uniform motion in a straight line.

[59:49] And he says that one example is such a body in our experience, right? Another thing is a body in the absence of exterior forces. But

[1:00:00] you know, we notice that as we oiled the wheels of the wagon and we smooth out the road and so on, it goes further, right? Because there's less friction. So if we eliminate all exterior forces, then we imagine it would go on forever, right? But that's in our imagination now.

[1:00:23] But you can see the imagination does that. I mean, the tragedy and comedy are like what idealizations of some aspect of life. You kind of simplify life, but without this idealization, you couldn't have the precision of the mathematical science of nature, right? It's kind of it's kind of you know amazing. It is one text there where Heisenberg says you know he kind of criticizes Aristotle's critique of the Pythagoreans who are trying to force experience into their mathematical theory.

[1:00:57] He says we got to force the facts. The very thing, excuse me, the philosopher isn't doing. You know, forcing the facts into some kind of system. They are right. You know, we have to force the facts, right? And of course, you know, I mean, the simplest example of that is in the lab. The numbers you get in the lab never fit the equations. And of course, what the scientists say, well, there's you know an acceptable margin of error, right?

[1:01:24] But is that margin of error due to the you know inaccuracies of our instruments and so on, or is it due to the falseness of our what theories? Yeah, yeah. And of course, sometimes you make more precise things, and you have to modify the theories, right? So, so was an acceptable error. So,

[1:01:47] you know, is Boris says coming back, you know, from some of these meetings with the the logical analysts, philosophers, you know, they make science impossible, right? Because if you demand that the things perfectly fit the theories, they don't. So, just kind of

[1:02:12] you know things out, right? I mean, even when you regard a a planet as a what point moving around a line, well, it's not really a point, right? But because you're certain precision that you're going to have, you got to see an irregular thing you know going around. You can't work with those things. You can't work with that thing, right? Can work with a point going around a line, you know.

[1:02:36] Oops, you know, like they do, but you see, you have to. But Heisenberg says that that in these idealizations that we have to do in modern science, you have to depart from reality into your imagination. So you're losing immediate contact with reality. That's why he says in the Gifford lectures, right? You know, he says the concepts of natural language, meaning by natural language, you know, ordinary language, opposed to mathematical language.

[1:03:09] He says the concepts of natural language, vaguely defined as they are, have a greater stability in the growth of knowledge than the precise terms of science. But the reason he gives there in the Gifford lectures is that the precise terms of science are based on a what idealization, and only is this way can you have a mathematical science. When you idealize, you're already departing from what reality.

[1:03:35] Yeah, that's a strange thing. huh? And so, Louis de Broglie when he discussed that in his book on the quantum. He says, you know, nothing is more misleading than a clear, distinct idea. You know, contrary to what he's saying, right? Yeah, but

[1:04:02] what's his name? Bohr, you know, spoke of complementarity. Complementarity with a "n" there, right? You could say something like that with tragedy and comedy, right? That you bring one aspect of life into sharp focus, the other aspect of life what? Disappears, right? Huh? When my my cousin Donald came back from four years in the Navy, right? And Zorbat telling my old Professor Kasurik right, who'd been four years in the Navy too, he's telling him all these funny things that happened while he's in the Navy.

[1:04:43] And he said every time I told Kasurik one of these funny things that happened to me in the Navy or I ran across, he says Kasurik would top with an even funnier story than what happened to him in the Navy. Oh. And I'd tell you some of those or not, you know. Well, one thing that happened was that this guy was trying to, you know, get his radio station with his radio in the ship there, and there's so much metal in the ship, right?

[1:05:06] They couldn't get proper reception, so went out and saw where the the you know the level of the ocean was and so on. So he drilled a hole inside the ship and stuck his aerial there and got nice reception, right? We didn't realize the ship was not fully loaded. The ship was not fully loaded. I was on the water coming up to the boat. You can't imagine these crazy things that go on.

[1:05:32] And and but you know on the other hand you can say war is what. No, yeah, you know, and so y you couldn't at the same time, you know, talking about you know this laughable aspect of the military with this this terribly serious and sort of tragic, you know, experience, huh? That we have, huh? But Aristotle, you know, in the in rhetoric, right? In rhetoric, he quotes the advice of

[1:06:01] who is it? I forget who it is right now. The advice, you know, to kill your opponent's seriousness with jesting, and their jesting with what? Seriousness, something.

[1:06:20] And I always get two examples, you know, of how when Lincoln was in debate there with Douglas, you know, and Douglas called him two-faced, you know, and Lincoln turned the audience, and you have to realize Lincoln was you know an ugly man, right? Turned the audience, he says, "Now I ask," he says, "If I had another face, would I wear this one?" He says. But

[1:06:45] now you can't get him back and call him two-faced, you know? And the time when Mondale was running for president against Reagan, you know, and he was trying to make a little bit out of Reagan's age, you know, maybe he's too old for the job and that sort of thing, right? So in one of the debates, there Reagan says, you know, I'm not going to make you know political capital out of the age issue.

[1:07:07] He says, he says I'm not going to make capital out of Mondale's youth and inexperience. He says. Where everybody laughed, even Mondale had a laugh, and that finished Mondale. He could never come back and you know, you know, attack him for age, you know, this thing, you know. But

[1:07:31] well, sometimes people, you know, when you're in a kind of merry mood, you know, they they kind of put you down with their seriousness, you know, like you're you're you're frivolous or something, right? You know. And we were seeing one of the movies there where the guy was talking about one-upmanship, right? See, and he says, "Now you've got to dominate everything, like even the party, you have to dominate, right?

[1:07:54] " And suppose someone is telling jokes and kind of dominating the party, well, he says, "Okay, just tell a joke, " he says to the guy, right? Huh? You know. And so the guy tells a joke, you know. The guy is drunk, and he's coming home, kind of got one foot on the curtain, one on the street, right? Like this, and I said, "Gee, now that's long there this evening.

[1:08:18] " Yeah. The professional, and he's like, he's a bad liar, some like professional, but professional people are paying, you know. Oh my gosh, you know they've done something. You know, you don't make a joke about somebody's physical ailments like that, you know. That's very funny. You just pretending, right? You know, they defeat the what? You know, scolds the guys. Humor, you see. So there are ways of parody, you know, to to to to to squelch somebody's, you know, laughter with seriousness, and the other is probably easier to do, right?

[1:08:53] But you see, kind of how tragedy and comedy are kind of what complementary, right? And you have to get out of one mood, in a sense, for the other, right?

[1:09:07] Shakespeare says at the beginning of Henry VIII, they come no more to make you laugh, you know, and they kind of prepare you, get you in the mood for tragedy. So

[1:09:27] next time we'll look at this eleventh reading here.