Wisdom (Metaphysics 2006, Colorado)
35. No Infinite Regress in the Causes: The Middle, the Moved Mover, and Matter's Downward Direction
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[0:00] At line beginning chapter two in his division, but line nine ninety four it begins. But that there is a beginning, right? Let's use the word beginning there. huh? There's a beginning, and not infinite are the causes of beings, right? Neither in a straight line, one kind of cause, nor according to what kind of cause, right? Because that's limited too. It's clear, he says, right? And then exemplifies, or kind of breaks up what he means there with the four kinds of causes about they're not being infinite causes of beings in a straight line, huh?

[0:45] And he says neither, as from matter, right? This from this is possible to come forever, as if, for example, let's say flesh comes to be from earth, and the earth comes to be from air, and the air comes to be from fire, and this does not what halt or stop, right? You see there the root of the word there n' episteme, right? Coming to a halt or stop.

[1:16] Okay, so there he's saying what he intends to show, as it were, or what he's maintaining in the beginning this paragraph, but applying it to matter, right? Okay, and Heisenberg, right, says I never thought this could go on forever, right? You know that molecules come from atoms, and atom comes from protons, and protons come from elementary particles, and that comes from something else, and this goes on forever, right?

[1:46] Okay, but haven't seen the reason yet for this. Seems like everyone guesses that way. No one guesses the opposite. What? That it should go on forever in material. Yeah, But sometimes you have people saying, "well, gee, would you thought, you know, atom means indivisible, right? " And we thought we'd come to the beginning. That's what we called them atoms, you know, and they turned out not to be so.

[2:07] And then we came down to something before that called the proton, and and that means first, so nothing before it, but turned out not to be first, you know. So maybe it goes on forever. And the people kind of weak-minded, but they, but the great scientists doesn't make really, you know, it just he naturally moves against that, right? Is this to a first? What is this to a first formed matter or first?

[2:34] Well, he doesn't have to say which it would be, right? Just saying that there is a first matter, right? Whether it's formed or not, right? But in Aristotle, thought the first matter was just um, a pure ability, huh? Okay, but he's not really talking about that difference here, whether it's formed or unformed, but. He starts from that because, not only what he said, but that's where there's an agreement among all the Greek philosophers that there is a what first matter.

[3:12] huh? They disagree as to what the first matter is. Did Didn't Heisenberg suggest that the quarks could change into each other, and so he because of that he accepted the prime matter theory of Aristotle. Someone he did, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[3:30] I don't know if you use the word quark, so maybe. But it seemed that that the elementary particles were the first forms of matter, right? But the elementary particles were not eternal, and they could be changed one into another, right? So there seemed to be an unformed matter right for them, right? And so Heisenberg says in one book that we can know matter only through the forms of matter, which is what Aristotle would say too, because it's not noble by itself, but it's pure ability.

[4:06] maybe he mentions matter first there because, as I said, there's agreement about that, right? And that's the thing. Nor whence there is a beginning of motion. Well, that's the definition of of the mover. hothen whence there is a beginning of motion, right? As example, the man is moved by the air. This is moved by the sun. The sun is being moved by strife, in the opinion of Empedocles, right?

[4:36] And and of this there be no what. heros, no limit, huh? Okay. Furthermore, now he goes to the end and the form, but the end before the form.

[4:56] Furthermore, neither as the hou heneka that for the sake of which, and that's the definition of the end, hou heneka, the end. Warren Murray told me these crazy guys over at the University of Minnesota, who didn't accept, you know, nature acting for an end, which Aristotle talks about. They called Aristotle the hou heneka man.

[5:23] Likewise, neither the that for the sake of which is able to go on forever. Like say walking for the sake of health, this for the sake of happiness, happiness for the sake of something else, and thus always it's for the sake of something else, right? Okay. And then he's very brief, and likewise about the what was to be. Okay.

[5:52] Now at the end of the second. what was what was what was Are we just going to leave it open for now, whether there's a first-formed manner, since he doesn't address it? Yeah, he's not re-addressing it here, right? Okay. Now, what he's going to do in the third and fourth reading is show that what he's asserted here is in fact so, right? But he does so in a certain order, right?

[6:20] And he's going to give, first of all, according to Thomas, anyway, a reason why there is a first mover, and then secondly, he doesn't, in fact, give a reason why there is a first matter, but instead he kind of shows the reverse of that, assuming a first matter, right? Like say A is the first matter, and let's say B comes to be from A, and from B comes to be C, and from C D, and this doesn't go on forever, okay?

[7:04] Not infinite steps. Now, why does he do that, right? In the midst, right, of what would seem to be, in the beginning, and also we'll see in chapter four, a defense of the assertions here in the second part of the second reading that there are, in fact, in these four kinds of causes, a first cause, right? Okay.

[7:36] And in the fourth reading, I'll come back to in a minute. In the fourth reading, he will give reasons why there is an end that is desired for its own sake and not for the sake of anything else, and that the ends don't, the forms don't go on forever, which he'll do because of the connection between form and definition, and they don't go on forever.

[8:01] Well, I'd say a number of things to answer that question. I would say first of all that the argument for the mover—he doesn't even mention I think the word mover, but Thomas takes it that way—is to some extent applicable to all the four kinds of causes, that the reason Aristotle first gives is mutatis mutandis, right? Applicable to all four causes,

[8:34] and that sense he covers matter, right? Yeah. And then he shows something else about matter instead, right? Okay. The abundance of his teaching. Um. But secondly, a second reason why he doesn't do it directly for matter might be that. All the Greek philosophers agree about there being a first matter, so it's less urgent, that's at least a part of a reason. And then the third partial reason would be that this cause is the least important for the what?

[9:14] Wise man, because the wise man, as you learn later on in Book Six, or wisdom, is about things that don't depend upon matter for their existence, either because they don't have to have matter, although they could, or because they can't have matter, right? So matter is the cause at least relevant to the wise man. Form is very important to the wise man because form is the beginning of being, and this is the science of being as being.

[9:46] And the end is the cause of all the other causes, so it's very important for the first cause, and the mover is important. You talk about the unmoved mover and so on. So if you want to neglect any cause as not being particularly relevant to wisdom, matter would be the cause, right? But in addition to that, there's a general agreement that they're gonna say what? First matter.

[10:14] In addition to that, the first argument could help you to understand, right, why there's a first matter, and that seems to be enough. Those three reasons are partial reasons, right? Why he doesn't have a particular consideration? Why there's a first what? Matter, right? He's more particular about end and form, although they could be covered by the first general argument too. But the form and the end are most important for the wise man.

[10:49] And form for the reason I gave you, it's the cause of being, and then end because it seems to be the cause of all the other causes, and because, as he said in the, proemium the wise man orders everybody else, but you order by the end, so he must know the end of the whole universe, huh? So form and end, yeah, are the two most important causes of the wise man, and then after that the mover, and least of all matter, huh?

[11:20] So you have to appreciate, huh, the wise man's interest in these causes and what is being given more attention and what less attention, right?

[11:36] Now let's look at the first argument, which to some extent is. Concretized in the case of the mover, as Thomas takes it, in the way the text is set up. But it's also, to some extent, general, right?

[11:51] Now let's just read the text a little bit over the way it is word by word, and then we'll come back upon the way the argument.

[12:03] He says, "Ton gar meson What does "meson" mean? Of those, of the middles, right? What's the middle? Of which there is something last and something before. before. Is necessary for the before to be the cause of that which is after. For if one were to say, which of the three is a cause, we would say the first. One would not say the last, for it's not what.

[12:35] Yeah, anything. But neither the middle, for it's a cause of one. Okay. And then, very importantly, he says, "And there's no difference whether the middle be one or many, and if many, whether unlimited or infinite, or limited."

[13:03] Now he says, "If all these things, right, of all infinite things in this way, and wholly of the infinite, all the parts are middles right up to the now, so that nothing is first,

[13:24] then wholly there will be no cause." That's the end of the first thing, but it's. How is he arguing there, right? Okay. Well, suppose A moves B, right, and B moves C. Okay.

[13:49] Now, what's the mover? A, B, or C? Say. Yeah. You shouldn't want to say C, because in this order, it's not moving anything. You could say B is moving C, right?

[14:08] But it's only moving C because it's being moved by A. And B is is not moving everything there, so A, we'd say, most of all, is the what mover, right? Huh? Okay.

[14:26] Well, now B is a moved mover, right? Now it calls a moved mover a middle. Now, you know what beginning, middle, and end mean, and.

[14:48] Plot in poetry, right? That the middle is after something and before something, right? That's what it means to be a middle, right? Well, if you examine what a moved mover is, what it means to say a moved mover, it's essentially, and by definition, a middle.

[15:15] If it's a mover, it has something after it, that it's it's an effect of it, right? But if it's a moved mover, it must have something before it, right?

[15:27] There can't be the middle without something before and after it, right? So, now we know that in this world there are moved movers, and since it's essentially a middle, a moved mover,

[15:50] it won't be unless there's a mover before it. Okay. Now Aristotle is saying that there must be something before the middle. That there must be something before the moved mover. It's true whether there be one moved mover or many moved movers. A series of moved movers is like one grand moved mover.

[16:25] And if there are many moved movers, it makes no difference whether they be limited in multitude or unlimited or infinite multitude, it's still like one grand moved mover.

[16:44] So, if there are only moved movers, then there's the only the middle, right? And nothing before it. And the moved mover, which essentially is the middle, doesn't move anything unless there's something before it. Well, in this case, there's nothing before it. You see the argument, huh? Now sometimes to help people, you know, kind of a concrete way, I take the example of the train, right? Okay. You got the engine, right?

[17:21] And then say you have a wagon, then you have the caboose. That's the end. What, right? Okay. And it's chugging along there, right? Okay. Now, is the caboose a mover? No. Is it pulling anything? No. It's it's pulled, so it's last, right? The pulled has nothing after it, as such, but something before it, right? Okay. The wagon in the middle is a what? A pulled puller. It pulls the caboose because it's being pulled itself, right?

[18:01] By the engine, right? Is an unpulled puller, right? Okay. Now, would the pulled puller, the wagon in the middle there, right? It's obviously it's essentially a middle, right? Because being a pulled puller, it's got something before it and something after it, right? But would the pulled puller pull anything if there's nothing before it? Okay. Now, does it make any difference whether you have one wagon in the middle there or more than one?

[18:37] If you had three of them or something, right? Those three wagons are like one grand pulled puller, right? And those three are being pulled by the engine, and they're pulling the caboose along, right? It would make any difference whether you had if you had many wagons there, whether you had a limited multitude or an infinite multitude.

[19:05] No, it's still one grand what pulled puller, huh? And even if you kept on, you know, if you took away the engine and you kept on adding, you know, wagons there

[19:20] to be pulled pullers, you're going to get any any motion? No, no. So there must be what something before the pulled puller, right? Well, now you can see that argument in a way could be generalized for any kind of cause, huh? That

[19:47] not just a move mover, but a caused cause, right? A cause that is causing something in so far as it's being caused itself, a caused causer

[20:00] is essentially a middle, right, by definition, and it doesn't cause anything if it has nothing before it, and makes no difference whether that caused causer is one or many, and if many, whether limited or unlimited in multitude, it's like one grand cause causer, and so it can't cause anything if it has nothing before it, and if every what if every cause is a caused causer,

[20:42] then every Cause belongs to the middle, which causes nothing without something before it. But by your hypothesis, there is nothing before it. There is no, there is no causality, right? Do you follow me? See, so that first argument, although Thomas says is kind of about the mover, right? If you look at it closely, it's kind of applicable to any of the causes, huh?

[21:15] Now you make it a little more concrete. Let's say you're talking about the end. Which may be fairly obvious, but something is desired as a means, right?

[21:32] Well, it's desired for the sake of something else, right? Okay. And it's essentially then presupposes something, right? Now, sometimes you have to go through one means to get to an end. Sometimes you have to go through a number, right? Whether you have to go through one or through many means to get to something, would you desire the one mean or the many means? If there is nothing beyond that that you desired,

[22:12] so if everything is desired as a means, even that whole series is one grand means. Means to what? Well, there is nothing outside of it according to your hypothesis, right? So he's saying everything is desired for the sake of something else, but there is nothing else for the sake which is desired, so nothing is desired, and therefore there is no causality of the end because the end's causality is exercised by, you know, others desiring it.

[22:47] The good is what all desire. You see that? Is there is there no problem with an infinite series of of move movers provided there is a first?

[23:04] Well, he doesn't address that question. You know, you address again. He's not talking about infinite series in the sense that you are going through them one by one, right? He's thinking of a series where this is moving that only insofar as it's being moved itself, right? As I take the example of the railroad car, right? And it doesn't seem in itself why you couldn't have an infinity of wagons in between, right?

[23:38] Because all of them would be moving at the same time, and but you'd have to have something before them, right? If they're all moving insofar as they're being moved themselves. Okay. You could have an engine in the middle with an infinite number of cars that way.

[24:02] So in Thomas's first two ways, he says you can't proceed to infinity. He means in cause that are acting together, right? You know. Okay. He's not talking about you know you could have a father and because you're not generating your son. Insofar as you're being generated by your father, okay. But what he's talking about here is for this is moving that, insofar as it's being moved by that, just like in the train there, where the wagon is pulling the caboose, insofar as it's being what pulled itself, right, by the engine.

[24:48] Maybe you're thinking of, you know, you can't have infinite steps, right? But this is different than that, right? The infinite steps you go through, one is not simultaneous with the next one, right, or the third one down the line or something, right? We're talking about an order of movers where each one is only moving what it moves because it's being moved by another, right? So it's all together or simultaneous, huh?

[25:19] So that that wouldn't be. It's not the number that's problematic. No, no. See, that's where Aristotle. You can see where Aristotle's actually saying that, right? It makes no difference whether the moved mover is one moved mover mover or many. He says, and if many, whether limited in multitude or unlimited, so he doesn't see any problem there, right? But what he sees is that whether there be one or many, the many are just the series is like one grand moved mover, right?

[25:47] Okay. You can see that. I mean, if I was had something over there, I was trying to pull it. I have a bunch of cars right here, and I can, well, that all that whole chain of moved movers is there, right? As one kind of grand thing for moving the thing at the end. So you can consider the whole series, even infinite, right, as one grand moved mover with nothing before it.

[26:15] You get what is essentially a middle with nothing before it. That's a contradiction. I mean, you have a middle with nothing before it, and that's a middle is shown by the fact that it's one grand or one single, either one moved mover. And if you understand what a moved mover is, or a cause cause, you know speaking more generally, you can see that essentially that is a middle.

[26:39] If it was infinite, it wouldn't have an end, and so you lack something in the middle because there would be a last. It would be something before, but nothing after.

[26:54] No, but what he's saying is that that what is by definition a middle, right, must have something before it. Yes. Otherwise, it won't function as as a middle, right? Right. And then you see that a moved mover is essentially a middle, so it must have something before it, or it won't move anything. And then the only thing remaining to see is that, as far as the force of that argument goes.

[27:25] It makes no difference whether there be one moved mover or many, and if many, whether they're limited or unlimited in multitude. And that, and help your imagination a bit. There's, you think of the train, right? Whatever is between the engine and the caboose is a moved mover, and whether it be one wagon between the two or many, right? That whole series is one grand moved mover, right?

[28:01] Okay. You can say the the the engine is moving the caboose by what's in the middle, whether it be one or many, right? Okay. So whether it be one or many, it's essentially one moved mover, and therefore necessarily it cannot move anything if there's nothing before it. It's essentially a middle with nothing before it, which is a contradiction, right? So, you know, Aristotle, in a sense, is dissolving to the impossibility of a contradiction, right?

[28:42] You're trying to say that there is a what middle with no nothing before it. What's a contradiction, right? Just like the man who says, you know, that everything is desired for the sake of something else, right? Then this whole series is what one grand means. So something is being desired as a means with nothing before it being desired. Well, to be desired as a means is essentially a middle thing, right?

[29:22] Because it's desired for the sake of what? Yeah. Again, you can take the three things and you can say, let's say that A is desired for the sake of B, and B is desired for the sake of C. Well, then A is only desired for the sake of something else. B is both desired for the sake of something else, namely C, but something else is desired for the sake of it, right?

[29:49] So it's essentially a middle, right? Something that is desired for the sake of something else, but something else is desired for the sake of it. It's essentially a middle, and it can't be such a thing without something before it. But if everything is desired for the sake of something else, it's like one, you know, with exception of the last guy in the totem pole, Then all of them are like one grand what desired for the sake of something else that's desired for the sake of them, and therefore there is what nothing before them.

[30:26] Whereby this whole series is what desired. In that case, you can have a beginning. Yeah. What you're saying essentially is something can be desired as a means, but nothing is really desired as an end. And so long as as as something is desired to take as something else, it it belongs to the the means, right? You'd have to have something that was just a means in that series, otherwise.

[30:58] you wouldn't start off But there couldn't be a means without something before it. Right, but you couldn't have an infinite number of ends and means that are also ends. You'd have to have a means that is just

[31:15] a means. Are you talking at the other other end? Yeah, we're kind of talking here about it's clearly something for which something else is desired, but is desired to take as something else. It's essentially a middle, right? Right. Okay. Now it comes to the. Matter, but he doesn't do what you'd expect him to do, right? And I gave, I say, three partial reasons because maybe no one by itself is fully convincing, right?

[31:47] But I say one reason why he doesn't do what you expect him to do and what he apparently announced he's going to do, right, is that this cause is not that important for the wise man to consider, right?

[32:06] Maybe a more basic reason, though, is that the first reason could mutatis mutandis be used for all four causes and be used for the matter then, right?

[32:17] And then a third thing is that there's no doubt about this among the early Greeks. They all think there's a first matter. How would the matter be middle? What? How would the matter be middle, like an end, means, or a moved matter? Well, I mean, if water is made out of hydrogen, oxygen, and they're made out of electron, proton, neutron, then that's a kind of what

[32:47] middle matter, right? Because it's made out of a matter before it, and it's made out of a matter after it, right? Or like lumber, the tree, the lumber is made out of the tree, and the house is made out of lumber. But what he does now is to do the other one, right? And of course, Thomas notes the way he speaks there. allá menei ou depi to kato.

[33:12] He says going in a downward direction, right? Okay. Now I mentioned before. I think we talked about the native English word more for cause, ground, huh? That the English imagine the cause to be below the effect, supporting it as it were in existence, right? Because everything is grounded in the ground, right? Okay. But the Greeks imagine the cause to be above the effect, huh? And the effect is as it were hanging from the cause, huh?

[33:55] And so we have this word we use comes in Latin. We speak of the effect as dependent upon the cause. Well, pendant comes from the Latin word for hanging, right? Like a woman's earring called a pendant because it's it's hanging down, right? huh? Pendant. So the Greeks imagine the cause to be above the effect, right? And the effect to be hanging from it. We imagine the cause to be below and supporting it, right?

[34:26] So that's kind of interesting in the way we now. We don't always do that in our languages. We tend to do the other two, but.

[34:37] Like we imagine the agent is acting upon, right? The the effect, right? But we think of the matter is nevertheless is undergoing, and if matter is a cause most known, it fits in very well with ground and mother earth we talked about before. Does causa have any etymology that signifies humans? that you know. of?

[35:10] Well, I know that the Greek word "aitia is actually the Greek word for responsible, right? And maybe there is a connection like that in Latin. You know, when I accuse you of something, doesn't mean to accuse you of of murder. Well, you are responsible for the murder. You are accusing of. So it may be that you know has something the same legal sense. I'm not sure. I know Greek word "aitia you know, has that sense.

[35:36] So sometimes we define cause in general as what is responsible for the being or the becoming of another. uh. Um The one we can accuse of the being or the becoming of another, right? Okay.

[35:59] Is is the idea of being responsible more known than cause? Well, it may be like you know that the thing we had from Thomas through Avicenna or from Avicenna through Thomas there about how ability is first used in human affairs, right?

[36:22] Um, you see, when Aristotle is is explaining why man or trying to show that man is a political animal, right? Kind of a social animal, and and one sign is is language, right? So we can communicate among ourselves. Now, would we need language, right? If we didn't communicate, and so on, and so language grew up in human society because we had to communicate in order to do things together and get other people to do things, right?

[36:56] So language developed in human society, and so you can see in a word like law, right? That law first of all is naming something in human society because we need laws and so on. And so, even with the use of law in science all the time now, we still don't call a scientist a lawyer. I wouldn't say the bio the chem the chemist or physicist is in the legal profession, right?

[37:28] But that word has been what. The word "law" has been borrowed, it seems, from human society, right? You can't have human society without laws, and therefore you have to be able to name what these things are. But they took the word "law" and applied it to some regularity in nature, right? Because the law to drive the right side of the street produces a regularity, and when you see regularity in nature, then you say, "Well, we're speaking of a law of nature," right?

[37:59] But it's not really law in the same sense. And the same way, you know, we we borrow the word "obedience," and you hear the physicists saying that the electrons say in free space they're obey Newtonian laws, maybe, right? But the electron in the atom obeys the laws of quantum physics, and that's like me. You know, when I go to England, I obey the law and I drive on the left side of the street.

[38:31] Over here, I obey a different law. But obedience would seem to come from what man first, right? Even things, huh? And then to say that an electron obeys is a kind of different sense, but what does it mean? Obey of the electron or something like that. Well, I suppose you'd say that the electron follows this law, right? It acts in accord with this regularity that we've noticed, huh?

[39:05] As of nature, we're doing in order, and we're following. Well, obviously, it's not that, right? There's no parliaments out there, congresses or legislatures out there. So obviously, using the word a different sense. But when you turn to considering nature, you don't what? You don't find you don't have any words, right? See, words grew up because we were trying to live together in society, and that's why we had these words.

[39:31] You see, Anaximander I've looked at the fragments for Anaximander he talks about justice, right? And I say to the students, "Now is he being a poet talking about justice and so on?" But you see, our scientists talking about debt, right? And you know, I've been running up the steps or something, and I got an oxygen debt. Now I got to can I breathe hard and fast? I got to, you know, or if I don't get enough sleep for a number of nights, I built up a sleep debt.

[40:04] I've got to pay it, you know. I I owe it, you see. Well, obviously, you're borrowing words, it seems, from human society, and the reason for that is that it was a necessity to invent words to live together, and therefore a necessity to name things in human society, and then the things that come into use of man. But then, when you get these guys, you know, these natural philosophers.

[40:35] They get no words to talk about these things, so they borrow words from human society, by some kind of likeness, huh? More or less, and

[40:49] so they have a human origin, huh? So maybe that's partly true of the idea, right? You see, responsible, huh? So we might have first have said, you know, who did this? Who chopped down the cherry tree? Who's responsible, right? Because we're going to punish him, right? Who chopped down the cherry tree? But then there is something like that, right?

[41:15] You know, this or that thing in the natural world seems somewhat like that to be responsible for something, right? And but the word is originally borrowed from human society, huh? Well, maybe you know Avicenna and Thomas Avicenna says that ability was first transferred to human things, huh? Well, I mean, if we're going to live together, and we don't all do the same thing, you know, and you're a carpenter and you're a plumber and you're a cook or something, and we wonder what your abilities are, right?

[41:53] We employ you. We wonder what your ability is. So we got to have a name for this sort of thing we're looking for, and you have some ability that makes you employable. So we probably named the human ability first, and then it was kind of generalized, huh? You see that kind of in the word virtue. The word virtue, perhaps the Greek word arete virtue it means what manhood, right?

[42:21] So it's something said in human affairs, huh? And eventually, is generalized to human virtue, but you know, Warren Murray has a plaque on his wall that says, "Much virtue in herbs, little in men, huh? " When that's being applied to to

[42:41] what enables the salt or spice to season the food, right, huh? And then our Lord, and you know, says that you are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its ability to season things, we'll throw it out and trample upon it, and so on. And there you see the likeness there between. Actually, what virtue means in that broad sense is is the quality of the thing or disposition of the thing that enables it to do its own operation well, right?

[43:14] So Aristotle even speaks of the of wealth as a virtue of money, because if you are wealthy, you can buy well. Why, why poverty is the vice of money because you have to buy poorly, huh? I say, notice now he's saying money is the. The virtue, wealth is the virtue of money. That's, I guess, the virtue of man. But obviously, that you know, it seems kind of funny at first to say that.

[43:41] But it has been maybe taken from manhood and taken from human things first, right? So a lot of words like that, huh? But that's the same thing I would think is is true.

[43:57] But that's the other side. What Aristotle says in the politics, right? The existence of language is a sign that man is a social animal. But the other side of that is that that language grew up in human society to meet communication about doing things in human society, and then, out there we talk about nature like natural philosophy. We didn't have any names, right? So, do you just invent names, or do you borrow names and give them somewhat new meanings?

[44:30] But some reason why, there is some likeness there, right? That suggests that you borrow this name to talk about that. Okay. Okay. Say, Claire? I was just wondering with it's a side thing, but laws aren't really causes. They say electrons obeying a law. There is no real causality. No, we could go into a long discussion, you see, but the reason why they borrow the word "law" is that in human society, law produces a certain regularity, right?

[45:17] And so, if I went over to England, I got up in the Tower of London there, and looked at the cars down the streets, and I saw they're all going on the left side, right? Huh? You could see a certain regularity there, right? I said, well, the law must be different over here, right? So then, when I got to nature and I see a certain regularity in what nature does, huh?

[45:41] Then, how would I call it? Well, it's called law of nature, right? But it's it's not the cause as such right? There's some similarity, right? So you state that regularity in general, then the electron is following that regularity, right? Well, when you follow the law, you obey the law, right? So when you follow this regularity, we call it obeying the law or obeying the thing. huh? I used to kid the poor physicist out at St Mary's, there.

[46:22] You know, how can it be quantum jumps? Don't have any legs. How can it jump? And he gets also infuriated at this nonsense. But the word "jump" was was was what borrowed from the legs, huh?

[46:42] So you know, you wouldn't say the electron jumped if you hadn't seen men jumping, right?