|
|
Consciousness is a faculty for perceiving and conceiving (both are acts of thinking). They are both acts requiring the awareness of existence. You are only aware of existence because of your consciousness. Self awareness (or awareness of your consciousness) first requires awareness of existence. Then after you recognize existence you recognize "your recognition of existence" (self-awareness).Originally Posted by johnnylightnin
Thus a conscious being aware of being conscious requires being aware of existence first.
Some, including Hawking, theorize that the Big Bang also created time. Try wrapping your head around that one. Thus, nothing could PRECEDE the big bang.
[quote=drumlogic37;453396]No, I read it from some anthology but it described each of the "Five ways." Have not read any of the other references.
This isn't that exact argument, but I'm just pasting some of this from a paper I did a few months ago. I'm wanthing to show how the Aristotelian view of change calls for a unmoved mover (i.e. Pure Act).
1. There are Things that are in Motion or Change.
The First Way is from what is evident to our senses. "It is certain, and evident to our senses, that in the world some things are in motion."1 It is a fact that things are in motion or change. First, the most obvious change is local motion; things move from one place to another place. For example, one wakes up in the morning and moves from the bedroom to the kitchen. Second, there are accidental changes that include both quality and quantities of things. A plant can grow bigger, the air can become hotter, or a person can become more tan. Third, are substantial changes; that is, a thing can become another kind of thing. Such as, when a cow eats grass and the grass turns into milk, by way of the cow. The grass has undergone a substantial change by turning into milk. Fourth, there are "immanent activities of cognition and appetition, like seeing, understanding, willing and so forth."2 The mind or will may not be in motion, but it does undergo a change by being different than it was before. One is constantly learning, that is, the mind is being informed with new ideas that were not there before. Not knowing 1+1=2 is different than knowing that 1+1=2. By learning that 1+1=2 one knows something that wasn’t known before. Again, these changes are obvious to everyone.
Before moving on to the next point change must be defined. Change is for a thing "to become in act was it was in potency."3 That is, a thing can potentially be another way, but only when it changes is it actually that other way. For example, a seed is potentially a tree, but when water and soil are added, given enough time, the seed actually becomes a tree. One must keep in mind that the potential of a thing is not the cause of its potential being actualized, but is only the possibility of change. Other causes bring about the change.
One may object that change is defined this way so that the First Way will work, but this definition is "primarily finding an accurate was to express the fact of change, and so it is a solution at the level of our language about a fact."4
Local motion, accidental, substantial, and cognitional changes are all described as moving from a state of potentiality to a state of actuality. Any of these changes are used as evidence for the first point of the First Way.
2. Whatever is in Motion is put into Motion by Another.
Since it is known that things change one must ask if a can thing change itself? Potency is not real in the strict since of the word. For example, a mound of clay is potentially a jar, but there is nothing about the clay, in itself, that makes itself a into a jar. For a thing cannot "give to another or itself a perfection that it does not possess."5 This is true "because nothing is moved from potency to act except by a being already in act."6 A mind is needed with the actual knowledge of a jar in order to make the clay a into a jar. Aquinas example is that wood is potentially hot and the only way to make it actually hot is by fire or something else which is actually hot.7
Since, motion is moving from a state of potency to a state of actuality, and since potency is nothing in itself and actuality is, it must then follow that only a thing in act can move a thing from a state of potency to a state of actuality. For nothing cannot do anything.
The most obvious form of motion/change is local motion. A rock is potentially in another place, but it can only be moved by something that is already in motion, since, a rock has no ability to move itself. It can only be actualized by something that is obviously other than itself. However, whether a change is obvious or not does not matter, all change is a being passing from a state potency to actuality.
3. The Law of Non-Contradiction (a thing cannot be both moved and not moved in the same sense)
The Law of non-contradiction states that "if one contradiction is true, the other is necessarily false."8 That is, "it is impossible that contrary statements be simultaneously true."9 This is a first principle. One knows this by simply looking at reality. Furthermore, it is self-stultifying to deny this principle. For by denying this law it is actually affirmed.
This applies to the First Way in that a thing cannot be in act and potency in the same time and in the same sense. For example, a thing cannot be actually here and potentially here. Aquinas uses heat as an example, "For what is actually hot cannot be simultaneously potentially hot."10 Only act can actualize potency. Therefore, a thing in the same respect cannot be mover and moved at the same time, since a thing cannot be in act and potency at the same time. Something other must move a being. Or as Aquinas says, "it is therefore impossible that in the same respect and in the same way a thing should be both mover and moved, i.e., that is should move itself."11
Since a being cannot move itself and a thing cannot be both mover and moved in the same sense it follows that "whatever is in motion must be put in motion by another."12
4. An Infinite Regress of Movers is Impossible.
If a thing A is actualized by thing B and thing B is put into act by other thing then we must end with a first mover, since an infinite regress is impossible. If there is no first mover the chain does not make any sense; the chain is completely unintelligible. If there were no initial mover there would be no motion. The initial mover accounts for all other movers moving. An infinite regress says that there is no cause to the chain, but only one cause after another. That is, the movement A is moved by B and on ad infinitum. The problem is that in an infinite regress all the movers are receiving their motion. There is nothing that actually accounts for the motion of the chain. Even if the chain is infinite, there must be something outside of the chain giving it motion. There must be a first unmoved mover to account for a chain of moved (receiving) movers. Having a longer chain of moved movers does not answer why the chain is moving. An infinite regress of movers is impossible. One must ask where did motion come from in the series? It must come from something that is not in the series. One must end at a first unmoved mover that accounts for all motion. An infinite regress is a concept that does not answer why there is motion, but only diverts attention from having to posit a first in the chain. One must ask why the chain is moving, not simply why this particular link is moving. An unmoved mover is needed to explain motion in general. As Jacques Maritain puts it, "If there were not a First Agent, the reason for the action of all the others would never be posited in existence; nothing would move anything."13
Another way to show that an infinite regress is impossible is by attempting to count to two from zero. The catch is you must subtract one every time you count to one in order to account for the infinite number of moments behind 0. Take 0+1=1 then 1-1=0 then 0+1=1 then 1-1=0 and on for ever. You must account for a infinite number of moments before now so you can never reach the moment that we are in now.
5. Conclusion
Therefore, one must arrive at a being that is not moved by another and "this everyone understand to be God."14 This unmoved move is what accounts for all change. Without an unmoved mover all change ceases.
Or as Aristotle put it:
1. Things do change. This is established by observing movement, the most obvious for of change.
2. All change is passing from a state of potential to actuality. That is, when a potential has be actualized a change has occured.
3. No potential can actualize itself. Wood cannot make itself into a chair, although it has to capacity to become a chair.
4. There must be an actuality that actualizes everything that passes from a state of potentiality to a state of actuality. Otherwise, nothing would be actualized.
5. An infinite regress of actualizers is impossible, for the whole series would not be actualized unless there was a first actualizer.
6. This first actuality actualizes things by final causality
7. There are 47 or 55 of these pure actualities.
8. There is ultimately one, since, only material things canbe numerically different, since matter is the principle of individualization. (this point was probably later added by an editor of Aristotle)
I have no problem with there being no time before the creation of the universe. I hold that time is the "numbering of motion." Since, God is Pure Act He is them immutable, i.e., does not move. If there is no motion there is no time.
Your begging the question. Your assuming that time can be indefinitly divided. It is only a potential infinite that one can continue to split time in half. Further, if this is a valid counter example then I think Xeno is right and we must all become Monists/Pantheists.
Last edited by drumlogic37; 03-01-2007 at 11:34 PM.
I'm not understanding what you mean by existence. Do you mean that existence is only material? If this is your view, then Christians do beleive in a non-material being (i.e. spiritual being) as the First Cause. However, you are assuming that existence is only material. If being is not equivalent to material, then many Christians don't hold that consciousness existed before existence, since this consciousness is itself existence and all other things participate in this Existent as it's effects.
Last edited by drumlogic37; 03-01-2007 at 11:36 PM.
What is wrong with the assumption of time being indefinitely divided? And there is no reason this would negate the axioms of existence, consciousness, and identity that I have already set forward.
I really hate all of you guys. Every last one of you. I've got papers to work on and tons of reading to finish and this stinking message board is sucking me in.
Because it is a potential infinite that cannot be demonstrated.
or perceived.
Time is your friend. Impulse is your enemy. -John Bogle
You tell Norm you're busy and that he should give you extra credit.
Time is your friend. Impulse is your enemy. -John Bogle
That is why the veritical cosmological argument is needed. It shows that Pure Act is needed as the unmoved mover/first efficient cause. Since matter in and of itself is pure potency, it makes all material things act/pot compositions. Anything combined to potency cannot be infinite. Further, material things are always in potency to being moved/changed.
Your point No. 2 in post 125 has been contradicted by quantum mechanics. Newtonian physics are not absolutes.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote