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Boydstun

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15 hours ago, MisterSwig said:

When I imagine space as a physical structure, I cannot make sense of the vacuum drop experiment. Why doesn't space resist a feather more than a metal cube?

The implication seems to be that physical space cannot affect the motion of physical matter. Thus, what exactly is meant by the term "physical"?

 

 

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For there to be physical space, it does not need to have effects and natures such as those of a fluid, a plasma, or any other state of matter. It need not have any power to resist motion of bodies to be physical.

When the engineers say that the 2020 Corvette* engine has a displacement of 6.2 liters, they are talking about a certain volume of physical space---the summed volume of the cylinder chambers---and not about the mixture of air and gasoline that fills and refills that volume or about the steel of pistons moving back and forth in the cylinder volumes. Right? There are not reasons for thinking the configuration of the keys on a keyboard is not a configuration in physical space. Right? 

Edited by Boydstun
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3 hours ago, Boydstun said:

When the engineers say that the 2020 Corvette* engine has a displacement of 6.2 liters, they are talking about a certain volume of physical space---the summed volume of the cylinder chambers---and not about the mixture of air and gasoline that fills and refills that volume or about the steel of pistons moving back and forth in the cylinder volumes. Right?

The cylinder chambers are not equivalent to the physical space. The chambers include the walls and partitions which form and separate the chambers, thus providing containers for the air and gas. So the displacement refers to the capacity of the chambers. But that capacity is measured in reference to a standard amount of liquid (water), not physical space. At least that's my understanding.

Of course a section of space must be chamberized to make the volume of liquid possible. But I'm not sure how creating a section of space implies or proves that space is physical. As the earth moves through the solar system, the sections of space in the engine cylinders change relative to our position around the sun and in the greater galaxy. The engine, like the earth, moves through space. It doesn't literally contain space.

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MS, So do you think that space is a real thing, though not a physical thing?

Do you think Leibniz got it right when he wrote the following?

“Space is something, . . . [it’s] a general order of things. Space is the order of co-existents . . . .[It’s among] true things, but ideal, like numbers.”

Edited by Boydstun
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An example I was presented with once:

Imagine a box floating in outer space. To the box, a vacuum pump is attached. Envisioning a chamber of 12" cubed, the contention is that if everything has been evacuated from the chamber, one is left with a void. There is a context in which this is correct. The 12" cubical void could be filled with a variety of other matter, but it would not satisfy the individual who established the shifting criteria of the thought experiment.

So long as the walls of the cube are 12" apart, at least the distance between the walls fill the cavity. The space therein is not matter, and if it is nothing then what is being discussed?

If there were nothing between the walls of the cube, I would contend that they would be in contact with each other, and the 12" cube cavity would not exist. While the 12" cube is present, what is the identity and nature of that which fills it is a subject for the science of physics. Philosophy, in turn, evaluates the scientific claim to ensure it is free of contradiction.

Edited by dream_weaver
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1 hour ago, Boydstun said:

MS, So do you think that space is a real thing, though not a physical thing?

I think space is real, but not a thing, as in an object or body. It's what most people mean when they refer to nothing rather than a mere absence of something. You could look at the space between two trees and say there is nothing there, because you don't see a thing in that space. Then science can reveal that gas molecules are in that space, and with tools we can still see a space between the molecules. We can break the molecules into smaller pieces with space between them, but what of the space?

As for whether space is physical, I don't see how it can be. But I'm curious about your idea of "physical." You say space has a structure. Is this a physical structure of some sort? Does that mean it's composed of particles or energy puffs or something else? If so, do these space things have space between them?

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2 hours ago, Boydstun said:

Do you think Leibniz got it right when he wrote the following?

“Space is something, . . . [it’s] a general order of things. Space is the order of co-existents . . . .[It’s among] true things, but ideal, like numbers.”

No. Leibniz was too much of a theist and idealist for my taste.

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2 hours ago, dream_weaver said:

Imagine a box floating in outer space. To the box, a vacuum pump is attached. Envisioning a chamber of 12" cubed, the contention is that if everything has been evacuated from the chamber, one is left with a void. There is a context in which this is correct. The 12" cubical void could be filled with a variety of other matter, but it would not satisfy the individual who established the shifting criteria of the thought experiment.

So long as the walls of the cube are 12" apart, at least the distance between the walls fill the cavity. The space therein is not matter, and if it is nothing then what is being discussed?

If there were nothing between the walls of the cube, I would contend that they would be in contact with each other, and the 12" cube cavity would not exist. While the 12" cube is present, what is the identity and nature of that which fills it is a subject for the science of physics. Philosophy, in turn, evaluates the scientific claim to ensure it is free of contradiction.

When your 12" cube is empty, none of the particles of reality which exist have attributes i.e. coordinates in space, which coincide with the innermost space of the 12" cube.

This does not, of course, in any way contradict with the fact that in times previous, many particles possessed such physical coordinates. Nor does it contradict the fact that presently, when empty, particles, systems, and energy outside possess the potential to cause, over time, some particles to again possess coordinates coinciding with the interior of the 12".

Stating that the cube is empty, in fact means, of those things which exist, none possess the attributes of position coinciding with inside the cube.  Stating that the cube is empty does not mean it is full of some kind of "nothing".  It is NOT full of anything, nor does it need be.

 

In any case, the absence of particles possessing coordinates inside the empty box, has no causative effect, does not constitute an imperative nor a logical necessity, making the "walls" of the empty cube possess the same spatial coordinates (definition of "in contact"). 

In fact, many physical tests could be performed to verify this.  Particles with definite momentum would take definite finite time to traverse from one wall to the other.  A particles at one wall and at another wall will feel different forces from a third particle.  If the first two were "in contact" they would feel the same forces from the third particle.

 

Coordinates specify relationships verifiable in terms of interaction and causation.  The mere fact that no particle has coordinates to cause an interaction that would otherwise be felt from the center of your cube (say a gravitational or electromagnetic pull), in other words no operative element of reality is at those coordinates (i.e. no interaction is felt from the center because no thing is there) does not in any way necessitate any conclusion about the absence.  I.e. there is no positive consequence of absence, only the absence of an otherwise expected positive consequence.

 

That which exists is the positive, all the possibilities are the background, not all of the possibilities are always occupied by that which exists.  This is the same for frequency, momentum, and position.

 

 

Edited by StrictlyLogical
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5 hours ago, dream_weaver said:

The space therein is not matter, and if it is nothing then what is being discussed?

You're discussing a section of space. It is not nothing as in a zero. It is nothing as in unoccupied by a material thing. Defining it positively is a real challenge, because it is unlike every thing that exists. It's just space. It's where everything is.

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MS & SL, I like the idea of space as a potential for occupancy. Potentials of nature are real things in my book and so are potential things that might be invented and gotten a patent on. Potential are distinct from mere possibilities in my usage. Possibilities are things in the mind that is engaged in thinking. Potentials are already out there as it were, and together with actualities, they compose existence. Potentials, hence space of the world is real. Space, even unoccupied space, is real, is an existent.

However, potential for material or field occupancy is not the only potential that space is. There is a line in space right now that will become coincident with, a week from right now, the spin axis of the earth, and the spin axis of the earth would be the spin axis of the earth (a line in space) even if there were an empty cavity all the way through the earth along its axis of spin.

MS, one reason I speak of physical space is to allude to the distinction of (i) geometries that are only abstract from (ii) the abstract geometries that are instantiated in particular situations in the physical world. In the last two centuries geometries came to be discovered (by the methods of mathematics) that are valid geometries, but so far as we know, they have no physical instantiations, no applications. Some of the new geometries are ones for which we have found physical application. These can be 3D like Euclidean geometry, but be a geometry in which, for example, triangles sum to more than 2R or to less than 2R, among other differences they have with Euclidean geometry. They are hard to visualize except by looking at how their 2D surfaces look when embedded in 3D Euclidean geometry. The reason we were able to discover these geometries in mathematics is because Descartes and Pascal figured out the beginnings of how we can represent curves on surfaces or in space by algebraic equations (analytic geometry). Such algebraic representation can be made of the visualizable geometry that we learn in high school in Euclid's Elements. That is, analytic geometry can represent synthetic geometry (the sorts of proof we do in high school geometry class and that the Greeks did are the methods directly dealing with synthetic geometry), and indeed through manipulating equations of curves, new discoveries of relationships in Euclidean synthetic geometry were made. There are synthetic geometric relationships that can be found for Non-Eulidean geometries via analytic representations of those geometries that cannot be visualized (in 3D or higher), yet have been found to have physical application. (Now I don't want to leave the natural impression that we can make up any sort of geometry we like as a new abstract geometry. Mathematics has its criteria for what constitutes a geometry, even a merely abstract one that, for all we know, may not have any physical instantiation anywhere. Just now, one of the books I'm studying pertains to those mathematical constraints; it's title is Geometric Possibility.)

Edited by Boydstun
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Suppose:

Every material "entity" has associated with it at least one position in space-time, i.e. something of it must somewhere be and at some time.

 

Suppose:  

Where and when (space x and time t) are are attributes of entities and relative attributes, their consequences on reality are real and independent of an observer's state of mind.

 

Suppose:

Any entity, at least in its relevant part Q of which it is somewhere (x) and at some time (t), can be described as Q(x,t).

 

Claim:

Where and when, as such, (call them X and T) do not themselves possess a position in space-time, space, or time i.e. 

X(x,t)

and

T(x,t)

are incoherent and circular.

and so are

X(x)

and 

T(t)

A position in space does not have a position in space, it IS a position in space which is attributable to some aspect of an entity. And a moment in time does not have a moment in time, it IS a moment in time which is attributable to some aspect of an entity.

 

Summary:  Points or intervals of space-time are not "in" space-time, they ARE space-time.  

 

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By the time of Descartes, many thinkers had come round to conjecturing matter to be composed of atoms with empty space between them. And they often thought there to be empty space in the farther reaches, beyond the material Creation. In his mature thought, Descartes came to think the idea of vacuum space to be incoherent. From his view that the essence of body is extension, he moved to the conclusion that extension (space) cannot be empty of matter. Then too, from the fact that extension must be extension of something—not of nothing, which has no properties—he moved to the conclusion that space must be a substance. An extended thing must be extended substance, indeed, extended body.

“If God were to remove all body contained in a vessel and to permit nothing else to enter in the place of the body removed, we must respond that the sides of the vessel would, by virtue of this, be mutually contiguous” (1644).

"Space . . . does not in reality differ from the corporeal substance contained in it except in the way in which we usually conceive of it. For the extension in length, breadth, and depth which constitute space is plainly the same as that which constitutes body. But there is this difference. In body we consider it as an individual, and we think that it always changes whenever the body changes, but in space we attribute only a generic unity so that when the body that feels that space changes, the extension of the space is not thought to change, but is thought to remain one and the same as long as it retains the same size and shape, and keeps the same situation among certain external bodies through which we determine that space.” (1644). The space considered generically could be occupied by other things. (See Daniel Garbers’ Descartes’ Metaphysical Physics, chap. 5.)

And more, to Henry More, Descartes writes: “In God, in angels, and in our mind I understand no extension of substance but at most the extension of power, so that an angel can exercise its power now in a greater, now in a lesser part of a corporeal substance. For if there were no body, I should think that there would also be no space with which an angel or God [though still existing] would be coextensive.” (Quoted in Garber 1992, 146; parenthetical in square brackets mine.)

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1. Is the relation between an existent and nonexistence nothing? That is, is there no such relationship outside of cognitive operations?

2. Is the relation between an actual situation and a possible (potential) situation the same as the relation between an existent and nonexistence?

If we say Yes to the first question and No to the second, it seems we have not precluded that empty space—the void—is an existent, a kind of existent.

If we say Yes to the first question and Yes to the second, then the void would seem to be nothing, and there is no distance between the walls of Greg’s cube, meaning either zero separation or the concept of separation-distance is inapplicable to one wall vis-a-vis another wall, and indeed the angles between the walls also becomes inapplicable, or meaningless, which is too weird for words. 

Even if we say No to the first question, surely it is most plausible that the answer to the second question is No. Surely the relationship between an actual situation and a possible situation is not the same as the relationship between an existent and nonexistence. Then the relationship between an occupied space and an unoccupied space is an existent and not the relationship between an existent and nonexistence. And this would seem to not preclude existence of lines and geometric relations within the void. Then too, it would seem harmonious with all this that the lines and geometrical relations in the void are there independently of any cognizance of them. (Newton would say they are not there independently of the divine understanding, but let us leave that aside.)

However, the point of intersection of two intersecting lines in the void would seem to be something independent of the wider circumstance that matter or fields could be present at that point. Indeed the void would seem to be able to have some characters more generally that are not dictated by its potential for occupancy by (or boundedness by) matter or fields. And not dictated in all its characteristics by a general circumstance that without any entities and their attributes that are not spatial ones there would not be space, physical space.

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3 hours ago, Boydstun said:

 

1. Is the relation between an existent and nonexistence nothing? That is, is there no such relationship outside of cognitive operations?

2. Is the relation between an actual situation and a possible (potential) situation the same as the relation between an existent and nonexistence?

If we say Yes to the first question and No to the second, it seems we have not precluded that empty space—the void—is an existent, a kind of existent.

If we say Yes to the first question and Yes to the second, then the void would seem to be nothing, and there is no distance between the walls of Greg’s cube, meaning either zero separation or the concept of separation-distance is inapplicable to one wall vis-a-vis another wall, and indeed the angles between the walls also becomes inapplicable, or meaningless, which is too weird for words. 

Even if we say No to the first question, surely it is most plausible that the answer to the second question is No. Surely the relationship between an actual situation and a possible situation is not the same as the relationship between an existent and nonexistence. Then the relationship between an occupied space and an unoccupied space is an existent and not the relationship between an existent and nonexistence. And this would seem to not preclude existence of lines and geometric relations within the void. Then too, it would seem harmonious with all this that the lines and geometrical relations in the void are there independently of any cognizance of them. (Newton would say they are not there independently of the divine understanding, but let us leave that aside.)

However, the point of intersection of two intersecting lines in the void would seem to be something independent of the wider circumstance that matter or fields could be present at that point. Indeed the void would seem to be able to have some characters more generally that are not dictated by its potential for occupancy by (or boundedness by) matter or fields. And not dictated in all its characteristics by a general circumstance that without any entities and their attributes that are not spatial ones there would not be space, physical space.

How do you distinguish between a first material situation (configuration function space time) which exists (in reality) and a second material situation which potentially could exist (and perhaps will in future) but which does not (yet) exist, and in what sense does the potential exist (as ... what?) while the first material situation actually exists and the second does not?

 

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SL, I'd cease thinking of what exists as only what is actual, and I'd distinguish between existents that are actual and existents that are potential. So that even potentials that were attached to the actuals of yesterday and did not become actual would nonetheless be part of the totality of existence yesterday. And since I think of past existence as part of the totality of existence, I'd count unactualized potentials of yesterday as part of existence. So it was a potential in the total situation yesterday that I would yesterday water the one indoor plant we have. But midnight passed, and I never watered it. (Nor did it need watering---by way of pleading my innocence.) So to my way of thinking, the potential yesterday that I would water the plant is today part of existence that we should just class as an unactualized potential forever and ever, existence without end. Actual watering of the plant yesterday is nonexistent, but potential watering of the plant yesterday is an existent.

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5 hours ago, Boydstun said:

 

SL, I'd cease thinking of what exists as only what is actual, and I'd distinguish between existents that are actual and existents that are potential. So that even potentials that were attached to the actuals of yesterday and did not become actual would nonetheless be part of the totality of existence yesterday. And since I think of past existence as part of the totality of existence, I'd count unactualized potentials of yesterday as part of existence. So it was a potential in the total situation yesterday that I would yesterday water the one indoor plant we have. But midnight passed, and I never watered it. (Nor did it need watering---by way of pleading my innocence.) So to my way of thinking, the potential yesterday that I would water the plant is today part of existence that we should just class as an unactualized potential forever and ever, existence without end. Actual watering of the plant yesterday is nonexistent, but potential watering of the plant yesterday is an existent.

What distinguishes such an existent from something purely imagined (as a thought) in the mind?  If it currently exists out there ... what can you say about its existence now other than it was/is/will be a potential, and it is nonactual?  In other words, what distinguishes between nonactual existents and non existents?  (for that matter what makes some existents actual and others non actual)

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On 11/26/2020 at 6:04 PM, Boydstun said:

. . . Potentials of nature are real things in my book and so are potential things that might be invented and gotten a patent on. Potential are distinct from mere possibilities in my usage. Possibilities are things in the mind that is engaged in thinking. Potentials are already out there as it were, and together with actualities, they compose existence. . . .

SL, I may have a general idea for a device I'll work on inventing that merely takes heat from the devices' surrounding environment such as air and generates electricity flowing out from wires from the device. That is possibility. It may be something lying within the potentials of materials and their configurations or not, so far as I know as I continue to try particular ways of making the device. Then one day I notice that such a device would be a "perfect refrigerator" that we learn about in thermodynamics, which is a violation of the second law of thermodynamics. Then I know that the possibility I was entertaining is not a potential among actual existents.

That is our cognitive job: to find which possibilities are potentials among the actuals. At least that is part of our cognitive job in negotiating our way through the physical world. We also use possibilities for entertainment, and for that---as in Bugs Bunny---whether the possibilities are potentials matters far less if it matters at all. 

Of course someone might work further on the invention I quit working on, thinking "Well, maybe there is a way around the second law of thermo. Maybe it has limitations in the circumstances to which it applies, and if I succeed in making this device, we'll begin to discern what are those limitations that presently are entirely concealed." I'm not one to venture my further time on that pursuit; I'm sure enough there is no such potential. But even if someone were to go on working on such a device, she will be exercising possibilities, and whether one or more of them are a potential of actual things is not open to our choice. Potentials are dependent on actuals, but independent of our cognition about them.

This issue is old and settled with me. It's not on my frontier of issues, and I want now to get back to my work on my own frontiers. We discussed some of this same territory in another thread before, and probably without advance.* For that reason too, I'll leave off it here. 

Edited by Boydstun
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23 hours ago, Boydstun said:

1. Is the relation between an existent and nonexistence nothing? That is, is there no such relationship outside of cognitive operations?

I think this depends on whether a cake has the potential to not exist anymore. If the cake I'm presently holding can not exist after I eat it, then it relates to nonexistence in that it has that potential for not existing. If the cake lacks such potential, then it must always exist, and so when I eat my cake I can have it too.

As that is absurd, I suspect that potentials don't actually exist apart from our mental grasp of what's possible in the future.

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I have come to be of the mind that communication is for understanding.  That said I am not of the mind that somehow everyone must understand each other and hence I understand your disinterest in going further... but so you know... I am/was interested in understanding what you think, and why.

I’m sorry you don’t wish to share anymore, however, thank you for sharing as much as you have.

 

Edited by StrictlyLogical
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I'm with Stephen.

Since Alice was born in very early 1905 we know she was conceived in spring of 1904. Now, she could have not been conceived — if say Zinovy had inhaled any more of what he was heating and compounding at the shop the day before then his sperm count would have been lowered and a different cell would have won the race to the egg. Or if maybe Anna had exercised any extra the two weeks prior then a different egg would have travelled to the uterus. Alice would not exist if those or any other choices incompatible with her actualization had occurred.

But her actualization did occur. So we know that at 12:01am the day of her conception everything required for the existence of Alice, existed. Therefore the full-blown potential for Alice existed. The non-existence of the potential for Alice at that moment of the universe is incompatible with her conception later that day. Therefore her potential to exist fully existed, it was and will always be one of the existents of existence, even if she had never actualized. 

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On 11/29/2020 at 5:41 AM, Boydstun said:

We also use possibilities for entertainment, and for that---as in Bugs Bunny---whether the possibilities are potentials matters far less if it matters at all.

😊 For Wile E. Coyote pursuing the Road Runner, the possibilities are of utmost importance. 😊

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15 hours ago, Jon Letendre said:

Therefore her potential to exist fully existed, it was and will always be one of the existents of existence, even if she had never actualized. 

Life can fully exist now, the state of your living for example.  When you die, your life goes out of existence.  When all that is required for you to continue to live is no longer present, life ceases. This is fundamental.

It would be non sensical for us to conclude that, your life’s having “fully existed” implies therefore that it must “always be one of the existents of existence”.  It is not so, no matter how much we all wish it were true.

Using both Occam and Rand’s razors, is it not simple to conclude that potentials may fully exist when they do exist, when all that is required for that potential to exist actually exists, and go out of existence, as does life, when everything required for it to continue as a potential are no longer present.  

What is it you could claim about the nature of a potential that could make them immortal, continuing forever?  How? Where?  In what?  Cannot they simply go out of existence as life does?

Edited by StrictlyLogical
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Potentials as it use the concept are only potentials of particular actual things in actual situations. Actuals and their potentials are always at a certain time(s). The potential of an actual fetus developing from a particular blastomere at t1 will cease to be a potential for that blastomere if the blastomere fails to attach to the uterine wall and just flows on away and disintegrates. At t2 when the blastomere failed to attach, then and thereafter, it no longer had the potential to become a fetus (in the scenario I just described). It remains a fact that there was a potential for a fetus to develop from that blastomere at t1. This fact is part of the all of existence that is past existent. A past potential of a past actual. Not now a potential, supposing t2 was yesterday.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

George Walsh: "If you talk about the glass merely in terms of the macroscopic level, then don't you need some concept of 'dispositions'?"

Ayn Rand: "In what way? How?"

Walsh: "Because the glass is not acting now, it's not breaking into pieces."

Leonard Peikoff: "Well, what's wrong with the Aristotelian concept of 'potentiality'? An entity has the capacity to act because of its nature."

Walsh: "Well, the reason I was bringing this up was because I thought that you rejected the concept of 'potentiality'."

Rand: "No. What made you think that? I have referred to actual and potential in any number of ways in any number of articles. Even if I didn't write on this subject directly, what would make you think that we reject the Aristotelian view on this?"

Walsh: "All I can say is that I have memory or a misremembrance of someone saying that Objectivism does not accept the Aristotelian concept of 'potentiality'."

Rand: "Specifically, that wasn't me. Unless it was in some context of what Aristotle makes of it, as in regard to his form-matter dichotomy."

Peikoff: "Or if 'potentiality' becomes the bare possibility of being something---as in his views on ultimate 'prime matter'. Most of Aristotle's usage of the concept of 'potentiality', so far as I understand, is quite rational."

Walsh: "He defines 'motion' entirely in terms of potentiality, as the passage from potentiality to actuality. Would you agree with him there?"

Rand: "No. But that's not disagreeing with the concept of potentiality, but only with its application to this particular instance."

(ITOE app. 285-86)

 

 

 

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2 hours ago, Boydstun said:

Potentials as it use the concept are only potentials of particular actual things in actual situations. Actuals and their potentials are always at a certain time(s). The potential of an actual fetus developing from a particular blastomere at t1 will cease to be a potential for that blastomere if the blastomere fails to attach to the uterine wall and just flows on away and disintegrates. At t2 when the blastomere failed to attach, then and thereafter, it no longer had the potential to become a fetus (in the scenario I just described). It remains a fact that there was a potential for a fetus to develop from that blastomere at t1. This fact is part of the all of existence that is past existent. A past potential of a past actual. Not now a potential, supposing t2 was yesterday.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

George Walsh: "If you talk about the glass merely in terms of the macroscopic level, then don't you need some concept of 'dispositions'?"

Ayn Rand: "In what way? How?"

Walsh: "Because the glass is not acting now, it's not breaking into pieces."

Leonard Peikoff: "Well, what's wrong with the Aristotelian concept of 'potentiality'? An entity has the capacity to act because of its nature."

Walsh: "Well, the reason I was bringing this up was because I thought that you rejected the concept of 'potentiality'."

Rand: "No. What made you think that? I have referred to actual and potential in any number of ways in any number of articles. Even if I didn't write on this subject directly, what would make you think that we reject the Aristotelian view on this?"

Walsh: "All I can say is that I have memory or a misremembrance of someone saying that Objectivism does not accept the Aristotelian concept of 'potentiality'."

Rand: "Specifically, that wasn't me. Unless it was in some context of what Aristotle makes of it, as in regard to his form-matter dichotomy."

Peikoff: "Or if 'potentiality' becomes the bare possibility of being something---as in his views on ultimate 'prime matter'. Most of Aristotle's usage of the concept of 'potentiality', so far as I understand, is quite rational."

Walsh: "He defines 'motion' entirely in terms of potentiality, as the passage from potentiality to actuality. Would you agree with him there?"

Rand: "No. But that's not disagreeing with the concept of potentiality, but only with its application to this particular instance."

(ITOE app. 285-86)

 

 

 

Thank you for adding to this.

Would you say that any fact of anything that happened or existed in the past, now lives on in the form of causal traces or repercussions of that past?  If so then would it be correct to characterize a past potential which never actualized as traceable in the current configuration of existence as having once been a potential?  In a sense there is memory of that having once been a potential.

Is it proper to distinguish between this memory of the potential and the potential itself?

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