ok

:)

Thank you for these elaborations.

do you agree that it makes sense for some thinkers to say that within the conditioned/contingent/created world, the existence of the effects caused by efficient causes depends on the prior existence of final causes (ie regularities)?

"makes sense" is too vague. I don't agree that there are final causes in nature or that the "end" of a particular natural process or event must be determined (and known by some mind) before the process or event begins. But I can't go into a discussion of final causality now, too much else to do.

Hi Ficino,

You wrote:

If it's not determined where an electron will land, and if that's true of all electrons, then the scientific observer may well make accurate predications about the whole wave, but I suspend judgment over whether the metaphysician has what he needs for the argument from final causality to establish the dependency of the efficient cause.

We have to be careful in saying “it is not determined where an electron will land”. We need to add the qualification “WITHIN a determined/known pattern” (just like what I have done in my previous comment). So despite our epistemological limitation (in contrast to God - The Unconditioned - who does not have such limitation and would know every electron’s exact future location), we do know that every electron will land within that known pattern. Hence every electron is determined to land only inside that regular pattern and not anywhere else outside that pattern (outside that pattern there is a much greater amount of locations that electrons could have landed if not because of the fact that every electron has a determined regularity to land only within that pattern).

The regularity that every electron will land within that pattern is one regularity (final cause) that scientists depend on to produce many useful gadgets for human use. The efficient cause (eg scientists) depends on the prior existence of final cause (eg the regularity of quantum particles’ behaviour such as as exemplified in where they would land after passing through a double-slit) to produce the effects (eg smart smart handphones).

The ability of efficient causes to produce effects requires the prior existence of regularities or final causes.

Another example: A carpenter (efficient cause) also depends on the existence of regularities (ie final cause) in the behaviour of wood and iron in order to produce gadgets such as tables and chairs.

Without the existence of regularity (final cause) in nature, it would be chaos, and chaos would result in the inability for the production of effects such as smart handphones or tables and chairs.

Given the above, does it make sense for some thinkers to say that within the conditioned/contingent/created world, the existence of the effects caused by efficient causes depends on the prior existence of final causes (ie regularities)?

You wrote:

I would think at first that ANY indeterminacy in the system or chain will scuttle the required pre-determinacy of the "end."

The existence of the determinacy of the pattern that all electrons would land in after passing through a double-slit means that it is false that ANY indeterminacy in the system will scuttle the requirement of the prior existence of final cause. It is relevant determinacy that matters; an irrelevant indeterminacy to the system would not affect the function/integrity/existence of system. Also, you should use the analogy of a net instead of a linear chain.

The relevant determinacy or regularity or final cause in the case of double-slit quantum experiment is that each electron would not land anywhere else other than within that pattern on the landing screen.

If every electron had lacked the regularity (final cause) to land within that determined pattern, then we would not have any pattern formed; the electrons would then have landed in a chaotic manner. And then we would really have indeterminacy!!!.

:)

Cheers!

Hi Ficino,

You wrote:

If it's not determined where an electron will land, and if that's true of all electrons, then the scientific observer may well make accurate predications about the whole wave, but I suspend judgment over whether the metaphysician has what he needs for the argument from final causality to establish the dependency of the efficient cause.

We have to be careful in saying “it is not determined where an electron will land”. We need to add the qualification “WITHIN a determined/known pattern” (as per what I have done in my previous comment). So despite our epistemological limitation (in contrast to God - The Unconditioned - who does not have such limitation), we know that every electron will land within that known pattern. Hence every electron is determined to land only inside that regular pattern and not anywhere else outside that pattern (outside that pattern there is a much greater amount of locations that electrons could have landed if not because of the fact that every electron has a determined regularity to land only within that pattern).

That regularity of the pattern which every electron will land within is one regularity (final cause) among many other regularities that scientists depend on to produce many useful gadgets for human use. The efficient cause (eg scientists) depends on the existence of final cause (eg the regularity of quantum particles’ behaviour such as as exemplified in where they would land after passing through a double-slit) to produce the effects (eg smart smart handphones).

Another example: A carpenter (efficient cause) also depends on the existence of regularity (ie final cause) in the behaviour of wood and iron in order to produce gadgets such as tables and chairs.

Without the existence of regularity (final cause) in nature, it would be chaos, and chaos would result in the inability for the production of smart handphones or tables and chairs.

Given the above, does it make sense for some thinkers to say that within the conditioned/contingent/created world, the existence of the effects caused by efficient causes depends on the prior existence of final causes (ie regularities)?

You wrote:

I would think at first that ANY indeterminacy in the system or chain will scuttle the required pre-determinacy of the "end."

The existence of the determinacy of the pattern that all electrons would land in after passing through a double-slit means that it is false that ANY indeterminacy in the system will scuttle the requirement of the prior existence of final cause. it is relevant determinacy that matters; an irrelevant indeterminacy to the system would not affect the function/integrity/existence of system or the net (ie it should not be seen as a linear chain but instead it is a net). The relevant determinacy or regularity or final cause in this case is that each electron would not land anywhere else other than within that pattern. If every electron had lacked the regularity (final cause) to land within that determined pattern, then we would not have any pattern formed; the electrons would then have landed in a chaotic manner. And then we would really have indeterminacy!!!.

:)

Cheers!

Interesting stuff, Johannes, about which I knew nothing - and still know almost nothing!

As to arguments in Thomism about the need for the final cause of a particular effect to be determined in order for the efficient cause even to begin its operation ...

Quantum indeterminacy is only an indeterminacy in one small aspect within a larger determined aspect.

... I would think at first that ANY indeterminacy in the system or chain will scuttle the required pre-determinacy of the "end." If it's not determined where an electron will land, and if that's true of all electrons, then the scientific observer may well make accurate predications about the whole wave, but I suspend judgment over whether the metaphysician has what he needs for the argument from final causality to establish the dependency of the efficient cause. Away with kinda-sorta fudge factors when we're dealing with purportedly necessary propositions!

But what do I know about quantum indeterminacy, lol.

Hi Ficino,

You wrote:

But quantum indeterminacy seems to call into question the idea that the end in any precise way is determinate when the op eration or action begins. I don't know enough to go into this.

Quantum indeterminacy is only an indeterminacy in one small aspect within a larger determined aspect. For example, when electrons are shot through a double slit, the larger determined aspect is that they would land on the screen based on a determined/known pattern governed by a wave function equation. The smaller indeterminacy aspect is where exactly a specific individual electron would land within the determined/known pattern on the screen.

There is an end (ie a regularity) in the behaviour of quantum particles being passed through a double slit or being put through some other set-up. As long as it is not the case that there is a lack of any regularity in the behaviour of quantum particles in quantum experiments, then we can say final cause exists even in quantum phenomena.

:)

Cheers!

I was checking out Nigel Cundy's blog a while ago but have not been there recently.

the principle of form of Aristotle and final causality are much more in line with the fundamentally indeterminate and non-reductional experimental findings of QFT.

This is interesting. I would wonder whether "fundamentally indeterminate" findings of QFT problematize final causality as it's generally posited by Thomists. It's often stated in Aquinas, and Dr. Bonnette invoked Maritain on this, that the final cause is the first of causes, not in time, but in order of nature, since for an agent to begin to act, the end of the action must already exist, at least in a mind - for the end is necessary for an action or operation to be an action or operation. I don't accept this, but we had a lot of discussion of the point maybe two years ago. But quantum indeterminacy seems to call into question the idea that the end in any precise way is determinate when the operation or action begins. I don't know enough to go into this.

As to the errant Newtonian physics, I only think, again off the top of my head, that it's interesting that Kant accepted that logic was a settled science in the syllogistic, coming from Aristotle, and physics as a settled science, coming from Newton, both being governed by laws universal and necessary. And then about a century later, revolutions came in logic and physics, undreamed of by Kant, but needed for inquiry to go further.

Neither experience, understanding as you define it, or judgment is knowledge. It is incongruous, then, to combine the three and say that knowledge is a whole made up of three parts, each of which can be in error. Knowledge cannot be in error. Your complex of three things does not advance beyond "belief." You need something else added to belief to make knowledge, and I see no reason to suppose that the "something else" is a cognitive state inferior to judgment or a triad of cognitive states that aren't knowledge. If it's the special structure of the triad, such that the structure is a whole greater than the sum of its parts, then it remains incongruous for your most controlling part to be sometimes in error. What guarantees that the triad, when it reaches the "knowledge" stage, is not in fact in error, and thus, not knowledge after all?

I shall leave this part of the discussion, since your epistemology is like nothing I've encountered either in A-T or elsewhere. And that's not even to mention the gap that many thinkers find between our presentations, which constitute our experience, your first level in your OP, and the extramental objects in the so-called external world, of which we take our presentations to be presentations.

> judgment as such therefore by your account is not knowledge

I've said this repeatedly. Judgment, performed incorrectly, is not knowledge. Judgment, even performed correctly, is not knowledge. Knowledge is a whole made up of three distinct components (in the case of the empirical world): experience, understanding, and judgment.

Moreover, experiencing (observing), understanding (insight to theory formation), and judging (grasping the conditions attendant to a theory, how they can be met, and whether they are in fact met) are all skills that can be performed well or poorly. Knowledge occurs when all three levels are performed correctly in co-ordination with each other.

"Factive" is a term that applies to discourse. If you say you know that P is true, the form of your statement "makes" (cf. facere in Latin) your claim entail that you're asserting that P is true. If you say, "I think that P is true," your statement does not entail that you're asserting that P is true. No doubt this is familiar, but what you say above makes me not sure.

What I was trying to keep repeating is that since you allowed that judgments can't be false, judgment as such therefore by your account is not knowledge, according to usual accounts of knowledge, since knowledge cannot be in error and still be knowledge. Judgments, if they can be false, are a species of belief.