tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-447603865959500290.post7514075334126269729..comments2024-03-28T02:54:46.537-04:00Comments on The TOF Spot: Summa origines scientiarum: Articulus 3TheOFloinnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14756711106266484327noreply@blogger.comBlogger41125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-447603865959500290.post-35141592976581229582016-01-17T07:40:18.763-05:002016-01-17T07:40:18.763-05:00Sorry to correct you (and for making a nekro-comme...Sorry to correct you (and for making a nekro-comment) but it happened that Yuri Gagarin was himself a devout christian and therefore he never had said anything like 'I didn't see any god' (on the contrary he once said that what he had seen made him even more devout))<br />It was Nikita Khruschev who made such a brilliant objection (once talking to some Orthodox priests).<br />Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06610557552776278304noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-447603865959500290.post-52454010826738987842014-02-13T08:50:01.247-05:002014-02-13T08:50:01.247-05:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-447603865959500290.post-90528065577474459622013-12-16T14:22:20.400-05:002013-12-16T14:22:20.400-05:00Spotting marine fossils in mountains is presumably...Spotting marine fossils in mountains is presumably not impossible in other countries, too. In the Zagros Mountains, say.TheOFloinnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14756711106266484327noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-447603865959500290.post-28365707642278419982013-12-16T09:09:40.892-05:002013-12-16T09:09:40.892-05:00The Greek philosopher Xenophanes observed marine f...<i>The Greek philosopher Xenophanes observed marine fossils in the hills of Greece and believed them to be actual fish and shellfish somehow turned to stone. The only natural process he knew of that could deposit marine life in the high hills was a flood -- a really, really big flood. Like a cover-the-whole-world flood. This bit of wisdom entered common culture and showed up in the legends of a great many cultures. (Other peoples than the Greeks could spot fossil shells.)</i><br /><br />Surely that doesn't account for the Near Eastern stories of Zisudra, Atrahasis, and Noah, all of which predate Xenophanes by hundreds of years at least, nor the various legends in parts of the world without contact with the Greeks of the time. OTOH, I suppose those legends don't really tell of a "global" or "worldwide" flood, since (unlike the Greeks) those people had no concept of the globe, and their concept of "world" or "land" was much different (and smaller). I wonder how the story of Noah would've been interpreted historically if it had been kept in something like its original context, and not identified with the world-covering flood postulated by Xenophanes et al?The Deucehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09664665914768916965noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-447603865959500290.post-72926441517644986492013-11-25T12:26:21.587-05:002013-11-25T12:26:21.587-05:00"Nokter Labeo:"
You mean Notker Labeo. ..."Nokter Labeo:"<br /><br />You mean Notker Labeo. Notker or - in German sometimes - Notger is his name, Labeo means he had big lips (or people liked to tease him for it anyway).HGLhttp://filolohika.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-447603865959500290.post-1464923645216906862013-11-23T08:01:47.046-05:002013-11-23T08:01:47.046-05:00I'd think the question of sensory perception b...I'd think the question of sensory perception being reliable would be very pertinent because, as I understand it, hearing the Koran recited with correct pronunciation is functionally similar to receiving the Eucharist for Catholics. Xena Catolicanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-447603865959500290.post-20319923619423349272013-11-22T15:09:54.447-05:002013-11-22T15:09:54.447-05:00Which is why I wrote a certain part of this chapte...Which is why I wrote a certain part of this chapter:<br /><br /><a href="http://enfrancaissurantimodernism.blogspot.com/2011/12/susans-dreams-become-book.html" rel="nofollow">Susan's dreams become a book</a><br /><br />It is fan fiction and not Neil Gaiman style.<br /><br />As to the question of vaccum, the answers seems to be no, unless you redefine it.Hans Georg Lundahlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01055583255516264955noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-447603865959500290.post-85878017581691457882013-11-22T14:43:58.541-05:002013-11-22T14:43:58.541-05:00God's infinite power assures us that He could ...<i>God's infinite power assures us that He could have created other Worlds and could have created a Vacuum. The question then became, "Well, did He?"</i><br /><br />Most famous affirmative answer to the first of these (condemned thesis 34) being of course C. S. Lewis' Narnian "other creation."Hans Georg Lundahlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01055583255516264955noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-447603865959500290.post-33589797568209113712013-11-22T14:40:41.659-05:002013-11-22T14:40:41.659-05:00It was a hastily put together list
Indeed, I copi...<i>It was a hastily put together list</i><br /><br />Indeed, I copied a list reorganised in chapters after subject.<br /><br /><i>and contains many duplications,</i><br /><br />No real ones. The 219 or perhaps rather (as in one manuscript) originally 220 condemned theses meander between the subjects. Of some fifty errors on God the original numbers go from thesis one (denial of Trinity, unless that was thesis 2) to very close to the end.<br /><br />A rearranged list was made. It was called theses condemned in Paris and in England. Meaning they are still forbidden there as well as in the colonies of England and France, unless they were revoked (I'll get back to this in a moment).<br /><br /><i>and was not endorsed by the Pope.</i><br /><br />If that was Duhem's historic conclusion, it was not Piché's more recent one. The Pope actually did encourage Bishop Stephen II Tempier to condemn errors of what one may stile the Averroist and Necessitist / Nihilist / Agnostic type.<br /><br />However, Stephen III issued a revocation of the condemnations "insofar as they are reputed to condemn any thesis of Thomas Aquinas" ... that revocation was also endorsed by its Pope, and it was in connexion with the canonisation of the Angelic Doctor.<br /><br />But, the thing is, no real conflict between St Thomas and Bishop Tempier has been detected.<br /><br />My guess about the thesis 220 is that it was cut off from the original list in order to comply with the new episcopal order 48 years later - whereas the other condemnations remained untouched, since found not to be in conflict with St Thomas.Hans Georg Lundahlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01055583255516264955noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-447603865959500290.post-86375247482467370912013-11-22T14:30:20.551-05:002013-11-22T14:30:20.551-05:00Continued:
Among secondary causes there are also ...Continued:<br /><br />Among secondary causes there are also angelic ones. Matter is not credited with the power to move other than "to its natural place" (up for air and fire, down for earth and water), any other movement is due to either chance or spirit, and this either human (art) or angelic or God Himself.<br /><br />As to "energy" it is a controversial concept. It translates directly as "potentia" in Latin. And a potentia cannot have a quantity per se. It can of course have a maximal potency - a silver smith's hammer handled by a child will not break a wall of stone. But it cannot have a definite quantity.<br /><br />Now, impetus is the thing the hammer gathers on its way from where child held it to when it hits wall. It corresponds to kinetic energy. But then it is obviously wrong when modern science says "energy can neither be destroyed nor created" and says kinetic energy was before it became kinetic potential energy of minimally same quantity (some might have been lost). I e the potential of being a potential.<br /><br />If you study precursors of Newton's two first laws in John Philoponus, you will find that Newton changed the formulation significantly by adding "or uniform motion" as if that were equivalent of rest in one place.<br /><br /><i>Another set of folks fears that this is true and therefore finds it highly rational to deny the piano.</i><br /><br />As a rebuttal of either Geocentrism or Young Earth Creationism, this is a strawmannus maximus. If it refers to anyone else, say who, but YEC and Geocentrics are not disciples of Al Ghazali.<br /><br />And thank you for saying "piano" and "pianist", because that means - correctly - that God is handling the Universe and its processes all the time. The processes, notably day and night, would not be there except for God continually moving it.<br /><br />I have nothing against a correct investigation of secondary causes. But it cannot push the First cause further into the background than was traditionally held to be the case, rationally.<br /><br />Anything a secondary cause can do, the First cause can also do, and therefore at some point the First cause can be the real cause even if a secondary were thinkable and coherent. Lamech was seventh from Adam. It was thinkable that beyond his ancestors five generations back there were instead of just two ancestors sixtyfour. And it was thinkable that behind "those" - the generation of Adam and Eve - there were instead of God, the First Cause, the usual kind of Second cause, i e a generation of 128 people.<br /><br /><a href="http://filolohika.blogspot.com/2013/11/let-us-suppose-lamech-was-uniformitarian.html" rel="nofollow">Let us Suppose Lamech was Uniformitarian</a><br /><br />Projecting Secondary causes backwards the usual way they go will not always lead you to the truth, because there is a First Cause. And there is a finite number of secondary causes between it and the effects we observe right here and now (whichever place we read this at whatever time).Hans Georg Lundahlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01055583255516264955noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-447603865959500290.post-11602252952496847252013-11-22T12:54:44.285-05:002013-11-22T12:54:44.285-05:00Second Causes are instrumental and depend upon the...<i>Second Causes are instrumental and depend upon the Primary Cause for their effectiveness.</i><br /><br />Absolutely. However it is not an infinite distance in order of causation between Primary and secondary.<br /><br />to be continued<br /><br />At some point a secondary cause is indeed directly caused by the primary.<br /><br />For instance, God is directly himself turning Heaven around Earth each day. The things turned involve for instance the Sun and therefore the Sunshine each day is secondarily caused by that star.<br /><br /><i>but that He had endowed matter with natures capable of secondary causation</i><br /><br />Natures are the four elements and the animals and plants and diverse minerals with diverse virtues.<br /><br />Not energy as understood by modern physics.HGLnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-447603865959500290.post-87038368051830534872013-11-22T12:25:35.632-05:002013-11-22T12:25:35.632-05:00It seems to me that the Muslim position explained ...<i>It seems to me that the Muslim position explained here doesn't actually allow a useful epistemology.</i><br /><br />Indeed it doesn’t; and that is why Islam to this day does not have a useful epistemology. As nearly as I can tell, they simply don’t ask the relevant questions, let alone think of answers for them. Those who try quickly find themselves angrily denounced by other Muslims, and often have fatwas pronounced against them by clerics. Salman Rushdie is not a particularly deep thinker, in strictly philosophical terms, but even his speculations are too far into <i>al-filasifah</i> to sit well with Islam.Tom Simonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16067031472666752839noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-447603865959500290.post-6416015815374993892013-11-22T09:49:02.064-05:002013-11-22T09:49:02.064-05:00a) William of Conches; St. Albertus Magnus; St. Th...a) William of Conches; St. Albertus Magnus; St. Thomas Aquinas; Bishop Nicole Oresme, among others. All of them averred that God was Primary Cause of all existence, but that He had endowed matter with natures capable of secondary causation, and it was the job of natural philosophy to determine these secondary causes. They held it as illegitimate to cite Divine intervention as the explanation of a natural phenomenon. Second Causes are instrumental and depend upon the Primary Cause for their effectiveness. But one set of folks believes that one they have understood the mechanism of the piano, there is no need for the pianist. Another set of folks fears that this is true and therefore finds it highly rational to deny the piano.<br /><br />b) A closer inspection of the Condemnation of 1277 is called for. The bishop intervened wearing his hat as Rector of the University of Paris in a jurisdictional squabble between the Faculty of Arts and the Faculty of Theology in that University. It was a hastily put together list and contains many duplications, and was not endorsed by the Pope. However, it did serve to nudge natural philosophy away from Aristotelian deductive necessity and toward a more modern view of empirical induction. Pierre Duhem called it the "birthday of modern science." For example, one article condemned the Aristotelian notion that there cannot be more than one World; another, the notion that there cannot be a vacuum. God's infinite power assures us that He could have created other Worlds and could have created a Vacuum. The question then became, "Well, did He?"<br />TheOFloinnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14756711106266484327noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-447603865959500290.post-24979086064079784922013-11-22T05:08:44.336-05:002013-11-22T05:08:44.336-05:00I missed this one:
First of all the medieval Chri...I missed this one:<br /><br /><i>First of all the medieval Christians likewise rejected the idea of divine intervention to account for the common course of nature,</i><br /><br />Depends very much on what they qualify as "intervention".<br /><br />For instance if God and angels are all the time doing all the movements not simply due to nature (like fire going up or stones going down or wolves after rabbits or after shewolves) or to human decision, which is the Thomist position, even miracles are not properly speaking "interventions". Intervene is said about outside powers getting in where they are usually not.Hans Georg Lundahlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01055583255516264955noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-447603865959500290.post-39803464759464178032013-11-22T05:03:13.505-05:002013-11-22T05:03:13.505-05:00Even for the technically non-miraculous the Christ...Even for the technically non-miraculous the Christian (as opposed to Averroist) Philosophy "God did it" (for Creation in the past, neutral as to distinction between natural and miraculous events) or "God does it" (as to causing of daily rotation of the Universe, a prime example of the First Mover) was totally acceptable.<br /><br />Who said this anyway? <i>"Goddidit" was not an acceptable explanation in medieval Christian philosophy.</i><br /><br />If it was our dear TOF, I missed it, I would have contradicted it right away.<br /><br />I refer to the 219 condemnations by Bishop Tempier in 1276/1277 (latter year if it started in January, former if it did not end till March 25).<br /><br />I copied out and commented a list from Piché's book, but not his French translations:<br /><br /><a href="http://petitlien.com/tempier" rel="nofollow">http://petitlien.com/tempier</a>Hans Georg Lundahlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01055583255516264955noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-447603865959500290.post-19615667069288046852013-11-22T04:51:01.275-05:002013-11-22T04:51:01.275-05:00The Spiral Arm series is far-future high space ope...<i>The Spiral Arm series is far-future high space opera.</i><br /><br />Space opera depends on assuming Heliocentric-Acentric views of the cosmos, right?<br /><br />Now, Round Earth was confirmed by da Gama, but remember that Han Solo is a fiction and your own fiction a prediction that can go wrong.Hans Georg Lundahlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01055583255516264955noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-447603865959500290.post-44104148937658385632013-11-21T14:26:41.091-05:002013-11-21T14:26:41.091-05:00"Dark Ages" ?! dontcha know we have thos..."Dark Ages" ?! dontcha know we have those down to about 15 minutes? <br /><br />Xena Catolicanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-447603865959500290.post-85531446306471945712013-11-21T13:16:10.919-05:002013-11-21T13:16:10.919-05:00Answers are now on Answering TheOFloinn some moreAnswers are now on <a href="http://filolohika.blogspot.com/2013/11/answering-theofloinn-some-more.html" rel="nofollow">Answering TheOFloinn some more</a>Hans Georg Lundahlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01055583255516264955noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-447603865959500290.post-55356278361207522702013-11-21T12:58:12.010-05:002013-11-21T12:58:12.010-05:00I have also heard from youth in the age to be stud...I have also heard from youth in the age to be studying at senior high school "go take a work" or even "sell your butt".<br /><br />Maybe their teachers do not <i>want them to</i> take notice of any writing coming from me. Maybe because they are even worse than O'Flynn in answering my arguments (atheist teachers in Paris not being the brightest).<br /><br />Just maybe.<br /><br />And the fact that you remain anonymous does not make me trust you are either a Christian or an English speaker.Hans Georg Lundahlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01055583255516264955noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-447603865959500290.post-16385024249994146092013-11-21T12:54:20.212-05:002013-11-21T12:54:20.212-05:00Galen wasn't so bad compared to no medical the...Galen wasn't so bad compared to no medical theory at all. Like the moderns and postmoderns, who imagined the human body as a kind of machine or a kind of computer, resp., folks of ancient times imagined the human body as hydraulic, like aqueducts and water-clocks, so: the humour theories. At least they could point to how wet we are. The mechanists couldn't point to any gears or cogs, and the computerists can't point to any programs.<br /><br />The Latin stuff was never lost, but like all manuscripts had to be recopied from time to time and to make additional copies. The vast bulk was Cicero, who was held in high regard. There was also a great deal of Latin literature and the like. Abbess Hroswitha of Gandersheim: wrote six original comedies in rhymed prose in imitation of Terence, which she could not have done if Terence had not been available. (She also wrote an epic poem, The Deeds of Otto, in honor of the Emperor.) Dark Age libraries, from references in surviving works, included:<br />Alcuin: Aristotle, Cicero, Lucan, Pliny, Statius, Trogus Pompeius, Virgil, quotes from Ovid, Horace, Terence<br />Abbot Lupus of Ferriers: Cicero, Horace, Martial, Suetonius, Vergil<br />Abbo of Fleury: Horace, Sallust, Terence, Virgil<br />Nokter Labeo: translated works of Aristotle and Boethius’ <i>Consolation of Philosophy</i> <br />Gerbert of Aurillac: Horace, Juvenal, Lucan, Persius, Terence, Statius, Virgil<br />Desiderius of Monte Cassino: oversaw transcription of Horace, Seneca, Cicero, Ovid<br />Archbishop Alfano: Apuleius, Aristotle, Cicero, Plato, Varro, Virgil, imitations of Ovid, Horace<br /><br />The Greek stuff was almost completely unavailable at first, since the pagan Romans had not bothered to translate it into Latin. Boethius made a start at it. But as the governing elite shifted from <i>soi-doisant</i> Romans to jumped-up Franks and Goths, knowledge of Greek faded in the West. <br /><br />The great translators recovered Greek texts at first from commentaries written in Arabic (since the commentaries would quote the works they were commenting on, the original texts could be teased out). But the Arabic had been translated by Nestorian Christians from their native Syriac, which had earlier been translated from the original Greek, and so contained numerous translation errors; esp. since Syriac and Arabic were very different languages from Greek and Latin. Later, as the jihad faltered, they were able to access Greek texts directly in Sicily and Byzantium itself. Jacques de Venise brought Aristotle directly from Greek lands to Mt. St-Michel. William of Moerbeke worked in Sicily. Others had gone to Toledo in Spain.<br />Adelard of Bath translated the Elements of Euclid from Arabic to Latin. Robert of Chester translated the Al jabr of al-Khwarizmi, which was not originally Greek. Gerard of Cremona did Ptolemy’s <i>Almagest,</i> the <i>Physics</i> of Aristotle and his <i>Meteorology, On the Heavens and the Earth, On Generation and Corruption,</i> the <i>Posterior Analytics,</i> Euclid’s <i>Elements, The Geometry of the Three Brothers,</i> Galen’s <i>Medical Art,</i> ibn Sina’s <i>Canon of Medicine,</i> al-Razi’s <i>Book of Divisions.</i> A dozen astronomical texts, seventeen on mathematics and optics, fourteen on logic and natural philosophy, twenty-four on medicine. <br /><br />So you can see which way the translatory wind was blowing. <br />TheOFloinnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14756711106266484327noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-447603865959500290.post-2600387180826792452013-11-21T12:28:39.037-05:002013-11-21T12:28:39.037-05:00Is "anonymous" afraid of the debate?
I ...Is "anonymous" afraid of the debate?<br /><br />I am not too sophisticated to be a janitor, but too inefficient in scrubbing.HGLnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-447603865959500290.post-62074017730707105302013-11-21T09:21:22.143-05:002013-11-21T09:21:22.143-05:00Exactly!Exactly!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-447603865959500290.post-72763710674939969922013-11-21T07:39:39.051-05:002013-11-21T07:39:39.051-05:00Whenever Spain wasn't being invaded or occupie...Whenever Spain wasn't being invaded or occupied, it was a great place to be a writer monk or bishop. Of course, they did get a lot of invaders and occupiers, but there were good bits inbetween. But yeah, they were usually busy preserving or gathering and collating historical and literary information, not experimenting and collecting scientific data.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-447603865959500290.post-5146735514501154022013-11-21T07:27:29.810-05:002013-11-21T07:27:29.810-05:00Of course, a lot of monastic libraries in Ireland ...Of course, a lot of monastic libraries in Ireland were also torched by the Irish, both throughout history and in the Irish independence thing and civil wars. (It turns out that collecting manuscripts from across the country into Dublin, and then having a war in Dublin next to the manuscripts, is a bad idea.)<br /><br />There also seem to be some indication that nuns throughout the ages were big into the medical bits of natural philosophy, but unfortunately that meant that they were studying Greek humor theory and being led badly astray. Anyway, tons of nuns' libraries got torched throughout the ages when war passed by, and it also turns out to be a bad idea to collect manuscripts from convents you've just abolished and then have a big fire or flood at the national library you put them in. However, nuns are getting more credit these days for the manuscripts they copied out and those they authored, so there's a bit of compensation.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-447603865959500290.post-2302995867680505652013-11-21T07:18:53.854-05:002013-11-21T07:18:53.854-05:00When the Western Roman Empire went away, the monks...When the Western Roman Empire went away, the monks and nuns in safe places like Ireland and England and Spain were mostly coming from families of warrior nobles or poets. This is great for copying manuscripts, writing books and poetry, and doing the odd spot of linguistics. It's not so good for engineering and science. These monks and nuns were not ashamed of working with their hands, but descending to manual labor seems to have been regarded as a form of asceticism! (To be fair, though, the entire records and architecture of the great monastic centers and libraries of Ireland were almost entirely torched and destroyed by the English and Henry VIII, so the few natural philosophy treatises we have from Ireland are lucky survivors of what may have been a huge doomed company.)<br /><br />However, it's almost certainly true that the large monastic, legal, and poetic schools of Ireland in pre-Viking times probably influenced the founding of European cathedral schools, and later, of the universities. But I'm sure that university kids are glad that their teachers don't send them out begging or barding to the surrounding area to sing for their suppers every other day, and residents of university towns are probably glad too!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com