Philosophical musings on Quanta & Qualia;  Materialism & Spiritualism; Science & Religion; Pragmatism & Idealism, etc.

   Post 113.  January 8, 2021 continued  . . . .

  Aristotle and Einstein

   Substantial Form versus Accidental Matter   

 Another principle enunciated by Aristotle was Hylemorphism  (Greek : Form + Matter). He described “Form” as active & determining, and “Matter” as passive & indeterminate. Hence, it takes both to become a real thing. But, he also makes a distinction between Substantial Form (essential, self-existent) and Accidental Form (secondary; caused by outside force). These distinctions are important for discussions of the Materialism worldview, in which physical matter is considered the basic stuff of reality. From that perspective, the creative role of non-physical, but causal, Form (energy + pattern)8 is minimized, because we know it exists only by inference from its effects. For the purposes of empirical scientists, that emphasis is understandable, because, as Feser defines it, “matter . . . essentially just is that which limits form to a particular thing, time, and place, but also that which persists when an attribute is gained or lost”. Yet, for philosophers, that embodied form is merely “accidental” and secondary to the power to enform.

Aristotle’s further dissection of “Matter”, into Primary & Secondary or Accidental, may be prescient of a strange feature of modern physics. Feser asserts, “that is what prime matter is – the pure potential to receive form”. And the same definition could be applied to the current explanation of invisible amorph-ous “energy fields”9 from which the basic particles (photons, electrons) of matter emerge. Those “accidental” forms of matter are visible & tangible, but secondary in hierarchy to the Prime Matter of immaterial Fields. By that I mean, a magnetic “field” is nothing but a formless cloud of Potential, in which electrons exist only as un-actualized Virtual particles, until actualized by a random “fluctuation”. Scientists have no explanation for the mysterious cause of those sudden changes from potential to actual. But Aristotle would say that causation is an inherent property of Prime Matter to create actual matter from nothing-but-potential, which he attributed ultimately to the Prime Cause : God. “The idea of pure actuality is in fact the philosophical core of the Aristotelian conception of God”.

For many scientists though, the notion of “god” is referring to something unreal or ideal, not real or actual. So we need to understand that “Pure Actuality” is functionally the same as “Ultimate Potential” : the power to actualize, to convert Ideal into Real. From that perspective, G*D is the ultimate reality, of Power-to-Be (BEING10) not an actual created being. So, that creative power is also the “First Cause” or “Prime Mover” in our real-world chain of causation. However, Feser clarifies that “coming into being” is Creation, while “to cause to move” is merely Transportation. Moreover, to cause something else to move, like billiard balls, is simply Efficient Causation, but the First Cause of some ultimate goal is also the Final Causation (intention).

Philosopher David Hume, though, took issue with that ancient notion of causation, in favor of a godless definition. “A Humean account of causality, on which there is no objective rhyme or reason to the causal order but only the regularity that the mind creates and projects onto the world, is inevitable if final causality is abandoned”. Empirically, Hume may be correct, but theoretically, even atheist scientists must assume some connection between cause & effect. In my view, that missing link is invisible intangible EnFormAction (energy + intention).                    Post 113 continued . . . click Next

Is our world a chain reaction accident?

10. BEING :
    By BEING I mean the ultimate “ground of being”, which is simply the power to exist, and the power to create beings. My non-sectarian name for that omnipotence is G*D.
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page10.html

8. Causal Form :
    In Physics, the cause of all changes in physical form is assumed to be a transfer of energy from one thing to another. But when the new form is radically different, as in Phase Change, something more than raw energy is in play.
    That “extra” is the information (design or pat-tern) necessary to construct something new & different, as when liquid H20 becomes solid ice or steam, due to subtraction or addition of heat energy. Those new forms have novel properties not found in the original form.
    To convey the notion of “more than” energy, I coined the term EnFormAction : the act of enforming, of creating something different.
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page8.html

9. Energy Fields :
    “The Heisenberg uncertainty relation means that a quantum field cannot sit still. Instead, it froths and boils, a bubbling soup of particles and anti-particles, constantly created and destroyed.
    This complexity is what makes quantum field theory hard. Even nothingness is difficult to understand in quantum field theory.”
https://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/user/tong/whatisqft.html

Aristotle’s Revenge
The Metaphysical Foundations  of Physical and Biological Science

Edward Feser
Philosopher of
Metaphysics & Natural Theology

“Aristotelian metaphysics is not only compatible with modern science, but is implicitly presupposed by modern science.”

Matter and Form, Substance & Accident
  Matter never exists alone but only in conjunction with the other intrinsic principle of a thing, called form.
https://heightsforum.org/series_post/matter-form-substance-accidents/