Of Holes and A-Holes

[Chas]

So...

Matter = material

Form = immaterial

Matter cannot be without form, although it is formless. Form cannot be without matter, although it is "matter-less".

Is that a correct reflection of the position you hold, Chad?

Something like that. It's a generally Aristotelian conception of Reality. I call the first Primal Matter, that principle whose only attribute is being. The second I call the Ideal Form, the informing principle that serves as the basis of all particular forms.

I urge you to move your view of reality a couple of millennia forward, or at least into The Enlightenment.

[genkaus]

So...

Matter = material

Form = immaterial

Matter cannot be without form, although it is formless. Form cannot be without matter, although it is "matter-less".

Is that a correct reflection of the position you hold, Chad?

Something like that. It's a generally Aristotelian conception of Reality.

Not really. According to Aristotle, both matter and form can be perceived by senses, so they'd both be considered material.

I call the first Primal Matter, that principle whose only attribute is being. The second I call the Ideal Form, the informing principle that serves as the basis of all particular forms.

That's Platonian, not Aristotelian.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Something like that. It's a generally Aristotelian conception of Reality.

According to Aristotle, both matter and form can be perceived by senses, so they'd both be considered material.

Not exactly, for any sensible object you can inquire about it with four basic questions: 1)Of what is it made? 2)How did it come to be? 3)How is it structured? 4)How can it change? Each question has a corresponding cause: material, efficient, form, and final.

Saying, as you do, that everything is material implies that the other three causes are subordinate to material, which is not the case. Someone would be equally justified in saying that material is subordinate to form. In fact one famous physicist whose name escapes me once said, "At the bottom of it all reality seems to be structured nothingness." i.e. all form.

As it relates to the OP and holes, I say that holes exist, but only as a formal property with the potential for manifesting in reality as part of a sensible body.

[Exian]

I'm really trying to lend myself to this. What of shape and all of the 3D topographical nuances of any given object? Do these things exist as material or are they immaterial according to you? Is this just another way of describing form? And, to you, is form an abstract devise used to describe something, existing only in our minds? What would you attribute to the perimeter of an object? And what of its ability to be measured?

[fr0d0]

Not exactly, for any sensible object you can inquire about it with four basic questions: 1)Of what is it made? 2)How did it come to be? 3)How is it structured? 4)How can it change? Each question has a corresponding cause: material, efficient, form, and final.

Could you link to anything on that please Chad?

[Angrboda]

"By convention sweet is sweet, bitter is bitter, hot is hot, cold is cold, color is color; but in truth there are only atoms and the void. That is, the objects of sense are supposed to be real and it is customary to regard them as such, but in truth they are not. Only the atoms and the void are real."

~ Democritus

[bennyboy]

"By convention sweet is sweet, bitter is bitter, hot is hot, cold is cold, color is color; but in truth there are only atoms and the void. That is, the objects of sense are supposed to be real and it is customary to regard them as such, but in truth they are not. Only the atoms and the void are real."

~ Democritus

Spooky. hock:

[Anomalocaris]

"By convention sweet is sweet, bitter is bitter, hot is hot, cold is cold, color is color; but in truth there are only atoms and the void. That is, the objects of sense are supposed to be real and it is customary to regard them as such, but in truth they are not. Only the atoms and the void are real."

~ Democritus

Not even those.

[genkaus]

Not exactly, for any sensible object you can inquire about it with four basic questions: 1)Of what is it made? 2)How did it come to be? 3)How is it structured? 4)How can it change? Each question has a corresponding cause: material, efficient, form, and final.

Saying, as you do, that everything is material implies that the other three causes are subordinate to material, which is not the case. Someone would be equally justified in saying that material is subordinate to form. In fact one famous physicist whose name escapes me once said, "At the bottom of it all reality seems to be structured nothingness." i.e. all form.

Don't confuse material as an ontological category with material meaning substance. We've been through this before in another discussion.

The question "Of what is it made" pertains specifically to the substance it is made of. But when Aristotle speaks of something being material, as opposed to immaterial, he speaks of what is perceptible. Specifically, the immaterial can have a material cause that is not perceptible by the senses. This confusion is due to the two meaning of the words which are distinct concepts.

As it relates to the OP and holes, I say that holes exist, but only as a formal property with the potential for manifesting in reality as part of a sensible body.

Which makes them sensible and therefore material.

[Brakeman]

Dang, my hole has a hole in it..