[Serious] Thomism: Then & Now

[Neo-Scholastic]

[quote='Neo-Scholastic' pid='2068331' dateline='1633970654']

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Is it fair to rephrase that as follows? The existence of physical reality is contingent on some kind of necessary fundamental order?...So would be fair to say that the potential in the quantum vacuum remains unactualized until it does so for some reason?

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Yes, existence of reality (is there any type of reality other than physical?) requires the existence of relationships. In fact, at its base, reality just IS a set of relationships. All of quantum physics can be described as relationship and change.

Formal and final cause are the concepts in Scholastic philosophy that closely match the way you are using the terms relationship and change. You answered your own question. Yes, there is a type of reality that is not physical…the types of universally true relationships (logical, mathematical, etc.) that define and constrain this particular manifestation of physical reality.

And I said this particular physical reality because it is not at all clear to me that the precise value of the physical constants and a set of 4 (not 3, 5, or 351) forces necessarily follows from the rules of mathematics or logic. They certainly seem arbitrary. Presumably things could be otherwise, in which case these physical constants & forces have a reason to be what they are. Those reasons could include 1) chance, 2) necessity, or 3) choice.

I assume you are using "potential" in a philosophical sense, and not a scientific sense. Because we wouldn't use "potential" like that, unless you are talking about the initial inflation of the universe.

Well it seems to me that we are teasing out those differences in nomenclature. Yes? What scientific term is conceptually closest, IYO, to the philosophical concept of potency.

No, there is no "reason" in our current understanding. The proof that there we can have statistical prediction also invalidates the idea that a god directs quantum events. To do so would mean that god is bound by statistics, or alternatively that god is provable by being shown to break those statistics.

I don’t believe those two conclusions exhaust all possible explanations. A general pre-existing harmony between the statistical outcome and Providence remains in play and there could be other possible explanations.