[Serious] Thomism: Then & Now

[Belacqua]

[quote pid='2072706' dateline='1635814782']
[...]it's the overriding thesis of thomistic argument that these are the parts by which we can know of a god.

Okay, I think I see now... that's a bold claim. I'll have to think hard about that to get my head around it, but first impression is that sure there may be these fuzzy edges of definition, but there is something in reality... something for instance qualitatively different between consciousness itself and anything outside of it (ie mind vs matter)... so what I'm saying is, even if you can't put a box around it and say 'this is a thing' in mereological nihilism, in some situations at least, there clearly is some differentiable 'thing' there to explain (ie 'mind' or 'matter' in this example), even if that's not the case at the fuzzier edges when definitions get harder.

It's one of the absolute basic tenets of Christian theology that God has no parts. This is called Divine Simplicity. It is especially important in Scholastic, Thomist thought.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_simplicity

It's basic in Neoplatonic thought, Christian Neoplatonism, ancient thought from India (Brahman), and Buddhism, to say that the world before we perceive it is One, with no real divisions. The divisions arise because of our perception. They are misleading (because we stop believing in the One) but necessary to live in the material world. 

The Neoplatonic term, the One, may itself be misleading, since it implies that there will be a second thing or a third. That God is something that can be counted. That's why the negative way, as Neo says, is preferable. In fact Buddhists solve this problem by referring to basic reality as the Not-Two. 不二.

Many important Christians wrote about this concept, both within mainstream theology and in minority traditions. It is crucial to Jacob Boehme and William Blake, for example. 

Nietzsche considered himself an anti-Christian because he also believed that our perceptions are creations of the mind, made by dividing up reality, but he said that instead of God being behind the illusory divisions, there is only chaos.

[emjay]

Okay, I think I see now... that's a bold claim. I'll have to think hard about that to get my head around it, but first impression is that sure there may be these fuzzy edges of definition, but there is something in reality... something for instance qualitatively different between consciousness itself and anything outside of it (ie mind vs matter)... so what I'm saying is, even if you can't put a box around it and say 'this is a thing' in mereological nihilism, in some situations at least, there clearly is some differentiable 'thing' there to explain (ie 'mind' or 'matter' in this example), even if that's not the case at the fuzzier edges when definitions get harder.

It's one of the absolute basic tenets of Christian theology that God has no parts. This is called Divine Simplicity. It is especially important in Scholastic, Thomist thought.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_simplicity

It's basic in Neoplatonic thought, Christian Neoplatonism, ancient thought from India (Brahman), and Buddhism, to say that the world before we perceive it is One, with no real divisions. The divisions arise because of our perception. They are misleading (because we stop believing in the One) but necessary to live in the material world. 

The Neoplatonic term, the One, may itself be misleading, since it implies that there will be a second thing or a third. That God is something that can be counted. That's why the negative way, as Neo says, is preferable. In fact Buddhists solve this problem by referring to basic reality as the Not-Two. 不二.

Many important Christians wrote about this concept, both within mainstream theology and in minority traditions. It is crucial to Jacob Boehme and William Blake, for example. 

Nietzsche considered himself an anti-Christian because he also believed that our perceptions are creations of the mind, made by dividing up reality, but he said that instead of God being behind the illusory divisions, there is only chaos.

Cool, thanks for the info. It's a bit ahead of me at the moment, but at the same time I can feel it going in that direction in my reading... ie I presume this stems from the influence of Parmenides and Heraclitus... The One on the one hand, and ever changing flux on the other. As an aside, I've always been interested in Buddhism, and, in light of this, yeah I can see the same ideas in that, especially the flux.

[emjay]

Mereological nihilism posits that there is no object with proper parts.  There are no chairs, no tables, no consciousness and no gods, too.  That we like to carve things up, but that's not the way they are in reality.  

Consciousness is a good example of that, regardless of whether people will argue it forever.  Gods, and beings in general - such as the first, necessary, or ultimate being each of the five ways is powerfully motivated to conclude with, are also examples of proposed objects with proper parts.  In fact, it's the overriding thesis of thomistic argument that these are the parts by which we can know of a god.

Okay, I think I see now... that's a bold claim. I'll have to think hard about that to get my head around it, but first impression is that sure there may be these fuzzy edges of definition, but there is something in reality... something for instance qualitatively different between consciousness itself and anything outside of it (ie mind vs matter)... so what I'm saying is, even if you can't put a box around it and say 'this is a thing' in mereological nihilism, in some situations at least, there clearly is some differentiable 'thing' there to explain (ie 'mind' or 'matter' in this example), even if that's not the case at the fuzzier edges when definitions/boundaries get harder to define. IOW some sort of undeniable core, at least for some 'things' especially if they are qualitatively different.

I'm sorry... I realise on reflection this question doesn't make much sense. Perhaps it shows that sometimes I shouldn't actually give my first impressions because they often fixate on the wrong aspects of what is being said. As I said, I don't claim to have the sharpest intellect. And I may still be wrong as to what you mean; but I presume what's dumb about my question here is that mereological nihilism has no difficulty differentiating/identifying the qualitiatively different 'things' we generally recognise as 'things'? Ie it knows what is generally meant by the chair (as differentiated from everything else that is not a chair), it just has a different perspective on what that means.  

This may be another dumb question, perhaps similar but hopefully better posed than the first one, does this theory have implications for what I'm calling 'differentiation'; ie if instead of a room containing traditional objects X, Y, and Z with 'proper parts', you have a room containing objects X, Y, and Z all composed of 'simples' arranged X, Y, and Z-wise, respectively, and for the sake of argument say there's no space between those objects (ie no 'void'... if that would complicate things), then compositionally what would appear to be the case is that you just have a undifferentiated mass of 'simples', not that much different from if you were imagining the world just in terms of atoms, but where there is still differentiation at the level of perception, ie objects X, Y, and Z (even if arranged, X, Y, or Z, -wise)... or am I missing the point again and that such a collection of objects... which is a composition in a sense, but not the same sense as wholes to parts of individual things... might be further reduced in mereological nihilism to something like 'simples arranged (XYZ)-wise'?, allowing therefore for all sorts of hierarchical or otherwise compositions of 'things' to be reduced to one undifferentiated construct on the one hand, and one undifferentiated mass of simples on the other? Sorry if I've just gone down a rabbit hole, or worse, the wrong rabbit hole feel free not to answer if that's the case, but just showing you my thought process if nothing else, however right or wrong it may be.

Basically, all I know about it is what I've read on the Wiki and what you've told me, so beyond the basic takeaway for me of it being a practical theory if nothing else, that looks like it would help deal with some of the arbitrariness of defining the composition of things (as would its opposite, mereological universalism, but in a different way), I don't know the deeper history or other motivations there were for creating the theory, so I know I may still be missing the big picture of what it's about.

[The Grand Nudger]

You've hit the nail on the head. If mereologial nihilism is true,....then wouldn't that also mean that mereologically nihilist statemens are not objects with proper parts?

I can't remember who said it, I'm sure it's medeival "The world comes to me all at once and as one thing, not split up into discrete parts". That's actually a pretty good summary of the position of mereological nihilism from an evidentiary standpoint...but...in exploring this relationship, doesn't mereological nihilism also posit things which are directly analagous to if not interchangeable with the contentions it directly opposes? That there are no such things as x..except these things x which demonstrate my point - in effect.

I feel like there's a koan for this..... Is there a rational, cognizable, actual difference between me and my flock of cold adapted chickens? "My Farm" being the alleged object, are "myself" and "cold adapted chickens" discrete and proper parts of it? Where do I end and they begin? If I or anyone else can answer that question, mereological nihilism is false on it's own merits. Objects do have proper parts, even if proper parts( and objects too) can be meaningfully entangled.

I'm not the threads mn guy, mind you, and you should definitely seek more opinions than just mine and wikis..lol, I'm sure you already know that, it's for the gallery. Personally, I think mereological nihilism arose as a consequence of people not understanding what a bunch of the proper parts of "My Farm"..for example, were, and being blindsided by the additional actors. We idn;t know we had microscopic partners, for example. We didn't understand the relationship between the emerald ash borer and forced raspberry production. Once we realized that stuff, lines that seemed clearer beforehand became fuzzy afterwards. Which is to say that mn is describing something true about reality, but isn't true as a theory of all those things in reality. The lines may be further out than we realized, but there are still lines.

[emjay]

You've hit the nail on the head.  If mereologial nihilism is true,....then wouldn't that also mean that mereologically nihilist statemens are not objects with proper parts?  

I can't remember who said it, I'm sure it's medeival "The world comes to me all at once and as one thing, not split up into discrete parts".  That's actually a pretty good summary of the position of mereological nihilism from an evidentiary standpoint...but...in exploring this relationship, doesn't mereological nihilism also posit things which are directly analagous to if not interchangeable with the contentions it directly opposes?  That there are no such things as x..except these things x which demonstrate my point - in effect.

I'm pretty sure that that concept does come up in Buddhism, in that one of the high level meditative practices (in my understanding) aims to take you back to this sort of undifferentiated state of being where say in your visual field there would be no identification/recognition of objects, just the visual field itself and presumably the colours... what a trip that would be I also think it kind of came up when I was reading Aristotle... ie quite similar to one of the positions he was arguing against, where in Metaphysics, book 5, chapter 4, he quotes Empedocles saying "Nothing that is has a nature, But only mixing and parting of the mixed, And nature is but a name given them by men."... it sounds a remarkably similar to mereological nihilism, though maybe only superficially so.

Anyway, thanks for pointing out where the nail is I definitely understand the issues much better now, including the paradoxical nature you point out of what it contends.

I feel like there's a koan for this.....  Is there a rational, cognizable, actual difference between me and my flock of cold adapted chickens?  "My Farm" being the alleged object, are "myself" and "cold adapted chickens" discrete and proper parts of it?  Where do I end and they begin?  If I or anyone else can answer that question, mereological nihilism is false on it's own merits.  Objects do have proper parts, even if proper parts( and objects too) can be meaningfully entangled.

Yep, it's definitely something interesting to ponder.

I'm not the threads mn guy, mind you, and you should definitely seek more opinions than just mine and wikis..lol, I'm sure you already know that, it's for the gallery.

My italics... you might as well be I've always been curious, where do you get all this info from anyway? I kind of picture you like Johnny Five or Data, just flip through an Encyclopedia, 'okay, got that... next!' Did you study Philosophy at university or whatever?

...Personally, I think mereological nihilism arose as a consequence of people not understanding what a bunch of the proper parts of "My Farm"..for example, were, and being blindsided by the additional actors.  We idn;t know we had microscopic partners, for example.  We didn't understand the relationship between the emerald ash borer and forced raspberry production.  Once we realized that stuff, lines that seemed clearer beforehand became fuzzy afterwards.  Which is to say that mn is describing something true about reality, but isn't true as a theory of all those things in reality.  The lines may be further out than we realized, but there are still lines.

Yep, again another interesting thing to ponder

[The Grand Nudger]

My italics... you might as well be I've always been curious, where do you get all this info from anyway? I kind of picture you like Johnny Five or Data, just flip through an Encyclopedia, 'okay, got that... next!' Did you study Philosophy at university or whatever?

Ish.  I initially hoped to be an engineer, but frittered my time and money away on elective courses in rhetoric, western lit, and cultural anthropology at UF.  Segued that failure into a position in combat leadership back in the aughts, and all of that into a position collecting raw data for federal and state governments since.  Turns out a committed student makes a baller nco and a not too shabby grower.  Oddly enough, what I did study was probably going to lead me to work for Eller. I did a few pitch boards for them back in the day.

-But that's all I am, all I've ever been.  All I ever will be.  That's the cool thing about the subject of thought.  We're all (or we could all be) subject matter experts.  Just takes appetite.

As far as the impresssion where all discrete x blends into a nondiscrete y - well..that's my zen, that's why I grow flowers. I like watching it happen, even though I realize that it's not actually happening, that my sensory systems are being flooded with input, in mere reality. That my thinker is failing. I may not know what's true of reality, but I've definitely got a handle on what true of my reality survival suit. You can find me expounding on it to no one in the middle of some field all alone, talking to the wind. I actually open my mouth and talk, and rehearse the comments I'll post here.... that sort of shit.

[emjay]

My italics... you might as well be I've always been curious, where do you get all this info from anyway? I kind of picture you like Johnny Five or Data, just flip through an Encyclopedia, 'okay, got that... next!' Did you study Philosophy at university or whatever?

Ish.  I initially hoped to be an engineer, but frittered my time and money away on elective courses in rhetoric, western lit, and cultural anthropology at UF.  Segued that failure into a position in combat leadership back in the aughts, and all of that into a position collecting raw data for federal and state governments since.  Turns out a committed student makes a baller nco and a not too shabby grower.  Oddly enough, what I did study was probably going to lead me to work for Eller.  I did a few pitch boards for them back in the day.

-But that's all I am, all I've ever been.  All I ever will be.  That's the cool thing about the subject of thought.  We're all (or we could all be) subject matter experts.  Just takes appetite.

As far as the impresssion where all discrete x blends into a nondiscrete y - well..that's my zen, that's why I grow flowers.  I like watching it happen, even though I realize that it's not actually happening, that my sensory systems are being flooded with input, in mere reality.  That my thinker is failing.  I may not know what's true of reality, but I've definitely got a handle on what true of my reality survival suit.  You can find me expounding on it to no one one in the middle of some field all alone, talking to the wind.  I actually open my mouth and talk, and rehearse the comments I'll post here.... that sort of shit.

That's beautiful... you've got me all teary-eyed now I wish I could be there with you, in a field somewhere, just mindfully looking out over it all, and talking about everything under the sun... sounds like heaven

[The Grand Nudger]

Well, valhalla, you know, on account of how I'm specifically anti-christian.

You do have to calm your tits to hear the worms do work...but.... they can be heard, if you do. I'm not data, data was a nerd and a complex android. I'm a simple animal and pretty fond of being so. I say things like "You queer!" and not "indubitably!"...for example. Indelible stamp of our lowly origin, and all that.

[emjay]

Well, valhalla, you know, on account of how I'm specifically anti-christian.  

You do have to calm your tits to hear the worms do work...but.... they can be heard, if you do.  I'm not data, data was a nerd and a complex android.  I'm a simple animal and pretty fond of being so.  I say things like "You queer!" and not "indubitably!"...for example.  Indelible stamp of our lowly origin, and all that.

I do understand what you're saying. You'll always be a bit of an enigma to me, but you actually remind me a lot of the 'guardians' they're trying to create in The Republic... someone who is strong, a fighter, but also someone who is wise and gentle.

[The Grand Nudger]

I'm out of time and out of place, trust me...I notice.

Maybe I've actively turned myself into this, for all of those reasons. IDK. Or maybe my handlers turned me into this so they didn't have to worry about the hound biting the hand that feeds?