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<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
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<html>
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<head>
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<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
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<title>Change</title>
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<meta name="generator" content="LibreOffice 4.2.8.2 (Linux)">
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<meta name="author" content="Amr Gharbeia">
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<meta name="created" content="20010831;0">
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<meta name="changed" content="20150722;193621348992053">
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p.western { font-family: "Arial", sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; so-language: en-US }
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p.cjk { font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 10pt }
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p.ctl { font-family: "Simplified Arabic"; font-size: 10pt; so-language: ar-EG }
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a:link { color: #0000ff }
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</style>
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</head>
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<body lang="en-GB" text="#99ccff" link="#0000ff" dir="ltr" style="background: transparent">
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<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><font color="#ff0000"><font face="Verdana, sans-serif"><b>C<img src="data:image/png;base64,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" name="OdkC1" align="right" hspace="5" width="99" height="39" border="0">hange.
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</b></font></font>The third set of necessary truths entailed by
|
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spatiomaterialism has to do with change, and it is by far the largest
|
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set, since it includes all of science. Science is the explanation of
|
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change by efficient causes, and the range of kinds of changes found
|
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in the world means that science includes not only all the branches of
|
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natural science (physics, chemistry, biology, and physiology), but
|
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also all the social sciences (psychology, sociology, economics,
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political science, anthropology, and history). </font></font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">What
|
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changes in the natural world are properties and relations of
|
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substances, not the basic substances themselves, since substances, as
|
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substances, simply endure through time. Properties and relations are
|
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aspects of substances constituting the world, and given the essential
|
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natures of the basic substances and the basic relationship by which
|
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they exist together as a world, there are aspects that can change.
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That means that some of those changes can be given genuine
|
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ontological explanations., And such ontological explanations are
|
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important, because they can explain the nature of the necessity about
|
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efficient causation.. </font></font></font>
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</p>
|
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<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Some
|
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changes in contingent properties can be <i>explained </i>ontologically,
|
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because they are simply changes in certain aspects of basic
|
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substances as they endure through time. Such ontological explanations
|
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can be given only when the possibility of change is entailed by the
|
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essential properties of matter and space and how they exist together
|
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as a world. For example, the possibility of changes in spatial
|
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relations can be explained ontologically. </font></font>
|
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">As we shall
|
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see, change in spatial relations is possible, because bits of matter
|
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can have different relations at different times without compromising
|
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the essential nature of either space or matter and compatibly with
|
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their basic relationship as parts of the same world. It can occur by
|
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motion, and those same ontological causes entail, as we shall see,
|
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that spatial relations can change only by motion.</font></font></p>
|
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<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Efficient
|
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cause explanations depend on regularities about change, that is, on
|
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so-called "laws of nature." But insofar as such
|
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regularities about change are given genuine ontological explanations,
|
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the connections they describe between efficient causes and their
|
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effects are shown to be ontologically necessary (because they follow
|
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from the endurance of the substances through time with the same
|
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essential natures). That explains the necessary connection between
|
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efficient causes and what they make happen in the world.</font></font></p>
|
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<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Ontological
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explanation is genuinely explanatory only when substances work
|
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together in some way to constitute something more that what is
|
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assumed about them. Or to put it negatively, insofar as change has to
|
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do with regular changes in the contingent properties that are used to
|
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define the essential natures of substances (that is, insofar as the
|
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substances have temporally complex, or dispositional, essential
|
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properties), there is no genuine ontological explanation of the
|
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change, for the change is simply what is assumed by the ontology.
|
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Hence, there is no ontological necessity. </font></font>
|
||||
</p>
|
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<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Traditional
|
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epistemological philosophy, by contrast, does not treat change as an
|
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aspect of the substances constituting the world, but rather as an
|
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object of knowledge. Science tries to explain what happens in the
|
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world by finding efficient causes, and since such efficient-cause
|
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explanations presuppose laws of nature, epistemological philosophy
|
||||
takes the goal of science to be the discovery of laws of nature. But
|
||||
that approach to the philosophy of science has encountered problems
|
||||
that remain unsolved. </font></font></font>
|
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</p>
|
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<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">One main
|
||||
problem of epistemological philosophy of science has been the
|
||||
explanation of the nature of efficient causation itself. Efficient
|
||||
causes are supposed to produce their effects, that is, make it
|
||||
necessary that they occur. But the laws of nature on which science
|
||||
bases such efficient-cause explanations seem to be just descriptions
|
||||
of regularities about how properties and relations that have been
|
||||
observed to change over time. But if they are merely descriptions of
|
||||
observable regularities, there is no explanation of the source of the
|
||||
necessary connection that is supposed to hold between the efficient
|
||||
cause and what it explains. This is basically the problem about
|
||||
causation that Hume discovered. </font></font>
|
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</p>
|
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<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Since
|
||||
epistemological philosophy of science takes the goal of science to be
|
||||
the discovery of the laws of nature on which efficient-cause
|
||||
explanations are based, it has also encountered a major problem
|
||||
concerning the relationship between the laws discovered by different
|
||||
branches of science. It now seems that the laws (and, thus, the
|
||||
efficient-cause explanations) of the less general sciences cannot be
|
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reduced to the laws of more general branches of science and
|
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ultimately to the basic laws of physics. That complicates the problem
|
||||
about the nature of efficient causation, because the causal
|
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connections described by less general branches of science cannot be
|
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explained by physics. But it also makes the relationships among the
|
||||
branches of science problematic. </font></font>
|
||||
</p>
|
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<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Though
|
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epistemological philosophy of science has not found an adequate
|
||||
solution to either of these problems, we will see how ontological
|
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philosophy solves them when we return to the issue of efficient
|
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causation after explaining change as an aspect of substances. </font></font>
|
||||
</p>
|
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<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><span lang="en-US">Another
|
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project of philosophy of science has been to show that what science
|
||||
claims to know about change is genuine knowledge. Since it takes an
|
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epistemological approach to philosophy, that is the project of
|
||||
defending realism in some form, and it leads, once again, to
|
||||
anti-realism, or skepticism about science. But we will see how this
|
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problem is solved when we trace the course of evolution at the end of
|
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this chapter. Indeed, we will see why the problem arises. (See
|
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</span></font></font><a href="/F:/Philosophy/Existentialism/The%20Wholeness%20Of%20the%20World/www.twow.net/Lo/LoOtkCbGeRRS10C.htm" target="Lo"><font color="#0000ff"><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><span lang="en-US"><u>Change:
|
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Evolutionary stage 10, the Career of epistemological philosophy</u></span></font></font></a><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><span lang="en-US">.)
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</span></font></font>
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</p>
|
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<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><font face="Verdana, sans-serif">C<img src="data:image/png;base64,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" name="OdkC2" align="right" hspace="5" width="103" height="32" border="0">hange
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as an aspect of substances. </font>Existence is one of the two most
|
||||
basic aspects of substance as substance, and as we have seen, there
|
||||
are two aspects to the existential aspect of substance, particularity
|
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and temporality. Temporality was not relevant in explaining the truth
|
||||
of mathematics, since spatial relations exist completely at each
|
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moment. (Particularity was required to explain the relations among
|
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basic substances, since relations depend on how substances exist
|
||||
together as a world). The temporal aspect of the existential aspect
|
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of a substance is how substance endures through time, and its
|
||||
consequences are considered in this chapter.</font></font></font></p>
|
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<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Though
|
||||
we assume that substances have essential natures that do not change
|
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as time passes, change is possible, as we have seen, because space
|
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and matter have opposite natures and each bit of matter coincides
|
||||
with some part(s) of space or other. But since spatiomaterialism
|
||||
leaves it open which parts of space each bit of matter coincides
|
||||
with, it is ontologically possible for bits of matter to have
|
||||
different locations at different times. Moreover, it is possible for
|
||||
bits of matter to change their locations as time passes, because bits
|
||||
of matter can move. Motion is possible, as we have seen, because the
|
||||
parts of space are connected continuously, just as moments in time.
|
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Furthermore, motion makes it possible, as we have also seen, for bits
|
||||
of matter to change by interacting with one another, because if bits
|
||||
of matter can move, the three dimensional geometrical structure of
|
||||
space makes it possible for more than one bit to move to the same (or
|
||||
adjacent) parts of space. When bits of matter have the same or
|
||||
adjacent locations, they can act on one another, thereby changing
|
||||
properties or relations of the bits of matter and parts of space
|
||||
involved. </font></font></font>
|
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</p>
|
||||
<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Their ways
|
||||
of moving and interacting are extrinsic properties of bits of matter.
|
||||
Their intrinsic properties may also change as their extrinsic
|
||||
properties change, though changes in intrinsic aspects of their
|
||||
essential natures do not affect how bits of matter move and interact.
|
||||
</font></font>
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">What
|
||||
makes it possible to <i>explain </i>change ontologically, rather than
|
||||
merely assume it, is the essential nature of space, that is, its
|
||||
structure or wholeness. The parts of space are all necessarily
|
||||
connected in three dimensions according to Euclidean geometry
|
||||
(entailing that space is whole), and since space contains all the
|
||||
bits of matter, its nature makes it possible for bits of matter to
|
||||
move and interact with one another. And we will see how space and
|
||||
matter work together to constitute the regularities described by the
|
||||
basic laws of physics. But not only does the basic nature of a
|
||||
spatiomaterial world make change possible and afford an ontological
|
||||
explanation of the laws of physics, it also makes certain kinds of
|
||||
changes impossible and other kinds ontologically necessary. They are
|
||||
the ontologically necessary truths about how change takes place.
|
||||
Unless those regularities hold, the world cannot be constituted by
|
||||
matter and space enduring through time with all the matter contained
|
||||
by space. </font></font></font>
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">There
|
||||
are, however, two basically different kinds of regularities entailed
|
||||
by spatiomaterialism, because space not only constrains how each bit
|
||||
of matter can move and interact <i>in relation </i>to other bits of
|
||||
matter in its neighborhood, but it also connects all the changes they
|
||||
undergo <i>in any region of space</i>. </font></font></font>
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">The
|
||||
ontological constraint on how bits of matter can move and interact in
|
||||
relation to one another entail necessary principles about the kinds
|
||||
of <i>local regularities </i>that can hold. Within those
|
||||
ontologically necessary limits, there are further regularities about
|
||||
change that are contingent. More specific aspects of local
|
||||
regularities depend on the specific kind of matter and space making
|
||||
up the actual world, and thus, they can be known only by further
|
||||
experience of the world. They are the regularities described by the
|
||||
basic laws discovered by physics, and as we shall see, there ways of
|
||||
explaining ontologically why those laws are true. </font></font>
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">The way
|
||||
that space connects the changes that happen to different bits of
|
||||
matter in any region imposes <i>global regularities </i>on change.
|
||||
The changes that occur to all the bits of matter in any region must
|
||||
“add up” in a certain way as time passes, because they all
|
||||
coincide with parts of space in the same region and space also
|
||||
endures through time as a substance with a wholeness that connects
|
||||
all of them to one another. Their motion and interaction “add up”
|
||||
in any closed or isolated region of space to global regularities
|
||||
about change, though most of the specific global regularities also
|
||||
depend on the laws of physics that hold only in spatiomaterial worlds
|
||||
like ours. </font></font>
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">The
|
||||
wholeness of space can be distinguished from the geometrical
|
||||
structure of space, because the fact that all the parts of space fit
|
||||
together as a whole is just one consequence of its parts having
|
||||
geometrical relations to one another. Thus, we can say that, whereas
|
||||
the local regularities depend on the <i>structure </i>of space as an
|
||||
ontological cause, the global regularities also depend specifically
|
||||
on the <i>wholeness </i>of space as an ontological cause. </font></font>
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><font color="#ff0000"><font face="Verdana, sans-serif"><b>L<img src="data:image/png;base64,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" name="OdkC3" align="right" hspace="5" width="90" height="32" border="0">ocal
|
||||
regularities about change. </b></font></font>Regularities about
|
||||
change are local when they are about how each bit of matter moves and
|
||||
acts relative to other bits of matter. This aspect of the world is
|
||||
singled out when we focus on a particular bit(s) of matter and
|
||||
consider how it moves in relation to other bits of matter in its
|
||||
neighborhood or how it interacts with them. There is, however, a
|
||||
difference between necessary principles and contingent laws about
|
||||
local regularities. </font></font></font>
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">There
|
||||
are certain aspects of such changes that hold, regardless of anything
|
||||
further that physics may discover empirically about the essential
|
||||
natures of the matter or space involved, because they are entailed by
|
||||
spatiomaterialism (or the basic nature of matter and space and how
|
||||
space contains matter). They are what I will call “ontologically
|
||||
necessary principles” about local regularities. </font></font></font>
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Many
|
||||
possible ways of changing are left open by the limits imposed by the
|
||||
necessary principles about local regularities. And bits of matter
|
||||
(and space) can change only in some <i>determinate </i>way, for they
|
||||
are just substances with some specific essential nature or other,
|
||||
entailing that such change is regular in some way. But how they
|
||||
change depends on the specific kind of matter and space of which the
|
||||
actual world is constituted. The regularities about change that
|
||||
depend on the specific nature of matter and space will be called
|
||||
“contingent laws” about local regularities. These contingent laws
|
||||
include all the basic laws of physics. </font></font></font>
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">In
|
||||
what follows, we will see how it is possible to explain the basic
|
||||
laws of physics ontologically. It must be possible to explain them by
|
||||
the specific essential natures of matter and space, if
|
||||
spatiomaterialism is true. The possibility of such an ontological
|
||||
explanation is not very surprising in the case of classical physics
|
||||
(though it has some surprising implications, for example, about the
|
||||
nature of kinetic energy). But the possibility of such an explanation
|
||||
is precisely what is put in doubt by contemporary physics. Showing
|
||||
how relativity theory can be explained ontologically by
|
||||
spatiomaterialism is one of the mortgages that remains to be paid in
|
||||
order to use that ontology as the foundation for this argument
|
||||
demonstrating necessary truths, and as we shall see, quantum
|
||||
mechanics can also be explained ontologically by spatiomaterialism. </font></font></font>
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><font color="#993366"><font face="Verdana, sans-serif"><b>N<img src="data:image/png;base64,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" name="OdkC4" align="right" hspace="5" width="64" height="30" border="0">ecessary
|
||||
principles about local regularities. </b></font></font>Necessary
|
||||
principles about local regularities follow from the basic natures of
|
||||
space and matter as substances enduring through time assuming that
|
||||
each bit of matter coincides with some part of space or other. We
|
||||
have already seen how their essential natures explain the <i>possibility
|
||||
</i>of change by motion and interaction ontologically. The same
|
||||
ontological causes imply that they can change <i>only </i>by local
|
||||
motion and local action. </font></font></font>
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><font face="Verdana, sans-serif"><b>T<img src="data:image/png;base64,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" name="OdkC5" align="right" hspace="5" width="43" height="27" border="0">he
|
||||
principle of local motion. </b></font>The principle of local motion
|
||||
holds that bits of matter can change their locations as time passes
|
||||
only by moving continuously across the space that separates the
|
||||
starting points and the ending points. That is what I will call
|
||||
“local motion.” What it denies is that bits of matter can ever
|
||||
change their locations by simply disappearing from one location at
|
||||
one moment and appearing somewhere at a distance at the next moment.
|
||||
That is, it denies that bits of matter can “flit about”
|
||||
discontinuously in space from moment to moment. </font></font></font>
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">The
|
||||
reason that “flitting about” is impossible is that it could occur
|
||||
only if one of the three basic assumptions of spatiomaterialism were
|
||||
false, that is, only if space were not a substance, matter were not a
|
||||
substance, or bits of matter did not coincide with parts of space. </font></font></font>
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Given
|
||||
that the bit of matter is a substance enduring through time, how
|
||||
could it have one location at one moment and another location at a
|
||||
distance from it the very next moment, that is, without moving to the
|
||||
second location? It might be possible if space were not a substance,
|
||||
but a mere relation between bits of matter, for spatial relations
|
||||
could simply be <i>defined </i>as kinds of relations that change
|
||||
discontinuously. That is a possibility for a materialist ontology,
|
||||
which reduces space to relations among bits of matter. But if space
|
||||
is a substance with the essential nature we have assumed and it gives
|
||||
bits of matter spatial relations by how they coincide with different
|
||||
parts of space, then the spatial relation between the first location
|
||||
and the second location depends on the existence of all the other
|
||||
parts of space enduring as substances through time, including all
|
||||
those parts of space in between the two locations. Thus, the only way
|
||||
that the bit of matter could come to have the new spatial relations
|
||||
is by coinciding with a continuous series of parts of space
|
||||
separating the two locations as time passes. That is the only way
|
||||
that bits of matter can change their spatial relations in space, if
|
||||
they get their spatial relations from the relations among the parts
|
||||
of space with which they coincide and the parts of space are all
|
||||
related according to a geometrical structure. </font></font></font>
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Given,
|
||||
therefore, that space is a substance, how is it possible for bits of
|
||||
matter to flit about discontinuously? It might be possible, if the
|
||||
bit of matter could simply drop out of existence at one moment and
|
||||
come back into existence at the distant location the next. But that
|
||||
would be to deny that the bit of matter is a substance in our sense,
|
||||
for it would not be enduring through time. Its existence would not be
|
||||
continuous, if it dropped out of existence and then came back into
|
||||
existence, even if it came back into existence the very next moment. </font></font></font>
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Nor
|
||||
can we suppose that the bit of matter simply slipped out of space
|
||||
altogether at one location and slipped back into space at another
|
||||
location, because that would contradict the assumption that bits of
|
||||
matter are contained by space. The basic relationship assumed by
|
||||
spatiomaterialism is that, at the present moment, each bit of matter
|
||||
coincides with some part of space or another. This is what give bits
|
||||
of matter their spatial relations to one another. And since it holds
|
||||
at the present moment, it must have held at all moments in the past
|
||||
and it must hold at all moments in the future, for there is no other
|
||||
way for bits of matter to acquire spatial relations to one another </font></font></font>
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">In
|
||||
a spatiomaterial world, therefore, the only way that bits of matter
|
||||
can change their spatial relations is by local motion, that is, by
|
||||
moving continuously across space. Nothing else is compatible with the
|
||||
assumption that space and matter are substances enduring through
|
||||
time, with all the bits of matter coinciding with parts of space. </font></font></font>
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">And
|
||||
that means that bits of matter move with a finite velocity, since
|
||||
infinite velocity would be equivalent to “flitting about” in
|
||||
space.</font></font></font></p>
|
||||
<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><font face="Verdana, sans-serif"><b>T<img src="data:image/png;base64,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" name="OdkC6" align="right" hspace="5" width="43" height="27" border="0">he
|
||||
principle of local action. </b></font>Once again, the same factors
|
||||
that explain the possibility of change by interaction also imply that
|
||||
such change can occur only by local action. Motion makes it possible
|
||||
for bits of matter to come to occupy the same or adjacent locations,
|
||||
and if motion does so, that puts them in a position to act on one
|
||||
another, assuming that matter has a more specific essential nature
|
||||
that includes such powers. On the other hand, if bits of matter are
|
||||
not in the same (or adjacent) locations in space, they coincide with
|
||||
distinct parts of space that are separated by other parts of space,
|
||||
and they cannot affect one another without something traveling across
|
||||
the space between them, for space is the only connection the bits of
|
||||
matter have to one another. </font></font></font>
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">They are
|
||||
also related by being parts of the same world, but we are using
|
||||
“parts of the same world” to mean only that they exist or are a
|
||||
part of everything that exists, and bare existence does not entail
|
||||
any other relations between them. </font></font>
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">In
|
||||
order for bits of matter located at a distance from one another to
|
||||
interact, another bit of matter must travel across the space
|
||||
separating the one bit of matter from the other as time passes. The
|
||||
bit of matter may be just the exertion of a force (in which case it
|
||||
is an <i>inter</i>-action, with an opposite force also being exerted,
|
||||
according Newton’s third law of motion). But even if such a force
|
||||
were just a “modification” of relevant parts of space, it would
|
||||
still be a bit of matter, that is, a material substance, and as such,
|
||||
it cannot get from one location to the other without something moving
|
||||
across space as time passes time, or else it would violate the
|
||||
principle of motion. </font></font></font>
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">The
|
||||
principle of local action is not as simple as it sounds, for as we
|
||||
shall see, there are various forms of matter, and some of them
|
||||
coincide with more than one part of space at any given moment.
|
||||
Indeed, one form of matter (forces with infinite range) can, in
|
||||
principle, coincide with all parts of space (albeit not all equally).
|
||||
Such forms of matter can interact with other bits of matter wherever
|
||||
they are located. </font></font>
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">There are,
|
||||
however, other forms that are completely outside one another in space
|
||||
(including, as we shall see, some of the rest mass of the material
|
||||
objects that exert forces with infinite range), and the principle of
|
||||
local action does constrain their interactions. These complications
|
||||
will be taken up as we explain the various forms of matter and how
|
||||
they move and interact. </font></font>
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">The
|
||||
principle of local action has to do with how bits of matter that are
|
||||
localized in space can <i>act </i>on one another when they are
|
||||
located at a distance from one another, and such “actions” will
|
||||
be defined more fully in explaining how quantum mechanics is true in
|
||||
a spatiomaterial world. But there is another kind of very limited
|
||||
effects that certain forms of matter can have on one another, in
|
||||
addition to such inter-<i>actions</i>, and space is an ontological
|
||||
cause of the same kind of limitation on them. That is, the principle
|
||||
of local action is really just part of a more basic principle, which
|
||||
might be called the “principle of local action or effect.” </font></font></font>
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">These
|
||||
peculiar effects that bits of matter of certain kind can have on one
|
||||
another without the mediation of other bits of matter are possible in
|
||||
a spatiomaterial world, because if space and matter are both
|
||||
substances, then not only can space and matter affect one another,
|
||||
but parts of space can affect one another. Though a bit of matter can
|
||||
affect only those parts of space with which it coincides (but not any
|
||||
distant parts of space), it is possible for a bit of matter to have
|
||||
effects on space itself that affect other parts of space and,
|
||||
thereby, the bits of matter that coincide with distant parts of
|
||||
space. However, if there were such effects (and, as we shall see,
|
||||
there are, though they are severely limited), the ontological causes
|
||||
of the principle of local action would impose the same constraint on
|
||||
them. One bit of matter cannot have effects on other bits of matter
|
||||
at a distance by way its effects on space without some change in
|
||||
space traveling across space as time passes from the location of the
|
||||
one bit of matter to the location of the other. </font></font>
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">There is no
|
||||
reason to doubt that it is possible for parts of space to affect one
|
||||
another. Parts of space are particular substances, even though they
|
||||
all have necessary geometrical relations to one another. Each part of
|
||||
space, as a substance, endures through time, and spatiomaterialism
|
||||
leaves open the possibility that parts of space have properties that
|
||||
can change under certain circumstances (though that would be a
|
||||
temporally complex aspect of the essential nature of space, since
|
||||
there is no deeper ontological explanation of it). However,
|
||||
spatiomaterialism does imply that, if a property of one part of space
|
||||
can change a property of other parts of space, it can affect only
|
||||
neighboring parts of space, so that in order to affect parts of space
|
||||
at a distance, the effect would have to propagate across space as
|
||||
time passes. Such a further causal connection among the parts of
|
||||
space could mediate the effect of one bit of matter on bits of matter
|
||||
at a distance from it, but it would depend on some change traveling
|
||||
across space as time passes. And it would have to be at a finite
|
||||
velocity, for effects with an infinite velocity would be effects at a
|
||||
distance. </font></font>
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">What
|
||||
is relevant here is the general principle that what happens to the
|
||||
bits of matter in one location cannot affect (either interact with or
|
||||
have an effect on) what happens to bits of matter located elsewhere
|
||||
without something traveling across the space separating them. What
|
||||
moves across space may be another bit of matter, or it may a change
|
||||
in space itself. But those are the only ways for one to change the
|
||||
other, because bits of matter have no connection with one another
|
||||
except for how they coincide with parts of space.</font></font></font></p>
|
||||
<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">If a bit of
|
||||
matter were to get from one location to the other without moving
|
||||
across space in time, it would violate the principle of motion. And
|
||||
its velocity must be finite, or else the bit of matter would be
|
||||
flitting about. </font></font>
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">If a
|
||||
modification in one location of space were to affect other locations
|
||||
in space immediately, it would mean that space is not made up of
|
||||
parts of space that endure through time as distinct substances.
|
||||
Though the geometrical relations among parts of space are aspects of
|
||||
their essential natures, they are distinct substances related
|
||||
geometrically, that is, by way of the parts of space between them,
|
||||
and any change in one part of space must first produce real changes
|
||||
to the parts in between before it can affect more distant parts of
|
||||
space. And it must propagate at a finite velocity, or it would not be
|
||||
propagating at all.</font></font></p>
|
||||
<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">In either
|
||||
case, whether the action is mediated by a bit of matter or by space
|
||||
itself, something must move across space as time passes, or there can
|
||||
be no effect of one on the other. </font></font>
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">The
|
||||
principle of local action (and effects) denies that there is any
|
||||
action (or effect) at a distance. Though action at a distance is
|
||||
ontologically impossible in a spatiomaterial world, it is
|
||||
conceivable, because if space were not a substance, but merely a kind
|
||||
of relation that holds among bits of matter (or an aspect of how they
|
||||
exist together as a world), the relations postulated might include
|
||||
bits of matter acting on one another at a distance. Such a spatial
|
||||
relationism would be a kind of materialism. But substantivalism about
|
||||
space makes action at a distance impossible, because bits of matter
|
||||
at a distance from one another are separated (and connected) by all
|
||||
the other spatial substances that exist between (and around) them.
|
||||
Space is the ontological cause that limits interaction to local
|
||||
actions. </font></font></font>
|
||||
</p>
|
||||
<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Empirical
|
||||
science explains events and conditions by efficient causes, but if
|
||||
those causal connections have ontological explanations at all (and
|
||||
those connections are not merely assumed as part of the specific
|
||||
nature of matter or space), they must be mediated by the motion and
|
||||
interaction of bits of matter in space (or effects in space) as time
|
||||
passes, because nothing else is permitted by the necessary principles
|
||||
of local motion and local action. We shall see that spatiomaterialism
|
||||
can go quite a way in explaining efficient causes ontologically, but
|
||||
it may be possible to go even farther than what is sketched here.</font></font></font></p>
|
||||
</body>
|
||||
</html>
|
||||
Reference in New Issue
Block a user