Natural Hearing (Aristotle's Physics)
Lecture 65: The Now and Time: Solving the Paradox Through Proportion

Transcript
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We know the before and after in motion, but in so far as the before and after is able to be numbered, it is the now. Thus in these is something, the now is the same, for the before and after is in motion, but it's being is other, for the now is in so far as the before and after is able to be numbered. Are you numbering nows or are you numbering times? Well, let's ask the same question here. Take something more known, right? Suppose I want to measure the length of this continuous line, right? How many inches is it? Okay. Well, mark off inches along this line, right? Okay. One, two, three, four, five, seven, eleven, twelve. It's thirteen inches long, right? What was I counting? Inches or points? Inches. Inches. Parts or lengths. Yeah. And I've recognized this as being other than that, right? So that this inch will be other than what? That inch, right? Okay. But now, he's going to see something very interesting there, huh? And this, he says, is most of all known. Now, again, going back to proportion, right? And motion through the moved and carrying through the carried. What is he saying there? Do I know the baseball through the motion of the baseball, right? Or do I know the motion of the baseball through the baseball? Yeah. Because the baseball is other and other, right? And where it is, right? That's how I know the motion. And because the now is, what? Other and other, right? And therefore, it would be numbered, right? Then time is, what? Known, right? See? So, going back to the example of the man who falls asleep, right? And the now, when he dozes off, and the now, when he comes to, right? He takes his being one now, right? And unless he sees him as being two, he's not aware of a, what? Passage of time, right? Okay? So, in a way, he knows time through the now, right? In the same way, proportion is we know motion through the thing in motion. You see the importance of that proportion, right? In trying to understand this particular, what? Problem, huh? Notice the reason for that. For the thing carried along is that this something, huh? This something, the, uh, to the T in Greek, huh? Ha, caliquid in Latin, huh? It's like a substance, right? An individual, right? But the motion is what? Is not, huh? Okay? It goes back also to the idea that motion is something of another, right? But motion is like an accident, right? An accident is something of another, but something of a substance, right? This something. Like, this something is an individual substance, huh? Thus, the now is in one way always the same, in another way not the same, right? For so also is what is carried along, or whatever it is that is in motion, right? It's in some way always the same, right? As regards what it is, but it's always other in its, what? Position, right? Okay. What is the first sentence there, and this is most of all known, what is most of all known? The thing in motion. The thing in motion. Well, of course you could say here also it means maybe the now, right? Yeah. Yeah, the now, yeah, but proportionally the thing in motion. When you say the now, the now is the same as regards what it is. Yeah. But other in its position, right? Except that the now, unlike the thing moving, isn't a something, a this something. No, but it's proportional to that, right? Yeah. So I say you have to understand it by that proportion, there's no other way to understand it, huh? Now this is kind of a mystery here, because notice, huh? Notice, go back to the earlier proportion, which is more different here. Now we say the now, in a way, is to time as the point as to what? Motion, right? Okay. This is a little different comparison, right? Because there we're not thinking of the point as being in motion, right? Where we're thinking of the fact that, uh, I didn't mean the point as to my motion. Now, uh, the now is the time as the point is to the line, huh? Okay. The point is not a, what? An infinitely short line, as moderns might say, right? It's not a line at all, right? It has no link, right? Okay. And likewise, and furthermore, the point is not a part of a line, right? Okay. Well, then how is it related to line, huh? It's neither a line, nor is it part of a line. But it's a, what? It's a limit of a line. Yeah, it's a limit of a line, right? And also a division of a line, right? Okay. So likewise, is the now time? No. And is the now a part of time? No. But how is the now getting to time, huh? And division. Yeah. It doesn't mean division, right? And we speak, especially the now of dividing the past and the future, right? Okay. Okay. Now he's getting a slightly different, right? But no, so I don't think of course in here, but you can go on to. You can say that the now is the time, as the thing in motion is the motion, right? Now, is the thing in motion, motion? Is it a part of motion? Doesn't the unity of the motion, the continuity of the motion, in a way depend upon there being one thing in motion? So in a way, the thing in motion makes the motion, right? But only insofar as it's always, what? Other and other as to where it is, right? Okay. Just as you might say, the ball in motion, right? In a way, it makes the motion, right? By being always in another place, huh? Okay. So he's saying in a way that now makes time, right? By what? Always in being, other, right? And it's then, it might be, you know, when you take an eternity later on, right? One proportion that Boethius will use, he'll say that the now that stands still makes eternity, right? The now that flows along, right, makes what? Time, yeah. Yeah. So, in a way, now makes time, like the thing in motion makes motion, right? One, two, three, four, five, five, five, five, five, five, five, five, five, five, five, five, five, five, five, five, five, five, five, five, five, five, five, five, five, five, five, five, five, five, five, five, five, five, five, five, five, five, five, five, five, Without being motion, right? But motion is because the thing in motion is always other as to where it is. If the thing in motion was not always somewhere else, there wouldn't be any motion, would there? What now corresponds to the thing in motion, like mind does the motion, then? And the now is other with regards to what, you can't say what it is. It's always before and after, there's like a position, right? But before and after, in what sense of before and after? The sense of time or the motion? Well, in a sense, it's making the before and after, right? It is time, but it is in time. Okay, so what do we say? The thing in motion is other and other with regards to where it is, but now is other and other with regards to... Well, in a way, it's... We are at reference to time, I would have to say. It's a proportion here, yeah. And it seems like you're presupposing time in order to distinguish the nows. Because this now is different because it's at a different time. So it seems like... Well, what are you putting first, though? That's what I'm wondering. Because, in a way, the thing in motion and motion are more fundamental than the now of the time, right? So that the now is what it is, in a sense, because of the thing in motion, right? And because the before and after in time corresponds to the before and after in the motion, yeah. Now, it's interesting, you know, I remember discussing one time with Monsignor D'Anne here, and he wasn't prepared to go, you know, for a moment, I was saying, right? But I was saying, is the before and after in the magnitude, right, a cause of the before and after in the motion, or the magnitude, and likewise the before and after in the motion, right? A cause of the before and after in the, yeah, what would you say? In the second, no. The 13th, I guess. But now, if you say that is a cause, it seems to be a cause in this way, I think that was given here, right? You know, if I drive, let's say, from Shrewsbury to Boston, where the airport is, okay? And Framingham down here, right, huh? Okay. Because Framingham comes on this road before Boston, right, huh? But after Shrewsbury, right? Then my motion from, what, Shrewsbury to Framingham comes before my motion from Framingham to, what, Boston, right, huh? Mm-hmm. And then the time in which I go from Shrewsbury to Framingham is before the time that I go from, what, Framingham to Boston, right, huh? Mm-hmm. Okay? So, is the fact that Framingham is on this road before Boston, right, the reason why my motion from Shrewsbury to Framingham is before my motion from Framingham to Boston? It seems it is, isn't it? Huh? It seems like you. Yes. Okay. And is that also, in some way, the reason why the time it takes me to go from Shrewsbury to Framingham is before the time it takes me to go from Framingham to Boston? Or, put it another way around, the time in which I go from Shrewsbury to Framingham is before the time which I go from Framingham to Boston? I mean, if it takes me to get, you know, if it takes me from 9 o'clock in the morning to 10 o'clock to get into Boston, right, and it takes me from 9 to 9.30 to get to Framingham and from 9.30 to 10 to get to Boston, rather than from 9.30 to 10 I got to Framingham and then from 9 to 9.30 I got from Framingham to Boston. It's a victory, right? Okay. Okay. Now, what kind of a cause is that? That was the question that I raised, huh? There seem to be, as I say, that one is, in some way, the cause of the other, right? And therefore, if that's true, what kind of a cause is it? Matter, form, move, or end? It seems like the possibility looks like a kind of a formal cause. Yeah. But now, if you go back to the formal cause, Aristotle distinguishes between the, what, what he called the form and what he called the model, right? And the form is intrinsic, right? The model is kind of the extrinsic, right? So which of those two would it be? It seems extrinsic. Yeah, yeah. I was sure he doesn't belong with that, but he wouldn't do that either, you know, huh? And part of this came up, you know, when we were studying to the first reading of the physics, huh? Because you look at the text of Aristotle, the first reading, and he speaks of going forward from what is more known to us to what is more known by nature, right? And then he says, well, this road is inborn from what is more known to us, right, to what is more known by nature, right? And so by kind of analogy to this, right, going forward is like emotion, right? And the road, in our knowledge, right, is like the road here, right? So that because the road is from, let's say, the effect to the cause, take a kind of example, then what? In our knowing, we go from knowing the effect to knowing the cause, huh? Okay? Similar to it like that. But so what sense is that the cause, right? Well, it seems to me this was the extrinsic, huh? Formal cause, huh? Okay? So the proportion was not merely a, what, a likeness of these two things, right? But the likeness is because one, in some sense, is a, what, cause of the other, right? So when we are, you know, we're sitting made to the image and likeness of God, right? You know, we're only saying that, what, we're like God in some way, but that He's, what, in some sense, another kind of cause of us, right? Right? He's the exemplar, right? That we imitate in a sense. You know, what our Lord says there at the end of the Sermon on the Mount there in Matthew, finally, the conclusion there, to be ye perfect then There's your what? Heavenly Father's perfect, right, huh? Well, in a sense he's saying, what? Perfection of the Father is going to be, what? A cause of our perfection, right? But what kind of causality is he talking about there? Yeah, yeah, it was to imitate the Father, right, huh? Yeah, yeah. Aristotle, you know, used those two words there, right? He speaks of, I think it's edos probably he says there, edos and then paradigma or something, but in English, in Latin they'll translate it forma and exemplar, something like that, right, or form and model, English sometimes. But, you know, an distinction there between the intrinsic form, right, and the extrinsic one, right? And so, as I think I mentioned before, when you talk about the causality of God, you know, sometimes there's a footnote, and I get through distinguishing the four kinds of causes, and I find to show how this is important in every science, right? And I sometimes make a footnote talking about God, and I say, now in how many of these kinds of causes is God a cause? And I say, the answer I give him is what? Two and a half. Two and a half, yeah. He's not in any way a cause in the sense of matter, right? Okay? But, you know, when God says, I am the Alpha and the Omega, right? To begin the end, he's talking about his being the, what? The creator, the maker of all things, in a way, the mover of them, and the end or purpose, right? Okay? So he's a cause in the sense of the third and the fourth kind of cause. But then when he says, let us make man to our image and likeness, right? Then he's touching upon, what? He's being a cause in the sense of an extrinsic form, right? Okay? So in general, when you imitate somebody, they are a cause in the sense of what? Example. Yeah. Example. Yeah, yeah. They're not a cause in the sense of they're moving us, you know? Do this. Or, yeah. They're not necessarily even commanding us, right? But we're, in fact, in fact, we might imitate, you know, someone who's dead or something, right? That we read about, right? You know? We imitate somebody that we see, but they don't even know that we're imitating them. Or we admire somebody from a distance, right? So we imitate this person, huh? So we're modeling ourselves on them. So they're somehow a cause of us, right? Now, sometimes you see, sometimes the painter will copy a painting of someone else, right? And I remember seeing one of these paintings down at the Worcester Archmuse in there, and I kind of recognized it. Gee, who is that? I've seen that painting before, right? But you look up in the middle, you know, piece of paper, it identifies it. It says, after so-and-so, right? And so, in a sense, he's, what, copied somebody else's painting, and in a sense, it's a good thing to do, maybe, to learn how to paint, maybe, you know? And so they make a better painting. If they imitated the past little paintings, you could have a nice copy of the, you know, some famous painting, you know, that someone has done a really nice copy of, right? It'd be kind of nice to have it in your house. But it would be, what? That original painting would be a cause, in what sense? The exemplar of the model. In a way, when you trace something, in a way you're doing that, aren't you? And you trace something, and... This is kind of a different sense of an exemplar. We normally think of it as an artist. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I don't know what other kind of cause you could call that exactly, you know? I mean, it wouldn't be the matter, right? And it's not really a mover or a maker. But in a sense, it's like the motion over it is imitating the before and after in that magnitude that's there, right? And the time, in a way, is imitating that before and after in the motion. So think about that proportion, right? That's why you have to understand it as far as you can, anyway. With now, can you say, now is never becoming, because it's now. Yeah. So if you were to say that now ceases to be, well, then you can never say it's now. Yeah. But based on these proportions there. Yeah. Just as a body in motion, it doesn't cease to be, right? It's the same ball that's in the infield and caught in the outfield, right? But it's always other and other as to where it is, right? So, but going back to what you were saying, this now is not that now. That's one way of speaking, but really, now is now. Yeah. It always is. Yeah. It never ceases to be now. Yeah. Now always is. Yeah. But it's always other. Yes. It's always the same. Yeah. But you have to understand it by proportionally to the, what? To the body in motion, right? Right. See? And you say, is that an unreal distinction? Well, then you go back into the Aristotle's manifestation by the sophisticated argument, right? And, you know, I don't know who's at the door. You open the door and it's my mother or somebody, my brother or something, right? Well, I know my brother Marcus, but not as behind the door. See? And there really is a distinction there, isn't there? Right? You know, if my wife called up and said, guess who's at the house? I don't know who's at the house. You know? Well, your brother dropped in. He didn't. You see? But I didn't know who's at the house who dropped in, do I? See? And she asked me that. See? Well, I guess I know my brother Marcus, but I didn't know him as dropping in unexpectedly upon us, right? You see what I mean? So, it's, uh, there is some otherness as being behind the door, as dropping in, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, right? There's a real distinction there, right? They're still the same man, right? So, you have to think about that, huh? This is the way Aristotle is replying to the objection, right? Because, um, uh, if the now, as, as regards what it is, really ceases to be, when does it cease to be, right? Then you have really an insoluble problem there. But if it's not in some way other, though, right? Then there wouldn't be any, what? Time. Everything would be simultaneous, right? Okay? I think he brings in that sophistical thing in there to show that, hey, there really is a distinction, right? I know my brother Mark is a man, but not as the one knocking at the door. Can you say, just as motion is something of the thing in motion, time is something of the now? Yeah, I'm going to be kind of careful about that. You know, you're not, you know, maybe extending the analogy, the likeness more than it should be, right? Because it seems like you can say, well, that time ceases to be, but it's always now. Yeah, now it doesn't seem to cease to be. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's say, going back to what Vythia says there, right, huh? He says, the now that flows, right, makes time, right? The now that stands still makes eternity. Interesting, huh? It's the same now, though. Well, that's what he says, too. Yeah. But see, the now that stands still is in no way other, right? Yeah. See? But the now that flows is in some way other, right? Okay. The ball that stands still, right, the spot is in no way other, right? But the ball that's been hit, right, is always other and other, right? In some way, right? It's never in the same place, exactly. But it's the same ball. It's never in the same place. I was trying to figure this out for two weeks or something in part. I had this question. It seems like it's in relating motion to time. Is motion the now? In relating motion to time, is motion the now? No. He's making, first of all, proportionate, right? Now, you can alternate the portion, say, that the now is to time, as the thing in motion is to motion. Okay? But this is more known to us, huh? More known to us, how it is, that the thing in motion remains the same, right? And how it's in some way other, though, right? Remains the same as to what it is, but it's always other as to where it is, let's say, huh? In so far as it's always other, it makes what? Motion, right? Okay? And it's analogous to that, right? The time, the now of time, is always the same, huh? As regards what it is, huh? But as where it is, or when it is, right? It is always, what? Other, right, huh? Okay? But I tend to use the word where it is, you know, it's positioned there, right? It's always other, huh? So I think you have to think about that proportion, right? And think about how this is, right? To see how he is really solving the difficulty about the now. Because if you go back to the difficulty, there's a difficulty in denying that the now, and you said the now is just always the same, right? You know, it's always the same now, but everything, you know, the French Revolution is taking place now and so on, right? And all these things are simultaneous, right? There really is no time anymore. So that can't be so right. But then if one now is being corrupted and another now is coming into being and so on, right? That has other problems, right? So there's got to be a distinction, right? That you're overlooking there, huh? Okay? And that distinction is hard to see, right? But you can see a similar distinction in the thing in motion, huh? That that is always the same as what it is, but it's always other as to where it is, huh? And the now corresponds to the thing in motion. It's time to the motion. And so the now, insofar as it's always the same, right? You don't have to worry about it being corrupted, right? But insofar as it's always other, right? In some way other, it's making what? Time. What was your question? Yeah, I'm still, I really, I don't want to take up any more time in the class. That's quite nice. Class is about time. Well, I was saying, you know, most of the time is motion to now. In relating most of the time is motion. I was thinking... Well, motion is, of course, not more than time, I see. Yeah. In essence, you know, the study of, what, of, you know, mathematical philosophy first, makes you aware of the fact that when things are in proportion, you can, what, alternate proportion, right? And then it's done in a very rigorous way, and you can even see that with, who is the three, is the four, is the six. You can alternate proportion. And we're doing that with Shakespeare along kind of a little too, remember? You know, we can say, you know, it's easy to see that the chief good of man is to man as the chief good of the beast is to the beast, right? Okay? But then you help that in saying, that as the chief good of man is to the chief good of the beast, so man is to the beast. So if the chief good of man is no more than the chief good of the beast, man is no more than the beast. But he is more than the beast, right? So, I mean, it's very common to alternate these proportions for different reasons, huh? To see different things, huh? So the now is proportional to the thing in motion, and time is proportional to the, what, the motion, right? Let me ask you about the number. Well, notice, he'll speak of two numbers there in a way, huh? It is clear that if time be not, the now will not be. And if the now be not, time will not be. Just in a way as if, what, there's not a thing in motion, there's no motion, right? And if there's no motion, there's no thing in motion. He says the number of the moved and of the motion are together just as the moved and the motion, right? Well, the number of the moved is what? Yeah, the number of the now is right. And the number of the motion is what? Time, right? And that's why, you know, the now of eternity is compared not to a number, but to one. Okay, there's a unity there, huh? It's not numbered, huh? It's not numbered anyway. For time is the number of motion, but the now is as the moved, huh? As a unit of number, right? And time is continuous by the now and is divided by the now. And this follows, right, proportionally, movement and the moved, that we were saying before there, huh? And the motion is continuous because it's the same thing in motion throughout the whole, right? Okay? And motion is won by the moved, huh? So it wasn't the same bulk on the outfield that was in the infield. It wouldn't be one motion, but, you know, two motions going on there, huh? But in account, huh, the way of speaking there, it distinguishes the before and after in this motion by its being other in some way, right? In account means not as to what it is, but as to where it is. And this follows in some way the point, huh? For the point continues and divides the line, right? So we speak of what? The point is being a division of the line, right? But also we speak of the point being the end of one part of the line, the beginning of the next, right? For it is the beginning of one and the end of the other. But whenever he thus takes using one as two, necessarily it stands if the same point will be a beginning and an end. The now is always other in account of the move being in motion. Thus time is not easy.