A Newton Connection (Also see: Aristotle Connection, Quantum Connection, SOM Connection, and Sophism Connection.)
In Newton's Principia, he divides his work into three major books:
Books I and II provide his own classical mechanics. Book III is where Newton moves into a more philosophical realm. Our connection to Newton here, is only to part 1 of Book III where he provides, for our examination, his Rules of Reasoning in Philosophy. We feel that should, for any reason, his Rules for Philosophical Reason might be questionable, then perhaps his mechanics may also be questionable.
Yes, dear reader, we find Newton's 'Rules' much akin and as faulty as Aristotle's syllogisms!
See Newton's quotes below with our comments along side. As you read this please keep close in thought how many of our world's most knowledgeable academics declare Newton one of, if not the, top intellects of all time.
Philosophical Reasoning Laws of a Great 17th Century 'Genius:'
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(From Isaac Newton's Principia 1687, Translated by Andrew Motte 1729) |
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| In the preceding books I have laid down the principles of philosophy; principles not philosophical but mathematical: such, to wit [namely], as we may build our reasonings upon in philosophical inquiries. These principles are the laws and conditions of certain motions, and powers or forces, which chiefly have respect to philosophy; but, lest they should have appeared of themselves dry and barren, I have illustrated them here and there with some philosophical scholiums, giving an account of such things as are of more general nature, and which philosophy seems chiefly to be founded on; such as the density and the resistance of bodies, spaces void of all bodies, and the motion of light and sounds. It remains that, from the same principles, I now demonstrate the frame of the System of the World. Upon this subject I had, indeed, composed the third book in a popular method, that it might be read by many; but afterward, considering that such as had not sufficiently entered into the principles could not easily discern thee strength of the consequences, nor lay aside the prejudices to which they had been many years accustomed, therefore, to prevent the disputes which might be raised upon such accounts, I chose to reduce the substance of this book into the form of Propositions (in the mathematical way), which should be read by those only who had first made themselves masters of the principles established in the preceding books: not that I would advise anyone to the previous study of every Proposition of those books; for they abound with such as might cost too much time, even to readers of good mathematical learning. It is enough if one carefully reads the Definitions, the Laws of Motion, and the first three sections of the first book. He may then pass on to this book, and consult such of the remaining Propositions of the first two books, as the references in this, and his occasions, shall require. Index |
(Our italic and bold emphasis.) See our Notes on Newton's reality as a pre-brief for reading here. Please consider Newton's extreme thelogos as you read. In just these few brief paragraphs, Newton used 'the' 147 times!
It becomes so obvious that thelogos peregrinates hand-in-hand with classical, objective thinking methods. |
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PHILOSOPHY |
Newton tells us he is going to tell us which rules to use in our philosophical reasoning. Think about that... Why would we need rules to do philosophical thinking? Index | ||||
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| We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances. |
(Our bold emphasis.) Newton tells us things are caused.
Newton tells us, "causes are true and sufficient."
Newton tells us "true causes" explain appearances of things.
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| To this purpose the philosophers say that Nature does nothing in vain, and more is in vain when less will serve; for Nature is pleased with simplicity, and affects not the pomp of superfluous causes. |
Newton avers the philosophers.
Newton tells us philosophers say 'less' is better.
Newton tells us philosophers say simplicity pleases Nature.
Newton tells us philosophers say Nature cares not about vain and prideful causes.
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| Therefore to the same natural effects we must, as far as possible, assign the same causes. |
Newton tells us causes cause effects.
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| As to respiration in a man and in a beast; the descent of stones in Europe and in America; the light of our culinary fire and of the sun; the reflection of light in the earth, and in the planets. |
Newton exemplifies common cause-effects.
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| The qualities of bodies, which admit neither intension [intensification, growth] nor remission [diminution] of degrees, and which are found to belong to all bodies within the reach of our experiments, are to be esteemed the universal qualities of all bodies whatsoever. |
(Our bold emphasis and brackets.) Newton tells us immutable 'qualities' of bodies are universal 'qualities' of all bodies, whatsoever. He tells us these 'qualities' scale independently of size.
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| For since the qualities of bodies are only known to us by experiments, we are to hold for universal all such as universally agree with experiments; and such as are not liable to diminution can never be quite taken away. We are certainly not to relinquish the evidence of experiments for the sake of dreams and vain fictions of our own devising; nor are we to recede from the analogy of Nature, which uses to be [is wont to be] simple, and always consonnato [consonant] to itself. We no other way know the extension of bodies than by our senses, nor do these reach it in all bodies; but because we perceive extension in all that are sensible, therefore we ascribe it universally to all others also. That abundance of bodies are hard, we learn by experience; and because the hardness of the whole arises from the hardness of the parts, we therefore justly infer the hardness of the undivided particles not only of the bodies we feel but of all others. That all bodies are impenetrable, we gather not from reason, but from sensation. The bodies which we handle we find impenetrable, and thence conclude impenetrability to be an universal property of all bodies whatsoever. That all bodies are movable, and endowed with certain powers (which we call the vires inertiæ) of persevering in their motion, or in their rest, we only infer from the like properties observed in the bodies which we have seen. The extension hardness, impenetrability, mobility, and vis inertiæ of the whole, result from the extension, hardness, impenetrability, mobility, and vires inertiæ of the parts; and hence we conclude the least particles of all bodies to be also all extended, and hard and impenetrable, and movable, and endowed with their proper vires inertiæ. And this is the foundation of all philosophy. Moreover, that the divided but contiguous particles of bodies may be separated from one another, is matter of observation; and, in the particles that remain undivided, our minds are able to distinguish yet lesser parts, as is mathematically demonstrated. But whether the parts so distinguished, and not yet divided, may, by the powers of Nature, be actually divided and separated from one another, we cannot certainly determine. Yet, had we the proof of but one experiment that any undivided particle, in breaking a hard and solid body, offered [suffered] a division, we might by virtue of this rule conclude that the undivided as well as the divided particles may be divided and actually separated to infinity. |
(Our bold, italic, and color emphasis. Our brackets.) Newton tells us we only have access to bodies' immutable qualities via experiments.
Newton tells us experiments verify immutable 'qualities' of bodies.
Newton tells us Nature made herself simple and offers her evidence for our experimental expediency. We should follow her example!
Newton tells us we can only know Nature through our senses. What we sense we can ascribe universally.
Newton tells us bodies are hard, and thus we may assume hard bodies' constituents are hard. We may assume this for all bodies.
Thus Newton tells us that all hard bodies, too, are impenetrable. So impenetrability becomes a universal property of all bodies.
Newton tells us that all bodies are movable. Too, all bodies have inertia.
He concludes: all bodies are hard, impenetrable, movable, and resistant to change of motion, and so are all bodies' least constituents, i.e., "particles."
Then he boldly tells us "...this is the foundation of all philosophy."
He adds: bodies' particles are divisible and contiguous which we may verify by observation. He says we can use our minds to arbitrarily subdivide contiguous particles of bodies.
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| Lastly, if it universally appears, by experiments and astronomical observations, that all bodies about the earth gravitate towards the earth, and that in proportion to the quantity of matter which they severally contain; that the moon likewise, according to the quantity of its matter, gravitates towards the earth; that, on the other hand, our sea gravitates towards the moon; and all the planets mutually one towards another; and the comets in like manner towards the sun; we must, in consequence of this rule, universally allow that all bodies whatsoever are endowed with a principle of mutual gravitation. For the argument from the appearances concludes with more force for the universal gravitation of all bodies than for their impenetrability; of which, among those in the celestial regions, we have no experiments, nor any manner of observation. Not that I affirm gravity to be essential to bodies: by their vis insita I mean nothing but their vis inertiæ. This is immutable. Their gravity is diminished as they recede from the earth. |
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| In experimental philosophy we are to look upon propositions collected [inferred] by general induction from phænomena as accurately or very nearly true, notwithstanding any contrary hypotheses that may be imagined, till such time as other phænomena occur, by which they may either be made more accurate, or liable to exceptions. |
(Our bold emphasis.)
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| This rule we must follow, that the argument of induction may not be evaded by hypotheses. |
Sir Isaac, you go ahead, your way. Follow your 'rules.' We choose a quantum route for our own endeavors. Index |
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We want to quote Errol E. Harris here, from his The Foundations of Metaphysics in Science, Chapter IV, 'The Primordial Matrix,' pages 64 and 65, "In Newtonian science, space, time and matter were each separate existences and the world was envisaged as one of particles poised in a void. It was essentially the Democritean picture, which had been handed down at the time of the Renaissance, through the revival of interest in Epicurus and his version of atomism as an alternative to Aristotle. Space by itself was empty and had an absolute existence of its own—and so had time. Matter and its changes simply inhabited these two forms of extension but made no difference to them. The legacy from Democritus and the Ancients was a reality comprising nothing except atoms and the void. But the void was strictly non-being, and so for classical physics, although space was absolute and independent of matter, it was per se utterly empty, a mere receptacle for reality which properly consisted only of matter. The same might be said of time, but less simply, for time was somewhat confusedly conceived, not only as the scale or series of moments in which events occurred, but also as itself some sort of independent movement or passage. Though no material events should occur, yet time was regarded as passing on or moving forward into the future. What moved in the process of pure, empty time it was impossible to say, or what could be the 'passage' of time in which nothing happened. Material motion must occur in space, but the movement of time itself left space eternally unaltered. In fact, the relation between space and time posed a perennial problem, for the passage of time seemed to be imaginable only in spatial terms and yet all spatial movement presupposed the passage of time. In short, pure time devoid of events was lapse without change, duration without occurrence, movement without alteration of place, yet the receptacle of all change, all occurrence and all spatial movement. "The difficulties and contradictions involved in these conceptions of empty and absolute space and time have exercised philosophers for centuries..." Our italicization and bold of Harris' thelogos. Notice his use of singularity (time, space, future, etc. vis-à-vis timings, spacings, futurings, etc.) attending his thelogos, educing and eliciting classical monism. Doug - 22Nov2004. |
We want to use our QELR on our Errol E. Harris quote here, from his The Foundations of Metaphysics in Science, Chapter IV, to illustrate its upgrade in Quantonicsese. "Ihn Quantum scihænce, spacæ, tihmæ amd mattær aræ each manihfestati¤ns ¤f quantum is¤flux amd quantum ræhlihty issi ænvisagæd as quantons ihmmærsed ihn a quantum æmærgænt~dæmærgænt c¤mplæmænt ¤f b¤th n¤nahctualihty amd ahctualihty. Iht issi æssæntiahlly a Quantonic anihmati¤n, ihnnovatæd by th¤se wh¤ sharæ mæmæs amd mæmæ¤tihcs ihn a quantum kabal. Space, time, mass, temperature and all classical measurables ahll bæc¤mæ, ihn quantum ræhlihty, sihmple manihfestati¤ns ¤f quantum flux, ihts c¤hera, amd ihts æntr¤pa. Classical matter, extensity and change pærcæihved quantumly aræ sihmply flux. Quantum ræhlihty issi b¤th n¤nahctualihty amd ihts quantum c¤mplæmænt ahctualihty. N¤nahctualihty issi is¤flux which can manihfest as pr¤t¤ fuzz¤ns. Fuzz¤ns aræ partihahlly æmærscænt anihmatæ EIMA quantonic ihnterrelati¤nships ¤f quantum lihkælih¤¤d ¤mnistrihbuti¤ns which surr¤umd tæntatihvæ is¤flux attrahct¤rs ihn n¤nahctualihty. Tæntatihvæ fuzz¤ns straddqle quantum n¤nahctualihty amd ahctualihty amd bæc¤mæ amd æv¤lve quantons whæn they pr¤t¤~latch n¤velties amd gr¤w~latch ihncræmæntal changæs basæd ¤n their pr¤t¤ quanton attrahct¤r(s) "Quantum ræhlihty via ihts anihmatæ EIMA hætær¤gæneihties eliminatæs any classical notions of paradice." See QELR, isoflux, simple, cohera, entropa, EIMA. Compare EEMD. See our MoQ II Reality Loop. See our QLO, and probability. See logic, and truth. See our What is Wrong with Probability as Value? See our very recent, late 2004 QTMs. Read all of that text, please. |
Thank you for reading,
Doug.