User talk:Joseph Petek

Welcome!

Hello, Joseph Petek, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

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On 20 June, 2007, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article David Falk, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

--Mangojuice^talk 20:11, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of David Falk

Hi there! I've had another look at the article and have outlined the changes I would like to see. Sorry about the delay; I've been away on short notice. Mouse Nightshirt | talk 22:46, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Quite alright... I'll get on the changes right away. Joseph Petek 23:20, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

David Falk Jewish

Hi Joseph, sorry about the delay getting back to you, I'm fairly new to wikipedia and was slow to notice you had posted a message to me. As for the information David Falk is jewish I happened across a web article about another sports agent celebrating a jewish holiday that made mention of it. I have not been able to find the same article again and can't for the life of me remember where it was however I did find a 2 web-pages that list him as being jewish. Unfortunately it seems that at least one seems to be a derogatory web-site. If I happen to remember or come across the article I read I will pass the link.

By 1996, another Jewish sports agent, David Falk, had 38 clients in professional basketball, the largest number of any agent. These were in large part a group of elite players like Michael Jordan, Patrick Ewing, Alonzo Mourning, and Allan Iverson. (Falk, marketing whiz, conceived and pushed the "Air Jordan" basketball shoe as well as a Warners movie featuring Michael Jordan and Bugs Bunny). "We don't want to grow to fast or become too large," he said about his agency called F.A.M.E., "We want to remain a boutique for star players." [BANKS, L., 1-21-96] "Since Falk controls a large block of top players," noted the New York Times, "he can in many ways dictate the structure and the economics of the entire league. Falk is considered the second most powerful person in the NBA after its commissioner, David Stern [also Jewish]." [HIRSCHBERG, L., 11-17-96, p. 46]

Thanks for the message. I actually have found another source where Falk himself says he is Jewish. I'm going to put it in the article right now. Joseph Petek 16:35, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

David Falk FAC?

Have you thought about nominating David Falk at WP:FAC?--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 17:08, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

It's very kind of you to suggest that the article may be ready for FA status. I would mostly agree... I have been holding back because I have so far been unable to attain any free image of the man himself (see the topic on the David Falk Talk Page)... and part of the criteria ofr FA status is "well-illustrated," is it not? Any help you could provide me on that front would certainly be very much appreciated.

Do you think the article could pass as FA without an image? I have not been on Wikipedia very long, and I'm just not sure. If you think there's a chance, I would certainly submit it. Joseph Petek 23:06, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I have added some images. However, I'm not at all sure that the image of Falk himself qualifies as fair use. Would you care to weigh in before I nominate this for anything? Joseph Petek 06:19, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

David Falk A-class review

Article promoted! Congratulations on your good work. -Duribald 17:27, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Woo-hoo! Thanks!  :) Joseph Petek 18:14, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

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WP:CHICAGO

According to my records, you have nominated at least one article (David Falk) that includes a category at WP:CHIBOTCATS and that has been promoted to WP:FA, WP:FL or WP:GA. You are not signed up as an active member of WP:CHICAGO. If you consider yourself either an active or semi-active member of the project please sign up as such at Wikipedia:WikiProject Chicago/members. Also, if you are a member, be aware of Wikipedia:Meetup/Chicago 3 and be advised that the project is now trying to keep all the project's WP:PR, WP:FAC, WP:FAR, WP:GAR, WP:GAC WP:FLC, WP:FLRC, WP:FTC, WP:FPOC, WP:FPC, and WP:AFD discussion pages in one location at the new Wikipedia:WikiProject Chicago/Review page. Please help add any discussion you are aware of at this location.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 18:40, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

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Your GA nomination of Alfred North Whitehead

Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Alfred North Whitehead you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Cerebellum -- Cerebellum (talk) 19:30, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Alfred North Whitehead

The article Alfred North Whitehead you nominated as a good article has been placed on hold . The article is close to meeting the good article criteria, but there are some minor changes or clarifications needed to be addressed. If these are fixed within 7 days, the article will pass, otherwise it will fail. See Talk:Alfred North Whitehead for things which need to be addressed. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Cerebellum -- Cerebellum (talk) 18:50, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Alfred North Whitehead

The article Alfred North Whitehead you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Alfred North Whitehead for comments about the article. Well done! Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Cerebellum -- Cerebellum (talk) 14:22, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Original Barnstar
	For rewriting Alfred North Whitehead. Cerebellum (talk) 14:25, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of John B. Cobb

Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article John B. Cobb you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Jburlinson -- Jburlinson (talk) 00:51, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

December 2013

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Schubert M. Ogden

Hello Joseph Petek,

It seems to me that an article you worked on, Schubert M. Ogden, may be copied from http://www.lib.utexas.edu/taro/smu/00163/smu-00163.html. It's entirely possible that I made a mistake, but I wanted to let you know because Wikipedia is strict about copying from other sites.

It's important that you edit the article and rewrite it in your own words, unless you're absolutely certain nothing in it is copied. If you're not sure how to fix the problem or have any questions, there are people at the help desk who are happy to assist you.

Thank you for helping build a free encyclopedia!Template:Z18 MadmanBot (talk) 00:08, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of John B. Cobb

The article John B. Cobb you nominated as a good article has been placed on hold . The article is close to meeting the good article criteria, but there are some minor changes or clarifications needed to be addressed. If these are fixed within 7 days, the article will pass, otherwise it will fail. See Talk:John B. Cobb for things which need to be addressed. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Jburlinson -- Jburlinson (talk) 22:40, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of John B. Cobb

The article John B. Cobb you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:John B. Cobb for comments about the article. Well done! Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Jburlinson -- Jburlinson (talk) 23:12, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

A Barnstar for you!

		The Feather Barnstar
		Good job on bringing Whitehead & Cobb to GA! Jburlinson (talk) 23:53, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

substance versus matter

I think I may have got a better idea of what we were talking about once before.

I see that Griffin reads Aristotle's substance as primarily referring to Aristotle's theory of material substance, but he omits the vital word material. I think that is misleading. As I read about Aristotle, I think he regarded matter as a fairly basic cosmological concept, a class of substance, as do most people. Whitehead's objection to excessive Aristotelianism was about excessive reliance on the everyday concept of matter, not about what Whitehead calls substance, which is a far more general and abstract term, referring more to a logical or grammatical or syntactico-semantic category than to a particular class of cosmological entities, a class that the man in the street finds familiar. It is of course unfortunate that we have to deal at all with the rather bizarre philosophical usage of the word substance in this context. I have not recently looked in detail, but I have the feeling that if you were to say that Whitehead objected to over-weighting of the concept of matter, rather than of substance unqualified, I would be happier with your presentation. Just a thought ! Chjoaygame (talk) 14:55, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

I am not sure if above I meant Griffin or Sherburne. I guess you may put me right.

More importantly, I am not sure exactly what Whitehead thinks about Aristotle. Perhaps above I am being inaccurate. Whatever. It is I think true that many regard actual entity as having a primarily material account. I guess that is what Griffin/Sherburne is saying is rejected by Whitehead.

For me, I don't think Aristotle was a definite materialist. He distinguished and exercised four kinds of explanation, formal, material, efficient, and final. I think he did not regard the material as pre-eminent above the others. The efficient explanation is hardly contrary to Whitehead's process explanation, indeed they are naturally compatible. Aristotle was not averse to the efficient explanation. He was one smart cookie! Chjoaygame (talk) 19:33, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

I think I largely agree with what you're saying RE: Aristotle. Here is an article that argues for Whitehead's misconception of "substance" in Aristotle. However, if we take the Cartesian definition of substance, then the usage in the article would seem to be correct (Aristotle is never named in the article, and there is only one reference to Cartesian dualism, so which definition the reader would care to read into it is up for grabs). Also, most of the time I say "substance materialism" or "material substances" rather than simply "substances."

I have made some edits, making sure that at the very least when "substance" is mentioned it is also paired with "material." I have also changed the links from "substance theory" generally (Substance theory) to the specifically Cartesian/Lockean flavor of substance (Lockean/Cartesian substance). Let me know what you think. Joseph Petek (talk) 22:01, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

response

Please forgive and correct me where the following contains signs of ignorance and carelessness.

In my mind, in Aristotle, and I think in classical philosophy in general, including Locke and Descartes, the technical term substance in general carries no hint or suggestion of matter. It is a grammatical term, the Aristotelian version of an actual entity, meaning just a thing that really exists. Aristotle's word was ousia, a being. No suggestion of matter as such. Aristotle, as I understand, invented an amazing new philosophical concept: hule. The literal meaning was 'wood'. A priori, hule was not necessarily a substance. It was an abstract concept, no more a substance than was form, another abstraction. Our language speaks not of wood, but of cloth. The stuffs used by artisans, builders, seamstresses, whoever, to make things. I think that's why we speak of material, or matter, when Aristotle spoke of wood. Typical Aristotelian substances were Socrates and Bucephalus. Nothing to do with wood. I may be ignorant here, but I think that would have been accepted by Descartes and Locke. I should read more, and you may correct me.

Then Aristotle developed the further new idea that some elementary kinds of wood might be actual entities, a bold and dramatic innovation. Nowadays of course we all ""know"" that material substances are just about the only realities!!!!!!!!! This leaves me without an explanation of how it came about that the word substance today usually refers to matter as we understand it today. I guess it might have come from alchemy? But to my mind, I can hardly imagine that Whitehead thought that Aristotle thought that substance meant matter, except for special and unusual circumstances. Reading the article you kindly linked, I did not see a suggestion in the quotes from Whitehead that he thought substance had any close connection with matter. For me, quite some study and textual exegesis of Aristotle is needed to establish the hypothesis that he thought that some kinds of matter were substances of a special sort. I will need to read Freudenthal's book more closely about this. My first impression of the article you kindly linked is that its author is ignorant. Perhaps I am mistaken. Eventually, as a matter of special science, I think Aristotle considered the idea that blood might be a substance, for example. But it is certainly not obviously so, at least to me.

I suppose my next step is to check Whitehead on this.Chjoaygame (talk) 00:06, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

I find in Process and Reality: " 'Creativity' is another rendering of Aristotelian 'matter', and of the modern 'neutral stuff'." I read that as an explicit statement that Aristotle's matter was neutral, not material as opposed to mental in our language. And "Aristotelian 'matter' is without a character of its own." I think Whitehead had not investigated Aristotle's researches that led to the proposal that blood might be a substance with a special character, that it was a material substance, a daring philosophical innovation. I persist in thinking that Whitehead thought that for Aristotle, matter was a very high abstraction, not suggestive of the concrete nature we assign to matter today. I conclude, pro tem., that Whitehead had the right understanding of Aristotle's idea of matter, and that the article you kindly linked is nonsense, dare I say it.

Now I will again check the article you kindly linked.Chjoaygame (talk) 00:40, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

Checking Felt:

He says "Whitehead did in fact badly misinterpret Aristotle's concept of substance." Reading Felt, I find him providing no reason to support this claim. I think he has fabricated this claim, making it up off the top of his head. I can't find anything specific to refute. He just talks about irrelevancies that I don't need to accept or refute.

So I don't see a need to respond to Felt.Chjoaygame (talk) 01:21, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps I am confused, but for the present context, I don't see any reason to refer to substance at all. I think you want to say that a Whiteheadian actual entity is not a material body; I agree. No need to mention substance.

Having dealt with that, now I pass to your edits. They look good to me. Perhaps a slight change might be in order, but I now need to get some sleep. More tomorrow.Chjoaygame (talk) 01:36, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

further response 1

Perhaps it may be useful if I directly, though of course tentatively, say what I think might be good.

In the lead we currently find

Beginning in the late 1910s and early 1920s, Whitehead gradually turned his attention from mathematics to philosophy of science, and finally to metaphysics. He developed a comprehensive metaphysical system which radically departed from most of western philosophy. Whitehead argued that reality was fundamentally constructed by events rather than matter, and that these events cannot be defined apart from their relations to other events, thus rejecting the theory of independently existing substances. Today Whitehead's philosophical works – particularly Process and Reality – are regarded as the foundational texts of process philosophy.

Could I suggest this instead

Beginning in the late 1910s and early 1920s, Whitehead gradually turned his attention from mathematics to philosophy of science, and finally to metaphysics. He developed a comprehensive metaphysical system which radically departed from most of western philosophy. Whitehead argued that reality consists in events rather than matter, and that these events cannot be defined apart from their relations to other events, thus rejecting the theory of independent existences for the several fundamental constituents of reality. Today Whitehead's philosophical works – particularly Process and Reality – are regarded as the foundational texts of process philosophy.

I just changed the first part to avoid two 'fundamental's in the same sentence, though I wouldn't be too worried if there were two of them if you preferred. I thought I should be a good boy and check what Mesle said on page 9. There he writes of

physical and mental "substances," expecialy including human souls, that (1) exist independently and (2) endure unchanged through change.

As I read this, Mesle thinks souls are amongst the substances. That seems right to me, and to me it confirms that a substance in this context has no special link to matter. Again. Mesle writes of "immaterial mental substance". I think that is more confirmation.

From this I conclude that by removing the word substance as I propose above I am not misrepresenting the cited source in Mesle. I think Mesle uses substance in just the same way as I do, and as I think Whitehead does. Mesle intends to rule out independency of existence, not substantiality of existence. Since substance in this context is a term that is very technical, used by Mesle, but not essential to what we are citing him for here, I think it is fine to leave it out of a report for Wikipedia of what Mesle intends about this. Mesle wants to rule in relatedness of existence, not insubstantiality of existence. That will be enough for this entry. More soon. Chjoaygame (talk) 06:23, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

further response 2

Your next edit resulted in

Perhaps foremost among what Whitehead considered faulty metaphysical assumptions was the Cartesian/Lockean idea of substance materialism, which he rejected in favor of an event-based or "process" ontology in which transient events are primary and material substances/beings are abstractions. He also argued that the most basic elements of reality have experiential features, that in fact everything is constituted by its experience (i.e., even things like electrons experience). Whitehead referred to his metaphysical system as "philosophy of organism", but it would become known more widely as "process philosophy."

I am not clued up on Descartes or Locke. I find it hard to believe that either of them supported substance materialism, whatever that might be.

Lazily citing Wikipedia I find

Early Western philosophy

Descartes means by "substance" an entity which exists in such a way that it needs no other entity in order to exist. Therefore, only God is a substance is the strict sense. But he extends the term to created things, which need only the concurrence of God to exist. Of these there are two and only two: mind and matter, each being distinct from the other in their attributes and therefore in their essence, and neither needing the other in order to exist. This is Descartes' dualism. Spinoza denied Descartes' 'real distinction' between mind and matter. Substance, according to Spinoza, is one and indivisible, but has multiple 'attributes'. But an 'attribute' is 'what we conceive as constituting the [single] essence of substance'. We may conceive of the single essence of the one substance as material and also, consistently, as mental. What we ordinarily call the natural world, together with all the individuals in it, is immanent in God: hence the famous phrase deus sive natura ("God, or Nature").

Locke defined substance as follows:

The idea that we have, to which we give the general name substance, being nothing but the supposed, but unknown, support of those qualities we find existing, which we imagine cannot subsist sine re substante, without something to support them, we call that support substantia; which, according to the true import of the word, is, in plain English, standing under or upholding.

— John Locke, "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding"; book 2, chapter 23; Of our Complex Ideas of Substances

From this, as to Descartes, I get what I think makes perfect sense and is the usual reading: that God is a substance, and that minds exemplify substance, just as matter also exemplifies it. I don't see how to read that as saying that Descartes believes in 'substance materialism'.

As for the quote from Locke. As I read this, Locke thinks substance is the underlying entity that makes a thing individually real. I don't read that as referring to matter. The word matter does not appear in that quote. So I am at a loss to see why one would say that Locke supported 'substance materialism'. Moreover, I think Whitehead is a keen supporter of Locke, so I would be surprised to find that Whitehead fundamentally rejected Locke's ontology.

Therefore I propose another version, perhaps

Perhaps foremost among what Whitehead considered faulty metaphysical assumptions was the Cartesian idea of independency of existence for the several constituents of reality. He rejected that, in favor of an event-based or "process" ontology in which the really existing entities are primarily and fundamentally inter-related with or dependent on one another. He also argued that the constituents of reality can all be regarded as experiential, indeed that everything is constituted by its experience. He used that word very broadly, so that even inanimate processes such as electron collisions are said to manifest some degree of experience. In this, he went against Descartes' separation of two different kinds of real existence, either exclusively material or else exclusively mental. Whitehead referred to his metaphysical system as "philosophy of organism", but it would become known more widely as "process philosophy."

Ok, enough for now.Chjoaygame (talk) 07:13, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

further response 3

Your next edit resulted in

Whitehead was convinced that the Cartesian/Lockean notion of material substances was misleading as a way of describing the ultimate nature of things. In his 1925 book Science and the Modern World, he wrote that

"There persists ... [a] fixed scientific cosmology which presupposes the ultimate fact of an irreducible brute matter, or material, spread through space in a flux of configurations. In itself such a material is senseless, valueless, purposeless. It just does what it does do, following a fixed routine imposed by external relations which do not spring from the nature of its being. It is this assumption that I call 'scientific materialism.' Also it is an assumption which I shall challenge as being entirely unsuited to the scientific situation at which we have now arrived."

In Whitehead's view, there are a number of problems with this notion of "irreducible brute matter." First, it obscures and minimizes the importance of change. By thinking of any material thing (like a rock, or a person) as being fundamentally the same thing throughout time, with any changes to it being secondary to its "nature", substance materialists fail to see that nothing ever stays the same. For Whitehead, change is fundamental and inescapable; he emphasizes that "all things flow."

I am unhappy to see Locke blamed here, and I am not sure that Whitehead blames Descartes for inventing materialist ontology. I think he just means that Descartes didn't actively reject it, but rather he accepted it from others, bad but not as bad as inventing it. On page 19 of Science and the Modern World, he writes "But the revival of philosophy in the hands of Descartes and his successors was entirely coloured in its development by the acceptance of the scientific cosmology at face value." Locke isn't fingered there. Descartes accepted the cosmology. On page 34, I find "An exception must be made of the English empiricism derived from Locke."

On page 54 I read about substance and quality. I think Whitehead would have written about matter and quality if that was what he was concerned about. I think here he uses substance in its usual technical philosophical sense, without prejudice about materiality. When he is concerned about materiality, he uses the word. He speaks first of the substance as a body, not pointing to its material basis. Soon he specializes to talk about materiality as such. On page 55, Whitehead writes "Locke, writing with a knowledge of Newtonian dynamics, places mass among the primary qualities of bodies." He doesn't say that Locke thinks of bodies as primarily material. I don't see here a reason to read into Whitehead that he thinks Locke is a materialist. Whitehead continues, and at last speaks of matter. He writes on page 57 "The enormous success of the scientific abstractions, yielding on the one hand matter with its simple location in space and time, on the other hand mind perceiving, suffering, reasoning, but not interfering, has foisted onto philosophy the task of accepting them as the most concrete rendering of fact." Locke is not there fingered as a materialist. But Descartes is there alright. "Dualists" are mentioned in the next paragraph. And Whitehead focuses on simple location as the leading villain, not explicitly matter. In a nutshell, the fault in simple location is that a simple location is such only in the perspective of a single Minkowski reference frame. It is not 'relativistically invariant' as simple location. For other Minkowski perspectives, it yields some of its spatial extent to temporal duration. Different amounts are yielded to different perspectives. A relativistically invariant 'location' has to occupy some time as well. It is four-dimensional, and therefore it 'locates' a process of finite extent. This alone is enough to force process as more ontologically fundamental than an apparently unchanging material object. This accepts that relativistic invariance should be a characteristic of a genuine or properly structured actual entity.

Therefore, unless you provide evidence to convict Locke, I would not mention him here as a source of materialism. And I think it doesn't illuminate to finger Descartes here.

I would suggest instead

Whitehead was convinced that the scientific notion of matter was misleading as a way of describing the ultimate nature of things. In his 1925 book Science and the Modern World, he wrote that

"There persists ... [a] fixed scientific cosmology which presupposes the ultimate fact of an irreducible brute matter, or material, spread through space in a flux of configurations. In itself such a material is senseless, valueless, purposeless. It just does what it does do, following a fixed routine imposed by external relations which do not spring from the nature of its being. It is this assumption that I call 'scientific materialism.' Also it is an assumption which I shall challenge as being entirely unsuited to the scientific situation at which we have now arrived."

In Whitehead's view, there are a number of problems with this notion of "irreducible brute matter." First, it obscures and minimizes the importance of change. By thinking of any material thing (like a rock, or a person) as being fundamentally the same thing throughout time, with any changes to it being secondary to its "nature", scientific materialism hides that nothing ever stays the same. For Whitehead, change is fundamental and inescapable; he emphasizes that "all things flow."

Chjoaygame (talk) 10:11, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

further response 4

Your edit also results in

A second problem with substance materialism is that it obscures the importance of relations. Substance materialism sees every object as distinct and discrete from all other objects. Each object is simply an inert clump of matter that is only externally related to other things. This idea of matter makes people think of objects as being fundamentally separate in time and space, and not necessarily related to anything. But in Whitehead's view, relations take a primary role, perhaps even more important than the relata themselves.

I would rather see

A second problem with materialism is that it obscures the importance of relations. It sees every object as distinct and discrete from all other objects. Each object is simply an inert clump of matter that is only externally related to other things. The idea of matter as primary makes people think of objects as being fundamentally separate in time and space, and not necessarily related to anything. But in Whitehead's view, relations take a primary role, perhaps even more important than the relata themselves.

Chjoaygame (talk) 10:11, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

further response 5

Your edit also results in

In summary, Whitehead rejects the idea of material substances as the most basic items of reality, in favor of the idea of reality as interrelated events in process. He conceives of reality as composed of processes of dynamic "becoming" rather than static "being", emphasizing that all physical things change and evolve, and that changeless "essences" are abstractions from the interrelated events that are the final real things that make up the world.

I would rather see

In summary, Whitehead rejects the idea of unchanging matter as a primary and fundamental constituent of reality, in favor of the idea of reality as interrelated events in process. He conceives of reality as composed of processes of dynamic "becoming" rather than static "being". He emphasizes that all physical things change and evolve. Changeless "essences" such as matter are mere abstractions from the interrelated events that are the final real things that make up the world.

Chjoaygame (talk) 10:11, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

further comment 6

I think it misleading to finger "form" as failing to account for change. In Aristotle, form is defined as just the very thing that does change. Maybe another day.Chjoaygame (talk) 10:11, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

Way off beam, and not directly relevant to anything in particular, but I just feel like noting it here. Heisenberg submitted the very first paper on quantum mechanics proper on 29 July 1925. The preface of Science and the Modern World is dated 25 June 1925.Chjoaygame (talk) 17:25, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

Another comment, not as far off beam, but still not immediately relevant. According to Einstein in 1935, a body is a real entity, and is an invariant drawn from several occasions of experience. Born also says in 1953 that reality is constituted by invariants from several occasions. They are talking about reality, not actuality.Chjoaygame (talk) 17:59, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for your careful comments. I'm planning to examine them more closely in a few days and integrate many of the changes you suggest. Joseph Petek (talk) 17:44, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

Ok.Chjoaygame (talk) 18:01, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

Now the penny drops. On reading that definition by Locke, I see that the Latin (substance) way of thinking was that the real (and permanent) thing stood under the transient appearances. The English way is that the real thing lies under them. The logic is therefore that the substance underlies the transient properties. No problem there. Just a change of language.

But there is a substantial or real change of metaphysics too.

For Aristotle, the material and formal explanations were both necessary; a substance essentially needs both material and formal aspects. That is the doctrine of hylomorphism.

For Descartes, for example, as a general philosophical term, substance included God and mind, as well as matter. That also was more or less how Whitehead used the word substance. For example, for Whitehead, an actual entity, an occasion of experience, is the one and only kind of substance.

Whitehead departed from Descartes, who thought that matter had simple location. Whitehead rejected that, though he held still to the usage that substance in general was all inclusive.

But for the scientific materialists that Whitehead is rejecting, the material was all. For them, the underlying substance is just matter. So for them, substance comes to mean matter and nothing else. Nowadays, when talking with the man in the street, we are inclined to follow the scientific materialists, and automatically regard substance as pertaining to matter, without even thinking of the possibility that substance might pertain, as it did for Aristotle, to both matter and form. So when we say "this is a chemical substance" we assume that of course being a substance it is material.

Now to move away from that immediate metaphysical/etymological reasoning: Just to recapitulate one of the moves of Whitehead. His radical step was to depart from Descartes' view that matter has extension in space, and mind does not. Whitehead's innovation was to say that mind is spatially extensive as well as matter. Indeed mind is always associated indissolubly co-extensively jointly with matter. That is a new principle. In other words, the mental aspect of experience is in every actual entity spatio-temporally co-extensive with its associated matter. They are indissoluble joint aspects of the same actual entity. I am happy enough to say that Whitehead was a neutral monist in this respect. Opposing Whitehead in this, there are of course material monists and mental monists.Chjoaygame (talk) 12:50, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

Sorry it took me a little longer to get back to this than I had hoped. I had originally planned to look at this again two days ago. I've been busy with the 7th WRP conference coming up.

Anyway, I have made the changes you suggested in your comments 3 and 4 basically without argument, as they seem perfectly sensible to me. For your comments 1, 2, and 5 I have integrated some of your changes while either retaining other portions or making another change altogether.

My primary complaint is your use of the term "constituents of reality." You were obviously unhappy with "substance" being used as a general/generic term, and I am coming around to your thinking here. But while "constituents of reality" is admirably generic, I find it an unhappy term because it is philosophical gobbledygook to the average reader. Ask someone on the street what "substance" is, and they will not be very precise, but they will know generally what you are getting at; ask them what "constituents of reality" are and I would wager they would not know where to begin. So, in the meantime I have instead been speaking of "bits of matter that exist independently of one another." I am not entirely happy with the unwieldy nature of this, but I think it is much more understandable to people who don't hold advanced degrees.

I welcome your further comments. Joseph Petek (talk) 19:34, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for this update. No hurry, of course. All good. No problem with 'bits of matter'. Please forgive my being out of touch, but I have to ask what is the 7th WRP conference? Chjoaygame (talk) 01:54, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

I'm glad you're happy with the edits. As to the conference, you've already heard about the big one in 2015 from John Cobb. This is a different (and much smaller) conference for the Whitehead Research Project, which we try to do annually. This year's conference is a reconsideration of Whitehead's Symbolism. You can check out the conference website if you'd like, or look at past conferences. Joseph Petek (talk) 17:26, 13 November 2014 (UTC)