William M. Briggs

Summary Against Modern Thought: God Is The Cause Of All Being

January 31, 2016 / Briggs / 10 Comments

This may be proved in three ways. The first…

See the first post in this series for an explanation and guide of our tour of Summa Contra Gentiles. All posts are under the category SAMT.

Previous post.

Note that the Chapter numbering is correct; we didn’t actually skip anything; I mislabeled two Chapters as one last week.

Chapter 15 That God is to all things the cause of being (alternate translation)

[1] Now, since we have proved that God is the source of being to some things, we must further show that everything besides Himself is from Him.

[2] For whatever belongs to a thing otherwise than as such, belongs to it through some cause, as white to a man: because that which has no cause is something first and immediate, wherefore it must needs belong to the thing essentially and as such. Now it is impossible for any one thing to belong to two and to both of them as such. For that which is said of a thing as such, does not go beyond that thing: for instance to have three angles equal to two right angles does not go beyond a triangle.

Accordingly if something belongs to two things, it will not belong to both as such: wherefore it is impossible for any one thing to be predicated of two so as to be said of neither by reason of a cause, but it is necessary that either the one be the cause of the other,–for instance fire is the cause of heat in a mixed body, and yet each is called hot;–or else some third thing must be cause of both, for instance fire is the cause of two candles giving light.

Now being is said of everything that is. Wherefore it is impossible that there be two things neither of which has a cause of its being, but either both the things in question must have their being through a cause, or else the one must be the cause of being to the other. Hence everything that, in any way whatever, is, must needs be from that to which nothing is a cause of being. Now we have proved above that God is this being to which nothing is a cause of its being. Therefore from Him is everything that, in any way whatever, is. If however it be said that being is not a univocal predicate, the above conclusion follows none the less. For it is not said of many equivocally, but analogically: and thus it is necessary to be brought back to one thing.

Notes Understand this is metaphysics and not physics which is under discussion. A thing having being is not given being by “laws of nature.” We can plant an acorn, which is a nascent oak tree, and which grows according to certain formula we might discover. But its the whole package, including the “laws” and “formula”, are what exists as being-an-oak-tree. It is the totality of the thing which has being. And that being has to have been caused by something. It is that totality which can only have come from some First unchanging cause, which we earlier proved was God.

Science comes after being. Science takes being for granted, and seeks to discover the “formula” to apply to being. But science can never explain being; it cannot even explain the laws and rules which science itself uses. Physics must always be built on top of metaphysics, for without metaphysics there is no physics.

[3] Moreover. That which belongs to a thing by its nature, and not by some other cause, cannot be diminished and deficient therein. For if something essential be subtracted from or added to a nature, there will be at once another nature: even as it happens in numbers, where the addition or subtraction of unity changes the species. And if the nature or quiddity of a thing remain entire, although something is found to be diminished, it is clear that this does not depend simply on that nature, but on something else, through the absence of which it is diminished.

Wherefore that which belongs to one thing less than to others, belongs to it not through its nature alone, but through some other cause. Consequently that thing will be the cause of all in a certain genus, to which thing the predication of that genus belongs above all; hence that which is most hot is seen to be the cause of heat in all things hot, and that which is most light is the cause of all things that have light. Now God is being above all, as we have proved in the First Book. Therefore He is the cause of all of which being is predicated.

Notes Review: A hat is not essential to be a man; a hat is an “accident” and not part of his essential nature. But a man with a head to place the hat on is not a man, but a corpse. Heads are essential and hats are accidents.

[4] Further. The order of causes must needs correspond to the order of effects, since effects are proportionate to their causes. Wherefore, as proper effects are reduced to their proper causes, so that which is common in proper effects must needs be reduced to some common cause: even so, above the particular causes of the generation of this or that thing, is the sun the universal cause of generation; and the king is the universal cause of government in his kingdom, above the wardens of the kingdom and of each city. Now being is common to all. Therefore above all causes there must be a cause to which it belongs to give being. But God is the first cause, as shown above. Therefore it follows that all things that are, are from God.

[5] Again. That which is said to be essentially so and so is the cause of all that are so by participation: thus fire is the cause of all things ignited as such. Now God is being by His essence, because He is being itself: whereas everything else is being by participation: for there can be but one being that is its own being, as was proved in the First Book. Therefore God is the cause of being to all other things.

Notes Don’t forget that when say anything has being, we are speaking of that thing in its totality, including the “forces” which hold the thing together, to use more physical language.

[6] Further. Everything that is possible to be and not to be has a cause: because considered in itself it is indifferent to either, so that there must needs be something else that determines it to one. Wherefore, since we cannot proceed to infinity, there must needs be some necessary thing that is the cause of all things that it is possible to be and not to be. Now there is a necessary thing that has a cause of its necessity: and here again we cannot proceed to infinity, so that we must come to something that is of itself necessary to be. And this can be but one, as we showed in the First Book: and this is God. Therefore everything other than Him must be reduced to Him as the cause of its being.

Notes We’re back to Chapter 13 in Book One. A can be the cause of B, and B of C, and so forth, but this has to end, or rather start, somewhere, because something is needed to explain the cause of being in A.

[7] Moreover. God is the maker of a thing, inasmuch as He is in act, as we have proved above. Now by His actuality and perfection He contains all the perfections of things, as we have shown in the First Book; and thus He is virtually all things. Therefore He is the maker of all. But this would not be if something else were of a nature to be otherwise than from Him: for nothing is of a nature to be from another, and not to be from another, since if it be of a nature not to be from another, it is of itself necessary to be, and thus can never be from another. Therefore nothing can be except from God.

[8] Again. The imperfect originate from the perfect, as seed from an animal. Now God is the most perfect being and the sovereign good, as was shown in the First Book. Therefore He is to all things the cause of being, especially since it was proved that there can be but one such thing…

[10] This sets aside the error of the ancient physicists who asserted that certain bodies had no cause of their being: likewise of some who say that God is not the cause of the substance of heaven, but only of its movement.

Notes In mixed-modern-medieval parlance, a potential cannot be actualized without something being in act. Something that does not have being but could is only in potential to being; therefore to be requires an actuality. Now since “chance” or “randomness” cannot be causes since they are not actual, certain effects at the very small, in the realm of quantum mechanics, cannot be said to have no cause of their being. An actuality must still exist to actualize their potential. Now we may not know what this actuality is, but our ignorance does not prove non-existence.

The Corrosive Effect Of Democracy, Far East Edition

January 30, 2016 / Briggs / 26 Comments

Taiwanese duck tongue, yum yum yum.

Taiwan had its election on January 16th, elevating Tsai English Language (her real name) to the presidency. Tsai represented the DPP, which is roughly equivalent to the island’s progressive party. She beat the traditionally minded KMT candidate and a third party handily, with about 60% of the vote.

Her victory was celebrated by the young and celebrities with a similar kind of euphoria as when Barack Obama took office, with many happy that Tsai is female.

The DPP is seen as younger and more enlightened than the stodgy KMT, which is the party of Chiang Kai-shek, who was the leader of the Republic of China before being chased to Taiwan in 1950 by the bloodthirsty mainland communists. Which makes it sound strange that DPP is the anti-China party. But it’s only odd when you consider that well into the 1970s Taiwan claimed to be the legitimate authority of all China. That is, of course, no longer the case. Taiwan moved from its authoritarian nature and became a modern democracy in the late 1980s, early 1990s, and it maintains a weird and touchy relationship with China. That is a gross simplification, but it captures some large currents.

Part of the DPP’s appeal are to those who consider themselves Taiwanese and not Chinese. For instance, many, largely in the south of Taiwan, make a point of speaking Taiwanese and not Mandarin. But it is also true that much of the DPP’s pull, especially among the young, is its progressive stance on many questions. For instance, a DPP “green” paper, the Taipei Times, is deeply concerned about global warming and the “rights” of those claiming same-sex attraction. Et cetera. The blue papers return insult for insult, but with less vitriol, not being as progressive.

The picture will be entirely familiar to those living in older democracies, with folks there understanding democracies force politics on its citizens, with the concomitant acrimony necessarily following. For example, what is the best official attitude to take on, say, the Muslim migrant crisis in Europe? An equivalent question in scope is how Taiwan should treat China economically. In both cases the majority of citizens can offer little of value, for the trivially simple reason that they have no experience in statecraft and little understanding of history and so forth beyond their own family.

Yet democracy runs on egalitarianism, which insists lack of ability, interest, or sense is no barrier to participation. Indeed, even to mention these matters, as I’m doing now, is seen as gauche. The fallacy that one ignorant man is of no help but that a million ignorant men can vote its way to truth will and must be believed. This is why democracies are corrosive of tradition.

As a for-instance, consider same-sex “marriage”, i.e. gmarriage (for government-marriage). That democratic governments have the conceit that they can define marriage is the first and major problem. The second is then invoking this fictional power. Gmarriage, incidentally, is always misunderstood. What’s troubling is not that two persons of the same sex choose to call themselves “married”, which is of little to no interest, but that democratic governments must force everybody to call that pair “married”, too. Gmarriage is totalitarian. Which, as readers familiar with history recognize, is another common trait of advanced democracies.

In Taiwan, Tsai English Language is not married, which is far less usual there than in the West. She has a fondness for cats and has publicly revealed her support for gmarriage. She said, “In the face of love, everyone is equal. Let everyone have the freedom to love and to pursue their happiness. I am Tsai Ing-wen, and I support marriage equality.” Raw egalitarianism.

Immediately after her election, a group called Pride Watch Taiwan released a survey showing support of Legislative Yuan members for gmarriage. The DPP had 32 members agree, and 4 disagree; but the amazing thing was 32 members didn’t have the guts to say either way. The ratio is skewed more toward disagree in the KMT, but still 21 members (60%) are waiting to see which way the wind blows.

It’s blowing away from traditional Confucianism with its heavy and significant emphasis on duty and family (which, of course, does not technically exist in gmarriages, since the couples cannot procreate; incidentally, egalitarianism will soon attack the “couple” notion). Abandoning 2,500 years of culture in a short 25 winters is something a democracy can certainly do, but will it happen in Taiwan? Those in the DPP who only wanted to oppose China and are satisfied with cultural traditions might not be ready. But it’s not a bad bet to take.

Analysis Of A Sermon From The Secular Scientism Priest Neil deGrasse Tyson

January 29, 2016 / Briggs / 32 Comments

Say Cheesy. Our man is on the far right.

It’s not that anybody of stature claims Neil deGrasse Tyson is one of our greatest minds; instead, it has been said he is a harmless entertainer. In this there is some truth. But he is also a sort of snide yet jolly secular priest, and a harmful one because the religion he preaches—scientism—is a false one. Don’t believe me: let’s let Tyson prove this in his own words, taken from his sermon “What Science Is — and How and Why It Works“.

Science distinguishes itself from all other branches of human pursuit by its power to probe and understand the behavior of nature on a level that allows us to predict with accuracy, if not control, the outcomes of events in the natural world.

This sounds like a boast, but it is only a definition. Who didn’t know the job of science? We could have also said, for example, Literature distinguishes itself from all other branches of human pursuit by its power to probe and understand the behavior of people on a level that allows us to probe with accuracy, if not control, the outcomes of events of people’s lives. Science is only one branch of knowledge.

The scientific method, which underpins these achievements, can be summarized in one sentence, which is all about objectivity:

Do whatever it takes to avoid fooling yourself into thinking something is true that is not, or that something is not true that is.

However, this “method” is also the one that applies in literature, philosophy, mathematics, theology, and so forth. Science has no special case to make in the pursuit of truth. Yet Scientist Tyson intimates that because science does a superior job at discovering scientific truths, scientific truths are superior to other truths. This is obviously false, not the least because science could not do its job without the truths from the other areas of human endeavor. Indeed, a strong case can be made that scientific truths are the least important to mankind because no scientific truth gives us any insight into life and death, the purpose and meaning of our lives, morality, and so forth.

Since [Galileo and Bacon], we would further learn not to claim knowledge of a newly discovered truth until multiple researchers, and ultimately the majority of researchers, obtain results consistent with one another.

A “newly discovered truth” is a truth regardless of how many researchers believe or can prove it. This is just Tyson writing poorly. He meant to say that we should not say new claims are true until the claims have received consistent verification. Yet since the advent of Big Science, we know that grandiose claims made by breathless press releases often receive the biggest reward. And those claims which further the Establishment (particularly government) are often claimed to be true contrary to evidence.

Science discovers objective truths…

Once an objective truth is established by these methods, it is not later found to be false. We will not be revisiting the question of whether Earth is round; whether the sun is hot; whether humans and chimps share more than 98 percent identical DNA; or whether the air we breathe is 78 percent nitrogen.

Science is not alone in discovering objective truths, and science can only discover truths about the contingent world. Also, science would a dull field indeed were it only to catalog contingent objective truths. It doesn’t take a full-fledged “scientist” to say the sun is hot or even that the earth is round (despite the many fictions that have grown up claiming mankind only knew this latter objective truth recently). Science is therefore not a dry collection of objective truths, but an attempt at understanding the (secondary) causes of these truths. Why is sun hot? That requires an explanation, a theory, which is subject to revision, to revisting.

So the only times science cannot assure objective truths is on the pre-consensus frontier of research, and the only time it couldn’t was before the 17th century, when our senses — inadequate and biased — were the only tools at our disposal to inform us of what was and was not true in our world.

Once again, Scientist Tyson has confused observation with explanation. And somehow he forgets that our senses—inadequate and biased—are still the only tools we have to make sense of the data presented to us. It is only the case that we have created tools which provide our inadequate and biased senses with new data. A microscope still presents to the eye an image which must be interpreted.

Objective truths exist outside of your perception of reality, such as the value of pi; E= m c 2; Earth’s rate of rotation; and that carbon dioxide and methane are greenhouse gases. These statements can be verified by anybody, at any time, and at any place. And they are true, whether or not you believe in them.

This is the product of a mind overtaxed. Not all these statements can be verified by anybody. But that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, for instance, is of itself of only minor interest. How much influence it has is another question entirely. Tyson does not appear to understand the difference.

Meanwhile, personal truths are what you may hold dear, but have no real way of convincing others who disagree, except by heated argument, coercion or by force. These are the foundations of most people’s opinions…You don’t have to like gay marriage. Nobody will ever force you to gay-marry. But to create a law preventing fellow citizens from doing so is to force your personal truths on others. Political attempts to require that others share your personal truths are, in their limit, dictatorships.

I’m guessing where a migrant to hold at knife at Scientist Tyson’s throat, his “personal truth” that murder is wrong would at least come to his mind if not his lips. Would he try to force this personal truth on his would-be slayer? That murder is wrong is not, of course, a scientific answer. Science is mute on morality and on, for instance, gay marriage. It is only a mind saturated in scientism that could say if you don’t like gay marriage, you don’t have to participate in it. It’s like saying that you don’t have to like murder, you don’t have to participate in it.

Note further that in science, conformity is anathema to success.

It is here I doubled over in laughter and could not follow the remainder of the sermon to its end.

Is Using FanDuel Or DraftKings Gambling? What Is A “Game Of Chance”?

January 28, 2016 / Briggs / 17 Comments

Fantasies

Heard about the legal troubles of FanDuel and DraftKings? These are fantasy sports companies that allow people to pick lineups (according to certain rules) for professional sporting matches and to win money based on wise picks. The New York Attorney General and others are going after these companies because they claim fantasy sports contests are gambles.

Here’s the setup in brief (go to the original sites for details): The men chosen in the lineups earn points for various activities, like running for a touchdown or getting a base hit. The fantasy game user who picked the lineup (per game or set of games) that earned the most points wins the contest. Fees are paid to enter contests, and the winner (or winners) take a cut of the pool, the remainder going to the fantasy sports company.

Is this gambling? I mean, legally speaking? What I don’t know about the law could fill a library, so I won’t attempt any legal answer. I can only give my opinion about the terms used by lawyers when considering what make contests games of skill or (as they call it) chance.

The very useful site Legal Sports Report has an excellent article on the situation, “Analyzing FanDuel’s Statistical Arguments On Skill Vs. Chance At The New York Hearing“. The writer, Peter Hammon, said this of New York gambling laws:

1. “Contest of chance” means any contest, game, gaming scheme or gaming device in which the outcome depends in a material degree upon an element of chance, notwithstanding that skill of the contestants may also be a factor therein.

2. “Gambling.” A person engages in gambling when he stakes or risks something of value upon the outcome of a contest of chance or a future contingent event not under his control or influence, upon an agreement or understanding that he will receive something of value in the event of a certain outcome.

What Is A Game Of Chance?

The legal question is thus whether a contest depends “in a material degree upon an element of chance”. So, what is chance? There is no such thing. Chance does not exist. I understand many think it does; New York clearly believes in it. Still, it wouldn’t be the first time the law is in error.

If you haven’t already, please read the article “What Is A Game Of Chance?” which defines terms and in which I conclude a “game of chance” is a “game where the causes are unknown but where the outcomes are defined”. I’m going to assume readers here have complete knowledge of that article.

What does this definition have to do with fantasy sports? Fantasy contests would be “games of chance” if their outcomes were like those in craps, in the sense that no causes (or proxies) could be measured.

Are Fantasy Contests Games Of Chance?

First, it is clear pikers enter fantasy contests having no idea what is happening, knowing only that they could “win money”. The same happens in casinos, of course, and even bars, with drunks falling into poker games, folks who haven’t a clue how the game works but who believe riches are only a few bets away. But surely it is unfair to judge a fantasy company, or a casino, on just the ill-thought-out behavior of ignorant (I use this word in its technical sense) users. To understand the role of “chance” we thus need to look at those people who at least claim to know what is happening. And that means looking at how the games are constructed.

Users pick lineups (subject to various restrictions) hoping that the men chosen for the lineups will excel during professional sports games and thus garner more points according to the specific posted rules of the contests. Users can enter multiple lineups per contest (some enter hundreds). Unlike craps (this was the example used in the linked article on games of chance), the number of possible points is not known in advance, except that it is bounded below by 0.

A running back carrying a ball in for a touchdown causes that touchdown. Actually, his activities are some of several causes; there are various blocks and so on by other players that also contribute. A fantasy user who has the running back on his lineup can’t predict in advance all the exact causes for that touchdown, but if he has good knowledge of football, he might know which running backs are better at securing touchdowns in the games which are part of a fantasy contest.

Every contest has a list of possible men that could be picked for a lineup. This makes for a huge number of potential lineups. Each of these potential lineups, even if they are not picked by a fantasy user, would result in a score. Here is a tricky point. In craps, because we know how totals are constructed we know, in advance, that some scores are more probable than others. Are some scores more probable than others in fantasy contests? This would be true only if we could, a priori and based only the rules of the contests (and not on “data” of past contests), discover that certain lineups of player types (quarterbacks over running backs, say) result in more points than others. Given the nature of the scoring rules, which award points by activities which themselves are contingent, I can’t see how this could be so. But if somebody could derive those, in a strictly mathematical sense, that becomes the baseline knowledge I’ll discuss next.

Now the scores of all potential lineups can be ranked, smallest to largest. I mean “all” as in all, i.e. even those lineups no fantasy user picked. (Forming all possible lineups is a simple problem in combinatorics.) A clear indication that fantasy users are demonstrating skill, meaning they have some understanding of the causes behinds the points they are awarded, is that their scores consistently fall into the upper range of this ranking. The idea is like this: a “chance”, i.e. “no-causal-knowledge”, user chooses any of the potential lineups; each lineup, to this “chance” or “no-causal-knowledge” player, has the same probability of garnering more points in a match-up with another “no-causal-knowledge” user. But a skilled player has knowledge that many lineups are poor, which is why they aren’t picked.

Even a casual acquaintance with sports indicates most potential lineups will result in low scores. Experts, those with some knowledge of cause, should be able to handily beat “chance/no-causal-knowledge” users easily and often. Think of it this way (to quote myself from the linked article): take two craps players, one a novice but who knows the rules, and the other an expert who claims, falsely, that he is able to measure some of the relevant causes. Pitted against one another, each is as likely to win (more money) as the other. But if the second player truly can measure some of the relevant causes, he will beat the first fellow consistently. How consistently depends on the extent of his causal knowledge. Same thing with expert fantasy users pitted against “no-causal-knowledge” users.

What Do Others Say?

Fantasy companies have begun answering the charges about games of chance. Hammon commented, “FanDuel released data that showed about 50% of the prize money is won by 1% of the winners. In a game dominated by chance, you would expect a more equal distribution of prize money over time.” But Hammon doesn’t like this argument because the “average number of entries per week and the top 1% of winners predominantly fell in the ‘500+ entries’ category while the bottom 1% of winners all fell in the ’25 or fewer entries’ category.”

A user who entered every potential lineup would win (or at least tie) every contest, but this approach obviously requires no skill. There are ways, however, of handling multiple entries per contest in comparisons, so Hammon’s objection doesn’t have much force. For instance, consider that the expert multiple-entry user could be matched against the “no-causal-knowledge” user given the same number of entries (from the pool of all possible lineups).

Hammon said, “FanDuel looked at the performance of lineups created completely at random…and compared them to the performance of the average FanDuel user lineup across”. He doesn’t like this either:

Because the simulated lineups were selected randomly and without a salary floor, that means they would include low-priced reserve players who would not have been drafted by actual FanDuel users. Not surprisingly, the average FanDuel user lineups won most of the time. But all this proves is that even the worst FanDuel contestant is smart enough to avoid drafting reserves who don’t see playing time.

If the objection is that the “random” (there is no such thing as “random”, so he means what I meant by potential) lineups includes men who could not be used by FanDuel users, then Hammon’s objection is sound. But if these men aren’t drafted because FanDuel users don’t like them, because for instance they are thought to have little athletic ability, then this indicates FanDuel users know something of cause. In other words, FanDuel users are showing skill.

Hammon has some other objections at that site, and I’ll let you read those on your own. At another site he comments on an approach taken by DraftKings in demonstrating skill. Basically, DraftKings found expert users and pitted them against average users, and discovered the experts were much better. Well, no surprise. But that some users can consistently come out on top gives terrific evidence that skill (knowledge of some cause) is required.

Result?

Fantasy sports contests are not “games of chance” in the same sense as for instance dice games are. In order to be consistently successful at fantasy games, players have to have knowledge of the sports in question to staff their lineups, over and above the knowledge that this or that potential lineup is allowed by the fantasy rules. In other words, some skill is needed to be successful.

Perfect skill in fantasy sports is not attainable. But neither is perfect skill in, say, weather forecasting attainable. Consider that physicists know a lot of the causes of tomorrow’s potential rain, but even they don’t guess right every time. Yet nobody would claim (except jokingly) weather forecasting is a game of chance.

Note: I have an interest in this subject, though not with either of the companies mentioned.

William M. Briggs

Statistician to the Stars!

Summary Against Modern Thought: God Is The Cause Of All Being

The Corrosive Effect Of Democracy, Far East Edition

Analysis Of A Sermon From The Secular Scientism Priest Neil deGrasse Tyson

Is Using FanDuel Or DraftKings Gambling? What Is A “Game Of Chance”?

News

Links

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Archives

Categories

Meta

Modern aphorism

Benjamin Franklin