| 457 | Substance is not created or destroyed in mortals, but there is only mixing and exchange [Empedocles] |
| Full Idea: There is no creation of substance in any one of mortal existence, nor any end in execrable death, but only mixing and exchange of what has been mixed. | |
| From: Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE], B008), quoted by Plutarch - 74: Reply to Colotes 1111f | |
| A reaction: also Aristotle 314b08 |
| 16572 | Does the pure 'this' come to be, or the 'this-such', or 'so-great', or 'somewhere'? [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The question might be raised whether substance (i.e. the 'this') comes-to-be at all. Is it not rather the 'such', the 'so-great', or the 'somewhere', which comes-to-be? | |
| From: Aristotle (Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) [c.335 BCE], 317b21) | |
| A reaction: This is interesting because it pulls the 'tode ti', the 'this-such', apart, showing that he does have a concept of a pure 'this', which seems to constitute the basis of being ('ousia'). We can say 'this thing', or 'one of these things'. |
| 16573 | Philosophers have worried about coming-to-be from nothing pre-existing [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: In addition, coming-to-be may proceed out of nothing pre-existing - a thesis which, more than any other, preoccupied and alarmed the earliest philosophers. | |
| From: Aristotle (Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) [c.335 BCE], 317b29) | |
| A reaction: This is the origin of the worry about 'ex nihilo' coming-to-be. Christians tended to say that only God could create in this way. |
| 13214 | The substratum changing to a contrary is the material cause of coming-to-be [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The substratum [hupokeimenon?] is the material cause of the continuous occurrence of coming-to-be, because it is such as to change from contrary to contrary. | |
| From: Aristotle (Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) [c.335 BCE], 319a19) | |
| A reaction: Presumably Aristotle will also be seeking the 'formal' cause as well as the 'material' cause (not to mention the 'efficient' and 'final' causes). |
| 13215 | If a perceptible substratum persists, it is 'alteration'; coming-to-be is a complete change [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: There is 'alteration' when the substratum is perceptible and persists, but changes in its own properties. ...But when nothing perceptible persists in its identity as a substratum, and the thing changes as a whole, it is coming-to-be of a substance. | |
| From: Aristotle (Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) [c.335 BCE], 319b11-17) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] Note that a substratum can be perceptible - it isn't just some hidden mystical I-know-not-what (as Locke calls it). This whole text is a wonderful source on the subject of physical change. Note too the reliance on what is perceptible. |
| 16574 | Coming-to-be may be from nothing in a qualified way, as arising from an absence [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: We agree that nothing can be said without qualification to come from what is not, …but it may in a qualified sense. For a thing comes to be from a privation, which in its own nature is not-being - this not surviving as a constituent in the result. | |
| From: Aristotle (Physics [c.337 BCE], 191b13) | |
| A reaction: Not sure I understand this, but it seems to say that genuine creation from nothing at all is impossible. |
| 16706 | Generation is when local motions aggregate to become a single subject [Nicholas of Autrecourt] |
| Full Idea: In the case of natural things there is only local motion. When from such motion there follows an aggregation of natural bodies that are gathered to one another and acquire the nature of a single subject, this is called generation. | |
| From: Nicholas of Autrecourt (Tractatus [1335], Ch. 1) | |
| A reaction: This is explosive atomistic corpuscularianism, three centuries before its appointed date. He was duly suppressed. Can he give an account of the 'nature of a single subject' in this way? |
| 18892 | Suppose a world where I'm from different gametes; add my gametes; which one is more me? [McGinn] |
| Full Idea: It seems essential that you come from your gametes. Suppose (for reductio) that I come from Nixon's actual gametes. Now add my actual gametes to that possible world, and suppose they become an adult. Which has the stronger title to be me? | |
| From: Colin McGinn (On the Necessity of Origin [1976], p.132), quoted by Nathan Salmon - Reference and Essence (1st edn) 7.25.5 | |
| A reaction: [See Nathan Salmon 1981:209] Feels like the Ship of Theseus. You say 'that's Theseus Ship', until the rival ship appears around the headland. Confusion. If Nixon's gametes can produce McGinn, the second gametes could produce a Nixon! Then what? |
| 16583 | Weak ex nihilo says it all comes from something; strong version says the old must partly endure [Pasnau] |
| Full Idea: The weak ex nihilo principle says that everything comes from something, and the strong ex nihilo principle says that in everything new, something of the old must endure | |
| From: Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 02.5) |