Video Transcript: Aspects as Irreducible

Let's take a look again at this list of aspects that we're working with. Remember  aspect here is a technical term that means a basic kind of properties and laws.  Basic means it can't be subsumed under any other kind. Without serious  incoherence, it neither can it be dismissed as unreal without serious  incoherence. And we've just gone through eight kinds of incoherencies that  might play and bedevil a theory. So let's come back to the list again, and ask  how this is going to help us understand the nature's of the things that we  encounter in the world around us. I pointed out that things have properties  actively. A rock, for example, has quantitative spatial, kinetic and physical  properties, whether anybody knows that or not, and whether it interacts with  other things or not. But here we have it's passive in the biotic aspect is not alive. But it can be part of the process of a living life process of a living thing. And I  gave you examples of that. It could be the stone, a seagull flies over and drops,  clams on upon it in order to smash them over and over to eat. It could be a tiny  rock, but a bird swallows it goes into its gizzard, and it helps grind its food. So it  has relationship with life processes, without being alive. It has a relationship to  perceptual capacities, it can be seen, but doesn't do any perceiving. It doesn't  do any logical thinking. But passively, it can be the object of logical thought we  can distinguish it from other things around it, we can form a concept of it, and it's capable of being formed into something else, we can take that rock carve it into  a statue, and then we have a work of art that's aesthetically qualified, but its  material is goes no higher than the physical as far as active possession of those properties is concerned, our theory is going to go ahead and say that all things  have passive properties in every aspect. But the highest aspect in which a thing  functions actively possesses this properties actively, we're going to call the  qualifying function of that thing. And it's the laws of that aspect, the highest in  which it has its properties actively, the laws of that aspect, are in charge of the  internal organization of the object. So for a rock, those are the physical laws for  a plant or biotic. And for an animal, it's biotic plus, sensory. So all things have  properties of every kind, passively. And then we distinguished things by the  ways, but they have active functions, not just passive. So notice that though  these are active functions, it's there also it's also passive in those aspects, right? It's passive in every aspect. And finally, if we take a human being, the human it  humans are the only things we know of, to their active and passive in every  aspect. Humans have quantity, occupy space can move our bodies have  physical properties, biotic properties, we not only have sensory properties that  passively intense, so that we can be seen, we can see we can perceive them,  we can think logically and be thought of logically, we can form things in the new  new create new objects artifacts, out of a natural material, we can actively or we can be formed. We can be passively formed into an army, a school, a business,  a government all kinds of things. We have an active linguistic function, we are  able to symbolically represent in language, other things other people, other 

concepts and communicate them. We can also be spoken of we That's social  relations that we send into other people. We have these actively, parents to  children, for example, family occupying a house, the rooms of the house,  giveaway, the social standing of the people who live there, the master bedroom  is bigger, there's a higher social standing to the parents spend to the children.  Economically, humans can buy and sell. What is it to make a human, an  economic object, it's to buy and sell human beings. That's what we call slavery.  A general principle that we have here is that since humans exist, with active  functions in every aspect, it's wrong to treat them and merely as an object in any of these aspects. And then the economic that results in slavery. There's a  juridical aspect, some things are just some things are unjust, we tried to get an  order of public justice, and we bind together into States. In order to do that the  state is the political organization, the ruling body in the state is the government  it's the government's responsibility to make laws to enforce justice. So we can  we exercise judgments as to whether something is just or not, we can make  laws, we can also be subject to them, and be arrested by the state if we break  the laws. Aesthetically, we appreciate something, say a beautiful work of art, we  can create those passively, we can appreciate them, or human beings can be  appreciated. Some of them have extreme aesthetic value, don't they, they're  very beautiful. The rest of us just admire and pistically, we can trust something.  And it may be we ourselves, who are in some respects, trusted to do certain  things, particularly if we've made a promise. So human beings are the only  things that we know of the only beings in the universe that exist and act actively  function in every aspect, in addition to being able to be passive in every aspect.  So we are what we call the highest aspect in which something functions as  actively its qualifying function, it qualifies the nature of that thing more centrally  than any other aspect. So what is it that we noticed, particularly about plants?  Well, in addition to having physical properties, such as a rock has biotic ones,  the plants grow, they ingest food, they give off waste, they reproduce, they, they  act as living things. So that more centrally locates the nature of that thing than  mentioning any other aspects. And that's the biotic laws that are in charge of the internal organization, of a of a living thing taken as a whole. For an animal, it can be psycho sensory could be the limit, or some partial logical functions. And  again, these would be the, it would be the sensory laws that would govern the  internal organization of the animal Taken as a whole. That's why it's qualified  that way. Now, the qualifying function of the thing is our first approximation of its  nature. It's the first way to get to the nature of things. It's not the only one. We're  going to now look for the qualifying functions of things as we examined them,  we're going to ask in what aspects are they passive? Well, the answer to that is  all of them. In? What aspects? Do they act function actively, that's going to give  away a goodly part of their nature, by far, it's not the whole story as a start. But  that's where this theory is going to start. One final comment, humans function all

the aspects of life but don't have the qualifying function. And the reason that  they don't in this theory is this theory represents reflects a Christian view of  human beings. There is something about human beings, which is more than all  of their functions in these different aspects. The human being functions in them.  The laws apply to human beings, but then there is something more to a human  being. That's not governed by law. That is a center of real freedom. And that's  something more the Bible refers to with a metaphor, the heart, the heart of an  individual and it does not I mean, the organ that beats in the chest, that's the  metaphorical use. That's why it's a metaphorical use. It's the center of the being  of a person, the person's very identity. It's where all the person's dispositions  and talents lie in. It emit from in the course of life. The Bible speaks of the heart  is what wills thinks, beliefs, desires, including divinity, beliefs, including religious  belief that we should love God, all of our heart, soul, mind, body, soul, mind and  body are other parts, names of aspects of human being at the heart as a central  unity that cannot be qualified by any aspect. It functions at all, all of them alike.  And there's more to it, than what functions in all of those aspects that are  subject to all those laws. It's at that point that freedom enters the scope of the  story, genuine, real, libertarian freedom, not governed by law, not forced to make this choice, not forcing that belief, but real freedom of judgment, choice, action,  attitude, and so on. That's the start of this theory. We'll continue with next time