Rabbi Gedaliah Nadel’s Thought – Bereishit – Lesson 5

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[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The way I grasp the world, I grasp it through a series of regularities, of laws of nature. I agree with neither this claim nor that one, but here in philosophy they make this distinction on two planes: with respect to the objects themselves, and with respect to the behaviors in the world—the laws of nature that establish relations between events, okay. In any case, according to both possibilities there is some basis of fixed regularity. At any rate, there is constancy here. It doesn’t matter whether you understand it this way or that way. Reality doesn’t appear one way one time and another way another time. What we regard today as a wall or a plant and so on is also tomorrow a wall, a plant, and so on. That’s a somewhat problematic sentence, of course. Meaning, you see this wall now; tomorrow morning you come back here and again you’ll see this wall here—but who says it’s the same wall? Meaning, yesterday it was a wall and today it’s a wall. There is no “it.” There are only sensations. I just want to say that every time it seems to you that you’re sitting in this place in Mishkenot Yisrael, then it also seems to you that you see a wall to your right. This formulation—as if the wall that was a wall yesterday is also a wall today—already assumes the existence of a wall out there. And every time we perceive it, we perceive it in the same way. Fine, but that’s just a manner of speaking, of course. And the base of the wall is always below and the wall above it, and the roots of the plant are in the ground and the leaves above it, not the reverse. In a dream, in imagination, it could be the other way around, one time this way and one time that way, but in reality there is regularity. Whether it is the regularity of external reality in itself, or the regularity of human thought. Here, you see, he’s already making the Kantian distinction; above he made Berkeley’s distinction. The distinction regarding the objects in the world—whether they exist or whether it’s only my consciousness. Here he’s talking about regularity: is the regularity in the world, or is the regularity only in my thought. Every sane person recognizes this regularity, and therefore when he needs medical treatment he goes to a doctor, and when he needs to build a house he goes to an engineer, and so on. If the world did not behave according to regularity, this would make no sense. What’s the point of going to an expert if what happens today is not what happened yesterday? The expert is always an expert on what happened yesterday; he is never an expert on what will happen tomorrow. Unless the assumption is that what will happen tomorrow is exactly what happened yesterday, right? Ben-Gurion said this, I think—I don’t remember anymore—that historians are experts on the past; they always know exactly what happened, but when they start expressing opinions about the present or the future, you should be careful. On the regularity of reality, both Aristotle and Maimonides agreed, except that Aristotle thought the world is eternal and nothing can break out of this regularity, whereas Maimonides held that the world was created and the Creator can intervene in events by way of providence and depart from regularity by way of a wonder, a miracle, yes. But according to everyone, the general framework of reality is a framework of regularity. Two comments here. One comment is a very interesting one: if there really is no world outside, as in the option he presented earlier, and everything is only in my consciousness, then what is the meaning of the debate whether the world is eternal or created? It’s a debate about what my consciousness perceives regarding the world, but after all we both know that our consciousness perceives nothing about the age of the world—not that it is eternal and not that it is created. It’s not a matter of how I perceive; it’s a question of what really was. I don’t know. But if there isn’t really anything outside, only the perceptions through which I perceive the world, then the question loses its meaning. If you assume that people exist? If you assume that people, souls? No, nobody. Only I exist. No, it seemed to me he said only that all the… I don’t think so. I don’t remember anymore, but I’m almost sure not. What difference does it make? Why is it reasonable to assume that you exist but not that the wall exists? No, no, no—but it seems to me at least that in one variation of this idealist view, people do exist. I think that’s Berkeley, if I’m not mistaken. I don’t remember, but I find that hard to believe. I don’t know, we’d have to check again. I don’t remember, but I find it hard to believe. There’s the problem of other selves. Meaning, how can you know that other people exist? But when you relate only to people and not to the other objects, that’s the reverse. Meaning, the problem is only about people, even though the other objects do exist; with people you can’t be sure. Why not? Because you’re talking about their soul, not about them themselves. The body standing in front of you—does it have a soul in the same sense that you know in yourself, where behind your own body you experience the soul directly? So the question is whether such a phenomenon also exists in other people or not. Because that you don’t see. So that’s a question that is the opposite of what you proposed. The skepticism is specifically about people and not about other objects. But skepticism about objects and not about people sounds very strange to me—what, why? Fine, in any case, that’s how it is. Well, I don’t know, I need to reread it, I don’t remember anymore, but I find it hard to believe; it doesn’t make sense. Then again, this whole business doesn’t make sense, so I’m not sure how much we need to look for logic here. Yes. In any event, I’m saying this is one comment: the question how long the world has existed, whether it is eternal or how long it has existed, is really a question that cannot be formulated in the terms of idealism, because idealism cannot ask how I see the world—whether it was never created or was created in time. I did not see either that it was created or that it was not created. What I see is what is around me—“around me” in quotation marks—what is present in my consciousness now. That is what I see. What meaning is there to the question how old it is? It is exactly a tenth of a second old. Meaning, when it was born is when it was created in my consciousness—that is its age. Meaning, there is no “its,” yes. That’s one point, one parenthetical remark, but it’s only an anecdote. But why does he need here at all the question whether the world is eternal or not? Because for Aristotle the basis of the view that the world is eternal is regularity. Meaning, determinism is what led Aristotle to the view that the world cannot be created—that it must be eternal. Therefore he starts from the fact that there is regularity, and from there he moves to the discussion of whether the world is eternal or not. Because Aristotle argues that the coming-into-being of a world is a deviation from the laws of nature, and since one cannot deviate from the laws of nature because they are fixed, it cannot be that the world was created. That is his argument for the world’s eternity. And Maimonides accepts the regularity that exists in the world—that’s what he says here—exactly like Aristotle, but is still willing to adopt the view that the world was created, meaning that the world is not eternal. He says yes, one time there was indeed a deviation: the Holy One, blessed be He, created the system, and from then on it is fixed, there is regularity. It’s a rather weak argument, the Aristotelian argument. In any case, that is the meaning of this move to the question whether the world is eternal or not. Now this is a parenthetical section. The structure of Aristotelian thought is like this: there are first intelligibles, that is, self-evident assumptions—not because we proved them, but because a person cannot in any way think otherwise—such as if A equals B and B equals C, then A equals C. And there are reasonings that are not necessary, and so on; in a moment we’ll see more. He spoke about this a bit when we discussed reasoning among the sources of Jewish law at the beginning of the book, and there too he spoke a little about this matter, and here I’ll note what I already noted there. His wording, in my view, is problematic; I do not agree with it. And here I think it’s not accidental—he really means what he said. He says that these assumptions—for example, if A equals B and B equals C then A equals C—why is that a first intelligible? Because I cannot think otherwise. Meaning, it’s as if it’s only because the problem is with me—because that’s how I’m built, I can’t get out of this perception that if A equals B and B equals C, then A equals C. Therefore there’s no point dealing with the question whether it’s true or not; I can’t step outside this whole matter, okay? Just as there’s no point dealing with the question what the world looks like when I fly at an altitude of a kilometer, because I can’t fly at an altitude of a kilometer. It’s simply because of my limitations; there’s no point amusing yourself with questions that are inaccessible to me. I think—I don’t agree with that formulation. Meaning, I think this thing is self-evident and true not because I’m compelled to it, but because it really is self-evident. Meaning, I do not see it as some limitation of mine or some pattern of thought that I am forced into; rather, I think it is genuinely true. Meaning, there’s the fact that I’m compelled—certainly I’m compelled to think this way—but I’m compelled to think this way because it really is true, not because of some accidental structure of my thinking or of my intellect. Fine, again, one can argue; it’s the same argument as before—idealism or not idealism—but it seems to me that his wording assumes something I don’t agree with. I don’t think it has to be that way, and one has to notice, because these are two different things. And this parallels what he said earlier—we talked about it last time, at the end of last time—that the Holy One, blessed be He, is above time, and therefore there is no point asking whether He knows what is going to happen and all kinds of things of that sort. And I said that this is nonsense in my view, because when I, as a human being, speak about the Holy One, blessed be He, I speak about Him in the terms of my own thought. I do not speak about the Holy One, blessed be He, as He is. I speak about the Holy One, blessed be He, as I perceive Him. And if I perceive Him in a certain way, then for me that is the Holy One, blessed be He. What’s the point of dealing with anything else? And therefore statements of the type that the Holy One, blessed be He, created time and is above time and can see the future and know in the present what will happen in the future and still I have free choice, and all kinds of things like the Holy One, blessed be He, being above logic—which Maimonides and Rashba and quite a number of medieval authorities reject—they reject it precisely because it is not merely a limitation of our thought; rather, that is the truth. Meaning, the fact that the Holy One, blessed be He, cannot produce a triangle whose angles do not add up to one hundred eighty degrees but to some other sum—that is not because we are stuck in this mode of thought, but because such a triangle truly does not exist. Meaning, even the Holy One, blessed be He, really cannot make such a triangle, because if He did make such a triangle, it would not be a triangle; it would be something else. A triangle is something whose angles add up to one hundred eighty degrees. Therefore I think it is too weak a statement to say that it must be true because I cannot get out of this mode of perception. It is true because it is true, not because we cannot get out of it. On the contrary, I cannot get out of this perception because it is a perception that is necessarily true. Meaning, that’s how I think, at least—it works in the opposite direction. And there are reasonings that are not necessary. Up to here, these are the necessary things, the first intelligibles, which are self-evident. There are reasonings that are not necessary like the first intelligibles; one can think otherwise, but reason says that this is how it is. Meaning, these are things whose opposite I can logically conceive. Say, the laws of nature, for example. The laws of nature—I can conceive of a world in which I let go of this object and it stays in the air and does not fall to the ground. It is not a logical law that it should fall to the ground; it is a law of nature. Okay? A law of nature is not something my imagination is forced into. Meaning, I can think of a world where it does not exist—a different world. There is no logical contradiction in the definition of such a world. But our world is not like that. Okay? The difference between laws of logic and laws of nature? I think that first intelligibles are, simply, also things that are not laws of nature. Fine, so I’m saying, I don’t know exactly what he means; I’m bringing examples that I can bring. I don’t know. It may be that he also sees the laws of physics as something one cannot think otherwise about. But physics is something learned from experience. But let’s say what you said earlier—that the question whether the world exists at all is not a logical law, but I would simply define it as a first intelligible. Are the senses deceptive? No, not by his definition. Because his definition says that you can entertain the other possibility even if you don’t think it’s correct. I can entertain Berkeley’s possibility that the world does not exist and only I exist. That is what he defines; I’m going with him. His definition is the definition. So that’s what he says. One could imagine something else; a triangle whose angles don’t add up to one hundred eighty degrees is not something one can imagine—that is a concept containing an internal contradiction. It is not something that can even arise in imagination. Okay? Therefore it is a first intelligible in the primary sense. In contrast, a world without gravity, or a world with no colors, say, or I don’t know what, no sounds, doesn’t matter—that is a world I can conceive of. It’s just not our world. Okay? In our world that is apparently not true, but it is not a logical necessity. Meaning, you won’t be inconsistent if you think the opposite. And there is a third level, which is a leaning conjecture. When we have a number of assumptions, we can create from them proofs of new propositions. There is a third level, which is a leaning conjecture. What is a leaning conjecture? I tend to think so. Meaning, the second type is a type where it is clear to me that the opposite is not the case here, though I can think otherwise. It is logically defined; the opposite thought is also logically defined. It does not lead me into contradiction, okay? Like a world without gravity. But it is clear to me that in our world there is gravity. This does not raise any doubt in me as to whether in our world there is or is not gravity. It is clear to me that there is. It’s just that the necessity of why this is clear to me is a physical necessity; it is not a logical necessity. Meaning, it is not that the opposite would involve contradiction. Okay? That is the difference between the first type and the second type. The third type is something that is not even clear to me. Not only is its opposite not a contradiction, but it is not entirely clear to me either. Maybe it is true and maybe it is not true; I cannot be certain. When we have a number of assumptions—all this is a description of how Aristotelian thought is built. So he says there are first intelligibles, which are really three types, the three types he just listed. Now on the basis of these first intelligibles, yes? When we have a number of assumptions, we can form from them proofs of new propositions with the help of the law of contradiction. Aristotle’s proofs are necessary because they are based on the fundamental rules of human logic, but his assumptions are not always correct. Meaning, when you make an argument, when you build a logical argument—at least in the Aristotelian world—Aristotelian logic deals only with necessary inferences. Aristotelian syllogisms: if every X is Y and Y is X then X is Y. If Socrates—every human being is mortal, Socrates is a human being, then Socrates is mortal. These are necessary inferences. But the premises of these inferences are not necessary. That every human being is mortal—I get the impression that this is so, but it is not necessary; it could have been so and it could have been otherwise. Once from that assumption I derive a conclusion by logical tools, then the derivation of the conclusion from the premises is necessary; the premises themselves are not. He distinguishes here between two parts in Aristotelian thought. There are the assumptions. The assumptions may be of the three types he listed above: they may be logically necessary, physically necessary, or not necessary at all but still I think they are true. On the basis of these assumptions we build arguments and derive conclusions from them. The manner of derivation is necessary derivation—that is Aristotelian logic. But can I say that the conclusion is necessary? No. Because even if the mode of derivation is necessary, the premises from which I derive that conclusion are themselves not necessary. What he saw as reasoning or as a leaning conjecture may seem silly to us. For example, the matter of the spheres. The ancient philosophers assumed that if the stars move in circles, then they are set within material spheres. And because of additional reasons they were forced to conclude that the material of the spheres is neither light nor heavy and so on; it is a different kind of material, and from this it follows that it is a different type of material from the one familiar to us on earth. Today we know that the material up there is the same material familiar to us on earth—you can travel by satellite and bring it back—and there is no necessity to think that there are spheres. Even though Aristotle was sure that there are spheres because that was a leaning conjecture—it could be so and it could be otherwise. Space in general is empty space, and the stars move in circular orbits because of the laws of attraction, just as when you tie a stone to a string and move it, it spins in a circle. Our science is based on the fact that we do not accept assumptions that cannot be tested by sensory experience. Only precise examination of assumptions on the basis of what is seen by the senses establishes them for us, and even that only after carefully verifying that there is no sensory error here. There is no doubt that if Maimonides had known all that has been discovered in science from his time until now, he would have agreed with us. After all, Maimonides wrote all this Aristotelian physics in four chapters of the Laws of the Foundations of the Torah. From his perspective that was Foundations of the Torah. So Rav Dalia says: fine, but if he were alive today, he would delete it. That is what he thought then and that is what everyone thought then, but today we know it is not true. By the way, parenthetically, how do we really know that it is not true? The fact that when we get up there and take by satellite material from the moon or from some other planet and see that it is material like the material familiar to us—that’s nice with regard to the moon. But what about the spheres? You say, I know there is the law of gravitation, the law of attraction, that causes the orbits of one mass around another mass—not circular but elliptical, but never mind, an ellipse is almost a circle. We know that the orbits are elliptical, and therefore there is no need to assume that these stars are inside some material framework. But we need to understand that we too are trapped within our own framework, because the ancients could say to us: so you flew in your satellite—you still won’t be able to see the material of the spheres because it is a different kind of material; that’s exactly the point. It is not a material perceived the way the material familiar to us is perceived. There is something there—not material, but there is something there that causes the orbit to be this way rather than some other way. In effect their claim would be—let me just present something here—if one of the ancients were standing here and speaking to us, he would say: listen, friends, how do you know, or what causes there to be an elliptical orbit as a result of the law of gravitation? The law of gravitation is nothing but a description of how this non-material substance, or this non-material existent, works. It channels things into elliptical orbits because it itself is built in elliptical forms. Therefore the law of gravitation, which we see as something that does not require an orbiting track within which the stars move, is only because we are not willing to recognize the existence of a thing that we do not perceive the way we perceive our own material. Such a description really is equivalent to the description of gravitation. Fine, empirically equivalent, because you can’t measure it. Not only empirically—let’s say there’s something here: now do we describe it as space curving, or not? No, but the claim is that these two descriptions are empirically equivalent, but essentially different. The question whether space is curved, or whether there is a force of gravitation, are two different things. Physics looks the same, and what Einstein basically says is that you cannot know whether this is true or that is true. In fact he even said that you can know: look at how light moves. If light too moves along curved lines, then that means space is curved and not that there is a force of gravitation. And indeed, when you see that light itself moves in curved paths near masses, the conclusion is that space itself is curved and not that there is a gravitational force. But I’m saying that we too are basically trapped within our own conceptual system. It seems transparent. As though it’s obvious—on the contrary, we advanced; now we understand what the ancients did not understand. With regard to some things I think that is true—we have additional information. And with regard to some things, it’s all paradigms. Meaning, it’s the paradigms we got used to; we live within them. I think I once talked about how the Talmud in Bava Kamma, in the topic of “this one benefits and that one does not lose,” says there that if you live in an abandoned house, you benefit the owner of the house, therefore in such a case I don’t need to pay. If I live in another person’s courtyard without his knowledge, I need to pay rent, but if there is this effect that by living in an abandoned house—the house falls apart without you—and you basically maintain it or keep it in good condition, then you don’t need to pay. There is a discussion there in the Talmud, and the Talmud there says that “Shaya, Shaya, scrapes the gate.” It says there is some demon named Shaya who rubs away the gates, yes, crumbles the rooms in which no one lives. Why do abandoned houses fall apart? Because there is some demon whose job is to crumble abandoned houses. But if you live inside the house, then demons don’t wander there, because where human beings wander, demons do not wander; they only go around in deserts, in places where people don’t go. Okay? Therefore you are essentially saving the house from deterioration. Now how would we explain this matter? We would say there is the second law of thermodynamics, which says that things deteriorate if you don’t do something there, if you don’t maintain them, then things deteriorate. And if you are there, then you maintain them and they don’t deteriorate. That’s all, and no demons and nothing. But then that ancient fellow would come and say: fine, you call it the second law of thermodynamics, but practically speaking, what causes these things to deteriorate? Why, why do they scatter all over the place? Because there is some demon separating the particles from one another, and therefore they deteriorate. What he calls a demon, we call the second law of thermodynamics, and all that does is describe the mode of action of the demon. Fine, it seems to me the rabbi is slightly changing, slightly changing the theory of the ancients so that it sounds more sophisticated. Meaning, the view—for example with the demon—is, simply put, yes, there is a pretty clear empirical difference. If a person sat there and did not do any… If a person sat there but did not maintain the house at all. Then they would say that where the person does not move or touch the house, the demon continues to be there in the walls and not in the open space, because the walls you do not touch. I’m saying, I don’t know what Aristotle would say here if he were sitting around the table. What I’m trying to show is that this ancient view is trapped inside a system of assumptions, and it is very easy for us to accuse them of that. One should notice that, at least in principle, they could accuse us in exactly the same way. That we have some tendency to assume—and this is also what he says at the end of the paragraph—that the modern scientific view tends not to accept the assumption of the existence of things if you have no indication that they exist. But think about the fact that the second law of thermodynamics is a law that describes the fact that walls crumble. But who causes it? That is only a description. I’m asking what is the cause of this, not how you describe it. And to that the second law of thermodynamics does not answer. Or when I say that when I let go of this book, it falls downward. So there is the law of gravitation, which describes that every body with mass will fall downward. But I ask: okay, but who causes this falling? Not what the description of the falling is, but who causes it? After all there is the principle of causality: if something happens, apparently there is something causing it. And therefore I invent here the force of gravitation, not the law of gravitation. The law of gravitation is only a description of what happens. The force of gravitation is already some claim about something that exists in the world and acts in it. Now none of us has ever seen the force of gravitation; it is a demon in every sense. None of us has seen the force of gravitation. Maybe it even has horns, I don’t know. All I see is… The fact that the ancients are trapped within a system of assumptions that leads them to a certain way of looking—it is very easy for us to see that from our angle. But we too are trapped within a similar system of assumptions, and I do not know to what extent I can show that this system is more correct, more complete, better than that one. It is a way of looking, that’s all. I’m not sure. Meaning, theoretically it may be possible—maybe not, I’m not inclined to think so—but again, I’m aware that I am a product of my native landscape. And also, the force doesn’t exist; we infer it from observation? Yes, and therefore I’m saying—but look, we too are making all kinds of assumptions like that. It could be that neither the force exists nor the spheres; it could be that both exist; it could be that one does and one doesn’t; I don’t know. None of these things do we see directly. We see the consequences, and as we said earlier, even the world itself we do not see directly. We only see the cognitions present within us. We only assume, because of the principle of causality, that if something appears within us, then apparently there is something outside causing what appears within us. So I’m saying, by the same token, the second law of thermodynamics, which says houses deteriorate, is not enough. You need an explanation of what causes them to deteriorate. The law is only the description of how it is done, or whether it is done, or what is done. But the question what causes it is a completely different question. And it may be, and ought to be, that there is some existent dealing with this matter, causing this house to crumble—otherwise, why does it happen? Okay? So ostensibly this is exactly the same way of thinking. By the way, Steinitz in one of his books—I mean the minister—has a book called Scientific Tilugim to God and Back, some bombastic title, Scientific Tilugim to God and Back, and one of his arguments there is exactly this argument: that the laws of nature are a description of what happens, but they do not offer a reason why what happens happens. They only describe that if the body falls here, then it will fall down there. Or if a house remains abandoned, then it deteriorates. Or if—I don’t know—various things like that. Okay, but who causes it? If you do not assume that behind the law there is some being of some sort, some object that generates these events, you have a problem with the principle of causality. Because the principle of causality says that everything is supposed to have something that brings it about; there must be some cause. The description of the law of nature does not propose what the cause is; it only describes the mode of operation of the cause. Unless you assume that the law of nature itself is an existent. It is not only an equation on paper describing an idea, but something like that exists, whose mode of operation is described by the equation. Okay? But essentially there is some object there generating the phenomena we observe. Otherwise, what happens—why do they happen? After all there is the principle of causality. Why do they happen? You need to assume that something exists there. Therefore I’m saying I don’t know whether one can refute the spheres by means of satellites. Of course, this takes us back to Russell’s celestial teapot, which I already talked about as well. Because Bertrand Russell says regarding belief in God—I don’t remember when I already spoke about this—regarding belief in God: Bertrand Russell says, look, you can always come and say there is a God, fifty-fifty, who knows, maybe there is and maybe there isn’t. Yes? But it’s not fifty-fifty; it’s ninety-nine to one. Because whoever presents you with some position—anyone can tell you some absurd thing that no one can see, and now suddenly it’s fifty-fifty. That’s Pascal’s wager, yes? Meaning, either there is a God or there isn’t; you can’t know. Fine, so fifty-fifty. Therefore it’s worth keeping the commandments, because otherwise it’s terrible Gehenna and all kinds of things like that. But Pascal is something else, no? No, he also assumes that even if it’s a small doubt… Right, you start with it being an even doubt, and then say even if it’s a small doubt—though you know, it depends how small. If it’s very, very, very small, then its product in the end in terms of expectation will still be infinite. Why? Because the expectation is infinite, so even something tiny times infinity is still… Fine, okay, if it’s infinite then I can say that about this too. It doesn’t really matter. But never mind the… one second, I lost the thread. Russell. What? The teapot. So Bertrand Russell basically says that someone who comes and tells him there is a God is, from his point of view, like someone who says: look, around the planet Jupiter there is a tiny transparent teapot revolving. You cannot see it, but that’s no wonder, because it is tiny and transparent, so you can’t see it. Okay? How would you relate to someone who told you something like that? You would send him for observation—meaning observation in both senses. Meaning, either go observe near Jupiter and bring me evidence, or go get checked and go under observation by a doctor. Why? Fifty-fifty—who knows, maybe there is a teapot and maybe there isn’t. Just like me, that’s at least the assumption. I have no reason to relate to that. It’s not fifty-fifty; I simply do not relate to it at all. Okay? Therefore it’s also like in Jewish law—you know that in order to be in doubt, you need a reason. You are not in doubt without a reason. Lack of information is not necessarily doubt. Yes, this is the story—I think I brought it once—the story in the Talmud in Shabbat 31a. The Talmud there brings that someone came to Rabbi and said to him: your mother is my wife and you are my son. Meaning, in short, he says to him: you are a mamzer. Meaning, I had relations with your mother and you are the child. And of course she is married, she has a husband. Okay? So he says to him: you are a mamzer and your mother is an adulteress, basically that’s what he says. He said to him: fetch yourself a cup of wine, drink and burst. Meaning, he just dismissed him—whatever, yes, I assume it’s not a historical account—but he says: this is how one relates to such claims. Rav Kook talks about this there in Ein Ayah; there is a very famous passage there of Rav Kook where he really speaks about this matter, that in order to doubt, you need a reason. Who knows, maybe he is right? Apparently that is not a sufficient reason. Meaning, according to the Talmud, in matters of forbidden relations you need two witnesses. So that means that if you don’t have two, that is not a reason to doubt—not that you are in doubt and now it’s fifty-fifty. If there is not sufficient reason to doubt, then no. I told you that once when I lived in Bnei Brak, in our synagogue—which was a minyan of kollel men—in our synagogue one Jew had a son who had reached bar mitzvah age, and as a result we had to listen to his class after the prayer, where he explained why he is believed that his son is bar mitzvah age and can be counted for the minyan. Suppose now we are nine and his son is the tenth. So he says, fine, they ask who here is bar mitzvah age, he explains, everything is fine, there are ten. Maybe he’s not believed? What do you mean? He says he is bar mitzvah age—so what? Fine, so he gave a class on why the man is believed, or why his father is believed, by the law of “he shall acknowledge,” and all kinds of things like that, that he is bar mitzvah age. Why is that nonsense? It is nonsense because there are certain things where you don’t even begin entering the laws of evidence, because you are not in doubt. The Talmud in Kiddushin says that we kill and burn and stone on the basis of presumptive status. Meaning, yes, “One who strikes his father and mother shall surely be put to death.” Maybe that’s not his father? How can you execute him? Who knows whether it’s his father or not? No one can know whether it’s his father or not. Most acts of intercourse are with the husband—usually a couple living together, the child is probably theirs. But maybe not? There are cases where not. Such things have happened in the world; it’s not completely far-fetched, right? I once read that they did a genetic study in England and saw that roughly ten percent of the children… Okay, so if so, that’s even more than just a basis for doubt. So now how do you fulfill “One who strikes his father and mother shall surely be put to death”? So the Talmud says that we stone and burn on the basis of presumptive status. If he is presumed to be the son of these two parents, then those are his parents, period. Maybe not? Maybe not, but yes. Meaning, “maybe not” is not a reason to doubt. In order to doubt, you need a reason. With bar mitzvah age, he has the presumptive status of a minor—from whom did that presumption come? With bar mitzvah age… yes, he was a minor until today. Certainly he was a minor, but it was also clear from the outset… It’s a passing defect, as Rabbi Maimon says. For the afternoon prayer, ten Jews come—you don’t start asking them, tell me, are you Jewish? Are you bar mitzvah age? Are you a gentile? Yes, exactly. You walk into your friend’s house and ask whether there is a priest here? You rely on his wife and that’s it. Yes. If a father says he is bar mitzvah age, then he is bar mitzvah age. If he says so, that is a simple assumption. It’s not that if I were in doubt then you would say there is an original presumption, and in doubt we follow the original presumption. What does it mean that the presumption is liable to change? After all, being young is a passing defect, as Rabbi Maimon says. So here too, it is a presumption liable to change. But that is all only if I really define the situation as one of doubt. If I am not in doubt, I do not follow presumptions. Yes, this is the story about Rabbi Yonatan Eybeschutz, which I think we also spoke about. A priest came to him and said: why don’t you follow us? After all, we Christians are the majority, and the Torah says, “incline after the majority.” So he said to him: I follow the majority when I am in doubt. If I am not in doubt, I do not follow the majority. By the way, this is not a joke; it is a completely true principle. If you are in a city where most of the stores sell non-kosher meat—we talked about this when I discussed the law of majority—and you find meat in the market square with a seal of recognized kosher supervision, what will you say now—that it is non-kosher because most stores here are non-kosher? No. This piece of meat I know is kosher. If I find a piece whose status I don’t know, then I follow the majority: most stores are non-kosher, so it is non-kosher. Okay? Meaning, following the majority is a rule of decision in cases of doubt. But if I am not in doubt, then I don’t need rules. Okay? Therefore in order to doubt, you need some reason. Why did I get into all this? Today I keep getting interrupted… The celestial teapot—so that was the celestial teapot, basically regarding when something counts as a doubt. Yes, so I’m saying: you need a reason in order to doubt. Fifty-fifty? You need a reason in order to doubt, and you can’t just say there’s a fifty percent chance there is a teapot. So here, regarding—I no longer remember—I think I meant to continue with the spheres. The claim is that someone comes and says: look, there is some material that is not material and cannot be observed, and it determines the path of the stars; that’s why they are in their path. And then I say, fine, that’s like the celestial teapot. Meaning, you can say lots of things—that’s scientific thinking. On the other hand, the force of gravitation is the same thing. But the force of gravitation doesn’t claim to be anything beyond… Not true. The force of gravitation, as distinct from the law of gravitation, is a kind of entity, a kind of something existing in the world. It doesn’t try to say anything about the entity; it only says there is something… Fine, no, that’s also not true, by the way—people are looking for gravitons, for example. They’re looking—that’s already another claim. Why? What’s the reason? Do you know how many billions they invest in this? If it were something not even worth doubting, who would invest all those billions? Because the assumption is that there is something there doing it. That really needs to be proven—the assumption is… I’m saying, but apparently they do not see this assumption as a celestial teapot; nobody would invest a penny to check whether there is a teapot there. What does that mean? It means that the principle of causality is apparently a good enough reason in order to doubt. The principle of causality—if I say that bodies attract one another, then I say: fine, something has to generate this—the principle of causality. Ah, so apparently there is a force of gravitation. Maybe not, I don’t know, but that is my assumption. Something generates it, but you don’t say what it is. Fine, but I’m saying there is something that generates it. Okay? I do not think that saying this is a force of gravitation and saying these are spheres, non-material spheres resulting from the fact that you have matter at the center—that’s different. It’s just another formulation. No, but no—that is exactly what I want to claim: that it is not different, but a different formulation according to the period of the very same thing. In both these pictures we are basically assuming the existence of some entity that none of us knows how to say anything about; we have not seen it and it cannot be observed, and it is what ensures that this behavior occurs as it occurs. But that is already after the rabbi… that wasn’t the original idea; these are already the rabbi’s reinterpretations of those ideas so that they fit… Again, I’m not representing Aristotle here. I’m trying to show, from an Aristotelian point of view, that he could do to us exactly what we do to him. That is what I want to claim. Now I don’t care whether he would have said everything I’m saying; I have no idea. I don’t know him and I don’t know what he would say. But I want to say that from the Aristotelian point of view one can do to us exactly the same deconstruction that we do to him. We too are within a conceptual world to which we feel committed, and according to which we act, and overall we do things that are pretty similar. Even though somehow it seems to us that his view is terribly primitive and outdated and false, one has to take that with a grain of salt. We too use a system of assumptions and forms of thought that exist within us. Okay. There is a concept from Greek philosophy that everyone acknowledges—both the ancient and the modern philosophers—which I think is really going too far; I think it is simply not true—and also our commentators acknowledge it, namely the concept of hyle. Both Maimonides and Nachmanides use it in interpreting the first verses of the Torah. Hyle is prime matter, matter without form. It is obvious that every material thing can be divided. One second, we’ll see this in a moment. Aristotle made a distinction between matter and form. Now everything we know, of course, is something that is matter and also has form. But one can make an abstraction and think: what is this thing that is matter before it had form, without form? That is called hylomorphic matter—hyle means without form. Okay? So that is what is called prime matter. And there is another abstraction called form without matter. Form without matter is also a kind of abstraction. We do not know such a thing, but we can define the form of a triangle—not a triangular object, but triangularity itself, the form of a triangle, or horseness, okay? So those are two abstractions that of course none of us has ever seen. What we encounter are always objects that have matter and have form, and we understand that there are two elements here or two aspects, and therefore we can make an abstraction and speak of the aspects as entities. Forms are a kind of entities, and matter too. As far as I know, this is mainly Plato. I don’t know exactly, but again, I don’t have clear information so I can’t say. But Plato certainly understands that forms, say, are a kind of existing entities—in the world of ideas, as he calls it. Okay? With Aristotle, the forms, for example—I know—they don’t exist. For Aristotle these are categories; that is, only forms of our thinking. It’s not that somewhere there really is the idea of horseness—or not somewhere, but in some sense it exists. No, it doesn’t exist; it is our abstraction. We make abstractions, and that is how our thinking works, but it’s not something, not a thing, that really exists in the world. That is regarding separate forms, pure form. Now what about pure matter, matter without form? Prime matter. Here he says everyone agrees to the existence of prime matter. As for Aristotle and Plato, as I said, I’m not sure. But to say that all modern philosophers agree to this is just nonsense; it’s simply not true. It may be that Aristotle and Plato both agreed to it—that I don’t know. Maimonides and Nachmanides—here too I don’t completely understand whether Maimonides speaks of this in the same sense as Nachmanides. Nachmanides, after all, was a neo-Platonist, and Maimonides was a neo-Aristotelian, so they reflect these two ancient conceptions. And there is a very famous midrash, which both Nachmanides discusses and Maimonides discusses in The Guide of the Perplexed, from Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer, where the midrash says: From where were the heavens created? From the snow beneath His throne of glory. From where was the earth created? From—I don’t know, I don’t remember exactly from what. Maimonides says: in all my days I have never seen such a baffling midrash. I have no explanation for it. This is a very unusual expression in Maimonides: a midrash for which there is no explanation, I don’t understand the explanation, in all my days I have never seen anything so baffling. Because what this midrash is really saying is that the things created in the world were created something from something, not something from nothing. Meaning, the snow beneath His throne of glory was some previous phase out of which the things we know in this world were created. Meaning, creation was actually something from something and not something from nothing. Now when Nachmanides comes to explain this, both in Genesis and in his commentary on Song of Songs—there is a bit of a difference between them, by the way, even a contradiction—he addresses it both in his commentary on Genesis and in his commentary on Song of Songs, and he says that what is meant by the snow beneath His throne of glory is prime matter. Meaning, prime matter to which you give form—that is how you create the objects we know in our world, which are always matter plus form. So the heavens and… the snow beneath His throne of glory is basically prime matter from which heaven and earth were created. And this is basically the Platonic-Aristotelian thesis—I don’t know exactly which one—this one. Okay? Now Maimonides says this is a very baffling statement. Why? Apparently the question is whether because he does not accept the existence of prime matter—I don’t know, I’m not sufficiently expert in Aristotle’s thought or in Maimonides’—or because there is some implication there that prime matter is eternal. Meaning, it itself was not created. When the Holy One, blessed be He, created the world, He created the world out of prime matter—He gave form to prime matter—but prime matter itself was not created; it had always existed. So if that is indeed the case, then that is something baffling; that is what Maimonides says. Why? I don’t remember Maimonides well enough—whether Maimonides really ties this to the eternity of prime matter, or whether the issue is the very fact that he is unwilling to accept at all that there is such a thing as prime matter. And then that would not fit what he writes here, that this is agreed to by both Maimonides and Nachmanides. Because if it is only because of eternity, then why is it such a strange thing? He himself said that eternity is only not absurd—he was willing to accept it, though he thought not. So why does this midrash agitate him so much? Meaning, maybe Rabbi Eliezer the Great thought the world was eternal—what’s the problem? He interpreted the Torah as Maimonides said he himself could interpret it if he assumed the world was eternal. Why is it so baffling? Therefore I always somehow thought—but again, I haven’t checked; I’m not expert enough, so I can’t say anything definite here—that what bothered Maimonides is the very existence of prime matter. He argues that there is no such thing as prime matter. The entities that exist—because he is Aristotelian—are things that exist as matter plus form. Our abstractions, prime matter and separate form, are not things that truly, truly exist. Although Maimonides—now that I think about it—does speak about separate intellects. Separate intellects are indeed somewhat parallel to forms, to things that usually accompany material objects, but here we make an abstraction—the intellect as such, not as it is inside a head or body, but intellect. A separate intellect is also basically a similar kind of abstraction, like a separate form, and Maimonides does speak about that here. Abstractions of that sort—I’m not expert enough, so I can’t know. What is true is that as for modern philosophers, this is not correct—but that’s obvious. Meaning, many philosophers… what does “modern philosophers” mean? It’s a huge group. But if you ask most of them, you will get the answer that they have no indication whatsoever that there is prime matter. I don’t know where he got this broad consensus from. In any event, he now continues: It is obvious that every material thing can be divided. He now explains what prime matter is. Every material thing can be divided, and when one reaches the smallest particles, which almost occupy no place in space, that is the primary matter, which has none of the properties of the elements familiar to us—silver and gold, carbon, and so on. Only through the joining together of these particles are the elements formed. These particles are prime matter, the building blocks of matter in its elements. The Torah did not tell us how the elements were formed from prime matter; apparently that is not important for the purpose of the narrative, which is always the moral purpose. This is what he already said above: that the purpose of the Torah is not to teach us science or physics, except to the extent required for the moral or practical instruction it comes to give us. Only here, really, one more comment: his definition of prime matter also, in my humble opinion, is simply incorrect. This is not what is generally meant when people speak of prime matter. Prime matter is matter devoid of form; it is not a basic particle. A basic particle is not prime matter. But if he defines it that way, he can define whatever he wants—but then indeed the philosophers of today also agree with him. Ah, you mean in relation to my previous comment. But that is not what Maimonides and Nachmanides and Aristotle and Plato defined as prime matter, for heaven’s sake. That is not what they defined as prime matter. Prime matter is not an elementary particle. What he is talking about is what we today call elementary particles. First of all, elementary particles have properties. If elementary particles had no properties, then non-elementary particles would also have no properties, because non-elementary particles are merely the sum of the properties of elementary particles. If elementary particles were not “colored,” so to speak—if they had no distinct unique properties, say if the whole world were built from one type of elementary particle and that was it—then there would also not be different non-elementary particles. Because there are different combinations, there is some form of different structure of the particles that create the combination—otherwise why do they create different combinations? Why does a molecule built from one kind of atom look different from a molecule built from another atom? Because the atom is different. And because the Big Bang struck it differently. What? The Big Bang—say, the Big Bang theory. No, but these things—it wasn’t created in the Big Bang. These are combinations of atoms that also form now. Such molecules are formed and broken apart even today, not in the Big Bang. So I ask why are they formed and broken apart this way and not another way? Because the atoms composing them—we know this in chemistry, this is true—the atoms are different, and therefore the molecules formed by the atoms are different molecules. If the field around an atom is structured in a certain way, that determines where the neighboring atom will sit. The neighboring atom will sit at the point of minimum energy in terms of the potential of that atom. And if there is a different atom, it will form a different molecule. Therefore H2O—why do two hydrogens join with oxygen? Because the structure of the fields is such that two hydrogens and oxygen form a stable structure. But CO2 is a structure that is not two carbons and oxygen but two oxygens and carbon. Why? Because there the structure is different. Carbon is different from hydrogen. So it combines with two oxygens and not with one oxygen. And that too is still an assumption, incidentally, apropos what we said earlier. What? No, that’s not an assumption—we know that, they measured it. We have observational knowledge of these things. Yes, but the fact that you say it must work only that way. No, of course—but I’m asking why assume otherwise? After all, everything I assume is only from my experience, right? Other than what you know. I’m saying that from my experience, it isn’t true. Now maybe there it is so, maybe—but why assume it? Therefore, when people talk about matter without form, it has nothing to do with elementary particles. Matter without form can also be macroscopic matter. It could be large matter, small matter, I don’t know. Large and small is already giving it properties. It is matter devoid of form, that’s all—it’s an abstraction. It is the table: if you abstract from it all its properties, say we think about the table and then “remove” from it the property of being rectangular. And then we remove from it the property that its legs are made of metal. Then we remove that it is white, and remove that it is made of wood, and remove… strip away all its properties. What will remain is prime matter. What will remain is the object of the table stripped of all its properties. Okay? That is a philosophical abstraction. It is not an elementary particle. An elementary particle is a particle like any other particle. So what if it’s small and those are big—what difference does size make? Does the fact that it is small and they are big make some difference? If division were infinite, maybe—but division is not infinite, at least according to what people think today. Division is not infinite. So I’m not… elementary particles and prime matter are simply not the same thing. Meaning, it’s not… the identification he makes here is problematic. Yes, so he says the smallest particles, which almost occupy no place in space. And they do occupy space, just very little. Right, so there you already see that it is a particle like any other particle, and it even has form—it occupies space, a small place. Isn’t occupying a small place in space a form? Only occupying a big place in space is form? What’s the difference? It’s the same thing. It’s just more of the same thing. They have no form in the sense of spatial structure, at least not as far as we know. Why not? Meaning, basic particles—a proton, electron—do they have… A proton and an electron are not elementary particles. There are already quarks. But yes, of course they have form. Only the form—we know this, in quantum theory. But that is true also… it is true also for the atom. People talk about this in general. No, but we are simply saying that what you call physical form, say of a chair, is not really what is there, but some structured arrangement in space—that is its form. Doesn’t matter. But still, there is some spatial distribution called the quark, or the electron, or the proton, or the atom. It is a spatial distribution located here. That’s it. No, it has form. That is its form. It’s just not mass with form in the naive sense we understand, like this table or chair. Doesn’t matter. That is what is called spatial form: there is some spatial distribution, and it differs between carbon and hydrogen, between a carbon atom and a hydrogen atom. But in terms of form, it’s not the same kind of form in the same sense as when we say form about macroscopic matter. It is exactly the same sense. Macroscopic matter is also like that. Only there we also see it with our eyes, so it gets translated for us into a spatial image. If we had eyes with a resolution at the level of quarks, then you would see quarks. So what would that mean? It’s not the quark itself; it’s the image of the quark as it appears to you. And yes, it would appear as some form in space. What happens in the world itself? It is some field. Yes, obviously. Okay, so what? That is what is called form in space. So that’s a modern conception of the concept of form, but it is form. It’s not… today we just perhaps know a little better what that means; once they didn’t know that. But never mind, it’s the usual concept of form. There’s nothing special here. They also have properties. Quarks are charged with various charges. We know there are several kinds of quarks. We know how they combine with one another. Each of them is a different kind. These quarks have properties. It is not just some thing devoid of color and form. Meaning, they are particles like any other particle. Okay, so let’s continue. “In the beginning God created the heavens”—up until this point he has really been dealing at the outset with “In the beginning God created.” So he explained what “in the beginning” is, and what—and roughly what He created, or rather by what means, not what He created but by what means: the laws of nature, and we got as far as prime matter basically. The next stage: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Meaning, from this prime matter, which was in the beginning, which was the cause from which our world derives, this abstraction called prime matter—from it the heavens and the earth were created. So what are the heavens and the earth? They are the entirety of the universe we know, from the heights of heaven to the depths of the earth. Meaning, he wants to say that “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” does not mean that the Holy One, blessed be He, started with the ground and the sky. No, that is not the meaning. “Heavens and earth” means all reality. In the beginning God created all reality. That is a different interpretation from the way we usually understand the verse. How do we usually understand the verse? That in the beginning the heavens and the earth were created, and then they began to be populated. Fine? He says here no: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” means, in the beginning God created everything—the heavens, the earth, and all that is in them, the animals, everything. Why? Let’s now see. He says “et” always comes to include what is subordinate. Potentially, the heavens and all that is in them, and the earth and all that is on it, were already created. But that does not mean that everything appeared all at once. How long did it take from the beginning of creation until everything we know developed? The Torah did not reveal this to us. Here he is already beginning to lay the foundations, of course, for the question of the age of the world. Meaning, how this is reconciled with our conceptions about the age of the world—he is apparently going to get to that later. But what he says here basically is that when it says “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” it means all reality as a whole, including the animals, including everything. This was created in the beginning, and then all this existed only potentially. Its actualization—that is the description of the six days of creation. So the verse “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” is an introduction to the creation narrative. First of all, the Holy One, blessed be He, created everything at the principial level, in potency, potentially, and then it began to come into actuality. On the first day this came out, then on the second day that came out, on the third day… This is the movement from potential to actual. But at the beginning He really created everything. And therefore his interpretation of heaven and earth is not the heaven and the earth, but all the beings we know. There is a similar idea to this. The Baal HaLeshem proves from the writings of the Ari that within the Infinite—I once spoke about the kabbalistic worlds—there is Infinite Light. At the beginning there was Infinite Light filling all reality; that is how Etz Chaim begins. And afterward it withdrew to the sides and left a circular empty space, into which entered the line, the line of the Infinite Light, and it does not reach all the way down, because otherwise it would be annihilated. And that remains; this is the world of line and contraction. Meaning, it contracted to the side, an empty space remained, and the line entered it, and then there is Adam Kadmon, and Atzilut, and Beriah, Yetzirah, Asiyah, and all the worlds afterward, all the way down to our world. In the world of Infinite Light—what is called Infinite Light? Infinite Light means something devoid of form, basically prime matter in translation into our terms here. That is Infinite Light. Because what is infinity? Whenever something has form, in this language that is called an end. Because form means you extend up to here and beyond here you are not. When you say something has the shape of a triangle, what does that mean? That it has a boundary, right? And that boundary is triangular. What is outside it is distinguished from what is inside it by a boundary that has a certain shape, namely a triangle. Form is always boundary or end. Now even a form that is not geometric is an end. When you say something is red, by that you have said that it is not green. Meaning, every property you assign to something is basically to delimit it, to say that it has this property but not that property. Properties are always distinguished from one another. It is always to characterize something, to say what it is and what it is not. Therefore, always to delimit something, to give it form, is basically to establish some sort of end for it. Something that has no end, that cannot be delimited, where you cannot say what it is and what it is not—that has no form. That is what is called prime matter. So it has no end. Prime matter has no end. Meaning, Infinite Light and prime matter are synonymous. Now what the Baal HaLeshem claims is that within the Infinite Light—this is what the Raavad writes in his commentary to Sefer Yetzirah—that Infinite Light is the will to be revealed. It is not yet revelation. Revelation begins from the world of line and contraction. Why? Because then divinity withdrew, and then something else begins to be formed that is not God. But in the Infinite Light, when Infinite Light filled all reality before the contraction, there was nothing—everything was divinity. So there is no… But this is still not the Holy One, blessed be He, Himself—according to the accepted interpretation. There are kabbalists who do identify it with the Holy One, blessed be He, Himself, but most say that the Holy One, blessed be He, is the cause of Infinite Light; He is not Infinite Light itself. Infinite Light itself is the will to be revealed. It is not yet revelation. In itself it is not revelation; it is the will to be revealed. Meaning, the plan, basically, the basic plan. But Infinite Light sounds like the opposite of a plan, because a plan is abstract form, whereas Infinite Light is abstract matter—it is the opposite abstraction. We spoke about prime matter and separate forms, right? The plan of the world—I would actually connect that to the concept of form, not to the concept of prime matter. The abstract form of the world before I produce it in actuality—the plan, yes? That is form. It is not matter. So in what sense was Infinite Light the initial plan, the will to be revealed? His claim, the Baal HaLeshem’s claim, is that within the Infinite Light there are what are called concealed sefirot. The ten sefirot are basically the building blocks of forms, the elementary particles of Kabbalah. Every existent is built from that, from an aggregate of sefirot and a certain mixture of sefirot. So he says that the sefirot were also within the Infinite Light, but there they were concealed. Therefore it is called Infinite Light, because their form is not yet visible; they have not yet emerged into actuality. It has no sefirot in actuality. But his claim is—although in the Ari it is written that it has no sefirot—still there are concealed sefirot, and he has proofs from the wording of the Ari in several places that there are concealed sefirot within it. What does concealed sefirot mean? Exactly what he writes here. Meaning, that within this prime matter… where this prime matter is headed, what is going to emerge from it, is already embedded in it as a kind of potential program. Because if it were not embedded in it, it could not emerge into actuality. And in that sense, it could be that elementary particles really are more similar to prime matter. Of course this is not what Aristotle and Plato and Maimonides and Nachmanides mean, but if we define it this way, then elementary particles are indeed that, because quarks have properties that are not properties formulated in our language. They have no color, no electric charge, things of that sort. Electric charge—the basic unit there is the electron, and quarks make up the electron, so you cannot speak about the electric charge of a quark. It has other charges, some other properties that cause different combinations of quarks, such that there arise proton, electron, neutron, and all the larger, non-elementary particles. So this basically means that one can also see it in this way: the quark is basically prime matter devoid of form. It is devoid of form in the sense that it has no color, no electric charge, none of what we call form in our world. It has no form. But within it there is the potential that when quarks combine with one another, all the forms we know are created—or all the objects we know. In that sense I think that quarks, or elementary particles, really are a good example of prime matter that contains within it the potential to become the materials or entities we know in our world. That potential is basically another kind of properties, which we have no ability to grasp directly. We understand what color is, we understand what electric charge is, what sound is, what geometric shape is—those we understand. But the forms of quarks are what physicists call charges. Charge in the context of elementary particle physics is not electric charge as we call it here. Even mass is a charge, because it is a kind of property of the thing—it responds to various fields. It is a property of the thing. So every type of particle has charges, but that is a borrowed use, because there “charges” means they have certain properties. We have abstract names for these properties, but we have no tactile sense of what that means; it tells us nothing directly. But it is what eventually comes out into actuality in the forms we know; it is what composes the reality we know. Therefore these elementary particles really are some sort of matter that one can call prime matter, with concealed form or potential form, which then moves from potential to actual, and then the objects we know exist. Okay, have a happy holiday.