 Faley's conclusion is kind of all over the place. Now, Faley's didn't just reach this conclusion out of thin air. He had an argument for it, or at least reasoning for it. But his reasoning starts with a presumption. So what's the presumption that Faley starts with? And it's a presumption that we tend to think is true today. Well, Faley starts with a presumption. And the presumption is that all of this, right, that you see around you every day, has to have some kind of common unity, some commonality, something that makes it fundamentally the same. I mean, all of this works really well together. Plants grow out of ground and water, right? Air is all around us. Nothing's exploding randomly or, you know, things behave in a regular order. There's a pattern to reality, especially to the natural world. So, Faley's presumes then, it's not an argument, right? It's a presumption. Presumes then that since all of this works really well together, there has to be some kind of commonality, some kind of unity. And what he thinks it is, is a common stuff, right? A common material that all of this, all of this has, is composed in some way of this material, of this stuff. Now, that's the presumption he starts with. Then he concludes, right, with this presumption and with a bit of reasoning, he concludes that what everything has in common is water. Okay, so we know the presumption that Faley started with, that there's a commonality to all this stuff since it works so well together. And, you know, he reaches the conclusion that what's common to everything is water. But how did he reach this conclusion? Well, Faley's, as you saw from the readings, Faley's was not, you know, not your ordinary person walking in the street, right? He was rather clever and he knew how to, well, he knew how to make some observations. Now, he starts with the presumption that everything has a commonality, so that how did he reach the conclusion that it's water? Well, he took a look around. Hey, it doesn't take long before you realize that water is of at least some importance to life. Right? When water dries up, everything around it dies. You are mostly water, right? Now, Faley's, right, by water, we mean dihydrogen monoxide, H2O. Okay, Faley's didn't mean that. Hydrogen and oxygen weren't really on the horizon at that point. Faley's, what Faley's meant by water was, well, you know, this stuff, right? Something that we'd probably identify as clear liquid. But even Faley's was familiar with the idea that liquid, that's not that water, could suspend other materials in it and have other things mixed in it. So you're just looking out here, right? We see, this isn't exactly pure water, right? We see a lot of stuff floating around. If you take a look in these pools, you can see things moving around in the water. It's alive, or, you know, there are things alive in the water. There's water all around this area right now. It's soaked into the soil. If we, you know, if you were to, I don't know, if you've ever walked around staying chanted rock or some of these other state natural areas, you'd see water coming up out of the ground. Water falls from the sky. It just got finished falling from the sky here not too long ago. We got quite a lot of water. Water is in these plants. If you were to, you know, take a vine or fruit, right? You take grapes and you squish the grapes. What do you get that comes out? Grape water. If you take an orange and you, you know, smash it open, you get orange water, orange juice, right? These vines and ivies that are growing in the bushes or on the trees, you snap them open and you get this liquidy stuff that comes out, right? This, we call it sap. Yeah, but it's also a good chunk of its water and Thales would have recognized that. If we cut ourselves open, right? Red water comes out. Yeah, water's coming up out of the ground. If you've ever been on, say, at the beach, there's water all around. It seems to go on forever. It's not hard to think that that's, that beyond that, there's just more water, right? It just keeps going. So Thales went looking for a commonality that all this has in common for that singular substance that's with or amongst all, in seeping in and constituting all these things. He thought it's water. Well, Annex Amanda reaches a very different conclusion than Thales. Thales concludes that everything is water. So what does Annex Amanda conclude? He concludes something very different from water. And yeah, you know, it's very different from water. Why would he reach this seemingly bizarre conclusion? So like I said, Annex Amanda's conclusion is very different from Thales. Thales' conclusion is that everything is composed of water. It pervades everything. Annex Amanda, he says everything is the boundless. It's composed of the boundless. It's composed, it's constituted, it's made up of the infinite. So just to give you an idea of the difference, right? Everything you know, everything you've come to understand, everything that you experience out here in the world is finite. It has edges. It has boundaries. It has something of what makes it it and not something else. So just looking at this trail here, this trail is a defined trail. It has edges on the left and the right. It has a length. We can walk down at the entire length of this thing's about a half a mile. It has a defined surface. It has boundaries. It has what makes it it as opposed to the trees and the grass and the bushes. Even the water that's coming across it is not the same thing as the trail. And the water is going to disappear eventually and this will dry up some, but the trail will remain. You come to understand what this is by its boundaries, by its limits. Same thing with trees. There's something about makes a tree a tree and not say an animal or the sky or the ground from up which the tree comes. The tree has edges. It has boundaries. There's a finite number of leaves and branches on this tree. The clouds in the sky are not the same thing as the rest of the sky. As amorphous as the clouds are, there's still a boundary, a limit to the clouds. All of everything that you come to understand and believe in the world is finite. You don't understand the infinite. So why would Annex commander say that all of this is composed of the infinite? Water is at least a finite substance. You can hold it. You can see it. You can believe it. The boundless, you don't understand that at all. But this is the big difference between Annex and Commander's theory, Commander's conclusion, I should say. And Thales. Thales says fundamentally all this stuff is water. It was liquid. Even these rocks at some point were liquid. Right? I mean, we're necessarily hydrogen, hydrogen monoxide. No, but there is such a thing as liquid rock. Or it's magma or lava, whichever the one it is. I forget which one's supposed to be. One is above ground, one's below ground. I think it's something like that. But there's still liquid rock. And Thales would have been aware of this, right? He would have seen volcanoes. He wouldn't know what a liquid rock is. At least with liquid, we can see around and see how these things either, you know, were at once liquid or come from liquid. But the boundless? The boundless is reality unlimited. This is reality limited. That's a huge difference between those two things. So why would Annex and Commander say everything around here, everything you've ever experienced, is composed of limitless reality? So we're asking the question why Annex and Commander, what he even bothers saying that everything is composed of the boundless. After all, it's not like he's seen it. You can't see the boundless. You and I can only see finite definite things. We can only understand finite definite things. There's no point in trying to see, quote unquote, see the boundless. So why would he even think this? Well, if you dismiss him as just an idiot, you've probably made a mistake. Just because somebody disagrees with you or even says something you don't understand, doesn't mean there isn't reason for it. Doesn't mean there's always reason for it, but it doesn't necessitate that there's no reason for it. You know, I imagine in Annex and Commander's case, he's like a lot of these philosophers. He tried to take the suggestion seriously that there's a commonality to all these things, right? Something, you know, that is stuff that composes everything else. Well, what would it be? Maybe he didn't agree with Thales. Or maybe just something as simple as this, right? He looked at water and said, well, you know, it kind of looks like water is composed of something else. Well, what could it be? And maybe he tried to define, tried to figure out what composes water, trying to understand what water is by understanding, you know, how we come to understand it, right? Well, think about it. Anytime he tried to define something, anytime he tried to explain it or understand it, seems like we have to understand it in terms of two other things, right? Everything that we understand or know is limited. So when we define it, we have to define it in terms of two other things. So for instance, just this bridge, right? Well, what's a bridge? I don't know, rough attempt at defining bridge, it's a structure intended to help someone cover or to cross an obstacle. In this case, a creek bed. Well, now we've, you know, to understand what bridge is, we have to understand structure, person, obstacle. You know, without that, you can't understand what a bridge is. You can't understand what a bridge is without understanding what a structure is. Bridges are always and only made by people, so you can't understand bridge without understanding these persons. And then obstacles, right? What's an obstacle? That's a pretty broad definition. And then even any one of those parts, structure, right? Something, what? Structures are artificial creations, you know, buildings, well, building is an example, but again, if we could try to define structure in terms of an example, I have to understand what a building is in order to understand how it's a structure. So that's not going to help. Yeah, so when we tried to define these things, we're always defining in terms of two other things. Well, if that's so, and both of these things are supposed to make up the one thing that makes up everything else, what happened to that unity we were looking for, that commonality? And you think about water, we understand water is dihydrogen monoxide. What would Thales have understood water as, you know, clear liquid, as opposed to all of the stuff that can go into liquid? Well, then what's liquid? What's clear? Is clear a stuff? Probably none. Well, then what's liquid? Well, what? Squishy stuff. It's getting a little difficult to define water now. And if you can't explain what water is, well, we really can't explain why all of this stuff is made of water. Well, now you might say that we don't have this problem today, because we know what water is. Water is dihydrogen monoxide. All right. So water is composed of two parts, hydrogen, one parts oxygen. Well, we still define in terms of two other things. Now we got to define oxygen, now we get to find hydrogen. And by the way, now we got to define part and two. That's taking a bit. Well, let's forget about part and two for a little bit. What about hydrogen? What about oxygen? What are these? Well, they're both gases. Okay, you tell me they're both gases, but that doesn't tell me what they are. You just told me how they're alike. How do we define hydrogen? Hydrogen is hydrogen is composed of, you know, one proton and one neutron. And oxygen is composed of eight protons, eight neutrons and eight electrons. Well, now we got to define protons, neutrons and electrons. This is going to be defined in terms of quarks, and these are going to be defined in terms of strings. You start going down the list in physics and pretty soon, well, first of all, you got things that you and I don't even recognize anymore. So how can we plausibly say that these things are, you know, we understand what water is in terms of hydrogen and oxygen? So one big problem that Thales is running into here and trying to define what all this stuff is, is you always have to define it in terms of two other things. Well, if you define it in terms of two other things, there goes that unity we were hoping for, that commonality that all things are composed of. Yikes. Well, Annex commander says, well, okay, so maybe we can't do it in terms of two things. Let's just try in terms of one. So water is liquid. Great. What's liquid? Well, liquid is fluid. Okay, well, what's fluid? Well, fluid is flowing. You can just try and keep up coming up with synonyms for water, but it isn't going to do you much good. I mean, we only understand water if you understand liquid, you only understand liquid if you understand fluid, you only understand fluid if whatever your other synonyms are. And the meaning of one is, you know, at best contained. And the other, so you're just kind of repeating yourself at this point. So water, well, what's that? Well, it's water. And what's that? Well, you know, it's water. So defining in terms of one other thing, is it going to work? Because that's just a synonym. Defining in terms of two other things, is it going to work? Because there goes the unity. So what, you define in terms of nothing? That seems weird. What's water? Well, you know, it's of nothing. No, that's not going to work. So I think this is the problem that Annex commander found here is look, anytime you try to define all of these things, trees, paths, bridges, people, water, grass, bushes, you're always, always, always going to have to define in terms of what, you know, what we do is we define in terms of another defined thing. But that defined thing itself has edges, itself has boundaries, has something else of what makes it what it is. So that's not going to answer the question. It's always going to be terms of something else. What he concludes is, anytime you try to define in terms of a defined thing, you're not going to do it. You're not going to be able to explain what everything is if you use defined, limited things. Well, then what's left? The unlimited. All of this reality, all this limited reality can't be, can't exist in terms of some other limited reality. So it has to be unlimited. The boundless. So Annex Amanda's offers his own conclusion. How is his conclusion different from both Thales and Annex Amanda? Why did he reject Annex Amanda's conclusion? And you know, he rejects Annex Amanda's conclusion. Why doesn't he just go back to Thales? Well, Annex Amanda's conclusion, error, is not the boundless, right? Boundless is reality unlimited. It's everywhere and everything. Well, that's not the error. Error is, it's pretty amorphous, granted, right? There's error all around here, but it still has a volume, right? It still has physical properties, right? Error is, you know, I can interact with error, right? I'm doing it right now. I'm interacting with error. I can also interact with water, right? I can splash water, throw it around. So you can interact and experience both error and water because they're both limited to find things. So it's not the boundless, because boundless is reality unlimited. I can't hold the boundless in my hand. That'd be a limit on it. Similarly, right? It's not water either. Water is, it's amorphous to an extent, but error is even more amorphous. It's all around. So why did he reject Annex Amanda's conclusion? Well, you know, you did, right? You didn't, you didn't have much trouble rejecting Annex Amanda's conclusion, but why did Annex Amanda's? You know, to your mind, likely, you reject Annex Amanda's conclusion because it sounds to, what, to mystical or to hokey or, you know, what have you. And Annex Amanda's rejects Annex Amanda's conclusion because, well, frankly, you can't understand the boundless, right? Try to picture the boundless right now. Try to picture the boundless. Close your eyes and try to picture the boundless. You're not picturing the boundless. Likely you're picturing what? Gassy clouds, maybe a star field, right? You know, a bunch of stars, going to that limitless expanse, that sort of thing. That's not the boundless. That's all a limited defined thing. As I said before, you can't understand the infinite. You can only understand the finite. So you can almost see this conversation, right, between Annex Amanda and Annex Amanda. Annex Amanda says, I have figured out what everything is. I figured out the ultimate reality. Annex Amanda says, gee, Mr. Annex Amanda, that's great. What is it? Annex Amanda says it is the boundless. It is the boundless. Wow, what's that? What's that, Mr. Annex Amanda? I cannot tell you. Okay, thanks. Great answer. You tell me that you figured it out, but you can't tell me what it is. That either sounds mean or you probably don't know what you're talking about. So the answer to the boundless is something that you fundamentally can't understand. You don't even really know if it exists. And it, okay, you have reasons for it, but it's not like that answer really helps us understand this commonality to all things. So Annex Amanda rejects the conclusion because frankly, it's not much good to us. So why not just go back to Thales? Well, there's still something to the idea of that the limited things have to come from a more limitless things, right? And air is about, at least in our common experience, air is about as limitless as it gets. It's, yes, it has volume, but I can do this through all of it. And I don't really disturb, I mean, I move the air a little bit, but it's not like I'm destroying air. I can push up against this edge here and either my hand is going to give or the edge is going to give. These are very hard defined things. Air is not very hard. It's very soft. You can move through air rather easily. So that's part of it. But we could probably even carry it even further. Annex Thales looked around and was trying to find this commonality to all things. Well, water's common. Don't get me wrong. We can't do much of anything around here. Without water, you live about, what's three days? I think it is. You can live about three days without water, right? Living things die without water. Without air, you live a significantly less amount of time. You can almost see Annex Samina is kind of teasing Thales at this point and saying, anything water can do. Air can do better. Water may fall from the sky, but that sky always has air. Yeah, we can take all the evidence that Thales gives for the commonality of water and say, sure, fine, that's great. But air is even more out there. You say water falls from the sky. Well, the sky is air. And you have burning things, right? Things ever burn, right? Things turn up into smoke and they turn into air. It returns back to air. We can do a lot with air. Everything needs water for, everything living needs water for life. Well, everything living needs air, air for life as well. You can't do much of anything without air. So Thales didn't just simply, excuse me, Annex Samina didn't simply just return to Thales conclusion. He took his reasoning and improved upon it, right? All three are still dealing with this presumption that there's some commonality to everything that exists. So we ask them, what does it mean to exist? And they say, well, I'll tell you what it means to exist by telling you what this commonality and the commonality is composition. I will tell you what it means to exist. I will tell you what it means to answer the question, what does it mean to exist by answering the question of what is it composed? Thales says it's composed of water, Annex Samina says it's composed of the boundless, Annex Samina says it's composed of air. Now, Annex Samina has concluded that ever this composed of air, to which Annex Samina says, great, nice job student. What's air? And then Annex Samina's problem starts up all over again, because we're either going to define air in terms of other defined things or nothing, more than one defined thing, in which case, good by unity, just one other defined things, so we're just saying repeating ourselves or nothing, in which case, so air isn't going to answer the question any better than water will. And frankly, you know, we keep dividing reality up from these substances to atoms, from atoms to subatomic particles, from subatomics down to quarks, from quarks down to strings. If we had Annex Samina here in front of us, and he said, and we told him, we figured out what all this is. At bottom, it's everything's a string. It's a four-dimensional string looped in one dimensional space. Depending on how the string vibrates, you get different kinds of quarks. Depending on combinations of quarks, you get your protons, neutrons, electrons. Depending on your combinations of protons, neutrons, electrons, you get your different atoms. Depending on different combinations of atoms, you get molecules. Depending on combinations of atoms and molecules, you get the different substances. Depending on different combinations of substances, you get the different things around you. We've gotten that far. We're down to strings. Annex Samina says, great, That's amazing work. I never in my last day would have imagined a one-dimensional string a one-dimensional string looped to four dimensions of space. Sorry, a one-dimensional string looped to four dimensions of space. Never would have imagined that ever. What's this string made of?