An Argument For the Immateriality of the human intellect

[IWantGod]

A quote from Edward Feser’s book “Aquinas”.

.Page 154…suppose that the intellect were a material thing (some kind of brain activity, say). Then for the forms of material things to exist in the intellect would be for them to exist in a certain material thing. But for a form to exist in a material thing is just for that material thing to be the kind of thing the form is a form of. For example, for the form of triangularity to exist in a certain parcel of matter is just for that parcel of matter to be a triangle; the form of “catness” to exist in a certain parcel of matter is just for that parcel of matter to be a cat; and so on. Thus, if your intellect were realy a material thing, it would follow that that material thing - that part of your brain, say - would become a triangle whenever you thought about triangles, or a cat whenever you thought about cats. But of course, that’s absurd. Hence, since the assumption that the intellect is material leads to absurdity, we must conclude the intellect is not material.

 

[STT]

A quote from Edward Feser’s book “Aquinas”.

.Page 154…suppose that the intellect were a material thing (some kind of brain activity, say). Then for the forms of material things to exist in the intellect would be for them to exist in a certain material thing. But for a form to exist in a material thing is just for that material thing to be the kind of thing the form is a form of. For example, for the form of triangularity to exist in a certain parcel of matter is just for that parcel of matter to be a triangle; the form of “catness” to exist in a certain parcel of matter is just for that parcel of matter to be a cat; and so on. Thus, if your intellect were realy a material thing, it would follow that that material thing - that part of your brain, say - would become a triangle whenever you thought about triangles, or a cat whenever you thought about cats. But of course, that’s absurd. Hence, since the assumption that the intellect is material leads to absurdity, we must conclude the intellect is not material.

Intellect is a collective phenomena. What we call experience is manifestation of matter activity. There is no need to have a triangle in the brain once we experience a triangle.

 

[LoyalViews]

This in some way seems to be very similar to the Platonic conclusion of things.

 

[IWantGod]

Intellect is a collective phenomena. What we call experience is manifestation of matter activity.

Can you please stop dictating your materialistic beliefs and actually refute the argument?

 

[IWantGod]

Hello.

In what way would you say it is similar to a platonic view of things?

 

[IWantGod]

triangle in the brain once we experience a triangle.

To think of a triangle is to have the form of a triangle in your mind. Your mind in a sense is taking on the form of a triangle. If your intellect was nothing but matter, then every time you thought of a triangle that matter would take on the form of a triangle, there would be an actual triangle in your brain, which is obviously absurd. Therefore the intellect is not material in nature, its not made of matter, it’s immaterial.

 

[STT]

Can you please stop dictating your materialistic beliefs and actually refute the argument?

There are specific centers in brain which generate reasoning. The very fact that there is a correlation between brain activity in the centers and experiencing the act of reasoning demonstrate that the position of experience is attached to matter. We are dealing with something which is located and generates a local thing, experience. Location matters. Mind in another hand is nonphysical therefore it cannot be located. How could you attach a local experience to something which does not have location?

 

[IWantGod]

The very fact that there is a correlation between brain activity in the centers and experiencing the act of reasoning demonstrate that the position of experience is attached to matter.

A correlation is not the same thing as being identical.

Mind in another hand is nonphysical therefore it cannot be located. How could you attach a local experience to something which does not have location?

Its irrelevant. When you think of a triangle there is not a physical triangle in your brain. The matter of your brain does not take on the form of a hippo when you think of one.

 

[AgnosticBoy]

I’m not sold on Feser’s reasoning because of his use of the word “forms”. Our thoughts are just mental representations of what we experience in the environment, whether it be a thought of a cat or triangles. A thought of a cat would likely be in the form of a mental picture or image, and this would represent a cat without needing to be an actual physical cat. This is no different than taking a picture of a cat, which would be a representational image of a cat and not the actual physical cat itself.

I also believe that certain aspects of the mind, including consciousness, are immaterial but probably not for all of the same reasons that Feser argues. In my view, the mental images are immaterial even if they’re representations. The image occupies no space, has no mass, etc… but these images still have physical effects so they can not be denied, just as we don’t deny other “unobservables” in science (i.e. electrons, protons, dark matter, etc.)

 

[STT]

A correlation is not the same thing as being identical.

We consider a correlation as a fact when the evidences are overwhelming. Think of causality. You believe that that is cue ball which causes another ball to move when they collide. You don’t say, well the other ball moves because etc. The same applies to any mental phenomena. You see that there is a mental experience every time when there is a certain brain activity therefore you believe that that is brain activity which generates experience.

Its irrelevant. When you think of a triangle there is not a physical triangle in your brain. The matter of your brain does not take on the form of a hippo when you think of one.

It is quite relevant. First you need to provide a framework which shows that mind, which is immaterial and has no location, can causally interact with body which has a location. Casualty is local.

Moreover, a mental image is not a physical thing as AgnosticBoy explained.

 

[IWantGod]

Brain activity correlates with the mind, But that doesn’t mean nor prove that the brain and the mater that comprises it is identical to it in nature. Science only shows a relationship between the intellect/mind and the brain and it stops there. If you are going to argue that the mind/intellect is identical in nature to physical processes then you are no-longer doing science you are doing philosophy. It is clear that you support a materialistic philosophy of the mind and i have proven logically that any attempt to identify the mind as the brain results in absurdity.

To think of a triangle is to have the form of a triangle in your mind. Your mind in a sense is taking on the form of a triangle. If your intellect was nothing but matter, then every time you thought of a triangle that matter would take on the form of a triangle, there would be an actual triangle in your brain, which is obviously absurd. Therefore the intellect is not material in nature, its not made of matter, it’s immaterial. In fact the mind takes on many forms and none of those forms are in the physical matter of the brain. the brain does not take on new forms. Clearly the intellect/mind is not the brain.

It is quite relevant. First you need to provide a framework which shows that mind, which is immaterial and has no location, can causally interact with body which has a location. Casualty is local.

Moreover, a mental image is not a physical thing as AgnosticBoy explained.

No it isn’t relevant. My only obligation is to show you that identifying the intellect/mind with the brain (saying that the two are the same) leads to logical contradictions, it leads to absurdity, and any serious philosopher worth his salt would acknowledge the absurdity involved in a materialistic philosophy of mind. More people are now moving to the position that the mind is an emergent non-physical property of the brain.

I do not need to give you a theory of how the mind and the brain interact because the alternative is false…

 

[STT]

Brain activity correlates with the mind, But that doesn’t mean nor prove that the brain and the mater that comprises it is identical to it in nature. Science only shows a relationship between the intellect/mind and the brain and it stops there. If you are going to argue that the mind/intellect is identical in nature to physical processes then you are no-longer doing science you are doing philosophy. It is clear that you support a materialistic philosophy of the mind and i have proven logically that any attempt to identify the mind as the brain results in absurdity.

What brain creates is mere experience nor mind. It would be absurd to say that brain is identical with mind or generates mind then mind experiences. You have to accept that matter is conscious in first case, we know that we were unconscious things. You can discard the second case by Occam’s Razor.

To think of a triangle is to have the form of a triangle in your mind. Your mind in a sense is taking on the form of a triangle. If your intellect was nothing but matter, then every time you thought of a triangle that matter would take on the form of a triangle, there would be an actual triangle in your brain, which is obviously absurd. Therefore the intellect is not material in nature, its not made of matter, it’s immaterial. In fact the mind takes on many forms and none of those forms are in the physical matter of the brain. the brain does not take on new forms. Clearly the intellect/mind is not the brain.

Again, a mental image is mere experience and it is not a material thing which needs to occupy any space.

No it isn’t relevant. My only obligation is to show you that identifying the intellect/mind with the brain (saying that the two are the same) leads to logical contradictions, it leads to absurdity, and any serious philosopher worth his salt would acknowledge the absurdity involved in a materialistic philosophy of mind. More people are now moving to the position that the mind is an emergent non-physical property of the brain.

I do not need to give you a theory of how the mind and the brain interact because the alternative is false…

First, you need to show that experience cannot be the result of brain activity. So far you have problem with it. Second, once you prove that experience cannot be the result of brain activity then you need to resolve the stated problem: How mind which has no location can causally interact with body which has location considering the fact that causality is local.

 

[IWantGod]

First, you need to show that experience cannot be the result of brain activity.

To think of a triangle is to have the form of a triangle in your intellect. Your intellect in a sense is taking on the form of a triangle. If your intellect was nothing but matter, then every time you thought of a triangle that matter would take on the form of a triangle, there would be an actual triangle in your brain, which is obviously absurd. Therefore the intellect is not material in nature, its not made of matter, it’s immaterial. In fact the intellect takes on many forms and none of those forms are in the physical matter of the brain. the brain does not take on new forms. Clearly the intellect is not identical with the brain. It does not matter if we lack a theory or understanding of how the immaterial interacts with the material.

Second, once you prove that experience cannot be the result of brain activity then you need to resolve the stated problem: How mind which has no location can causally interact with body which has location considering the fact that causality is local.

No i do not need to show you how the immaterial interacts with the material. I have proven that the intellect is not identical with the matter which comprises the brain. The intellect clearly has potentialities that the brain does not;; they are not identical in nature. Therefore it follows necessarily that the intellect is immaterial. It does not matter if we lack a theory or understanding of how the immaterial interacts with the material.

 

[BlackFriar]

I am not sure you understand Feser.
Aquinas already asserts that the first step of cognition is abstraction of the “sensible species” from external matter into the imaginative faculty as a locally and individually held “phantasm”.
That faculty he agrees is in the biological mind. This is likely what we see in scans of brain activity.

So it is already settled that the triangle is biologically held in the mind as a accidental form modifing neural states.
Nobody said “form” is a blunt thing that must be literally represented as some sort of homunculus.

Memory chips hold sounds and images in matter under a symbolic representation, an accidental form of indeterminate binary states of concatenated transisters.
Sure one cannot open a chip to see the form or image.
But just because its encoded doesnt deny the fact it is intrinsically the same form with the same reformative abilities to be decoded back to the material homunculus equivalent of the original.

Now the “form” represented by the phantasm can be abstracted further because a true form does not hold information about individuality as a phantasm still does.
Nevertheless the phantasm, while held by a material organ and still holding some material information that needs to be removed, is already quasi immaterial as it were. That is, it is no longer a blunt homunculus equivalent of external reality but a symbolic representation suitable to be held by the material organ. It is halfway to being a pure universal form completely abstracted from any specific material information always associated with perceived individual triangles (e.g. this size, these angles, this color, this paper).

Of course truly immaterial human inelligence is a few steps beyong simply grasping the sensible species of a material thing in a still “material” brain held phantasm.

That is where the real proof Feser is getting at lies I suggest.

 

[IWantGod]

Memory chips hold sounds and images in matter under a symbolic representation, an accidental form of indeterminate binary states of concatenated transisters.

Sure one cannot open a chip to see the form or image.

But just because its encoded doesnt deny the fact it is intrinsically the same form with the same reformative abilities to be decoded back to the material homunculus equivalent of the original.

I have considered this as a possible rebuttal. However the binary form correlated with the color coordinates that show up through the pixels of your computer screen to form and image is not identical with the image being shown although the image in question is certainly an amalgamation of matter. The question is then, is to think of something with your intellect the same thing as looking at a computer screen? I disagree. There is not a miniature version of you viewing images in your brain and within that persons brain an even smaller version of you viewing images ad infinitum. Viewing digital images encoded in micro chips is not whats happening in your intellect. Computers serve as a very poor analogy of whats actually going on.

As a cause, to think of a triangle is for the intellect take on the form of a triangle. If our intellect was just the brain for example, then the brain or a part of the brain would take on the form of a triangle every time we thought of one, which is absurd.

 

[AgnosticBoy]

I agree with some of your points here however a lot of this boils down to the nature of the mind/consciousness. All theories that attempt to explain this issue suffer from an explanatory gap and/or the interaction problem. I posit ‘emergence’ and STT posits some form of panpsychism to explain this issue. While many resort to philosophy and theoretical explanations, I believe the problem should be solved using strict empiricism which of course means we need better technology to probe the brain/mind.

Explanatory gap: “our incomplete understanding of how consciousness might depend upon a nonconscious substrate, especially a physical substrate.”
*Here this also presumes that consciousness is nonphysical.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consciousness/#ExpGap

 

[BlackFriar]

There is not a miniature version of you viewing images in your brain

It seems you may have misunderstood my post.
That is exactly what I tried to state. We are agreed.
There is not a homunculus (“little man”, “little triangle” little whatever) in the brain or a chip.

Its symbolised/encoded held in a way suitable for the brain or the chip to (name removed by moderator)ut or output as required.
That does not mean the form, abstracted from the outside world, is not there in the brain.
It is there, even if not represented the same way as it is in physical external matter.
That is exactly Aquinas’s point.

The biological matter of the brain has received the form as an “accidental form” as per Aristotle) as a “phantasm” not as a “substantial form” (ie as it exists in the real world).

Now the phantasm form can be said to be both material and immaterial.
Because this form is not yet a true universal completely abstracted from matter it is not yet Plato’s form.
In this sense it is still, in itself, “material” because it still possesses individuating information (as we Aristotelian/Thomists all should know matter is the principle of individuation).
It is also material insofar as the phantasm requires biological matter to exist and be held (like a chip).
It is an accidental (Aristotle) transformation of biological matter - which can be picked up by a scanning machine.

However it can also rightly be said to be immaterial insofar as it does contain the raw form information from which a pure universalised “form” can be further abstracted from the phantasm by the immaterial action of the agent intellect. It does represent exactly the same form as exists in an external world substantial form. That is exactly what a first step of abstraction does.

And it can also be said to be immaterial in so far as it no longer exists bound to designate matter as in the real world. Nor is it a homunculus (i.e. exact same little triangle in the brain) representation.

This demonstrates the significantly “spiritualising” operation of the material/biological faculties (eg imagination or, more properly in Latin, the “phantasy” along with others) aka “internal sensory powers” when perceiving the world. It may be no more than what face recognition silicon and software can also do in a much more primitive way but it is still material…and in some ways immaterial.
Just as Aquinas stated 800 years ago in his philosophy of man and the creation of the “phantasm”.

This summary says it well:

Question 84 – The Soul’s Understanding of Corporeal Things

Preamble Questions Ia.q82 and Ia.q83 have provided a very short introduction to the will as intellectual appetite. Aquinas promises to retur...

readingthesumma.blogspot.com

And this:

Reading The Summa

Supporting the York Aquinas Reading Group (and anyone else!) as it wends its weary way through the summa theologiae of St. Thomas Aquinas

readingthesumma.blogspot.com

 

[STT]

To think of a triangle is to have the form of a triangle in your intellect. Your intellect in a sense is taking on the form of a triangle…

No that is incorrect. The experience is not matter.

No i do not need to show you how the immaterial interacts with the material. I have proven that the intellect is not identical with the matter which comprises the brain. The intellect clearly has potentialities that the brain does not;; they are not identical in nature. Therefore it follows necessarily that the intellect is immaterial. It does not matter if we lack a theory or understanding of how the immaterial interacts with the material.

You of course need to show that otherwise your theory of mind is problematic.

 

[STT]

Now the phantasm form can be said to be both material and immaterial.

How something could be both material and immaterial?

 

[IWantGod]

While many resort to philosophy and theoretical explanations, I believe the problem should be solved using strict empiricism which of course means we need better technology to probe the brain/mind.

I see. But how can a strict empiricism help us to measure anything but the brain?