Brain, Mind & Neuroscience

[inocente]

No definition of the mind has ever been supplied by materialists - apart from stating that it is a collection of events within a skull. In their scheme of things** neurotransmitter imbalances within the brain** must be the main causes of all psychiatric conditions. Given that the mind is merely is a product of electrical impulses how could it possibly be anything other than disruptions of the required currents and voltages? (Unless some scientific genius succeeds in explaining** the precise physical mechanism **by which such a feat is accomplished…)

From this I can only conclude that your knowledge on this subject could be written with a house brush on the back of a postage stamp.

So what’s your theory, that clinical depression is caused by demonic possession? What’s your success rate in treating depression compared with conventional (i.e. scientific) medicine? What’s your detailed understanding of it? Where can we go for further reading? (in comparison on Wikipedia alone the scientific understanding is summarized at Depression (mood), Mood disorder, Major depressive disorder, Depression (differential diagnoses) and Biology of depression).

Unless you’re saying that people should go untreated, grin and bear it, end up in suicide for the sake of exalting some ideology of yours?

 

[levinas12]

I don’t know that committed supernaturalists actually want the neuroscientists to succeed - at least, it has been my impression that they don’t.

I agree with you that the human body, in all its physicality, is what consitutes our being. There is no separate “disembodied thing”, “res cogitans” in Cartesian vocabulary. We are not two entities. We are our bodies.

But the real mystery of the human body is the person - the “who” not the “what”.

“Persons” are somehow given to us through sense perception. The person is announced, revealed, expressed in his/her human body - it’s like a portrait that emerges from out of the oil paint - the portrait is not an additional thing that is slammed down on top of the paint - the portrait and the paint are one and the same.

Descartes’ reification of “person” has been a great source of confusion. We are our bodies but we are not things - but our bodies are not just passive things - they are agents of truth, disclosure, love.

Whatever the brain is doing, it is simply quite marvelous.

I don’t completely fault Descartes though. He was genuinely puzzled how “dead” matter can attain intentionality, consciousness. And that sense of puzzlement has only grown stronger since Descartes.

In some respects, it’s a whole lot easier to understand why one billiard ball can collide with and move another billiard ball. But a billiard ball being “aware” of another billiard ball? Now there’s a Godelian knot!

 

[TheAtheist]

I don’t know that committed supernaturalists actually want the neuroscientists to succeed - at least, it has been my impression that they don’t.

Sair, i think you paint with too broad a brush.

I’ve met a number of people from different religious backgrounds who are quite eager to see the results that my colleagues draw out from the lab.

I guess it does depend on their viewpoint on the matter. The 3 predominate versions of Judaism and Orthodox Christianity seem to have very little objections to the claims we’ve made thus far…mostly because they reject Descartes and even Plato’s conception of the soul.

Of particular interests to Neuroscience however are the Buddhists, specifically the Tibetan and Zen varieties. Whereas most of the debate regarding the relationship between the mind/brain fall into the realm of philosophy (as opposed to actual science), most of these contemplatives have come knocking on our door not with an argument but requesting that they demonstrate the abilities their religion claims is possible.

I have to say - this is quite a refreshing avenue of interaction versus the more common mode such a discourse usualy entails…like this thread.

 

[levinas12]

Of particular interests to Neuroscience however are the Buddhists, specifically the Tibetan and Zen varieties.

Aristotle’s notion of an agent intellect may have some affinity with Buddhism. *

For Aristotle, the agent intellect comes in from the “outside” - it is extrinsic to the individual human person - you might call it “transpersonal” - there is just one agent intellect at work in all human beings.

Thomas Aquinas argues the contrary. Each of us has his/her own agent intellect - it is intrinsic as opposed to extrinsic - what Kant might call a “faculty”.

Under this Thomist scenario, there are a great many of agent intellects, each unique and different from the others.

• another interesting affinity: the “emptiness” of the self-thinking thought which defines Aristotle’s “god” or “unmoved mover” - unlike the Christian God, Aristotle’s god is totally unaware of us and the rest of the world.

 

[GEddie]

Interesting indeed.

Could someone from the EOC side of things shed some light on this?

ICXC NIKA

 

[TheAtheist]

Interesting indeed.

Could someone from the EOC side of things shed some light on this?

ICXC NIKA

I am probably going to butcher this, but the claim as far as i understand is that Judaism in all its forms and Orthodoxy are more likely to speak of “Persons” than of “Souls.”

They are following a much older Hebriac conception that rejects strong Substance Dualism, at least in the case of human beings.

Even the immortality of the Soul - a central focus of Plato’s theory - can be put in the wastebin of history, as they qualify it in terms of “immortality if in communion with God.” Otherwise the soul/consciousness seems quite mortal.

Ergo much of what is discussed or discovered in terms of Neuroscience his little effect on their interpretation of the Laws of Moses (in the case of Judaism) or on their theology.

 

[TheAtheist]

Aristotle’s notion of an agent intellect may have some affinity with Buddhism. *

Hmm, reminds me a little of a monograph a Muslim friend suggested to me.

“Alfarabi, Avicenna, and Averroes, on Intellect: Their Cosmologies, Theories of the Active Intellect, and Theories of Human Intellect” by Herbert Davidson.

I wonder if there is a Muslim commentator on CAF who wouldn’t mind shedding some light on his own particular tradition. I must confess a bit of ignorance given the fact that Muslim Philosophy’s relationship seems…less straightforward than Greek Philosophy’s relationship with the Catholic West.

Its made it rather difficult for me at least to identify any particular theory of the soul/mind/consciousness/however you wish to phrase it in their tradition.

Regarding the Buddhism issue - i must confess i have a cursory knowledge on the matter - mostly what i end up reading in conference papers.

Usually this is where i’d defer to other CAF members like Rossum (who is Buddhist), Cecilianus (an Orthodox physicist whose breadth of learning is quite admirable) or Matteo Ricci (Chinese Catholic who has a very strong command of his culture’s philosophical tradition and India’s).

Making a poor stab at this: There seems to be at least 3 Predominate Philosophical Schools within Buddhism (with attendant sub-schools, but lets avoid that issue lest i get lost).

An Abhidharmic teaching associated with Theravada Buddhism, and the Yogacara and Madhyamaka schools associated with the various branches of Mahayana Buddhism (of which Zen and Tibetan Buddhism partake of).

Now going out on a limb - aspects of the Active Intellect as described by Aristotle sounds somewhat like a Yogacara conception of the Mind, specifically their idea of the Aālayavijñāna - the “Storehouse Consciousness” where the karma of one’s deeds “ripens” you might say and generates the next stage of what they call a mindstream.

Whooboy… before i butcher this any further, perhaps its time for a definitive quote:

Question: What is the nature of the mindstream that reincarnates from lifetime to lifetime?
Dalai Lama: …If one understands the term “soul” as a continuum of individuality from moment to moment, from lifetime to lifetime, then one can say that Buddhism also accepts a concept of soul; there is a kind of continuum of consciousness. From that point of view, the debate on whether or not there is a soul becomes strictly semantic. However, in the Buddhist doctrine of selflessness, or “no soul” theory, the understanding is that there is no eternal, unchanging, abiding, permanent self called “soul.” That is what is being denied in Buddhism.

Buddhism does not deny the continuum of consciousness. Because of this, we find some Tibetan scholars, such as the Sakya master Rendawa, who accept that there is such a thing as self or soul, the “kangsak ki dak” (Tib. gang zag gi bdag). However, the same word, the “kangsak ki dak,” the self, or person, or personal self, or identity, is at the same time denied by many other scholars.

We find diverse opinions, even among Buddhist scholars, as to what exactly the nature of self is, what exactly that thing or entity is that continues from one moment to the next moment, from one lifetime to the next lifetime. Some try to locate it within the aggregates, the composite of body and mind. Some explain it in terms of a designation based on the body and mind composite, and so on… One of the divisions of [the “Mind-Only”] school maintains there is a special continuum of consciousness called alayavijnana which is the fundamental consciousness.

*Mind Only is another name for Yogacara.

Bear in mind the quote:

1.) Only reflects the Tibetan version of Buddhism - and specifically the Gelug school of which the Dalai Lama belongs to. I have no clue if that’s a commonly held view amongst the other 3 Schools of Tibetan Buddhism.

2.) Is attempting to translate some rather difficult concepts from a philosophy born in an Indian milieu to the West. As its been related to me - a lot of subtle nuances got lost in translation.

---

Putting the philosophy aside from a second however, the reason why we end up having to take some of their postulates seriously is the manner of their approach.

As I said before, much of what characterizes the discussions about the mind/body situation does fall within the realm of Philosophy for the time being. And it isn’t even a mere matter of “Atheists vs. Religious.”

For example:

David Chalmers:-youtube.com/watch?v=NK1Yo6VbRoo&list=UUa7iYmvqxcU22E5Qi-iMzTg&index=21&feature=plpp_video

Daniel Dennett - youtube.com/watch?v=IHyev5-l4Tk&list=UUa7iYmvqxcU22E5Qi-iMzTg&index=11&feature=plpp_video

Colin Mcginn - youtube.com/watch?v=CLFtGb9RKPo&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PLE3EE5182B63BF508

John Searle - youtube.com/watch?v=WFQ0Spu50Oc&list=UUa7iYmvqxcU22E5Qi-iMzTg&index=18&feature=plpp_video

Just to name a few. As you can see - although they generally fall into the same “ballpark” their understandings of the issue go off in very different directions.

All of this is possible simply because we haven’t accumulated enough data as of yet. Nor do we necessarily know what type of experiments to run.

What the Buddhists (or at least some fo them) bring to the table is not just a philosophy with attendant “goal post moving” - they’ve been putting up their best meditators before the fMRI and saying “Test us.”

I’d liken the situation to the old issue regarding the existence of Black Swans. A lot of European thinkers could construct a logically sound proof back in the 16th to 18th centuries about the “nonexistence” of Black Swans. And you could also make an argument in reverse.

But what really clinched the argument was when someone got on a boat, landed in Australia, and saw a Black Swan for the first time.

You could have been persuaded to such a creatures existence back in Europe, but it was only via empirical methods can we put this as “case closed.”

That’s why we have to take some of their statements seriously ~ they keep coming up with new data…which is very different from simply making an argument.

 

[tonyrey]

*It is noteworthy that materialists interpret **all ***

Having worked in a psychiatric unit for two years I am well aware of the psychological causes of depression and merely wish to point that chemical imbalance within the brain** is generally caused by mental attitudes** that are partly caused by life situations and partly by a person’s beliefs, choices and decisions.

Any rational person who witnesses a mindless body in action understands that it is to be pitied

• unless of course that person is also out of her mind… Well done at not addressing my implied question, and completely ignoring the fact that a bodiless mind has never yet been encountered.

According to materialists the mind is merely the functioning of the brain and there is no need to postulate anything else.

In what possible way does the persistence of bodily vitality in the absence of mental control actually demonstrate that a bodiless mind could exist? To me, it looks like bodies precede minds, rather than the other way around.

Appearances are very often deceptive. If a person is out of his or her mind that person is mindless to all intents and purposes.

Not to judge by so many atrocities ensuing from the mentality of materialists.

Oh, please - are you really going to claim that no atrocities have ever been motivated by claimed knowledge of the preferences of a supernatural being?

The remark was prompted by:

… still getting over the notion that the mind is somehow connected to a “supernatural” soul.

• as if the only healthy belief is that of the secularist…

The proposition that the mind is some kind of physical magical stuff does precisely nothing to assist with our attempts to understand it - unless of course the ability to understand is also explained in terms of electrical activity.

Merely reversing my words does nothing to help your case

It highlights the fact that physicalism is merely a theory rather than a superior, unsuperstitious, scientific fact.

. “Physical magical” stuff, as an expression, explicitly ignores the fact that any physical stuff is, by nature, subject to scientific investigation.

A fact which does not lead to the conclusion that everything is subject to scientific investigation.

Supernatural magical stuff is held aloof by those who don’t want reality to be explained.

Supernatural reality is held aloft those who understand that reality is not adequately explained by subnatural events.

It may well be that our ability to understand - to link causes to effects and formulate explanations - is explained in terms of electrical activity, but there may also be other physical forces at work.

We’ll never know if we assume mental activity is supernatural and thus inexplicable.

A further unverified assumption! Time will tell…

No definition of the mind has ever been supplied by materialists - apart from stating that it is a collection of events within a skull.

What do you suppose the mind is if not a collection of events within the skull?

Collections don’t constitute a self or a rational entity. The atomistic view of reality inevitably reduces it to absurdity - as Camus and Sartre were not slow to realise…

The infusion of immaterial ectoplasm?

The infusion of purposeless material power?

Immaterialists are certainly no closer than materialists to formulating an explanation of the mind, but you console yourselves, apparently, by supposing that the assertion of immateriality absolves you from any responsibility for explanation.

On the contrary. Unlike materialists who console themselves with their faith that eventually subnatural events will produce an explanation of themselves - which liberates them from all objective moral principles and all obligations to any higher authority - theists understand that subnatural events are a hopelessly inadequate explanation of the immense value and beauty of life.

In their scheme of things** neurotransmitter imbalances within the brain** must be the main causes of all psychiatric conditions. Given that the mind is merely is a product of electrical impulses how could it possibly be anything other than disruptions of the required currents and voltages? (Unless some scientific genius succeeds in explaining** the precise physical mechanism **by which such a feat is accomplished…)

Let’s have a quick look at the tally sheet, shall we? Psychoactive drugs have demonstrable effects. Consciousness, as far as we can discern, depends upon a minimum level of brain function.

The communication of conscious thoughts and emotions is prevented by loss of - or damage to - brain function.

Actual, physical damage to the brain results in changes in personality.

Damage to the mind results in changes to the body.
The interaction between the brain and the rest of the body is a two-way street.

Are we, when considering the mind, dealing with an independent supernatural entity or with an interrelated natural entity arising entirely from physical forces?

We are considering an integrated, interacting mind and body with supernatural powers such as rational insight, autonomy and creativity which no natural objects possess.

The ball is still in your court, since all the evidence is on the side of the physicalists.

Only in your opinion…

 

[levinas12]

What the Buddhists (or at least some fo them) bring to the table is not just a philosophy with attendant “goal post moving” - they’ve been putting up their best meditators before the fMRI and saying “Test us.”

I’d liken the situation to the old issue regarding the existence of Black Swans. A lot of European thinkers could construct a logically sound proof back in the 16th to 18th centuries about the “nonexistence” of Black Swans. And you could also make an argument in reverse.

But what really clinched the argument was when someone got on a boat, landed in Australia, and saw a Black Swan for the first time.

You could have been persuaded to such a creatures existence back in Europe, but it was only via empirical methods can we put this as “case closed.”

That’s why we have to take some of their statements seriously ~ they keep coming up with new data…which is very different from simply making an argument.

You’ve given me much to ponder.

Reminds me of the old math chestnut: can you raise an irrational number to an irrational power and produce a rational number? Well, raise the square root of 2 to the power of the square root of 2. The result is either a rational or an irrational number. If rational, case closed. If the result is irrational, then raise this result to the square root of 2. Presto, you have a 2, a rational number - and even (no pun intended), mirabile dictu, a whole number. Either way, case closed (without any calculation).

 

[Sair]

A further unverified assumption! Time will tell…

I’ll take my +5 scythe of cutting to the chase and ask: what’s the research program for verifying that the mind is a supernatural phenomenon?

 

[Sair]

Sair, i think you paint with too broad a brush.

I’ve met a number of people from different religious backgrounds who are quite eager to see the results that my colleagues draw out from the lab.

I guess it does depend on their viewpoint on the matter. The 3 predominate versions of Judaism and Orthodox Christianity seem to have very little objections to the claims we’ve made thus far…mostly because they reject Descartes and even Plato’s conception of the soul.

Of particular interests to Neuroscience however are the Buddhists, specifically the Tibetan and Zen varieties. Whereas most of the debate regarding the relationship between the mind/brain fall into the realm of philosophy (as opposed to actual science), most of these contemplatives have come knocking on our door not with an argument but requesting that they demonstrate the abilities their religion claims is possible.

I have to say - this is quite a refreshing avenue of interaction versus the more common mode such a discourse usualy entails…like this thread.

Unfortunately, the broadness of my brush in this instance is precisely a result of this kind of discourse, primarily carried out with those of a Cartesian dualist stamp, who seem to think that the mind is somehow a proof of a supernatural soul, and that if the operations of the mind turn out to be explicable in terms of physical phenomena, this will somehow negate all of our abilities and experiences.

You’re absolutely right that it’s refreshing to see there are those who say, “Well, we have these abilities and experiences - let’s find out how they work.” This, in direct contrast to those who say, “We have these abilities and experiences - don’t you dare try to explain them away!!” :bigyikes:

My contention all along has been that it seems premature, maybe actually pointless, to suppose that reality must be divided into two distinct species - the natural and the supernatural; the latter category seems like just a catch-all repository for “stuff we don’t understand and can’t explain.” Going “above” and “beyond” the natural requires knowing the limits of nature, and I think it’s safe to say we don’t. It’s clear from our everyday experience that something is going on with regard to thought, memory, continuity of consciousness, processing of information, making decisions and so forth - why not try to find out what that is, rather than calling it magic? Why suppose these things are “beyond” natural, and thus inaccessible to scientific elucidation?

 

[meltzerboy]

Having worked in a psychiatric unit for two years I am well aware of the psychological causes of depression and merely wish to point that chemical imbalance within the brain** is generally caused by mental attitudes** that are partly caused by life situations and partly by a person’s beliefs, choices and decisions.
According to materialists the mind is merely the functioning of the brain and there is no need to postulate anything else.

Appearances are very often deceptive. If a person is out of his or her mind that person is mindless to all intents and purposes.

                                             The remark was prompted by:

• as if the only healthy belief is that of the secularist…
  It highlights the fact that physicalism is merely a theory rather than a superior, unsuperstitious, scientific fact.
  A fact which does not lead to the conclusion that everything is subject to scientific investigation.
  Supernatural reality is held aloft those who understand that reality is not adequately explained by subnatural events.
  A further unverified assumption! Time will tell…
  

                                                  Collections don't constitute a self or a rational entity. The atomistic view of reality inevitably reduces it to absurdity - as Camus and Sartre were not slow to realise...

The infusion of purposeless material power?
On the contrary. Unlike materialists who console themselves with their faith that eventually subnatural events will produce an explanation of themselves - which liberates them from all objective moral principles and all obligations to any higher authority - theists understand that subnatural events are a hopelessly inadequate explanation of the immense value and beauty of life.

In their scheme of things** neurotransmitter imbalances within the brain** must be the main causes of all psychiatric conditions. Given that the mind is merely is a product of electrical impulses how could it possibly be anything other than disruptions of the required currents and voltages? (Unless some scientific genius succeeds in explaining** the precise physical mechanism **by which such a feat is accomplished…)The communication of conscious thoughts and emotions is prevented by loss of - or damage to - brain function.
Damage to the mind results in changes to the body.
The interaction between the brain and the rest of the body is a two-way street.
We are considering an integrated, interacting mind and body with supernatural powers such as rational insight, autonomy and creativity which no natural objects possess.

Only in your opinion…

I agree with your appreciation of the philosophy of neuroscience: there has been a kind of biological reductionism at work in this field. Notwithstanding, back in the 1980’s, cognitive psychologists decided to merge with brain scientists, and together they formed the field known as cognitive neuroscience, in which brain and mind interaction could be studied from both the biological and the psychological perspectives. And about ten years ago, the field of social neuroscience was born, in which brain and mind were studied within a sociocultural context. No longer is it thought that the origin of perceptions and cognitions is always the biological brain, vital as that physical entity is for thought and life itself. Environment may have just as profound an influence on the functioning of the brain. For example, there is a tribe whose language uses the same word for the colors blue and green. As a result, it was discovered that the people who spoke this language could not visually differentiate between the two colors even though their brains were in no way impaired. This multidimensional approach to understanding cognitions, emotions, drives, and behaviors has generated exciting new research in both psychology and neuroscience.

 

[hicetnunc]

I read four reviews, none said the book has anything at all to do with explaining the mind as requested by the OP, they all said it’s instead an argument against a simplistic culture. Even then it doesn’t sound very balanced

Well, I have actually read the book and and heard him in person in a conference and had a chance to listen to his position debated. It is much more than a discussion of a “simplistic culure” and is indeed about the distinction between mind and brain. Give the book a fair reading.

 

[inocente]

Well, I have actually read the book and and heard him in person in a conference and had a chance to listen to his position debated. It is much more than a discussion of a “simplistic culure” and is indeed about the distinction between mind and brain. Give the book a fair reading.

No doubt it’s a fine book but even the publisher’s description calls it a critique and not an explanation. He wants us to take his side, another author will want us to take hers.

I’m just saying that to learn more about a subject, it might be better to read a book which sets out to explain rather than criticize.

 

[hicetnunc]

I’m just saying that to learn more about a subject, it might be better to read a book which sets out to explain rather than criticize.

Isn’t what you’re doing criticising?

Anyway, crticism of necessity, when it is done well, includes an explanation of what is being criticised.

The whole basis of Catholic philosophy is based on a distinction between disputation and polemic, the former being rooted in a desire for the truth, the latter being rooted in a desire to ‘score points’ in a debate.

No one can seriously claim to be involved in a disputation of something they haven’t even read regardless of a selective use of reviews.

Pax.

 

[entelechy1]

The answer going back via Aquinas to Aristotle is: the mind/psyche/soul is the form or actuality of the human body. As such mind and body are not radically separate, as in the dualistic notions of Descartes/Pythagoras line of thinking. But unlike modern materialist philosophers of the mind, thinkers in the Aquinas/Aristotle line do not limit existence to the material. How exactly these various approaches line up is a question I am working on myself, reading among other things Aristotle’s De Anima and Aquinas’ commentary on De Anima.

 

[hicetnunc]

The answer going back via Aquinas to Aristotle is: the mind/psyche/soul is the form or actuality of the human body. As such mind and body are not radically separate, as in the dualistic notions of Descartes/Pythagoras line of thinking. But unlike modern materialist philosophers of the mind, thinkers in the Aquinas/Aristotle line do not limit existence to the material. How exactly these various approaches line up is a question I am working on myself, reading among other things Aristotle’s De Anima and Aquinas’ commentary on De Anima.

That sounds like a good place to start!

How would you answer the atheist critique that the Aristotelian doctrine of hylomorphism works just as well for a materialist understanding of the human body?

 

[tonyrey]

I agree with your appreciation of the philosophy of neuroscience: there has been a kind of biological reductionism at work in this field. Notwithstanding, back in the 1980’s, cognitive psychologists decided to merge with brain scientists, and together they formed the field known as cognitive neuroscience, in which brain and mind interaction could be studied from both the biological and the psychological perspectives. And about ten years ago, the field of social neuroscience was born, in which brain and mind were studied within a sociocultural context. No longer is it thought that the origin of perceptions and cognitions is always the biological brain, vital as that physical entity is for thought and life itself. Environment may have just as profound an influence on the functioning of the brain. For example, there is a tribe whose language uses the same word for the colors blue and green. As a result, it was discovered that the people who spoke this language could not visually differentiate between the two colors even though their brains were in no way impaired. This multidimensional approach to understanding cognitions, emotions, drives, and behaviors has generated exciting new research in both psychology and neuroscience.

Psychology is on the way to reclaiming its rightful role.

 

[entelechy1]

That sounds like a good place to start!

How would you answer the atheist critique that the Aristotelian doctrine of hylomorphism works just as well for a materialist understanding of the human body?

A nice question…I would first of all stress that the physicalist’s conception of mind (i.e. mind is nothing beyond body/brain) is a far deal closer to Aristotle and the Catholic tradition than the Cartesian/Pythagorean approach, and the more recent functionalist approach (according to which anything that can hold states and transition between them - be it a brain, a computer, just anything - can be a mind). Too often, Christians tend to see mind/soul as something that reluctantly flutters about the body but would rather be elsewhere - but this is not Christianity at all, but rather a bad variety of platonism, one that denigrates the very body we are enjoined to honor as the temple of the Holy Spirit, and that implicitly disavows the resurrection of the body.

One important difference between the Aristotelian and physicalist/materialist notion of mind: lacking the notion of ‘form’, the physicalist does not have a way to account for the unity of mind. In fact, recent philosopers of mind (Dennett, Minsky come to mind - though they might be seen as leaning in the functionalist direction) argue against mind as unified but rather as a system of competitive interpretations. For Aristotle, the mind/psyche/soul, being the form of the body, is that which accounts for its unity over time – because as a (hylemorphic) substance, it is capable of taking on contrary states (now conscious, now not, now excited, now bored – see Aristotle’s Categories on ‘substance’). And without some basis of unity for the mind/psyche/soul (and I am not saying that it absolutely has to be substance as layed out by Arisotle), there is really no mind to speak of, just a concatenation of states belonging to nobody. The self, like Hume’s notion of causality, becomes a convenient fiction that we just seem incapable of escaping.

Now, there are certainly philosophers out there who claim to have no problem with this. But my humble opinion is that they have only succeeded in kicking the can down the road. The problem is at bottom a metaphysical one: without ‘form’, or something like it, nothing whatsoever - not even a quark or an electron - can be a unit, for even these perdure and exhibit contrary states (now in this position, now in that one, now at this velocity, now at that one).

So if we are forced by our experience to admit forms-and-substances at the level of the quark, by what prejudice do we reject it at the level of the mind? To the objection that brain damage leads to alteration in personality and cognitive functioning we might say: of course you don’t have a complete/whole mind here, because you don’t have a complete brain. Aristotle would describe the loss of essential attributes here as a privation. And incomplete brain cannot be a fully actual brain.

But this brings us to Aristotle’s metaphysics of potentiality and actuality, a real can of worms, but one that promises to do a lot of heavy lifting, including the re-integration of the ethical and physical dimensions of reality that were sundered in the early modern period…

 

[inocente]

Isn’t what you’re doing criticising?

Anyway, crticism of necessity, when it is done well, includes an explanation of what is being criticised.

The whole basis of Catholic philosophy is based on a distinction between disputation and polemic, the former being rooted in a desire for the truth, the latter being rooted in a desire to ‘score points’ in a debate.

No one can seriously claim to be involved in a disputation of something they haven’t even read regardless of a selective use of reviews.

Thanks for the little lecture, my main criticism of it is that criticizing me for criticizing is circular and the claim about selective use of reviews is spurious.

And sheesh, all I said was that even the publisher’s description calls it a critique and not an explanation, and to learn more about a subject it might be better to read a book which sets out to explain rather than criticize.

Do you reckon we’ve done this one to death now, any chance of moving on?