In this life we still have a body. The will, intellect and imagination are faculties of the soul. I understand the Great Saints’ phantasms. IMO the quale of redness is possible in an interior intellectual vision. If the vision is of an attribute of God, it cannot be the Face of God Beatific Vision, whatever the Giver wishes to endue, is.
I agree. In fact, I believe that some sort of qualia is necessary for every intellectual vision. Even the visions described by St. Teresa, although lacking some qualia, appear to include other subjective qualities (qualia) of experience. The whole point of her description was to convey subjective qualities of that experience. Even if she could not see a face, there’s other qualia present, such as “nearness” of Jesus, that it was “Jesus Christ Our Lord Who had revealed Himself.” These are also qualia.
how about “love”, “the square root of 2”, “justice”, and pretty much all abstract thought
I think this is exactly the point that St. Thomas makes in his Summa. No matter how man obtains knowledge in this life, either through experience or when given an intellectual vision directly, we must still turn to sense-image in the judgment or understanding of that knowledge or vision, and secondly, to convey that understanding to another also requires turning to sense-image.
Abstraction derives from sense-image.
and what do you think I am, a mailman? look at my profile
Ronnie,and what do you think I am, a mailman? look at my profile
btw, “nearness” is not a qualia.
David Chalmers has a good desciption of types of qualia in pages 6 to 9 of his book The Conscious Mind, here’s a link to the whole book in pdf for free; teslhome.com/download.ASP?n=THE%20CONSCIOUS%20MIND.pdf
start on page 6 where it says A catalog of conscious experience
Huh? I wasn’t upset, not even a little, I was just pointing out the “I’m an electrical engineer and understand abstract thought in a way you can’t” card didn’t really work with me because I’m an electrical engineer. And I gave you the link to Chalmers’ book because at least a couple of posters here seemed to be misusing the word “qualia”. That’s all, I’m not upset with you or anyone else.
You may want to go back and read it again, as that’s not what I wrote.
An electrical engineer, eh? One of your comrads, then, Franklin Merrell-Wolff wrote a few books on this matter, notably The philosophy of Consciousness Without An Object. In his previous book, in which he chronicles his consideraton on the way to the event that led him to write that, he deals extensively with the idea of qualia. Very interesting. That one is called Pathways Through to Space Both you and Hazcompat might find it very useful.
Thanks for the reference. I’m from the “truth is objective” school of thought, however, as the contrary makes little rational sense to me. But I’ll take a look see.
Regarding the P.S., you have hundred percent agreement from me, that was a fine summary of many things I’ve also read. Well saidMany saints have visions and locutions. They are of the type mentioned: corporal, imaginative and intellectual. God makes Himself known on many levels. For most of us, He works through sour senses in an ordinary manner, but often He uses the things He created as signs if we are aware of looking for signs.
Very few souls are chosen through intense preparation to make reparation for the sins of another soul or for direct grievances against Our Lord and His Blessed Mother. As we readily know, because of the evils in our society, “the cup is brimming over.” One of these saints or venerables is Sister Josefa Menendez who was a member of a convent in Poitiers. She was unknown and unaccounted for in the world but chosen by Our Lord to suffer the pains of carrying His cross and wearing the crown of thorns for various periods. In other words, she was a “victim soul.” Sometimes Our Lord appeared to her as a baby and as a young child as well as an adult.
What I find extremely interesting about Sister Josepha’s account is her invitation to enter the wound of the side of Our Lord. She doesn’t explain what she sees. I don’t know about any qualia in a vision of this sort and can’t define whether it intellectual or not. Like other saints, including the St. John Vianney and St. Pio, she was attacked by the devil and beaten severely. She was also made to walk through hell and see the tortured souls. Many were saved on account of her prayers and sufferings even though she initially had felt repugnance to this way of reparation and just wanted to live the ordinary life of a Christian.
I think the visions of Fatima and Lourdes and Guadelupe might have been corporeal in nature. St. Teresa of Avila says, that corporeal visions are more likely to be false than the imaginative and intellectual in which the soul has certainty. But she adds that the devil can take any disguise and that sometimes she had what she called “false” visions. She discerned they were false because they exhorted a spirit of pride in her but that there were times she wasn’t always certain.
That all of our earthy knowledge comes from our senses is understood, but when it comes to spiritual matters, we really don’t understand God’s workings in souls other than that He infuses knowledge. For example, when a person of any age dies, including an infant, they both are given the knowledge, understanding and wisdom of all that is in the world and in heaven.
P.S. I can’t say I’m absolutely certain of the above, and I’d welcome any discourse or comment or correction.
Many blessings!
I agree that the degree of certainty with which we can understand what happens in our soul is only as good as the reasoning processes illumined by faith. St. Thomas’ explanations are an example of “speculative theology.” He offers “an explanation” which was derived from reason, Scripture, philosophy, and the writings of the early Church fathers, especially Augustine. Speculative theology, helps to illuminate understanding, but I don’t think anybody should think that which is theologically speculative is to be assented to with the same kind of assent as doctrine or dogma. The degree of certainty, like all philosophical conclusions, are to be accepted only based upon the strength of the argument, to include the authoritative support used in that argument.
I don’t think the separated soul necessarily knows all individual things in heaven and earth, but instead knows to the extent established by Divine order. St. Thomas describes this example as well in his Summa, giving his explanation of how the operation of the intellect necessarily changes after the soul separates from the body. Summa Theologica I, questions 75-102 is where he describes the nature of man and his soul, q. 89 is where he speaks of knowledge in the separated human soul. It is only later in his Summa, IIb q. 171-178 where he speaks of “Gratuitous Graces” Divinely bestowed to certain men and women (e.g. prophets), and q. 173 is where he describes his understanding of how the intellect works when it receives such Divinely imparted knowledge. He concludes that some but not all Divinely bestowed knowledge requires “abstraction” from sense-image, but goes on to state that for all such knowledge, “the perfect judgment of the intellect is effected by its turning to sensible objects, which are the first principles of our knowledge, as stated in I, 84, 6.” In other words, St. Thomas explicitly joins his understanding of Divinely bestowed knowledge (IIb, 173) with his previously asserted understanding of the nature of man and his soul (I, 84). In this earthly life, sense-image is used no matter how the knowledge was gained, sometimes through abstraction, but always during the intellectual judgment of the knowledge received.