I’m just going to discuss these in one response.
I THINK you are ignoring my earlier response. I have have seen the evidence. You did state, “Thomas also argues that no physical body can be self-conscious (as in self-aware), or as he puts it, “self-reflexive.” A stone, or for that matter a dog, would have to be able to explicitly think about itself and its own personal, inner, mental acts. This is clearly not the case. The human being, however, can do these things.” My point is why would you use Aquinas in a scientific issue. It’s plain silly. You are basically teaching psuedoscience by doing so and you are ignoring my own study. Here is one example of reflection by my dog. She is in the house sleeping then wakes and yawns then walks slowly over to the heater to warm up. About 10 minutes later she dashes to the sliding window and groans (small little whimpers) and looks back at me with those big droopy eyes as I stand at the kitchen sink. She sees me walking towards her and starts to wag her tail. I open the slider and she rushes outside turns the bend and I peek out another window and see her in the dog house. (Custom built 5’ x 10’ x 7’) She picks up her stuffed baby puppy inside the dog house. Runs back through the open slider with her stuffed baby puppy. I have repeatedly told her since she was born, “Don’t you love your baby? Take care of your baby!” She remembered her baby was outside. Memory is an aspect of reflection.
Apparently you haven’t followed the discussion that I had with Serious. Let me sketch out some salient points for you.
He made this assertion to me a RC: “There are some people who fight tooth-and-nail against the idea that the mind is simply the activity of the brain, even though the evidence is overwhelming. But it is very hard to give up the ingrained ideas, especially if their loss would invalidate one’s whole worldview.”
Later he also made this methodological statement. “The SM [scientific method] is the only method to arrive at objective true and false statements about the
external reality."
So his statement about the mind which he extended to the soul is essentially this: due to the findings of science the mind is by any measure of understanding, in all actuality and in every way nothing but brain activity and consequently one is rationally compelled to deny the immateriality of the mind/soul.
My contention as part of the western theistic tradition and as a RC has been that philosophy does give us access to truth about external reality (not just natural science) and that science can’t rule out the immateriality of the soul grasped by philosophy because science, by virtue of its method, cannot pronounce on a subject that is not physical and empirically verifiable.
Now I would suspect that as a RC you might find his first assertion objectionable. My point to him was that if he is going to back up his first assertion he has to prove that science has demonstrated it–which it hasn’t–OR show why it is more reasonable to accept his methodological assertion–which he didn’t.
So the definition of the soul and mind stemming from philosophy which he disputes has always been a part of the picture and discussion. We were never just doing science.
Therefore Aquinas’ definition of reflection was always germane. And it is indisputable that we as humans do this. Surely you have noticed this in yourself. Further none of your examples even come close to falling under that definition. You’re the one who said your dog does reflect in relation to my use of Aquinas’ definition. Now you’re saying: forget his definition; just believe me my dog does reflect.
Perhaps you could define what you mean by ”reflection.”
So if you are talking about object-oriented, third-person scientific studies of intelligence, that’s a legit pursuit. But even here we have to make reference to mental phenomena as we experience them in ourselves. Neurological researchers like Joaquín M. Fuster, MD, PhD,
Cortex and Mind. (Oxford University Press, 2003), to whom I made reference, explicitly note that they make use of first-person philosophical observations about cognition in order to relate what we experience in thought to its correlations in brain activity (pp., xi, 249). Third-person data (scientific studies of the brain) must be correlated with first-person data (what we know from personal experience of and philosophical reflection about consciousness and the activity of the mind) to make much sense.
The word used was may be “uniquely human” which isn’t necessarily the case as I have noted. Also, remember scientifically speaking we are social animals that is what was meant by “social animals including humans.”
And at the same time it doesn’t rule out my point either. In fact why would the author bring up the point at all to say explicit mentalizing as a meta-cognitive process may be uniquely human unless he or she had some reason to suspect it was so? If it were out of the question, it would not even be mentioned; or, if so, it would be rejected.
Yes, I first read the article that Premack wrote way back in 2007. He is a psychologist. The article that I presented is from 2012 (Mechanisms of social cognition. Frith CD, Frith U. . . .
I have no access to the article w/o paying $20.
I think I’ve made it perfectly clear in my previous postings that using Aquinas is teaching psuedoscience. You’ve brought in scientific articles and so have I. Stick to the science.
I was not teaching Aquinas as science, but as philosophy as a witness to philosophical arguments for the immateriality of the soul.
No, not really when you keep bring up Aquinas along with scientific articles.
I hope you now understand why I mentioned Aquinas in my discussion with Serious.
I have to admit she can wear me out.:yawn:
Gracie is now over a year old.