Is the essence of a person the sum total of his atoms?

[Frankenfurter]

Most people are only “nominally religious”. (The Vatican admits this and complains about it.) Most people never question their core beliefs. An overwhelming majority stays with the religion that they were raised as children, never examining the alternatives. Therefore they are not interested in “evidence”. As best they will cherry-pick those events which seem to support their belief system. (For example they will vehemently assert that the survival of their relative in a plane crash was a “miracle”, while they are very quiet about the death of the other 300+ passengers who perished.)

Ah but this is the realm of the non-physical indeed. People have faith., as you have described. I accept that - everything you have said. Faith can take us to a place beyond where we can get ourselves. Don’t discount it. But it can also lead nowhere.

I know talented folks who spend there lives looking for cures (for Tuberculosis). They have faith that such a cure is possible, so they work hard. Science requires faith, so does most important things. They never question this ‘core belief’. I have come to see faith as a virtue, albeit a non-physical thing that we possess. It is independent of one believing in God. It is a part of the process of being human. Your discounting of faith is another example of how the physical bias leads to discounting such a thing (since it is a non-physical thing). Belief in God is just a summary conclusion of the other faiths that we need to survive.

 

[Solmyr]

Ah but this is the realm of the non-physical indeed. People have faith., as you have described. I accept that - everything you have said. Faith can take us to a place beyond where we can get ourselves. Don’t discount it. But it can also lead nowhere.

I know talented folks who spend there lives looking for cures (for Tuberculosis). They have faith that such a cure is possible, so they work hard. Science requires faith, so does most important things. They never question this ‘core belief’. I have come to see faith as a virtue, albeit a non-physical thing that we possess. It is independent of one believing in God. It is a part of the process of being human. Your discounting of faith is another example of how the physical bias leads to discounting such a thing (since it is a non-physical thing). Belief in God is just a summary conclusion of the other faiths that we need to survive.

Again, the problem is the ambiguous usage of the word “faith”.

But we were talking about the concept of “evidence”. Why not concentrate on that? I stated that the sufficient evidence should be something which is true beyond any reasonable doubt. Do you have a different criterion?

 

[Solmyr]

It is impossible for us to locate a particular thought or decision. All we know is that they are usually associated with brain activity.

Sure we can. Just consider a nice game of chess, where you contemplate your next move. Where does that decision “happen”? Outside our neural process? Where? And how does it get “transmitted” into our brain?

Since you are unable to present even one counter example, what are we talking about?

The fact that we can think of many different things as well as a zebra within 30 seconds demonstrates that we can control our thoughts.

Did you actually try the experiment? I did, and it was pretty funny that I tried to think about something else, but a zebra, and that frigging zebra kept on popping into my head… Of course this is an old psychological test, tried many times. The point is that we do NOT have full control over our conscious mind, and we have absolutely no control over our subconscious. Most (maybe all) of our decisions happen in the subconscious, and that have been verified many times… not just as an empty hypothesis, but tried, tested and verified many times.

Your effort to sidetrack the issue by asking if ALL thoughts and decisions are certainly confined to our brain is just as irrational as if you would demand a “proof” for the assertion that a “pebble will ALWAYS fall down and never fall UP”, no matter how many times we conduct this experiment.

Now an experiment for you. Ask yourself whether you think there is only one possible answer to the question “Is there life on another planet?” Are you compelled to answer “Yes” or No" or “I don’t know”? Or can you choose to ignore the question? If not why not?

The answer obvious: “I don’t know, but I very strongly suspect that there is”. And I have very good reasons for this belief.

 

[Richca]

I think the answer is no.

The essence of a person cannot be described by the sum total of the atoms.

I believe this means that the atomists are wrong. We cannot look for the essence of a person (or any other thing) by reducing it to its atoms.

Instead, it is the way the the thing (or person) interacts with the rest of reality (and creation as a whole) that defines its essence.

I will take another step to say that the essence of Jesus is not his atoms, but his relationship to creation. I am therefore able to say that the essence of Jesus can exist in the Eucharist, and have no need to go and look for his atoms within the wafer.

I will ask another related question. Is the essence of the song ‘America’ the vibration of atoms between the speaker cone and my ear? Or, is the relationship of the song to my life, and the life of millions of others its essence.

I believe these two example show how the modern anatomist theory misses the point on what the essence of a thing is.

No, a human being is not the sum total of his/her atoms. The Catholic Church teaches [cf. the CCC] that a human being is a composite being; a human being is composed of spirit [or soul] and body [matter]. The soul is the form of the body. Atoms pertain to matter, that is, a person’s body. In catholic philosophy, the essence of some thing is another name for the nature or substance of some thing. For material substances, the principles that comprise the substance, essence, or nature of some thing are form and matter, and more specifically, the substantial form and matter. The substantial form is what places some thing into a particular class of things, for example, dogs, horses, trees, or humans. The substantial form of human beings is their intellectual spiritual soul and this is what distinguishes them from all the other animals [the substantial form also organizes the matter of the body to be the body of some particular class of things so the body of humans obviously does not look like the body of a lion]. So, the essence or nature of a human being has two parts, namely, the spiritual soul and the body [matter, which involves atoms for atoms are matter]. A human being is not a spiritual soul only or a body only, but composed of both.

 

[Bradski]

It is impossible for us to locate a particular thought or decision.

Yes we can. We can see the part of the brain that is working when that thought occurs. I’m sure I read it somewhere. Ah, yes. Here it is:

All we know is that they are usually associated with brain activity.

But then again…

It doesn’t follow that **all **mental activity is located inside the skull. Intuition, inspiration and introspection presuppose knowledge which is not obtained via the senses.

So where does it occur? You’re not going to say ‘Your soul’ are you? Surely not.

And inspiration requires knowledge of the matter in hand. You are just joining the dots in a way that previously didn’t occur to you. It’s like walking down stairs. Think too hard about it and you’ll fall over. Let the subconscious take over and Eureka! But nobody and I mean nobody ever had an inspirational moment when they didn’t have access to the information necessary to have it.

Same with intuition. It’s a gut feeling. Your sub conscious already knows the answer. It just hasn’t told you. When it does, you call it an intuitive moment.

And introspection? What are you looking at if not the information about yourself that you already possess?

 

[thinkandmull]

Yes we can. We can see the part of the brain that is working when that thought occurs. I’m sure I read it somewhere. Ah, yes. Here it is:

But then again…

So where does it occur? You’re not going to say ‘Your soul’ are you? Surely not.

And inspiration requires knowledge of the matter in hand. You are just joining the dots in a way that previously didn’t occur to you. It’s like walking down stairs. Think too hard about it and you’ll fall over. Let the subconscious take over and Eureka! But nobody and I mean nobody ever had an inspirational moment when they didn’t have access to the information necessary to have it.

Same with intuition. It’s a gut feeling. Your sub conscious already knows the answer. It just hasn’t told you. When it does, you call it an intuitive moment.

And introspection? What are you looking at if not the information about yourself that you already possess?

Do you believe in free will? Once someone has an experience of free will (one that is not clouded by other factors) and an experience of the soul and its understanding of things not particular, that person cannot deny that theses are truths as understood instead of just strange phenomena of the brain without also saying that nothing can ever be known

 

[Solmyr]

Do you believe in free will?

Why is this “free will” considered something mysterious? The libertarian definition of free will is rather simple. It needs three factors:

1. There is an aim the agent wishes to achieve.
2. There are at least two ways to achieve it.
3. The locus of decision of which way to follow is within the agent.

The internal “workings” of the agents is not part of the question. A total brain control would negate the free will of the agent. If there in only one way (or no way) to achieve that goal then the agent’s free will is negated in that respect. If someone else applies force, then the agent has no free will in that respect. The buzzword is “in that respect”.

Free will is always applicable in conjunction with achieving a certain goal, and it incorporates the freedom to act on that will. Free will without free action is nonsense.

And, of course all these decisions occur within the brain and its electro-chemical activity.

 

[Frankenfurter]

Again, the problem is the ambiguous usage of the word “faith”.

But we were talking about the concept of “evidence”. Why not concentrate on that? I stated that the sufficient evidence should be something which is true beyond any reasonable doubt. Do you have a different criterion?

Of course. You are describing evidence as if it was a court case. In court, some person (a judge,etc.) has to sentence someone to jail perhaps. This is a big responsibility. So they error on the conservative side and have to be absolutely sure. There is a weighing: risk of sentencing an innocent man to jail vs not convicting a criminal. We need to remove reasonable doubt so that we are covered. This is all subjective and there is no focus on objective truths just subjective ones. This subjective bias is so embedded in everything that you are saying and thinking that I question if you can actually see it. But I will try.

Meanwhile, we have evidence for an objective truth.It makes no difference if 999 people don’t believe it and only 1 believes it. To search for objective truth we have to have a completely different way of approaching evidence.

If you are going to be the person who is the 1 in 1000 who sees the truth, then you MUST have faith first.

First have faith. This is necessary to find truths that elude most people.
If you believe in the innocence of a person, that is where you start. When everyone else thinks he is guilty, it is because of your faith that you pursue the truth and eventually find that evidence that shows his innocence. If you give up on him early, that evidence is never found.

There is no way to remove faith from the search for new truths.

Evidence implies a weak connection, having some small trace, some echo of a deeper truth, a hint. What I seek is evidence that yields experiential knowledge with a crystal clear ring of truth that is in synch with every other objective truth.

Unlike a court case, I have no concern for being covered by reasonable doubt. Covering one’s butt is for lawyers, who live in a world of relative truths. Instead the standard for evidence is that the discovered truth fits so well into the web of other truths that there is no possibility that it is false. This is a much higher and objective standard.

 

[Frankenfurter]

No, a human being is not the sum total of his/her atoms. The Catholic Church teaches [cf. the CCC] that a human being is a composite being; a human being is composed of spirit [or soul] and body [matter]. The soul is the form of the body. Atoms pertain to matter, that is, a person’s body. In catholic philosophy, the essence of some thing is another name for the nature or substance of some thing. For material substances, the principles that comprise the substance, essence, or nature of some thing are form and matter, and more specifically, the substantial form and matter. The substantial form is what places some thing into a particular class of things, for example, dogs, horses, trees, or humans. The substantial form of human beings is their intellectual spiritual soul and this is what distinguishes them from all the other animals [the substantial form also organizes the matter of the body to be the body of some particular class of things so the body of humans obviously does not look like the body of a lion]. So, the essence or nature of a human being has two parts, namely, the spiritual soul and the body [matter, which involves atoms for atoms are matter]. A human being is not a spiritual soul only or a body only, but composed of both.

Thank you for that. I agree.

We have a few though that believe instead in a form of Monism that is material based. They seem to be called physicalists, and appear to have atheist leanings.

It is striking to me how the dualistic philosophy that you describe is so essential to Catholic faith. So I wonder, are these atheists first material monists, and that made them become atheist? Our church would seem to say that is the case which is why this kind of philosophy is considered to be anathema.

Our church’s depth is incredible, and has a certain ring of truth like nothing else.

 

[Solmyr]

Of course. You are describing evidence as if it was a court case. In court, some person (a judge,etc.) has to sentence someone to jail perhaps.

According to the apologists the question of God’s existence is MUCH MORE important than a prison sentence. And that is why we must try to find evidence BEYOND reasonable doubt.

So they error on the conservative side and have to be absolutely sure.

No, not “absolutely sure”. Only sure beyond any reasonable doubt.

We need to remove reasonable doubt so that we are covered.

Wow. That makes no sense whatsoever.

Meanwhile, we have evidence for an objective truth.

And what is that evidence? That is what I keep asking.

First have faith. This is necessary to find truths that elude most people.

Nonsense. Give me evidence and I will accept it, even if it goes against my core beliefs. You only need faith when you have no evidence.

 

[Aloysium]

. . . Let’s feel the awe for nature, and investigate the “how”… and forget the “why”.

The how is always secondary to and usually determined by the why.
Necessity, as they say, is the mother of invention.
There are reasons why you are here and they will determine what you get from your stay.
How you understand what I say is based on what you are striving to accomplish on these forums.

People who move the world usually have a keen awareness of why they do what they do.

With regards to intellectual laziness, you would do well to take heed of your own advice, the cost is great.
There is much to be lost and regretted, having lived an unexamined life.

I think you should know this, so I don’t really understand why by you say what you do.
Right there, the why is so far more interesting than how you say it.

 

[Bradski]

Do you believe in free will? Once someone has an experience of free will (one that is not clouded by other factors) and an experience of the soul and its understanding of things not particular, that person cannot deny that theses are truths as understood instead of just strange phenomena of the brain without also saying that nothing can ever be known

The jury is still out on free will. Partly because of the fact that you mentioned - every single decision we make IS clouded by a myriad of factors over which we have no control.

It seems to make sense to me that if we were to rewind the clock and I relived today for example, I would make exactly the same choices as I did the first time around. How could it be any different? It would only be the case that I made different choices if I was aware in advance of what the outcomes would be. Think Groundhog Day.

So if we would always make the same decisions due to the circumstances that surround those decisions, it doesn’t seem to make much sense to say that we had any choice. Yes we do have options but to say that we CAN make other choices is meaningless if we never would.

The only fly in that argument might be quantum indeterminism. In which case I am possibly a slave to that aspect of reality in any case.

 

[Solmyr]

The how is always secondary to and usually determined by the why.

Not applicable to natural events - which are the 99.999… percent of the events in the universe. And even if you are conscious designer (of whom there are very few) who wishes to accomplish something, you need to learn HOW to do something. Without the “how”, the “why” is impotent.

 

[Aloysium]

Not applicable to natural events - which are the 99.999… percent of the events in the universe. And even if you are conscious designer (of whom there are very few) who wishes to accomplish something, you need to learn HOW to do something. Without the “how”, the “why” is impotent.

You and I are natural events.
The why is very important in determining why the neural network of our brains are firing as they are in this moment.
The how as you understand it is merely an almost infinitely complex series of chemical reactions.
To understand it you need to know what we are doing here.
You are thinking. You may wish to meditate on that fact to appreciate its meaning.

 

[Frankenfurter]

The jury is still out on free will. Partly because of the fact that you mentioned - every single decision we make IS clouded by a myriad of factors over which we have no control.

I agree. Thanks for that. I only take issue with the philosophy that the case is closed. The physicalists seem to claim the issue is settled. Unfortunately, this logical error seems to be a bias in modern thinking. This bias towards the physical being everything also tends to make understanding of basic Catholic notions difficult - probably other faiths as well.

 

[Frankenfurter]

According to the apologists the question of God’s existence is MUCH MORE important than a prison sentence. And that is why we must try to find evidence BEYOND reasonable doubt.

I agree and said so in my post. This kind of evidence takes time and effort, which requires faith. It is a process.

You seem to be trying to willfully misrepresent my posts, posting little parts and disagreeing. Makes me think you are trying to disagree with me willfully. But wait, you have no free will, so that couldn’t happen?!?

 

[thinkandmull]

I see two groups here, one saying “thinking and choosing are from the soul” and the other is shouting back “no it’s just the brain”. I feel like the latter are thinking as six year olds do, with new found reasoning skills that are pointing to thinngs for answers. I believe the former are more like 7 year olds who have a little clearer insights, although they are hard to convey. With old age reason might forget its reasons for believing things, but for some of us the idea of free will rooted in a soul is so true that to deny it would mean to deny anything can be known

 

[Solmyr]

I see two groups here, one saying “thinking and choosing are from the soul” and the other is shouting back “no it’s just the brain”. I feel like the latter are thinking as six year olds do, with new found reasoning skills that are pointing to thinngs for answers. I believe the former are more like 7 year olds who have a little clearer insights, although they are hard to convey. With old age reason might forget its reasons for believing things, but for some of us the idea of free will rooted in a soul is so true that to deny it would mean to deny anything can be known

Except us, “six years olds” have overwhelming physical evidence for the mind being the product / activity of the brain. Do you have evidence for the soul? You don’t even have a coherent definition for it.

 

[Bradski]

Meanwhile, we have evidence for an objective truth.It makes no difference if 999 people don’t believe it and only 1 believes it. To search for objective truth we have to have a completely different way of approaching evidence.

If you are going to be the person who is the 1 in 1000 who sees the truth, then you MUST have faith first.

It might seem be straightforward to discover The Truth if 999 people say: ‘We have no idea what the Truth is’ and then one lone voice say: ‘Yes! I have it’. It might seem easier still if the 999 all say they have the same answer (but are we going to take a vote on this?).

But it gets a lot more complex if every one of those 1,000 says: ‘Yes! I have it’ and every answer is different.

What method do you recommend for me, the 1001st person, to determine who is correct? I keep asking this but never get an answer. Probably because there isn’t one, but have a go anyway, won’t you?

 

[Frankenfurter]

It might seem be straightforward to discover The Truth if 999 people say: ‘We have no idea what the Truth is’ and then one lone voice say: ‘Yes! I have it’. It might seem easier still if the 999 all say they have the same answer (but are we going to take a vote on this?).

But it gets a lot more complex if every one of those 1,000 says: ‘Yes! I have it’ and every answer is different.

What method do you recommend for me, the 1001st person, to determine who is correct? I keep asking this but never get an answer. Probably because there isn’t one, but have a go anyway, won’t you?

The answer is that none of us have it. That is why it is offensive to the truth to say something like “everything is physical, or supervenes on the physical”.

It is the same offense we take when the supreme court says that abortion is legal and we never got to debate if unborn babies were people. Who knows?

It is the same offense we take when someone says that they are sure that God does not exist and have no interest in pursuing the possibility that he does (since that would require faith).

It is the same offense we take when someone squashes the notion of the possibility for purpose in our lives, and claims to know that none exists.

It is the same offense we take when someone says that there is no such thing as free will when the jury is still out.

It is the same offense to the truth when someone says to a little child that Jesus never existed and enjoys watching his faith disappear.

It is the same offense when someone declares something theoretical or philosophical that is actually nothing at all, but somehow removes God from the possibility of existence.

It is the same offense to the truth when a person willfully declares that they know everything when in fact they are saying nothing at all.

In all cases the offense being committed is the erroneous claim of objective truth when the issue is still open, in fact still a mystery.

The church claims that mysteries are part of our relationship to God. I suppose if we take all mystery away then God disappears as well for some who are biased to seeing God only in the gaps of our understanding. This seems like the actual agenda of claiming that we know that all is physical.