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

[GEddie]

As I said, the world is NOT linear. If you add two buckets of sand to another two buckets of sand, the result will be four buckets of sand. But if you add two buckets of U235 to another two buckets of U235 the result will NOT be four buckets of U235, rather a huge detonation and some leftover material.

I love it.

That’s as good as Asimov’s: “No stuffing the mushroom cloud back into the nice shiny plutonium sphere.”



ICXC NIKA

 

[zyzz]

I love it.

That’s as good as Asimov’s: “No stuffing the mushroom cloud back into the nice shiny plutonium sphere.”

Very kind of you to say so, but I am not in the same ballpark as Mr. Asimov used to be. I wish I would be…

 

[fisherman_carl]

As I said, the world is NOT linear. If you add two buckets of sand to another two buckets of sand, the result will be four buckets of sand. But if you add two buckets of U235 to another two buckets of U235 the result will NOT be four buckets of U235, rather a huge detonation and some leftover material.

Quantitative changes MAY lead to qualitative changes. That is all. The point is that complex entities cannot always reduced to their constituent parts. The “wetness” of water cannot be reduced to the properties of the oxygen and hydrogen atoms. But that does not require the introduction of some supernatural “wetness-god”. Straight physics is insufficient, but chemistry explains it just fine.

That doesn’t really show that 2 + 2 doesn’t always equal 4. It just shows that matter can be converted to energy. E=mc2.

 

[Frankenfurter]

As I said, the world is NOT linear. If you add two buckets of sand to another two buckets of sand, the result will be four buckets of sand. But if you add two buckets of U235 to another two buckets of U235 the result will NOT be four buckets of U235, rather a huge detonation and some leftover material.

Quantitative changes MAY lead to qualitative changes. That is all. The point is that complex entities cannot always reduced to their constituent parts. The “wetness” of water cannot be reduced to the properties of the oxygen and hydrogen atoms. But that does not require the introduction of some supernatural “wetness-god”. Straight physics is insufficient, but chemistry explains it just fine.

These two examples (nuclear fission and wetness of water) actually provide a situation where we CAN and HAVE used our knowledge of atoms to induce a higher order property.

Recall that man induced that the first atomic bomb would work based on models of atomic physics. We predicted that the fission would happen, and it did.

Regarding the ‘wetness’ of water, we did not need to induce this since we had direct experience of it. However, our understanding of chemistry is BASED on the behavior of atoms, and if we had needed too, we COULD have now induced ‘wetness’ in the event that we had not experienced in first.

Sorry, but your two examples, while they answer the side issue you guys are having, seem to me to be supporting only the material point of view, but are silent on the issue on if we can induce the full spectrum of a human beings existence from lower level physical laws. At least I do not think you are saying that we can. But you do not like the notion of some explanation OUTSIDE of our understanding it seems. You seem to look for God in the cracks of our understanding, while I accept God can create that which we do understand. No matter, as that has no bearing on the question really.

I believe you are agreeing with me anyway.

 

[zyzz]

These two examples (nuclear fission and wetness of water) actually provide a situation where we CAN and HAVE used our knowledge of atoms to induce a higher order property.

That is exactly what they were intended to show. But there is more. The explanation stays WITHIN the observable universe, and the explanation does not NEED to introduce something “supernatural”. That is the whole point.

Sorry, but your two examples, while they answer the side issue you guys are having, seem to me to be supporting only the material point of view, but are silent on the issue on if we can induce the full spectrum of a human beings existence from lower level physical laws.

What “other” spectrum are you talking about? Thoughts, decisions, emotions, memories are all accounted for in the electro-chemical interactions of the neurons in the brain. We discovered the pleasure-pain centers, and by “exciting” them with mild electric current we can induce pleasure and pain in the person. By exciting other parts of the brain we can recall long-forgotten memories.

At least I do not think you are saying that we can. But you do not like the notion of some explanation OUTSIDE of our understanding it seems. You seem to look for God in the cracks of our understanding, while I accept God can create that which we do understand. No matter, as that has no bearing on the question really.

No, we are not “looking for God” in the cracks of our understanding. That would be the good, old “God of the gaps”.

 

[Frankenfurter]

This is an interesting result so far.

Looking back at the whole thread so far, I believe everyone is in agreement that the answer is No.

Folks have side issues regarding certain things, but in the end are all in agreement on the spirit of the question. And we have one important additional point of view that in fact says that NOBODY would answer this in the positive.:grouphug:

To me, this result means that the essence of a person lies in the abstract realm, just like ‘old fashioned’ philosophy of the ancients believed. This result supports the notion that the essence of Christ can exist without physical form, be it in the Eucharist, or whenever we gather in his name. And, it also means that the essence of a person can be eternal.

This gives me Peace. I hope it finds some others as well.

 

[inocente]

Descartes is precisely when the change in philosophy went from being about the object, to the subject.

I am therefore I think vs I think therefore I am.

I am NOT a Cartesian dualist and as you point out either is the church OR the materialists. I am with them. I simply point out that the materialists cannot explain everything, and therefore this substance (singular and objective) may actually be outside of the material realm as we currently understand it: purpose,will, pure information, love, etc may be needed to define the essence and these things cannot be found in materials exclusively as we understand them currently.

Well, your basic choice is:

1. Dualism, the claim there is one substance from which all mental things are made and a different substance from which all physical things are made, or
2. Idealism, the claim that only the mental substance exists (and so physical things are really ideas), or
3. Physicalism, the claim that only the physical substance exists.

I think most physicalists would agree with you that in the future we may indeed find something about a person that cannot be explained from the physical realm alone, who knows, no one can know. But in the mean time, we should proceed on the basis that everything can be explained physically until proved otherwise, since that gives us the best chance of understanding and treating mental illness and so on.

 

[Frankenfurter]

Well, your basic choice is:

1. Dualism, the claim there is one substance from which all mental things are made and a different substance from which all physical things are made, or
2. Idealism, the claim that only the mental substance exists (and so physical things are really ideas), or
3. Physicalism, the claim that only the physical substance exists.

I think most physicalists would agree with you that in the future we may indeed find something about a person that cannot be explained from the physical realm alone, who knows, no one can know. But in the mean time, we should proceed on the basis that everything can be explained physically until proved otherwise, since that gives us the best chance of understanding and treating mental illness and so on.

Well, since it’s my thread I am going to have to on have the last word.

I remember when people were shocked by the fact that you could reproduce a movie, or an image, or a song, or a document or a 3D printed microphone, from just bits of information. It seems that we as a whole were shocked to find out just how much of our physical reality was reproducible from ideas. I expect this trend to continue.

I contend that the Idealists are correct. And as you note, the physicalists agree too, or at least are still open since they admit they have not got it all worked yet.

But I do NOT agree that the ideal exists in the human mind. Irrespective of the human mind, the ideal form of the existence of you, or me, or Jesus exists. Perhaps it exists in God’s mind.

Peace

 

[GEddie]

Well, since it’s my thread I am going to have to on have the last word.

I remember when people were shocked by the fact that you could reproduce a movie, or an image, or a song, or a document or a 3D printed microphone, from just bits of information. It seems that we as a whole were shocked to find out just how much of our physical reality was reproducible from ideas. I expect this trend to continue.

I contend that the Idealists are correct. And as you note, the physicalists agree too, or at least are still open since they admit they have not got it all worked yet.

But I do NOT agree that the ideal exists in the human mind. Irrespective of the human mind, the ideal form of the existence of you, or me, or Jesus exists. Perhaps it exists in God’s mind.

Information however, is distinct from a pure “idea” in that it is invariably physically encoded. Eliminate the encoding – whether as written music, MP3 or equivalent, player piano rolls, or synapses in a human head – and the information disappears.

ICXC NIKA

 

[Frankenfurter]

Information however, is distinct from a pure “idea” in that it is invariably physically encoded. Eliminate the encoding – whether as written music, MP3 or equivalent, player piano rolls, or synapses in a human head – and the information disappears.

ICXC NIKA

OK. The pure idea takes from when it can play itself on the material. But the pure idea can exist outside of its material form.

 

[Vico]

Well, since it’s my thread I am going to have to on have the last word.

I remember when people were shocked by the fact that you could reproduce a movie, or an image, or a song, or a document or a 3D printed microphone, from just bits of information. It seems that we as a whole were shocked to find out just how much of our physical reality was reproducible from ideas. I expect this trend to continue.

I contend that the Idealists are correct. And as you note, the physicalists agree too, or at least are still open since they admit they have not got it all worked yet.

But I do NOT agree that the ideal exists in the human mind. Irrespective of the human mind, the ideal form of the existence of you, or me, or Jesus exists. Perhaps it exists in God’s mind.

Peace

And we also have the dogma from Vatican I that dismiss some of these ideas:

1. If anyone denies the one true God, creator and lord of things visible and invisible: let him be anathema.
2. If anyone is so bold as to assert that there exists nothing besides matter: let him be anathema.
3. If anyone says that the substance or essence of God and that of all things are one and the same: let him be anathema.
4. If anyone says that finite things, both corporal and spiritual, or at any rate, spiritual, emanated from the divine substance; or that the divine essence, by the manifestation and evolution of itself becomes all things or, finally, that God is a universal or indefinite being which by self determination establishes the totality of things distinct in genera, species and individuals: let him be anathema.
5. If anyone does not confess that the world and all things which are contained in it, both spiritual and material, were produced, according to their whole substance, out of nothing by God; or holds that God did not create by his will free from all necessity, but as necessarily as he necessarily loves himself; or denies that the world was created for the glory of God: let him be anathema.

 

[Frankenfurter]

And we also have the dogma from Vatican I that dismiss some of these ideas:

1. If anyone is so bold as to assert that there exists nothing besides matter: let him be anathema.

Thank you for that.

I love how when I humbly pray for God to show me the truth, that I dimly form ideas, then when these ideas begin to clarify with the help of other truth seekers, I find that my precious Church has arrived at them centuries (or millennia) before.

 

[GEddie]

OK. The pure idea takes from when it can play itself on the material. But the pure idea can exist outside of its material form.

Only in an immaterial mind.

 

[Frankenfurter]

Only in an immaterial mind.

The mind of God perhaps then.

 

[Aloysium]

All I know is this world and that to produce these words whether kept internally or expressed in this manner, I need a brain.
My intellect directs the process which is at the same time made of the same matter as and is continuous with the entire physical universe.

Even if the parable of the rich man is a story meant to illustrate a point, that point is that we may regret our actions even after death. If I can regret, I can know, think and feel.

While we were created to be physical-spiritual unities, we do not necessarily merely sleep after our spirit is disembodied in death.

 

[paduard]

All I know is this world and that to produce these words whether kept internally or expressed in this manner, I need a brain.
My intellect directs the process which is at the same time made of the same matter as and is continuous with the entire physical universe.

Even if the parable of the rich man is a story meant to illustrate a point, that point is that we may regret our actions even after death. If I can regret, I can know, think and feel.

While we were created to be physical-spiritual unities, we do not necessarily merely sleep after our spirit is disembodied in death.

I agree; in particular your last para. Of course we do not necessarily merely sleep - we have the joy of our communication with the ‘Communion of Saints’.

God Bless
paduard:thumbsup:

 

[tonyrey]

A lot more can be said. There are thousands of books on that subject, and I’m betting not one of them claims that a person can be explained by the physics of elementary particles.

The reason is simple. There are around 20 trillion atoms on one neuron. There are around 85 billion neurons in the brain. So even without the connections and everything else, that’s thousands of billions of trillions of atoms in the brain alone. No one can get straight from particle to person. There’s the whole of physics, chemistry, biology, neurobiology, etc. needed as well.

We are the most complicated thing we know of. Just the brain alone is the most complicated thing we know of. And you’re expecting me to believe that anyone, anywhere, claims a person can be explained by particles? All I’m asking is you cite just one paper. Have a look at the professional philosophy clearing house here, or any of the science clearing houses such as here, and please cite just one paper which makes such a claim.

Contemporary philosophers of mind tend to assume that the world of nature can be reduced to basic physics.

philpapers.org/rec/HORBRP-2

David M. Armstrong (1968). A Materialist Theory of the Mind. Routledge.This classic work of recent philosophy was first published in 1968, and remains the most compelling and comprehensive statement of the view that the mind is material or physical.

philpapers.org/asearch.pl?sort=relevance&onlineOnly=&newWindow=on&hideAbstracts=&searchStr=reductive+materialism&freeOnly=&sqc=&categorizerOn=&langFilter=&showCategories=on&proOnly=on&filterByAreas=&filterMode=keywords&publishedOnly=&format=html&start=50&limit=&jlist=&ap_c1=&ap_c2=

 

[Thomas_White]

The analytic method is flawed because it overlooks the need for synthesis. It is also flawed because it is retrospective and restricts explanations to past events. It is more logical to have a panoramic view of reality and take the future into account as well. A complete explanation consists of purposes as well as causes. To attribute every event to a previous situation is to ignore our power to determine - to some extent - what happens in the future. That is where science loses its grip on the nature of reality!

 

[inocente]

philpapers.org/rec/HORBRP-2

philpapers.org/asearch.pl?sort=relevance&onlineOnly=&newWindow=on&hideAbstracts=&searchStr=reductive+materialism&freeOnly=&sqc=&categorizerOn=&langFilter=&showCategories=on&proOnly=on&filterByAreas=&filterMode=keywords&publishedOnly=&format=html&start=50&limit=&jlist=&ap_c1=&ap_c2=

Did you really think I was asking you to cite a paper about physicalism?

< sigh >

On that same site you’ll find the results of a survey of professional philosophers. The majority said they accept or lean towards physicalism. So dead easy to find papers about physicalism.

< sigh >

But what I asked for was a paper, any paper, which ignores the whole of chemistry, biology, neurobiology, etc. by claiming a person is just particles, as if all those physicalist philosophers look at their baby daughter and see only particles.

 

[inocente]

The analytic method is flawed because it overlooks the need for synthesis. It is also flawed because it is retrospective and restricts explanations to past events. It is more logical to have a panoramic view of reality and take the future into account as well. A complete explanation consists of purposes as well as causes. To attribute every event to a previous situation is to ignore our power to determine - to some extent - what happens in the future. That is where science loses its grip on the nature of reality!

False dichotomy, we never need to choose between science and religion - truth cannot contradict truth, as Aquinas said.

False dichotomy, a posteriori knowledge does not stop us predicting and changing the future.

False dichotomy, our choice is not between no purposes and whatever purposes you would dictate, we are each free to choose our own purposes.