Is the Soul Immaterial?

[Abba]

Scripture aside, what is the best philosophical argument for the immateriality of the human soul?

Hello Charlemagne II,

I was researching on the web last week some idea, notion or interest. The problem I often encounter with researching on the web is remembering exactly where and what document something that in passing captured my attention but was not directly linked to the topic being researched. Then it happens that I may recall the point that captured my attention but I do not remember the document or website because my focus was another principle idea. Has that ever happened to you? It’s a little frustrating. Researching on the web is great and easy but it’s easy to forget the document where I read something in passing versus if I was reading actual books.

Well, I forgot where I read last week that it is a heresy to separate the soul from the body and propose that they are distinct. I think it was from an encyclical of a pope from long ago. It made sense to me. When we die the soul is separated from the body but those who are saved will be given back their bodies glorified. The soul at conception is bound to the material body and together form a person.

 

[grannymh]

Hello Charlemagne II,

I was researching on the web last week some idea, notion or interest. The problem I often encounter with researching on the web is remembering exactly where and what document something that in passing captured my attention but was not directly linked to the topic being researched. Then it happens that I may recall the point that captured my attention but I do not remember the document or website because my focus was another principle idea. Has that ever happened to you? It’s a little frustrating. Researching on the web is great and easy but it’s easy to forget the document where I read something in passing versus if I was reading actual books.

Well, I forgot where I read last week that it is a heresy to separate the soul from the body and propose that they are distinct. I think it was from an encyclical of a pope from long ago. It made sense to me. When we die the soul is separated from the body but those who are saved will be given back their bodies glorified. The soul at conception is bound to the material body and together form a person.

You are correct. Catholicism teaches that human nature is a single nature; therefore, while the soul is spiritual and the body is material, both are not separate entities. The odds are that the document you read is listed as a footnote to paragraphs 362-366 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition. One can enter the Catechism at this link scborromeo.org/ccc/para/362.htm
and/or use this link scborromeo.org/ccc.htm

 

[Sair]

I’ll try to get to the point of the alleged contradiction from another angle, since the contradiction is the point: concepts themselves are by definition not a product of manufactured parts or of material properties.

concept: n (from the TheFreeDictionary):

1. an idea, esp an abstract idea, the concepts of biology
2. (Philosophy) Philosophy a general idea or notion that corresponds to some class of entities and that consists of the characteristic or essential features of the class
3. (Philosophy) Philosophy
   a. the conjunction of all the characteristic features of something
   b. a theoretical construct within some theory
   c. a directly intuited object of thought
   d. the meaning of a predicate

I see nothing in this list that contradicts my explanation of concepts.

If a person says that the concept of “compassion, for example,” is nothing more than the way that “we have evolved,” then the existence of compassion, as well as love, logic, justice, knowledge etc., remains forever a problem for that person, since that would imply that if the mind did not exist, compassion would not exist as well. But this would mean that compassion was a thing not beyond our experience, but rather it was just a product of each human mind.

As a concept held within a mind, compassion would not exist without minds to formulate it. Similarly, if there was no physical state of affairs from which a mind could derive the idea of ‘compassion’, there would also be no such concept. Individual minds are not closed systems, immune to the influence of external realities - including other minds. We share concepts through language, but the concepts are explained by reference to states of affairs in the world we all inhabit.

Another problem for the person who believes that the concept of compassion, as well as love, logic, justice, knowledge etc., is an evolutionary process of the mind is the fact that no two minds are the same, and they frequently contradict each other. Consequently, compassion, which is not a contradictory object (but one of the characteristic attributes of God), cannot possibly be the result of anything contradictory; that is to say, compassion could not possibly be a physical thing.

An abstraction is, simply put, the derivation of a general idea from a specific set of circumstances. Compassion is, by its agreed definition, an abstract idea formulated from specific states of affairs in the physical world - feelings, actions, patterns of behaviour. If there is too much disagreement about the definition of a particular concept, in terms of the states to which it refers, the concept ceases to have meaning. Broadly speaking, compassion as a concept encompasses a range of behaviours - feeding the hungry, clothing and sheltering the naked, comforting the grieving and so on. It does not encompass behaviours such as torturing children, denying food to the hungry, taunting the grieving and so on. If it did so, it would be such a broad concept as to be of no use to anyone as a means of ordering and comprehending the world. No two minds are the same, to be sure, but there is not such broad disagreement between human minds as to invalidate the formulation of shared concepts.

 

[twinc]

see my posts on the other topic ‘Imateriality and meaning’ - twinc

 

[grannymh]

I see nothing in this list that contradicts my explanation of concepts.

As a concept held within a mind, compassion would not exist without minds to formulate it. Similarly, if there was no physical state of affairs from which a mind could derive the idea of ‘compassion’, there would also be no such concept. Individual minds are not closed systems, immune to the influence of external realities - including other minds. We share concepts through language, but the concepts are explained by reference to states of affairs in the world we all inhabit.

An abstraction is, simply put, the derivation of a general idea from a specific set of circumstances. Compassion is, by its agreed definition, an abstract idea formulated from specific states of affairs in the physical world - feelings, actions, patterns of behaviour. If there is too much disagreement about the definition of a particular concept, in terms of the states to which it refers, the concept ceases to have meaning. Broadly speaking, compassion as a concept encompasses a range of behaviours - feeding the hungry, clothing and sheltering the naked, comforting the grieving and so on. It does not encompass behaviours such as torturing children, denying food to the hungry, taunting the grieving and so on. If it did so, it would be such a broad concept as to be of no use to anyone as a means of ordering and comprehending the world. No two minds are the same, to be sure, but there is not such broad disagreement between human minds as to invalidate the formulation of shared concepts.

Sidebar
Compassion exists because the human person is worthy of profound respect. (objective concept)

 

[twinc]

You are correct. Catholicism teaches that human nature is a single nature; therefore, while the soul is spiritual and the body is material, both are not separate entities. The odds are that the document you read is listed as a footnote to paragraphs 362-366 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition. One can enter the Catechism at this link scborromeo.org/ccc/para/362.htm
and/or use this link scborromeo.org/ccc.htm

but as has been stated again and again science, agreeing with the seers and sages of old, dematerialised matter - which is the scientific version of the religious/spiritual Fall - we move and live and exist in a mental and spiritual world but as if in a trance accept it as physical and material - we have fallen into an illusion/maya/mirage/delusion/dream/sleep and resist awakening it seems - twinc

 

[Sair]

but as has been stated again and again science, agreeing with the seers and sages of old, dematerialised matter - which is the scientific version of the religious/spiritual Fall - we move and live and exist in a mental and spiritual world but as if in a trance accept it as physical and material - we have fallen into an illusion/maya/mirage/delusion/dream/sleep and resist awakening it seems - twinc

But it is this very dematerialising of matter - so to speak - that overcomes the insistence that there is a fundamental separation of reality into physical and nonphysical substance. The more we learn about the nature of nature, the more astonishing are its capabilities; things we took for granted prove to be amazing and wonderful, and the things we imagined to be quite separate from the material world are more and more being demonstrated to belong to it. Solidity and form may be temporary, may be illusory, but it is an explicable illusion, not a mystical one.

 

[twinc]

But it is this very dematerialising of matter - so to speak - that overcomes the insistence that there is a fundamental separation of reality into physical and nonphysical substance. The more we learn about the nature of nature, the more astonishing are its capabilities; things we took for granted prove to be amazing and wonderful, and the things we imagined to be quite separate from the material world are more and more being demonstrated to belong to it. Solidity and form may be temporary, may be illusory, but it is an explicable illusion, not a mystical one.

I agree with the first few lines and then inexplicably you veer off in the wrong direction - this is why we are called to change direction or to repent and return so to speak - there is in very truth,even as the Church declares,no fundamental seperation of reality into physical and nonphysical substance - it is really amazing it is all here and yet missed as if not seen or realised or accepted - so here it is again “no fundamental seperation of reality into physical and nonphysical substance” - twinc

 

[tonyrey]

Compassion is, by its agreed definition, an abstract idea formulated from specific states of affairs in the physical world - feelings, actions, patterns of behaviour.

1. All knowledge is of facts **about **persons and things.
2. We do **not **know anything or anyone directly.
3. Our only direct knowledge is of our own thoughts, feelings, perceptions, choices and decisions.
4. We experience compassion and we infer that others experience it as well.

 

[tonyrey]

Compassion is, by its agreed definition, an abstract idea formulated from specific states of affairs in the physical world - feelings, actions, patterns of behaviour.

A revised version which I hope is clearer!

1. Our only direct knowledge is of our own thoughts, feelings, perceptions, choices and decisions.
2. All intellectual knowledge is of abstract facts **about **persons and things.
3. We do **not **know anything or anyone except ourselves directly.
4. We experience compassion and we infer that others experience it as well.
5. Reality is not restricted to physical objects but includes immaterial persons, concepts, facts, numbers, relations, states and goals together with philosophical, ethical, aesthetic, logical, mathematical and scientific principles.

 

[inocente]

1. We experience compassion and we infer that others experience it as well.

I wouldn’t say we necessarily infer it in the sense that we need to make reasoned arguments for its existence, isn’t it more that we sense it in others intuitively and empathetically? And if empathy and compassion should turn out to arise from (probably) mirror neurons, we’ll have a physical explanation, including perhaps being able to help those who don’t feel they can function normally because they have zero compassion or are continually overwhelmed by it. And once there are medical treatments, yet another non-physical cause bites the dust since all those who have eyes to see will see the evidence.

5. Reality is not restricted to physical objects but includes immaterial persons, concepts, facts, numbers, relations, states and goals together with philosophical, ethical, aesthetic, logical, mathematical and scientific principles.

But every man and his dog would agree with that so long as immaterial is taken to mean not made of material. Can’t see any argument at all unless you’re proposing immaterial means that facts, numbers and so on have an independent supernatural existence, as if little animals leaping in and out of our minds, or a library of essences in some ethereal other dimension.

 

[grannymh]

A revised version which I hope is clearer!

1. Our only direct knowledge is of our own thoughts, feelings, perceptions, choices and decisions.
2. All intellectual knowledge is of abstract facts **about **persons and things.
3. We do **not **know anything or anyone except ourselves directly.
4. We experience compassion and we infer that others experience it as well.
5. Reality is not restricted to physical objects but includes immaterial persons, concepts, facts, numbers, relations, states and goals together with philosophical, ethical, aesthetic, logical, mathematical and scientific principles.

What 1. and 3. describes is subjective knowledge.
The human person is perfectly capable of objective knowledge.

 

[tonyrey]

I wouldn’t say we necessarily infer it in the sense that we need to make reasoned arguments for its existence, isn’t it more that we sense it in others intuitively and empathetically?

We infer the existence of compassion - and everything else outside our mind - from what we perceive with our senses before our intuition and empathy become active.

And if empathy and compassion should turn out to arise from (probably) mirror neurons, we’ll have a physical explanation, including perhaps being able to help those who don’t feel they can function normally because they have zero compassion or are continually overwhelmed by it.

Can physical explanations explain physical explanations?

And once there are medical treatments, yet another non-physical cause bites the dust since all those who have eyes to see will see the evidence.

The dust has a way of biting those who attribute everything to dust! It makes utter nonsense of everything including themselves…

But every man and his dog would agree with that so long as immaterial is taken to mean not made of material. Can’t see any argument at all unless you’re proposing immaterial means that facts, numbers and so on have an independent supernatural existence, as if little animals leaping in and out of our minds, or a library of of essences in some ethereal other dimension.

Can’t you see any argument at all unless you’re proposing material means that facts, numbers and so on are reducible to permutations of matter which undermines all possibility of knowledge and destroys your own power of reasoning?

I bet that you weren’t baptised - and if you were you consider it to be a senseless waste of time with its reference to some ethereal other dimension…

 

[tonyrey]

What 1. and 3. describes is subjective knowledge.
The human person is perfectly capable of objective knowledge.

The human person** is** perfectly capable of - and has - objective knowledge based on inferences from what is perceived. There is no way of knowing things in themselves. No one perceives an object in exactly the same way as some one else. We are all in the “egocentric predicament”!

 

[grannymh]

The human person** is** perfectly capable of - and has - objective knowledge based on inferences from what is perceived. There is no way of knowing things in themselves. No one perceives an object in exactly the same way as some one else. We are all in the “egocentric predicament”!

A chair in a furniture store is an object which does not depend on any one’s inferences or perceptions.

Objective knowledge is based on a real object which is independent of everyone’s perceptions. The exact height and width of the chair remains objectively the exact height and width regardless if one perceives it as tall or small. A customer determining if the chair will fit in a certain objectively measurable space does not go around asking everyone what they are perceiving about the chair. The customer does not ask the sales associate for an inference as to whether the chair will fit where the customer wants it to fit. The customer asks for the exact measurements of the chair which happens to be what is known as objective knowledge gained by directly examining the objective size of the chair.

 

[Sair]

A revised version which I hope is clearer!

1. Our only direct knowledge is of our own thoughts, feelings, perceptions, choices and decisions.

Through what do we have knowledge of such things, and why is this means different to our observations of other aspects of experience?

1. All intellectual knowledge is of abstract facts **about **persons and things.

In agreement on this one, at least insofar as abstract knowledge is abstracted from other sources.

1. We do **not **know anything or anyone except ourselves directly.

This leaves us nowhere to go from the idea that our minds are isolated entities.

1. We experience compassion and we infer that others experience it as well.

We infer based upon repeated experience of behaviour patterns that we define as ‘compassion’. The idea that thought or belief is independent of experience and behaviour is one that I shall at some time explore further, but in the final analysis, I don’t think these things can be separated.

1. Reality is not restricted to physical objects but includes immaterial persons, concepts, facts, numbers, relations, states and goals together with philosophical, ethical, aesthetic, logical, mathematical and scientific principles.

By what means do you determine that these are nonphysical, when the derivation of these concepts from physical states of affairs is quite obvious? Do you know all the capacities of physical entities, such that you may exclude them from consideration in regard to the above? Do you think we would still have these concepts, were it not for the physical reality from which they are derived?

 

[Sair]

I agree with the first few lines and then inexplicably you veer off in the wrong direction - this is why we are called to change direction or to repent and return so to speak - there is in very truth,even as the Church declares,no fundamental seperation of reality into physical and nonphysical substance - it is really amazing it is all here and yet missed as if not seen or realised or accepted - so here it is again “no fundamental seperation of reality into physical and nonphysical substance” - twinc

It would seem from this that the only choice is whether we designate reality to be ‘physical’ or ‘nonphysical’ - and at the end of the day, I find myself wondering whether it really makes any difference. Why is ‘reality is physical’ the ‘wrong direction’? What do we actually know about any difference between the physical and nonphysical that leads us to conclude that reality is one or the other?

The point - at least from a pantheist perspective - is that reality is of one kind, that we are all parts of a greater whole. Assuming that this whole is not governed by mind - let alone any individual mind - seems the humbler option, since we cannot, by simply thinking it, bring about changes in the reality we experience - action within the world is necessary to do so.

What I find, when discussing such things with theistic believers, is that ‘physical reality’ - defined as that which is accessible to scientific enquiry - is one thing, but ‘spiritual reality’ is quite a different thing, not accessible to scientific (or any other, let’s be honest) enquiry. Spiritual reality is what any individual chooses to call it, for whatever purpose. My question, in regards to the meaning of such a distinction, is thus - on what basis does anyone claim a reality accessible to himself (gender-specific pronoun notwithstanding) alone? Can I access someone else’s ‘spiritual reality’? If so, then by what means? There is, in this, the insistence that reality is divided into two kinds of substance, and that one of these is fundamentally unknowable to the science that has produced observable results in our experience. What to make of this, other than to think it an attempt to lock away religious belief in some imaginary realm immune to investigation?

 

[inocente]

We infer the existence of compassion - and everything else outside our mind - from what we perceive with our senses before our intuition and empathy become active.

Intuition is ultra-fast compared to rational thought, if it weren’t then intuition wouldn’t serve much purpose would it?

Can physical explanations explain physical explanations?

The dust has a way of biting those who attribute everything to dust! It makes utter nonsense of everything including themselves…

There are two possibilities. (a) everyone who holds to a philosophy other than your own is the perverse imbecile you say they are, or (b) you fail to understand philosophies other than you own.

Which do you reckon is more likely, (a) or (b)?

Can’t you see any argument at all unless you’re proposing material means that facts, numbers and so on are reducible to permutations of matter which undermines all possibility of knowledge and destroys your own power of reasoning?

How about reading up on stuff and trying to understand, then you wouldn’t ask such questions.

I bet that you weren’t baptised - and if you were you consider it to be a senseless waste of time with its reference to some ethereal other dimension…

Is your intent here to be offensive, inane, or both? I left your own thread on this subject because it quickly turned into a shallow tag wrestling match, and now you seem determined to do the same to this thread. How about trying to see other points of view for once, or is it beyond you to play nice these days?

 

[tonyrey]

1. Our only direct knowledge is of our own thoughts, feelings, perceptions, choices and decisions.

Direct knowledge excludes “through”. It is immediate awareness - without the need for an intermediary.
.

…and why is this means different to our observations of other aspects of experience?

There are no others - unless we include intuition and inspiration!

2. All intellectual knowledge is of abstract facts about persons and things.

In agreement on this one, at least insofar as abstract knowledge is abstracted from other sources.

Good!

3. We do not know anything or anyone except ourselves directly.

This leaves us nowhere to go from the idea that our minds are isolated entities.

We **are **mentally isolated. No one can know precisely what we are thinking, feeling or perceiving. No one perceives objects in precisely the same way.

4. We experience compassion and we infer that others experience it as well.

We infer based upon repeated experience of behaviour patterns that we define as ‘compassion’. The idea that thought or belief is independent of experience and behaviour is one that I shall at some time explore further, but in the final analysis, I don’t think these things can be separated.

Our beliefs are not independent but inextricably linked to the stimuli we receive via our senses and they become habits of thought and action.

5. Reality is not restricted to physical objects but includes immaterial persons, concepts, facts, numbers, relations, states and goals together with philosophical, ethical, aesthetic, logical, mathematical and scientific principles.

By what means do you determine that these are nonphysical, when the derivation of these concepts from physical states of affairs is quite obvious?

How do you derive a thought or fact - or the concept of a concept(!) - from a physical state?

Do you know all the capacities of physical entities, such that you may exclude them from consideration in regard to the above?

I can ask exactly the same question about mental phenomena! Considering that all our knowledge - like charity - begins at home it is more logical than proceeding from the outside world!

When taken in conjunction with the success of science the epistemological priority of the mind is a very good reason to believe it has ontological priority. In plain English a matterless mind is a far more cogent account of conscious, rational, purposeful, autonomous activity than mindless matter…

 

[Sair]

Direct knowledge excludes “through”. It is immediate awareness - without the need for an intermediary.

Again, you are bereft of an explanation as to how such direct awareness occurs. Explain self-awareness through nonmaterial means…

Our beliefs are not independent but inextricably linked to the stimuli we receive via our senses and they become habits of thought and action.

Yet you conclude that our beliefs are of a fundamentally different nature to the stimuli we receive and the behaviours we evince.

How do you derive a thought or fact - or the concept of a concept(!) - from a physical state?

With far greater facility than it is inferred from any nonphysical state, I would suggest.

I can ask exactly the same question about mental phenomena! Considering that all our knowledge - like charity - begins at home it is more logical than proceeding from the outside world!

Then you ignore the influence of the external world upon our internal conditions?

When taken in conjunction with the success of science the epistemological priority of the mind is a very good reason to believe it has ontological priority. In plain English a matterless mind is a far more cogent account of conscious, rational, purposeful, autonomous activity than mindless matter…

A matterless mind has nothing upon which to proceed. It is a helpless entity (even assuming a matterless mind could exist) without some matter upon which to exert its influence. Even supposing that a mind is capable of understanding reality requires a pre-existent reality for said mind to understand.