Is the Soul Immaterial?

[tonyrey]

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

No one can explain consciousness of oneself or awareness of one’s mental experiences, let alone through non-material means but we do know that it is an inescapable reality - unlike some material objects we think we perceive. We know we don’t imagine our thoughts, feelings, perceptions and decisions…

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.

That is far more reasonable than believing intangible beliefs and insights are tangible electrical impulses.

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.

Precisely how?

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?

What leads you to that conclusion?

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.

Do you think meditation, contemplation and philosophical investigation cannot proceed without matter as their subject matter?! On the contrary. The mind is a rich, intangible realm of its own which doesn’t need the body to satisfy its creative power and quest for truth, goodness, purpose, meaning and love. The most important things in life cannot be detected with the senses. If you restrict yourself to your physical needs and desires you are doomed to be frustrated. To reject spiritual reality is soul-destroying in both senses of the term. Those who believe they are animals and live like animals gradually become animals - incapable of self-control and self-sacrifice. They may pay lip-service to the principles of liberty, equality and fraternity but their dominant goal is inevitably physical satisfaction because they stake everything on life in this world. They pursue pleasure rather than perfection -and pleasure alone does not lead to personal fulfilment.

It is a helpless entity (even assuming a matterless mind could exist) without some matter upon which to exert its influence.

Don’t you ever exert any influence on yourself?! The influence of a mindless body isn’t significant for itself or anything else.

Even supposing that a mind is capable of understanding reality requires a pre-existent reality for said mind to understand.

To what extent do you understand yourself even with your knowledge of previous events? We are all living with a mysterious stranger! The mind is quite capable of knowing what it thinks, feels and desires without the need to delve into the past but understanding the nature of reality is an entirely different proposition. That requires abstract thought rather than the accumulation of sense data…

 

[twinc]

No one can explain consciousness of oneself or awareness of one’s mental experiences, let alone through non-material means but we do know that it is an inescapable reality - unlike some material objects we think we perceive. We know we don’t imagine our thoughts, feelings, perceptions and decisions…

That is far more reasonable than believing intangible beliefs and insights are tangible electrical impulses.

Precisely how?

What leads you to that conclusion?

Do you think meditation, contemplation and philosophical investigation cannot proceed without matter as their subject matter?! On the contrary. The mind is a rich, intangible realm of its own which doesn’t need the body to satisfy its creative power and quest for truth, goodness, purpose, meaning and love. The most important things in life cannot be detected with the senses. If you restrict yourself to your physical needs and desires you are doomed to be frustrated. To reject spiritual reality is soul-destroying in both senses of the term. Those who believe they are animals and live like animals gradually become animals - incapable of self-control and self-sacrifice. They may pay lip-service to the principles of liberty, equality and fraternity but their dominant goal is inevitably physical satisfaction because they stake everything on life in this world. They pursue pleasure rather than perfection -and pleasure alone does not lead to personal fulfilment.
Don’t you ever exert any influence on yourself?! The influence of a mindless body isn’t significant for itself or anything else.
To what extent do you understand yourself even with your knowledge of previous events? We are all living with a mysterious stranger! The mind is quite capable of knowing what it thinks, feels and desires without the need to delve into the past but understanding the nature of reality is an entirely different proposition. That requires abstract thought rather than the accumulation of sense data…

I most not and cannot allpw this slanging and slamming to go on much longer but may I just put forward and ask as I have already asked on another similar topic on this forum - could there just possibly be somehow,somewhere a flower that is born to bloom unseen and waste its sweetness on the desert air where there is no one there - twinc

 

[tonyrey]

I most not and cannot allpw this slanging and slamming to go on much longer but may I just put forward and ask as I have already asked on another similar topic on this forum - could there just possibly be somehow,somewhere a flower that is born to bloom unseen and waste its sweetness on the desert air where there is no one there - twinc

Sweetness is never wasted…

 

[Sair]

No one can explain consciousness of oneself or awareness of one’s mental experiences, let alone through non-material means but we do know that it is an inescapable reality - unlike some material objects we think we perceive. We know we don’t imagine our thoughts, feelings, perceptions and decisions…

Really?

Haven’t you ever had an idea without being certain of where it came from? And I would suggest that you are too ready to dismiss physical explanations in favour of nonphysical nonexplanations…

That is far more reasonable than believing intangible beliefs and insights are tangible electrical impulses.

What do you believe they are, then? Or are you happy to rest on the laurels of ‘intangibility’?

Do you think meditation, contemplation and philosophical investigation cannot proceed without matter as their subject matter?! On the contrary. The mind is a rich, intangible realm of its own which doesn’t need the body to satisfy its creative power and quest for truth, goodness, purpose, meaning and love.

When have you brought about change in the world with your thoughts alone? Meditation, contemplation and philosophical investigation are useless if they bear no relation to our lives in the world.

The most important things in life cannot be detected with the senses.

Then by what means do you identify these ‘most important things in life’?

If you restrict yourself to your physical needs and desires you are doomed to be frustrated. To reject spiritual reality is soul-destroying in both senses of the term. Those who believe they are animals and live like animals gradually become animals - incapable of self-control and self-sacrifice. They may pay lip-service to the principles of liberty, equality and fraternity but their dominant goal is inevitably physical satisfaction because they stake everything on life in this world. They pursue pleasure rather than perfection -and pleasure alone does not lead to personal fulfilment.

Your presuppositions limit your philosophy. You want to believe that there is a ‘spiritual’ reality that contains all the finer things in life, therefore you close your mind to the possibility that physical reality may furnish these. Liberty, equality and fraternity, amongst other things, are meaningless without physical manifestation - you could be free in your imagination, yet chained in your body; you are thus still a slave.

Don’t you ever exert any influence on yourself?! The influence of a mindless body isn’t significant for itself or anything else.

Who said anything about being ‘mindless’? The only assertion I have made is that mind is not necessarily immaterial. It is pointless to assert mind as an independent entity, since its influence is upon the rest of the body. What does it even mean for ‘me’ to exert influence upon ‘myself’? Our language restricts us to thinking of the ‘self’ and the ‘body’ as separate entities, when in fact they are one - a very complex ‘one’, but still a unified entity. Further to this, I think you’ll find that the influence of supposedly ‘mindlesss’ entities upon the physical world and its sentient inhabitants are quite significant…

To what extent do you understand yourself even with your knowledge of previous events? We are all living with a mysterious stranger! The mind is quite capable of knowing what it thinks, feels and desires without the need to delve into the past but understanding the nature of reality is an entirely different proposition. That requires abstract thought rather than the accumulation of sense data…

But the accumulation of sense data is required for abstract thought! Abstractions must be abstracted from something; if not the information received by our senses, then what? And your ‘mysterious stranger’ is only mysterious if you consider it separate from your physical body and senses. Self-awareness is fundamentally connected to the place of one’s self within a broader reality; it is impossible to know what one thinks, feels or desires without the capacity to think about something, to absorb sense data (both external in internal to the body) or to have some particular physical state of affairs upon which to focus desire. Just try to theoretically isolate yourself from all physical influences, and see how far you get - you would have nothing to think about, nothing to feel and nothing to desire.

 

[twinc]

Sweetness is never wasted…

to save me making endless extracts and quotes - via Google search box type in [Mentalism/Brunton] - twinc

 

[grannymh]

Our language restricts us to thinking of the ‘self’ and the ‘body’ as separate entities, when in fact they are one - a very complex ‘one’, but still a unified entity.

Just a bit of curiosity. What is “self” that language would have us thinking that the self and body are separate entities?

I view individuals in the human species as persons. For me, “self” is the person, whole and entire.

 

[shoe]

Your presuppositions limit your philosophy. You want to believe that there is a ‘spiritual’ reality that contains all the finer things in life, therefore you close your mind to the possibility that physical reality may furnish these. Liberty, equality and fraternity, amongst other things, are meaningless without physical manifestation - you could be free in your imagination, yet chained in your body; you are thus still a slave.

I think that perhaps it’s actually the presuppositions of the materialist worldview that has the philosophical limits. It seems to me that since the materialists choose to believe that only the physical world (the world of sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch) “contains all the finer things in life,” they purposefully have shut down their souls to the reality of the spiritual world.

I believe that liberty, equality,fraternity, love, justice, logic, etc., are, in reality, meaningless without God’s spiritual manifestation. Mankind never really has been able to physically explain things such as liberty, justice, logic, etc., only to show their results. For instance, scientists have never been able to place them in a jar; detect them with a meter; identify them as liberty, justice, and logic; photograph them; and publish them in their science books.

The only evidence that scientists can offer for their presuppositions of the physical origins of such things as liberty, justice, and logic is their appeal to the hypothetical future that perhaps someday mankind will be able to measure their electrons firing across the skull, which is basically a prayer to the future that their guess will come true.

I think that the inability of the materialistic worldview to account for the necessary preconditions for such things as liberty, equality, fraternity, love, justice, logic, etc., invalidates their presuppositions as viable options for accounting for those things, which is to say that the inability of the materialistic worldview to account for them, validates the only other option left: God.

The Bible says, “For the invisible things of him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made; his eternal power also, and divinity: so that they are inexcusable” (Romans 1:20).

 

[Sair]

Just a bit of curiosity. What is “self” that language would have us thinking that the self and body are separate entities?

I view individuals in the human species as persons. For me, “self” is the person, whole and entire.

This is how I view the self also, but the problem with our language is that there is really no easy way to refer to the self as an integrated entity, whilst there are plenty of ways to speak of it divisively. Phrases such as ‘my body’, ‘my brain’, and so forth imply that there is a someone who is separate and distinct, someone to whom body and brain belong, but who is in essence neither of these things, nor dependent upon them. People sometimes refer to a person’s ‘true’ self, as though this being were something distinct from the body, brain and behaviour. Mind is often spoken of as a distinct entity from the body, able to be separated from it. Thus our language tends to encourage dualistic thinking.

 

[GEddie]

This is how I view the self also, but the problem with our language is that there is really no easy way to refer to the self as an integrated entity, whilst there are plenty of ways to speak of it divisively. Phrases such as ‘my body’, ‘my brain’, and so forth imply that there is a someone who is separate and distinct, someone to whom body and brain belong, but who is in essence neither of these things, nor dependent upon them. People sometimes refer to a person’s ‘true’ self, as though this being were something distinct from the body, brain and behaviour. Mind is often spoken of as a distinct entity from the body, able to be separated from it. Thus our language tends to encourage dualistic thinking.

The issue is not the language but the philosophication of our life and being. Having been taught to think of our being as distinct from body, or worse, as some kind of “spirit”, we use terms like “our bodies” to make a distinction that is not really there.

A child does not speak of “my body”, but only “me”, even when describing their physical state. In childhood, you are your body. Growing older, we learn to philosophize our being, and to think we have bodies, instead of being bodies. That’s where the separate “self” comes in.

In NT Greek the term soma, body, was used also to mean the entire living person. Echoes of this usage remain in the English words “somebody” and “everybody.”

That’s why Biblically the resurrectional body and life are central.

ICXC NIKA!

 

[grannymh]

This is how I view the self also, but the problem with our language is that there is really no easy way to refer to the self as an integrated entity, whilst there are plenty of ways to speak of it divisively…

First. I find it much easier to live in the world with a both-and perspective.
Second, it is my observation that in general person is only used for an individual of the human species.
Third. It has been my delightful experience to discover that atheists do have a sense of the spiritual. While the source of this “sense of the spiritual” is often debated, this sense exists as is.

I have no logical clue if my conclusion follows from the above. Nonetheless, “person” when referring to oneself is the proper word meaning an integrated entity.

According to my both-and thinking, plenty of ways to speak of self divisively can be both bad and good. Tearing apart personhood and setting one part against another is an ancient evil that exists today. But, when one looks at all the aspects of a person and sees them as working in harmony, there is no doubt that human nature is peerless. Unfortunately, perfect harmony is not real life.

 

[tonyrey]

No one can explain consciousness of oneself or awareness of one’s mental experiences, let alone through non-material means but we do know that it is an inescapable reality.We know we don’t imagine our thoughts, feelings, perceptions and decisions…

Do you deny it?

Haven’t you ever had an idea without being certain of where it came from?

Irrelevant!

And I would suggest that you are too ready to dismiss physical explanations in favour of nonphysical nonexplanations…

Ditto - with the appropriate substitutions.!

That is far more reasonable than believing intangible beliefs and insights are tangible electrical impulses.

What do you believe they are, then?

Intangible beliefs and insights!

Or are you happy to rest on the laurels of ‘intangibility’?

Ditto - with “'tangibility”!

Do you think meditation, contemplation and philosophical investigation cannot proceed without matter as their subject matter?! On the contrary. The mind is a rich, intangible realm of its own which doesn’t need the body to satisfy its creative power and quest for truth, goodness, purpose, meaning and love.

When have you brought about change in the world with your thoughts alone?

Have you never brought about change in yourself with your thoughts alone?

Meditation, contemplation and philosophical investigation are useless if they bear no relation to our lives in the world.

Don’t you have an **interior **life?

The most important things in life cannot be detected with the senses.

Then by what means do you identify these ‘most important things in life’?

With my intellect and conscience.

If you restrict yourself to your physical needs and desires you are doomed to be frustrated. To reject spiritual reality is soul-destroying in both senses of the term. Those who believe they are animals and live like animals gradually become animals - incapable of self-control and self-sacrifice. They may pay lip-service to the principles of liberty, equality and fraternity but their dominant goal is inevitably physical satisfaction because they stake everything on life in this world. They pursue pleasure rather than perfection -and pleasure alone does not lead to personal fulfilment.

Your presuppositions limit your philosophy.

Ironically your presuppositions limit your unenviable and meaningless scheme of things to what you can see, hear, taste and touch.

You want to believe that there is a ‘spiritual’ reality that contains all the finer things in life, therefore you close your mind to the possibility that physical reality may furnish these.

Ditto - with the appropriate substitutions.

Liberty, equality and fraternity, amongst other things, are meaningless without physical manifestation - you could be free in your imagination, yet chained in your body; you are thus still a slave.

No one can chain your mind.

Don’t you ever exert any influence on yourself?! The influence of a mindless body isn’t significant for itself or anything else.

Who said anything about being ‘mindless’? The only assertion I have made is that mind is not necessarily immaterial. It is pointless to assert mind as an independent entity, since its influence is upon the rest of the body.

Doesn’t your mind have any influence on itself?

What does it even mean for ‘me’ to exert influence upon ‘myself’? Our language restricts us to thinking of the ‘self’ and the ‘body’ as separate entities, when in fact they are one - a very complex ‘one’, but still a unified entity.

Do you find it impossible to change your beliefs, values and priorities?

Further to this, I think you’ll find that the influence of supposedly ‘mindlesss’ entities upon the physical world and its sentient inhabitants are quite significant…

That is because they aren’t mindless!

To what extent do you understand yourself even with your knowledge of previous events? We are all living with a mysterious stranger! The mind is quite capable of knowing what it thinks, feels and desires without the need to delve into the past but understanding the nature of reality is an entirely different proposition. That requires abstract thought rather than the accumulation of sense data…

But the accumulation of sense data is required for abstract thought! Abstractions must be abstracted from something; if not the information received by our senses, then what?

From information received by our thoughts, emotions, beliefs, values and purposes. Do they count for nothing in your scheme of things?

And your ‘mysterious stranger’ is only mysterious if you consider it separate from your physical body and senses.

So there is no mystery about what **you **are and how you exist?

Self-awareness is fundamentally connected to the place of one’s self within a broader reality…

Without the **concept **of broader reality you would be connected to nothing in any meaningful way.

…

…it is impossible to know what one thinks, feels or desires without the capacity to think about something…

Don’t you ever think about yourself? Only about your body?

…to absorb sense data (both external in internal to the body) or to have some particular physical state of affairs upon which to focus desire.

If you desire only physical states you are indeed no more than an animal…

Just try to theoretically isolate yourself from all physical influences, and see how far you get - you would have nothing to think about, nothing to feel and nothing to desire.

Just try to theoretically isolate yourself from your** interior** life and see how far you get. There would be no “you” to have anything…

 

[GEddie]

First. I find it much easier to live in the world with a both-and perspective.
Second, it is my observation that in general person is only used for an individual of the human species.

Except that in the Christian concept, angels are persons and nonhuman; likewise God (3x)(one of whom is human)

ICXC NIKA

 

[GEddie]

Have you never brought about change in yourself with your thoughts alone?
Don’t you have an **interior **life?

Interior life consists of thoughts, feelings, memories, intentions etc. Of experience and action in physical life, and of interactions with other persons in physical life.
And you only change yourself when you take physical action. You can think of getting healthier, but you need to move your body, eat better, etc. You can think of being more social, but you need to get out and meet people. Etc.

Ironically your presuppositions limit your unenviable and meaningless scheme of things to what you can see, hear, taste and touch.

Don’t forget smell!

No one can chain your mind.

If your body were bound, blindfolded, noseplugged etc for a long time, your mind would be impaired or even break. You need your physical senses; that’s how sense deprivation works.

Without the **concept **of broader reality you would be connected to nothing in any meaningful way.

Not really. You are still connected to the physical world and to
persons within it.

…Don’t you ever think about yourself? Only about your body?

If you desire only physical states you are indeed no more than an animal…
Just try to theoretically isolate yourself from your** interior** life and see how far you get. There would be no “you” to have anything…

So artistic, cultural, travel etc. experiences are “animal”? They are definitely physical.

I for one have no problem perceiving my “self” as this human body and the mind in body’s head. Let’s not get all Neoplatonic: we are human beings, not spirits.

God Bless and ICXC NIKA.

 

[tonyrey]

Have you never brought about change in yourself with your thoughts alone?

Don’t you have an interior life?
Interior life consists of thoughts, feelings, memories, intentions etc. Of experience and action in physical life, and of interactions with other persons in physical life.
And you only change yourself when you take physical action. You can think of getting healthier, but you need to move your body, eat better, etc. You can think of being more social, but you need to get out and meet people. Etc.

You can change **yourself **without moving from your chair - by prayer, contemplation, meditation and self-hypnosis.

Ironically your presuppositions limit your unenviable and meaningless scheme of things to what you can see, hear, taste and touch.

Don’t forget smell!

Very important!

No one can chain your mind.
If your body were bound, blindfolded, noseplugged etc for a long time, your mind would be impaired or even break. You need your physical senses; that’s how sense deprivation works.
That is because we have grown up with, and are accustomed to, sense experience. Do you believe the mind ceases to exist at death?

Without the concept of broader reality you would be connected to nothing in any meaningful way.

Not really. You are still connected to the physical world and to
persons within it.
…Don’t you ever think about yourself? Only about your body?

?

If you desire only physical states you are indeed no more than an animal…

Just try to theoretically isolate yourself from your interior life and see how far you get. There would be no “you” to have anything…
So artistic, cultural, travel etc. experiences are “animal”? They are definitely physical.

Do human beings have no spiritual experiences?

I for one have no problem perceiving my “self” as this human body and the mind in body’s head.

If the mind is in the head then it is not intangible it is a physical object which does not have free will…

Let’s not get all Neoplatonic: we are human beings, not spirits.

Christians believe we are embodied **spiritual **beings made in the image and likeness of God.

 

[grannymh]

I for one have no problem perceiving my “self” as this human body and the mind in body’s head. Let’s not get all Neoplatonic: we are human beings, not spirits.

God Bless and ICXC NIKA.

“human body and the mind in body’s head” This almost sounds like mind is the same as the physical brain in one’s head. It seems that rational powers are part of the immaterial soul wherever that is. In that case, the intellective powers could be said to reside in the soul while using the brain as means of expression.

 

[tonyrey]

“human body and the mind in body’s head” This almost sounds like mind is the same as the physical brain in one’s head. It seems that rational powers are part of the immaterial soul wherever that is. In that case, the intellective powers could be said to reside in the soul while using the brain as means of expression.

The neuroscientists seem to be gaining many converts even among Catholics!

 

[grannymh]

The neuroscientists seem to be gaining many converts even among Catholics!

What does that mean, please?

 

[tonyrey]

The neuroscientists seem to be gaining many converts even among Catholics!

They are so impressed by the success of neuroscience they believe it will eventually explain all human behaviour - without always being aware of the implications!