Modern Philosophers on the Soul

[One_point]

If I understand you rightly, you want to know if we can prove the existence of the soul from modern philosophy as opposed to Thomas Aquinas?

I think the reason this is not attempted by modern philosophers is that modern philosophers (with the exception of Catholic philosophers) have drifted away from the idea of God and any thing else theological.

The existence of the soul as a thing separate from the physical world (and therefore capable of surviving the death of the body) is best approached as an intuitive truth. Some truths are found intuitively, rather than demonstratively, such as mathematical axioms. God is best found intuitively, rather than by demonstration. Intuitive understanding is founded upon the fact that the mind is open to the understanding of a truth. If the mind is not receptive to the idea of a soul, it will deny the existence of the soul just because the soul is beyond physical demonstration.

All civilizations from the dawn of human history have been receptive not only to the existence of God(s), but also to the existence of the soul and many great civilizations have posited the existence of soul ongoing after death. When atheism emerges, it often seems to be an aberration of our intuitive self. Atheism is repulsive to all our sense of meaning and purpose. It reduces everything to atoms in motion. Is the sense of self merely a function of atoms in the brain? This is hardly demonstrable. Yet atheism presumes it to be so without proof. So atheism has to assert a kind of intuitive truth of its own. The end result is that you have to choose between (at least) two world views; one of which posits God and gives meaning to the world and to our lives); the other of which denies God and any purpose to the world or to our lives.

One has to intuitively pick one world view or the other and live with the consequences.

Thank you for this post. It has put questions I have been struggling with in a clear simple manner, yet the stuff you mention is not at all simple! Thanks for stating it simply.

I used to assume that atheism is irrational because it could be demonstrated the material world needs a cause. Only lately after arguments with atheists and explanations here on CAF have I understood that the basic human logic that leads to God is itself an assumption. But difference that the assumption is not arbitrary. It is following rules of logic found already in human mind, not put there by us. It makes sense to follow them to God. Right? But atheists make an assumption contrary to the rules of logic in their own minds. They have no empirical proof or logic on their side. Its not an intuition they follow. It seems to me it is an act of will that guides atheism and not naturally found intuitions, rules of logic, or empiricism. between theism and atheism, theism makes more sense intuitively, logically, empirically. Atheism is an act of faith wholly rejecting foundations of human knowledge. I think that is the reason the Bible says quite simple, “The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God.” Not to insult but that statement seems some of the most clear truths in the Bible. You must be a fool in some way to be atheist. Not that they are not intelligent but that the choice of atheism is a foolish choice.

 

[John_Martin]

Something not conscious puts a word in my consciousness, “I”. Then suddenly from somewhere into my consciousness comes another word, “AM”. And there is a simple sentence in my consciousness of “I AM”. As if a “being” wants those words materialized, actualized, verbally, physically manifested or made known.
John Martin (post 17)
But signifiers * are meaningless without consciousness.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbol_grounding
*
changingminds.org/explanations/critical_theory/concepts/signifier_signified.htm

Signifiers are meaningless without consciousness if consciousness is something like the core or reality of being ("such as ‘I think, therefore I am’ ").

But if consciousness is a subservient activity of the spiritual soul moving the brain, as are the thoughts contained in consciousness, then the person is transcendent of consciousness and using it as a tool. A conscious thought such as “I am” then is no different than a hand writing the words on paper - both provide sensitive feedback to the soul directing them, so that this spiritual soul knows that these words are in the material world of consciousness and paper.

Consciousness is an physical activity moved by the soul that knows and animates its body, the movements of it, including the brain, to passive intelligent movement. Consciousness itself does not “do” anything other than “be conscious”. It does not set its own content.

 

[wittgenstein]

How can I transcend anything if I am unaware of it. Suppose my actions are totally unconscious. Am I responsible for those actions. If I am sleep walking and bump a guy off a cliff, am I a murderer?
Suppose I hypnotize someone into believing that a real gun is a squirt gun and I convince him that squirting Joe in the face is really funny. He shoots Joe,dead. Am I or him guilty of murder? I say I am!
Without awareness (consciousness ) there is no responsibility, ethics or even concepts!*

• Concepts cannot exist without consciousness (see symbol grounding problem).

 

[wittgenstein]

I think you are proposing a false dichotomy. Pure Being (I AM) = consciousness. * Would you be happy with an unconscious God?

• Consciousness without an object. We are not what we are aware of. I does not = my dog is called Varnog,even when I think “my dog is called Varnog.”

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Thank you for this post. It has put questions I have been struggling with in a clear simple manner, yet the stuff you mention is not at all simple! Thanks for stating it simply.

I used to assume that atheism is irrational because it could be demonstrated the material world needs a cause. Only lately after arguments with atheists and explanations here on CAF have I understood that the basic human logic that leads to God is itself an assumption. But difference that the assumption is not arbitrary. It is following rules of logic found already in human mind, not put there by us. It makes sense to follow them to God. Right? But atheists make an assumption contrary to the rules of logic in their own minds. They have no empirical proof or logic on their side. Its not an intuition they follow. It seems to me it is an act of will that guides atheism and not naturally found intuitions, rules of logic, or empiricism. between theism and atheism, theism makes more sense intuitively, logically, empirically. Atheism is an act of faith wholly rejecting foundations of human knowledge. I think that is the reason the Bible says quite simple, “The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God.” Not to insult but that statement seems some of the most clear truths in the Bible. You must be a fool in some way to be atheist. Not that they are not intelligent but that the choice of atheism is a foolish choice.

Everything you said makes good sense.

One of the functions of philosophy is not to detect everything there is to know about God, not to prove the existence without a shadow of a doubt (that has never been done … if it had, all the world would be theistic at this moment) but to assert that our human nature naturally is drawn to something or someone Supernatural. Philosophy (right thinking in pursuit of truth) also tells us that atheism is presumptuous, in that it claims a certainty with no iota of proof. It cannot even offer the proof of universal consent, since atheism has a relatively small following. Atheism tends to triumph in a significant way when it has the power of the state to enforce it, as with Stalin, Mao, and in North Korea and Sweden. In North Korea God is replaced by their comical Superman, and in Sweden God is substituted in cradle to grave socialism.

 

[wittgenstein]

When I am unconscious (for at least that moment) I do not exist. When God (if he ever is) is unconscious ,he doesn’t exist, he is reduced to only a law of nature.

 

[John_Martin]

When I am unconscious (for at least that moment) I do not exist. When God (if he ever is) is unconscious ,he doesn’t exist, he is reduced to only a law of nature.

“Unconsciousness” is a fairly new concept, a new development by a philosophy that does not admit to spiritual being, does not admit to the reality of the soul. (18th cent. Schelling and Coleridge)

The soul is always (24/7) fully conscious, in its own right, but does not animate the appearance of thoughts in your mind, or images, or memories, or conversations, unless and until it is useful in some desire of the will or appetites of the soul. “Unconsciousness” simply means that the soul is not now animating a desired symphony of neurons. But all during “unconsciousness” the soul is still fully conscious, aware of itself and of its body, and “light speed” faster than its body.

I will wager that you did not have to think consciously through your answers to my words, but that there was instantaneously a flood of intelligent words of response, flowing without thinking, perhaps directly to your fingers as you typed, coming like “inspiration”. That source of your responses is your soul, rather than an unconsciousness, and rather than instinct.

Yes, we think about things consciously when we are uncertain, but even then, as we are dialoging in our conscious thoughts, suddenly from nowhere comes the decision of certainty. When the soul has had the correct (name removed by moderator)uts that it tried out in conscious thought to see how they work in material reality, it silences the internal dialog and suddenly you say, “I know the answer”.

“Materially”, God is exactly like our souls, in that he is Spirit. And he, like our souls, is fully conscious always. Our body’s consciousness is a tool, a feeble and only part-time tool, of our soul. Our body’s consciousness needs rest and sleep and exercise, and our soul protects it in its frailties, because this tool provides it with a way of relating to other persons and material reality. It puts words in your conscious thought as a “transfer mechanism” to relate intelligent meaning to other souls and to the world around. And it is a “receiving mechanism” for the soul to experience the “other”, to “learn”.

(I love debate, also, yet what I really, really, desire is to know - to know what is really real, what works)

 

[wittgenstein]

I’m confused.
“unconsciousness is a fairly new concept”?
Being unaware of something is a new idea?

 

[John_Martin]

I’m confused.
“unconsciousness is a fairly new concept”?
Being unaware of something is a new idea?

As a noun, the unconscious, is the part of the mind containing psychic material that is only rarely accessible to awareness but that has a pronounced influence on behavior. And this is the “new idea” of Schelling, brought in the English speaking world by Coleridge, and greatly used in psychology by Freud, all trying to explain the “things we do without ‘thinking’”.

But all of that "functionality of the ‘unconscious’ " has been present in the classic understandings of the soul. However, this understanding of the soul is disparaged by empiricism for its assertion that intellect is external to physical phenomena rather than intellect being an actual physical phenomenon. To state it in a course way, “Our thoughts are not smart, our souls are.” In a way, that is part of why the Catholic Church values every human life, no matter the age or condition of the body or mind (brain) - there is that persons soul that loves his body dearly, even when unable to move it as it would like to.

 

[John_Martin]

I’m confused.
“unconsciousness is a fairly new concept”?
Being unaware of something is a new idea?

Re-reading, I will say that in my post I should have been using the term “unconscious” rather than “unconsciousness”, - I beg your pardon for the confusion I caused you. If I can try and excuse to see how it sound: that the term “consciousness” was used so often in the posts I tacked the “un” in front without proper “thought” given to proofreading and evaluation of what I wrote. This would give you “evidence” to say that in “conscious thought” intelligent activity is done. I would, of course, come back and say it is still the soul using the conscious thoughts for evaluation of the words and the soul that comes back with the decision to edit the writing. So, this is enjoyable - this whole interchange.

I may have you at a disadvantage in it, in one way. While I am not widely read in philosophy, I have made myself a student of Aquinas, as students of philosophers were in ancient times, sitting at his feet and learning his philosophy and theology as my own, such that when I write here, I am not writing “what Thomas thought”, but, in a way, I am being Thomas here, discussing it with you - the student has become like his teacher. In today’s universities, the study of philosophy is not allowed such an assertive stance, but is a study about philosophers and about philosophies, so you are aware of what all said (mostly through explanations by others about what they taught, and to some degree in direct reading of their works), but none is granted the “honor” of being “True”. And there is not the practice of “learning the Truth in philosophy from that master”. I have done this with Thomas, spending the last 3 years in his Summa with him, letting him be true, and what I knew being replaced by what he knows.

I think every student is wishing for a teacher like that. Then you can have a “big picture” of the whole of reality rather than conflicting images of parts of reality given by many conflicting teachers, still on your own and not seeing a complete picture as truth. I understand the danger in “picking the wrong teacher”, yet until you have a big picture of all, it is difficult to then examine it to see in the end if it is really real. But, Aristotle did it - he was a “good student” of Plato, in a sense becoming Plato within himself. And it is only after that where he was able then to correct what was not really real, and assert it as the truth to his students.

Enough rambling - have to get ready for work - I apologize for the wrong term.

 

[wittgenstein]

I think I will understand you better if you answer one question,
" do you believe that consciousness is a physical thing"?
I am a firm believer in qualia.
For example, pain does not equal C-fibers firing. Correlation does not equal equivalence. If pain is and only is C-fibers firing then there would be no reason to avoid torture.
I am convinced that I am my consciousness. If I do not consciously decide to do something I am not responsible for the consequences.*

• the exception being if I consciously decide to take drugs that turn me into a homicidal maniac. I did not consciously decide to commit murder but I am still guilty of murder because I consciously set up the circumstances that made me be outside my conscious control.

 

[wittgenstein]

I realize that my syllogism * proved that we cannot decide anything. That disturbs me greatly!!!

1. We can only be responsible for our conscious acts.
2. Consciousness cannot cause our thoughts.
3. Thoughts cause our actions.
4. Therefore we cannot be responsible for our actions.
   That means the end of free will! As repugnant as that conclusion is to me, I must accept it. I might hate the fact that 1+1=2 but I have to accept it if I am a rational person.

• 1. Cause always precedes effect.

1. You cannot be aware of a thought before you think it.
2. Therefore you cannot cause your thoughts.
   Of course there is one way to rescue free will. Prop 1 is false because consciousness is not physical and therefore is free from the constraints of cause and effect. That to me is the soul.