Old Yeller in Paradise

[batteddy]

Athiests can say all those same things for people.

True, except for themselves: the existence of your own soul is self-evident, because as said the self is a primary object of its own consciousness.

The existence of self-conscious souls in beings others than oneself is a matter of faith. It cannot be proven, certainly not by emotions or experience. After all, other people and all of reality could just be a dream in my mind, there is no real empirical way to prove otherwise. But I have faith that it is not all an illusion, and you do in fact exist.

So, it is a matter of faith as to who has a soul other than yourself. Animal souls cannot be proven by simply saying they “seem” to have souls…any more than cute cartoon animals do, no matter how much affection they arouse in us.

You are free to choose to believe that animals have rational souls, but it is certainly not the teaching of the Catholic Church.

In the Catholic faith, animal souls are not spiritual. They do not have selves or "I"s, because they are not created in the image of God, and are purely material, physical phenomena. Animals and plants are objects, not persons. Animal souls are simply the impermanent form directing the matter of non-conscious biological substances such as plants and animals.

The Catholic Church teaches that animal souls are not rational, conscious, or immortal, and that animals, while being the most complex and beautiful of the “thing” category, are still things and not persons. If you choose to disagree with Her, and listen to Rabbis and PETA instead, that is your choice. But do not try to argue it is the teaching of the Catholic Church.

 

[Matt16_18]

batteddy:

The Catholic Church teaches that animal souls are not rational, conscious, or immortal, and that animals, while being the most complex and beautiful of the “thing” category, are still things and not persons.

I never said that souls of animals were rational or immortal, nor have I ever said that we should conceive of animals as persons.

What I want to know is where the Catholic Church infallibly teaches that animals are not conscious that they exist, that a dolphin is nothing more than an “organic robot” - a mere meat machine with no more awareness of “self” and “not self” than the Torqueflite transmission in a ‘67 Belvedere.

 

[Matt16_18]

Batteddy:

Animal souls cannot be proven by simply saying they “seem” to have souls …

We know by faith that animals have living souls because Genesis explicitly says that animals have living souls (nephesh chayah).

 

[batteddy]

I never said that souls of animals were rational or immortal

In Catholic theology, when speaking of the soul, “rational” means what I was describing as “conscious”…

Nevertheless, I am not saying an animal is like a “Torqueflite transmission in a ‘67 Belvedere.”…I am saying they are like a computer.

A computer with certain tools or a robot certainly knows the difference between the internal system and the outside (name removed by moderator)ut by the way its programming and circuitry handle it…but it doesn’t know its knowledge…or at least not its knowledge of its knowledge…etc…it couldn’t be infinitely recursive like that.

I am not saying animals are dumb as rocks. They are often smarter than computers. But they are only as conscious as rocks.

Animal pain is no worse to them than a robot who has a sensor that makes the robot recoil and make scream noises when the sensor pad is poked with a pin…because they do not know their Self AS Self…“I” is not suffering…because they know no “I”…

If a tree falls in a woods and no one is around, does it make a sound? Certainly it makes sound waves…but if those waves are not converted into “hearing” by an ear and brain…does a “sound” itself ever truly exist?

Can I truly be said to be suffering if I do not identify that it is in fact* I* who am suffering?

 

[Matt16_18]

batteddy:

I am not saying an animal is like a “Torqueflite transmission in a ‘67 Belvedere.”…I am saying they are like a computer.

A computer with certain tools or a robot certainly knows the difference between the internal system and the outside (name removed by moderator)ut by the way its programming and circuitry handle …

A 1967 Torqueflite transmission has fluid logic circuits in the shift valve body which are the functional equivalent of an embedded microprocessor. So, yes, you are making an analogy between an animal with a living soul and the Torqueflite transmission in a ‘67 Belvedere.

In Catholic theology, when speaking of the soul, “rational” means what I was describing as “conscious”…

An animal has a living soul, and that allows the animal to be aware of “self” and “not self”. Angels and men have living souls that are rational, and that allows them to reflect upon the fact that they are aware that they are conscious that they are conscious of the fact that they are conscious … (your infinite regress analogy).

I am not saying animals are dumb as rocks.

Actually, you are. A computer is as dumb as a rock, since it is only a machine that could, in principle, be duplicated with an elaborate mechanical device that operates cogs and levers. A punch card controlled weaving loom is no more intelligent than a pile of dirt.

Can I truly be said to be suffering if I do not identify that it is in fact I who am suffering?

Because an animal has a living soul, the animal can be aware that its “I” is being subjected to physical suffering. But because an animal soul has no knowledge of morality, it cannot know anything about spiritual suffering.

A rock that is being crushed in a gravel pit has no knowledge of physical suffering because the rock has no living soul. A cat that is suffering “the bondage of decay” is not analogous to a rock being crushed into gravel.

 

[batteddy]

An animal is aware of “self” or “not self” only inasmuch as a computer could also be. A robot could certainly be made that was trained to analyze images taken in by a camera and recognize itself in the mirror and act accordingly.

But if an animal does not have that infinite regress of consciousness, is its pain truly “suffering”…seeing as it is not aware that it is aware that it is aware that it is feeling pain? If I don’t know that I know my name, can I truly be said to know it all, if I don’t know my knowledge? Or is it just an unconcious interplay of matter in my brain?

Knowledge of your knowledge must be the primary object of your knowledge to have any true knowledge at all. Otherwise you are as dumb as a book filled with facts, but not the fact that it has all these facts written in it, or at least without the fact that it has the fact that all these facts are in it written in it…

An animal may know it is suffering, but does it know it knows it is suffering? And if it does not know it knows it is suffering, how in any way is that personally painful to it? That pain becomes impersonal, they identify it as theirs…but do they know that they know it is theirs.

An animal may know it is suffering, but does it know it knows it is suffering? Can that truly be called being “conscious” of pain anymore than a computer reacting to a particular sensor?

 

[Matt16_18]

batteddy:

An animal is aware of “self” or “not self” only inasmuch as a computer could also be.

You are not the first Catholic to make the mistake of thinking of animals as nothing but mere “automata” ( “organic robots” is your term for automata).Descartes conceived the soul as essentially thinking (i.e. conscious) substance, and body as essentially extended substance. The two are thus simply disparate realities, with no vital connection between them. This is significantly marked by his theory of the soul’s location in the body. Unlike the Scholastics he confines it to a single point – the pineal gland – from which it is supposed to control the various organs and muscles through the medium of the “animal spirits”, a kind of fluid circulating through the body. Thus, to say the least, the soul’s biological functions are made very remote and indirect, and were in fact later on reduced almost to a nullity: the lower life was violently severed from the higher, and regarded as a simple mechanism. In the Cartesian theory animals are mere automata.

Soul, The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XIV
Copyright © 1912 by Robert Appleton Company

 

[batteddy]

Animals are not just mechanical however, I am not a dualist. I believe that the unity of the animals substance is kept by a vital principal we call the animal soul, the form which informs the matter.

From the Catholic Encyclopedia article on Life:

These various phenomena constituting the cycle of life cannot, according to the Schoolmen, be rationally conceived as the outcome of any collection of material particles. They are inexplicable by mere complexity of machinery, or as a resultant of the physical and chemical properties of matter. They establish, it is maintained, the existence of an intrinsic agency, energy, or power, which unifies the multiplicity of material parts, guides the several vital processes, dominates in some manner the physical and chemical operations, controls the tendency of the constituents of living substance to decompose and pass into conditions of more stable equilibrium, and regulates and directs the whole series of changes involved in the growth and the building-up of the living being after the plan of its specific type. This agency is the vital principle; and according to the Scholastic philosophers it is best conceived as the substantial form of the body. In the Peripatetic theory, the form or entelechy gives unity to the living being, determines its essential nature, and is the ultimate source of its specific activities. The evidence for this doctrine can be stated only in the briefest outline.

There are three grades of life essentially distinct: vegetative, sentient or animal, and intellectual or spiritual life; for the capacity for immanent action is of three kinds. Vegetative operations result in the assimilation of material elements into the substance of the living being. In animal conscious life the vital act is a modification of the sentient organic faculty, whilst in rational life the intellect expresses the object by a purely spiritual modification of itself. Life as we know it in this world is always bound up with organized matter, that is, with a material structure consisting of organs, or heterogeneous parts, specialized for different functions and combined into a whole.

So the animal soul is not a conscious thing, but the “vital force” which unifies the organism as the sum of its parts.

Also, the article admits that animal consciousness is simply the modification of the sentient organic faculty (the brain) not a purely spiritual modification of itself.

 

[Matt16_18]

batteddy:

Animals are not just mechanical however, I am not a dualist.

How is it that you are not a dualist? It seems to me that you and Descartes are of the same mind - you both believe that animals are “mindless automata”.Rene Descartes (1596-1650) was a … dualist, he believed that only two kinds of substance exist in the universe: mental substance and corporeal, or bodily, substance. Human beings, he thought, are composed of mind (which he equated with the soul) and body. **Nonhuman animals, however, he saw as mindless automata or machines. ** The traditional interpretation is that he even denied that animals have feelings. …

John Cottingham, who translated the philosophical works of Descartes, claimed that Descartes did think that nonhuman animals have conscious feelings, just not self-conscious awareness of feelings. Supposedly, this interpretation would mean that an animal can feel, but has no sense that the feelings are associated with that animal’s own self. Some philosophers have said that animal feelings have no significance if animals lack self-consciousness, even though an animal can still be hurt on this theory.

Cottingham refers to letters of Descartes in which animals are said to feel joy, anger, and fear, for example. Tom Regan has explained this apparent inconsistency in Descartes by reference to a distinction that the latter makes between three different types of sensation. According to Descartes, animals can have three different grades of sensation: physical, conscious, and self-conscious. Descartes indicated that we have only the first in common with nonhuman creatures. His denial that animals have minds prevents animals from having either conscious or self-conscious tools. Regan’s interpretation is more consistent with what Descartes actually wrote. Animals only “felt joy” and other emotions in the first grade of sensation, which is a very unfamiliar sense of “feeling”: the animals, in response to a physical stimulus, would mechanically respond by dancing about, appearing happy, or the like, even though the “animal machines” would not consciously feel anything. Thus Descartes actually wrote that animals do not feel “pain in the strict sense,” since they lack understanding or a mind, and also that they are not aware of any thing.

Descartes, Rene
David Sztybel, Ph.D.

 

[batteddy]

See, I think that animals have the first TWO levels of feeling: physical and conscious…just not self-conscious. I am not a dualist because I believe that the soul and body of animals and humans are united in a single substance, a single dynamic reality. But for animals the soul is only the lower faculties, a “vital force” organically uniting the creature. The “form” of the animal. In humans, however, it is spiritual and we can actually “feel” our feelings, because their is an ultimate Observer to be conscious of it all.

 

[Matt16_18]

batteddy:

…for animals the soul is only the lower faculties, a “vital force” organically uniting the creature

You say that the “vital force” is a synonym for the soul of an animal.

Is this “vital force” in an animal nothing more than the chemical reactions that happen in the body of an animal, or is the “vital force” in an animal something spiritual?

I think that animals have the first TWO levels of feeling: physical and conscious…just not self-conscious.

Can you explain the difference between “conscious” and “self-conscious” in this sentence?

 

[batteddy]

Is this “vital force” in an animal nothing more than the chemical reactions that happen in the body of an animal, or is the “vital force” in an animal something spiritual?

It is not “spiritual” per se because only the human and angelic souls are spiritual, which implies self-consciousness.

It is, however, something Metaphysical, and not just material.

Can you explain the difference between “conscious” and “self-conscious” in this sentence?

“this interpretation would mean that an animal can feel, but has no sense that the feelings are associated with that animal’s own self.”

Animals certainly have emotions. We see animals are happy, angry, afraid, etc…

And materially, these emotions are the same as ours; the same types of chemical reactions in the brain create animal and human emotions.

The difference is that animals have no ultimate observer, no self-conscious “I” or self to assosciate with the emotions and have them experientially.

Their brains interpret visual data given as sensory information through the eyes the same way we do…and they react for similar physiological reasons…but they do not actually “see” what they see…because to them, there is no “they”…in fact, there is no “to them” at all…they are no more self-conscious than we were before we were made…to be an animal would be like the “total extinction” some believe there is after death. But nevertheless, it is more conscious than a rock, because an animal can know things in its brain, it just doesnt know its own knowledge…

 

[Matt16_18]

“Rene Descartes (1596-1650) was a … dualist, he believed that only two kinds of substance exist in the universe: mental substance and corporeal, or bodily, substance.”

[The vital force]
is not “spiritual” per se because only the human and angelic souls are spiritual, which implies self-consciousness.

It is, however, something Metaphysical, and not just material.

So you disagree with Descartes in this respect – not just two kinds of substance exist in the universe, there exist at least three kinds of substance in the universe, the material, the metaphysical, and the spiritual. What exactly is the difference between a non-corporeal metaphysical substance, and a spiritual substance? Could a self-conscious being be composed of this mysterious metaphysical substance? How do humans know that this metaphysical substance even exists? Did the Jews ever speak about this non-spiritual, non-corporeal metaphysical substance in scriptures?

Animals certainly have emotions. We see animals are happy, angry, afraid, etc…

And materially, these emotions are the same as ours; the same types of chemical reactions in the brain create animal and human emotions.

The difference is that animals have no ultimate observer, no self-conscious “I” or self to assosciate with the emotions and have them experientially.

How is your concept of animals any different than Descartes’ conception of “animal machines”? (from my post #69): According to Descartes, animals can have three different grades of sensation: physical, conscious, and self-conscious. Descartes indicated that we have only the first in common with nonhuman creatures. His denial that animals have minds prevents animals from having either conscious or self-conscious tools. Regan’s interpretation is more consistent with what Descartes actually wrote. Animals only “felt joy” and other emotions in the first grade of sensation, which is a very unfamiliar sense of “feeling”: the animals, in response to a physical stimulus, would mechanically respond by dancing about, appearing happy, or the like, even though the “animal machines” would not consciously feel anything. Thus Descartes actually wrote that animals do not feel “pain in the strict sense,” since they lack understanding or a mind, and also that they are not aware of any thing.

 

[batteddy]

What exactly is the difference between a non-corporeal metaphysical substance, and a spiritual substance?

There is no such thing as a metaphysical “substance”. I never said that.

Metaphysically the form alone does not constitute the substance. The vital force is simply the ontological “form” that informs the matter of the animal in a unified, substantial whole. It is not a substance by itself…that is why it does not survive death.

According to Descartes, animals can have three different grades of sensation: physical, conscious, and self-conscious. Descartes indicated that we have only the first in common with nonhuman creatures.

I believe we have not only the first, but the first two in common with animals.

 

[Matt16_18]

batteddy:

Metaphysically the form alone does not constitute the substance. The vital force is simply the ontological “form” that informs the matter of the animal in a unified, substantial whole. It is not a substance by itself…that is why it does not survive death.

You are begging the question.

The substance (or essence) of a human being is a composite of both the material and the spiritual. Is the substance of an animal a composite also? It seems clear to me that you believe that an animal is composed of matter alone, and that what we call “life” or “vital force” in an animal is reducible to nothing more that chemical reactions.

You still haven’t shown why your conception of animals is any different that Descartes’ “animal-machines”.

 

[batteddy]

The physiological unity and regulative power of the organism as a whole necessitate the admission of an internal, formal, constituent principle as the source of vital activity. The living being – protozoon or vertebrate, notwithstanding its differentiation of material parts and manifoldness of structure, is truly one. It exercises immanent activity. Its organs for digestion, secretion, respiration, sensation, etc., are organs of one being. They function not for their own sakes but for the service of the whole. The well-being or ill-being of each part is bound up in intimate sympathy with every other. Amid wide variations of surroundings the livine organism exhibits remarkable skill in selecting suitable nutriment; it regulates its temperature and the rate of combustion uniformly within very narrow limits, it similarly controls respiration and circulation – the composition of the blood is also kept unchanged with remarkable exactness throughout the species. In fact, life selects, absorbs, distributes, stores various materials of its environment for the good of the whole organism, and rejects waste products, spending its energy with wonderful wisdom. This would not be possible were the living being merely an aggregate of atoms or particles of matter in local contact. Each wheel of a watch or engine – nay each part of a wheel – is a being quite distinct from, and in its existence intrinsically independent of every other. No spoke or rivet sickens or thrives in sympathy with a bar in another part of the machine, nor does it contribute out of its actual or potential substance to make good the disintegration of other parts.** The combination is artificial; the union accidental, not natural. All the actions between the parts are transient, not immanent. The phenomena of life thus establish the reality of a unifying and regulating principle, energy, or force, intimately present to every portion of the living creature, making its manifold parts one substantial nature** and regulating its activities.

Now, modern science may show us that purely material reactions can account for the regulation of body temperature, metabolism, etc…but a form is still needed to unite the animal into a unified organic whole, instead of just a cooperation of parts.

 

[batteddy]

Also, there is a difference between body, soul, and spirits. Angels are spirits, animals are body and soul…but only humans have spiritual soul that contains the vegitative and animal sensitive faculties virtually while still being rational.

From the Catechism:

367 Sometimes the soul is distinguished from the spirit: St. Paul for instance prays that God may sanctify his people “wholly”, with “spirit and soul and body” kept sound and blameless at the Lord’s coming.[236] The Church teaches that this distinction does not introduce a duality into the soul.

 

[batteddy]

Also, just because the animals have a “form” does not mean they are not pure “matter” in the modern sense of the word. Because scholastically speaking, all material substances have Prime Matter and Substantial Form, potentiality and a limiting actualization…Animal forms emanate naturally from the matter, as accidental changes causes the substance to evolve:

 

[batteddy]

the rational soul, which is one with the sensitive and vegetative principle, is the form of the body. This was defined as of faith by the Council of Vienne of 1311;

the soul is a substance, but an incomplete substance, i. e. it has a natural aptitude and exigency for existence in the body, in conjunction with which it makes up the substantial unity of human nature;

though connaturally related to the body, it is itself absolutely simple, i.e. of an unextended and spiritual nature. It is not wholly immersed in matter, its higher operations being intrinsically independent of the organism;

the rational soul is produced by special creation at the moment when the organism is sufficiently developed to receive it. In the first stage of embryonic development, the vital principle has merely vegetative powers; then a sensitive soul comes into being, educed from the evolving potencies of the organism – later yet, this is replaced by the perfect rational soul, which is essentially immaterial and so postulates a special creative act. Many modern theologians have abandoned this last point of St. Thomas’s teaching, and maintain that a fully rational soul is infused into the embryo at the first moment of its existence.

As you can see, only the rational spiritual soul was concieved as needing a special creative act of God. Animal and vegetable souls are concieved of as being “educed from the evolving potencies of the organism” by purely natural generation and material means.

This may not apply to humans anymore, who we believe recieve their soul all at once (instead of first developing a vegetable, and then animal, and then being given a rational soul)…but it still applies to animals and plants. They merely “develop” their soul as the matter evolves…they do not need it to be given to them because it is not spiritual or conscious any more than a computer.

 

[Matt16_18]

batteddy:

Now, modern science may show us that purely material reactions can account for the regulation of body temperature, metabolism, etc…but a form is still needed to unite the animal into a unified organic whole, instead of just a cooperation of parts.

You still haven’t answered my question. Is the form of the animal a composite of the spiritual and the material? What is the “vital principle” that gives life to an animal - is it something spiritual or something material?

I don’t have time right now to give a response to your reply that it deserves. But I for the sake of those that are following this thread, I will give the links to the references that you quoted so that they can read your quotes in their context.

Your quote in post # 76 came from the article Life, from the The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume IX, Copyright © 1910 by Robert Appleton Company.

The first and last paragraphs of this article say this: Life

(Greek zoe; Latin vita; French La vie, German Das Leben; vital principle; Greek psyche; Latin anima, vis vitalis, German leberzskraft).

The enigma of life is still one of the two or three most difficult problems that face both scientist and philosopher, and notwithstanding the progress of knowledge during the past twenty-three hundred years we do not seem to have advanced appreciably beyond the position of Aristotle in regard to the main issue. What are its characteristic manifestations? What are its chief forms? What is the inner nature of the source of vital activity? How has life arisen? Such are among the chief questions which present themselves with regard to this subject.

… Having thus expounded what we believe to be the teaching of the best science and philosophy respecting the nature and immediate origin of life, it seems to us most important to bear constantly in mind that the Catholic Church is committed to extremely little in the way of positive definite teaching on the subject. …