St. Thomas Aquinas' Theories of the Soul- Still Valid?

[mschrank]

Hi Mansizedtarget,

I know I created this post to get some answers, but I have to make a couple of comments on what you wrote. Firstly, you are very right- none of the thinkers you mentioned were stupid. This is a big problem I run into as I try to educate myself, on any given topic the biggest names who you’d generally run to for an explanation are the “true believers” who think anyone who disagrees with them is stupid. This attitude is just not helpful, as vitriol generally turns me off. For example, I find talkorgins.org very informative on Neo-Darwinian evolution but sometimes I just can’t take the attitude.

I think the ‘non-metaphysical metaphysic’ of science (I think what Hastrman referred to as Lucretian Atomism, although B16 believes science is in fact a kind of Platonism) is certainly more useful when it comes to explaning the natural world. I think the reason for this is because it deals with what we can manipulate and have power over. We can simply forget metaphysics, or can we?

If you take it too far, you do get some problems. Firstly, it doesn’t apply to humans as humans. Human beings simply do better running under the Aristotelian metaphysical system, as you said it’s ‘natural’ feeling. All the psychologies, psychotropic drugs and Mazlowian ‘self esteem sessions’ that try to make up for the lack of a meaningful metaphysic just fail. Secondly, from what we know about the brain, the idea of the mind = brain is not all that reliable. Of course this is an argument from the gaps, sure some day ‘science’ might explain everything, but it hasn’t yet and things just get more complicated as we go down the rabbit hole. Not to say we’ve gone anywhere near reconciling St. Thomas with neuroscience (the original question), but I think we’ve gone equally far away from the 19th century mechanism that the non-metaphysical metaphysic depends on.

It seems like the NMM (non metaphysical metaphysic ) works in the same way Newtonian science works, it works when it works, it’s about being practical. However when you think bigger than manipulating matter, like philosophy, or when you get into the quantum small spaces it just breaks down.

Metaphysics and philosophy is about knowing why, science is about knowing what. I am only half educated (a bit more than Kirk’s ‘quarter educated’…) so I’m always looking to learn.

 

[Mansizedtarget]

All good points in the last post. I don’t think the metaphysical foundations of modern science are adequate. It’s engaged in useful activity and “works” in a very real sense. This working is itself suggestive that something is right about its metaphysics. In other words, there is no “final cause” for a seed to be a tree or a rock to roll down a hill; these things just do what they do. They don’t have broader purposes or causation than simply regularly reaching certain results. Thinking about potentiality, telos, etc. seems largely unnecessary for the natural, determined world of plants and animals.

I also agree with you that our subjective experience of human life has this character of reflection, apparent freedom, etc. We can’t help but approach it this way, looking for purpose, because we uniquely (and according to Chomsky unprecedentedly) have speech and the capacity for reflection. This is a good speech by Tom Wolfe on the subject. In other words, the very nature of our human existence is reflection about telos; we don’t live on the basis of rude instinct.

Even if science somehow determined we did not have free will–though I think it lacks the tools to do so–we would have to pretend we did because we can’t behave in any other way. (C.S. Lewis is pretty good on this subject too in the Abolition of Man.)

But I do think the border of mind and brain needs to be worked out better, that we can’t pretend this telelogical account of the natural world is really that sensible or non-arbitrary, and we can’t forget that last 1,500 years of philosophy and, more important, the content and persuasiveness of their criticisms of the world of classical philosophy.

I do think part of the way out, though, is how the conscious activity of the person in prayer can have a positive impact on the brain. In other words, if the brain is somehow affecting the soul, God and the will can affect the brain. Consider the case of the schizophrenic artist William Kurelek. I was impressed to learn that his schizophrenia, the paradigmatic mental illness, found significant relief primarily through prayer and his Catholic faith. Now materialists will dismiss this as “the placebo effect,” but since their own claim-to-fame is based on the practical effectiveness of their metaphysics-denying science, then surely practical success has to be worth the same something in the ledger of religion.

 

[mschrank]

I agree with most of what you said (now I sound like a presidential candidate ) but one question about the one statement:

This working is itself suggestive that something is right about its metaphysics.

It could be, if you’re a Deweyian (sp?) Pragmatist, but the thing is, I don’t think final causes are really being studied within science at all, right- doesn’t it just focus on efficient causes? The question of final cause, is a religious one unless I am mistaken. For example, the final cause of man from a Catholic point of view is to make the incarnation possible and to create a body capable of (somehow) producing a soul.

Is there any way in theory that we could deduce a final cause from a efficient cause? Of course, some people might say, “darn the question, I don’t care, I just want what works”- I guess Bacon and Dewey would agree with that. However I don’t see how you can coherently deduce final cause from what is known about efficient cause.

 

[Steve40]

Modern neuroscience is brilliant and very important; modern science is the best way we have to know the Cave. But that’s all it’s good for; you need metaphysics to know, for instance, that there is any matter to do science about, and that it’s knowable.

Incidentally, mansizedtarget, how do you know your empirical tests really test? You don’t, of course; because first you have to have metaphysical ideas about causation. And your denial of essences is merely the error of the Theravada sect, oversimplifying Anatmaism and thinking one can deny natures/essences/forms while still believing in matter. As the Vajrayana sect proved, it is illogical to say that forms don’t exist but matter does–in order to exist matter must have a form. Your alternatives are Thomist/Aristotelian Mitigated Realism, or Acosmic Monism; anything in between is muddleheaded sophistry.

Anyway, steve40, Descartes was not saying that his thought was the cause of his existence; not even he was that dim. He was saying that, since he seemed to be experiencing things, and thinking, he must exist to be doing it.

Which, mansizedtarget, your spin on Anatmaism vis-a-vis neuroscience, would deny.

And hang on a dang minute, you accused Aristotelianism of Cartesian dualism while defending Descartes’s metaphysics! The position you were so quaintly mocking, that the mind is wholly separate from the brain, is entirely foreign to Aristotle–but it is the position of your precious Descartes. As well attack Camus as a racist, on the basis of Heidegger!

Holy mackerel, what did you do at school?

I admittedly didn’t do enough at school, but some do too much and end up worshiping creation (science and knowlege) instead of the Creator. I have developed a distain for the intellectually accomplished because of this. Living in an age where Doctors rip children out of the womb while philosopher defend it, causes one to disregard both the Doctor and the philosopher.

We worship intelect to the point that when a person is labeled a “vegitable” and can’t think to our liking, they are no longer a “person”. If that is intelect, then to Hell with it where it belongs. Intellect has very little to do with existence or personhood. If DeCarte was saying it does then I still say he is an idiot.

 

[Neithan]

But I do think the border of mind and brain needs to be worked out better,

Did you read Ghosty’s post? Aquinas declared the ‘border’ at the pure intellect, which itself is not material. Mental phenomena result from the interaction between intellect - the mind - and the brain. This theory is still valid - perhaps even strengthened - by the findings of modern neuroscience.

Arguments for the incorruptibility and subsistence of the intellect were advanced by St. Thomas in his Summa. These arguments appeal to our rational experience i.e. our ability to know things as distinct from ourselves, including our brain and body.
Simply: how can the mind *be *the brain when the mind *knows *the brain?

How can such simple metaphysical arguments dealing with the underlying principles of science ever be invalidated by scientific investigation?

On a related tangent, C.S. Lewis demonstrates in the third chapter of his book Miracles that our intellect operates by a sequence of *Ground *and Consequent whereas matter operates by sequence of *Cause *and Effect. This is a strong indication that intellect and matter are not the same.

 

[PioYapJr]

MAKING SENSE OF THE CONCEPT OF THE HUMAN SOUL
A Lay Person’s Speculation
by
Pio G. Yap, Jr.

Although I profess to believe in the existence of our soul, not being a theologian or a phi-losopher, I am not sure that I understand what it is at all. The dictionary tells us that it is the spi-ritual part of the person. But what is spirit? Why is it immortal? Or is it?

Theologians tell us a thousand times that the human soul includes his intellect and will. Not being a theologian or a philosopher I find it difficult to appreciate and much less to be ex-cited by this explanation. I tried to read this thread assiduously and repeatedly but my lack of training or intellectual tools keeps me frustrated. 

Being exposed to science and some computer concepts this is my humble attempt to make sense of this ancient notion in the light of concepts that we are now familiar with. I have tried to present this to some people but nobody would make any comment about it. I even contributed this to a thread in Catholic Answers which heatedly discussed about the existence or non-existence of soul. All it did (I think) was cut short the said thread. 
      
I happen to stumble upon this thread which impresses me with the quality of its discus-sion (although quite above my head) so I decided that the discussants may be the right kind of people to validate or invalidate my idea. I hope that this will still get through even though the thread seems to be abandoned (but not closed) since last year.

Some Axioms
It is a fact that most people believe in God. And it is not an exaggeration to say that many thinkers are theists. For sure, thinkers have their own notion about God which may vary with each individual. It is safe to say that many men of science are Christians and therefore we can assume that they hold about the same set of views of the idea of God as most Christians do. Two of these views which are the centerpiece of this thesis are that God exists for all eternity and that God is omniscient or All-Knowing.

It would not be unreasonable therefore to use these tenets as the basic axioms to serve as the starting points of this thesis: That an eternal God exists and that He is omniscient. (This is Biblical. But let us start this thesis in the spirit of science.) 

Before proceeding with our discussion, allow me first to present what can be considered as a self-evident axiom: 
        Each physical object contains the sum total of its own software.

Explanation: Consider a particular pencil. What information does it contain? It has its length, color, the amount and kind of wood it has, the amount and kind of lead in it, where the wood and its other entire component come from, and all the enumerable information contained in it. In other words, it contains all the information of what it is; and it alone has this complete in-formation Hence it contains its own software.

As software, it can be stored in a memory bank. For the complete software of an object as simple as a pencil, it may not be humanly possible to gather all its information and store it in even the most sophisticated memory bank.

But there is a memory bank that is perfect and inherently stores all the software of all that can be found in the universe. This is the memory of an omniscient God.

I state now as a corollary: that a person consists of a set of information. 

Then at the risk of sounding like someone having read and seen too many science fictions, I ask the reader’s indulgence and bear with me and decide later whether or not what follows make sense: The human soul includes all the information that makes a person who he is. In modern language therefore, we can think of the soul as software. 

I find this definition to lead to some significant implications.

The key idea here is that God is omniscient. That is, God knows everything and for-gets nothing. In the language of science we can state that the idea that God is omniscient implies that information is conserved.

It may completely boggle the human imagination that in attributing to God the omniscient nature, we accept the notion that this Supreme Being has perfect knowledge of all the particles in the universe –from the largest to the smallest, for all time. As soon as God loses track of a single electron in the universe, He ceases to be the omniscient God that He is. He also ceases to be om-nipotent in the sense that He loses control of that single electron.

Based on this concept, some of our Christian doctrines about the soul becomes much more plausible and therefore, easier to appreciate.

 

[PioYapJr]

1. The soul is immortal
   In the same manner that we can say that an object contains its own software, so does a human person’s body. This software we identify earlier as the human soul.

The human soul as software includes not just the information on the body (which we may consider as the hardware) but it includes the memory, intellect, emotion, the subconscious, and all the experiences of the person from conception until the very present or until death.

People usually ask, where does a person’s soul reside? Is it in the brain? If our thesis is correct, then it is not just in the brain, but throughout his entire body because it is in the entire body that the information about the whole person is found.

This resonates uncannily with what the Catholic Church teaches about the soul: “The uni-ty of soul and body is so profound that one has to consider the soul to be the ‘form’ of the body.” (The Catechism of the Catholic Church, Sect. 365).

The soul as software resides in a memory bank. This memory bank is no less than God’s memory. This is not to relegate the soul (especially when the body dies) to some far-way inac-cessible vault. For God is present everywhere and at all time. Therefore, to say that the soul as software is in God’s memory bank is to say that the soul exists.

From this, it follows that since God never forgets, then the soul must be immortal. When the body dies, the entire human software or soul remains in God’s memory. As Christians, we believe that even in this state, the soul retains its self-awareness.

1. The doctrine of hell
   This concept answers for us the hard doctrine of the eternal damnation of the unjust. For some people, the idea of hell contradicts the tenet that God is merciful. Admittedly, it is difficult to reconcile this idea with the teaching that God punishes an evil person to eternal suffering. Is it not more merciful to wipe a person’s soul out of existence?

The problem is that the idea of God reducing an existent soul to non-existence is not con-sistent with the more basic tenet that God is All-knowing. God cannot eliminate a single bit of information from His memory. To do so would be contrary to His nature as all knowing. It fol-lows therefore that the soul of a person, no matter how evil, must remain forever intact in the Di-vine memory bank. That state may be what we call hell. Hell therefore is the inherent everlasting existence of a human soul who, by choice, remains incorrigibly evil. More reasonably, theologians tell us that hell is the state of being alienated from God. To say that God may annihilate such a damned soul is equivalent to saying that God may delete such software from His memory. This is to indulge in an illogical proposition. It is also unbiblical.

1. The resurrection of the body
   As software, the soul includes the information of a person’s memories, emotions and his-tory. But more than this, the soul includes the information of the complete design of the person’s body as encoded in its DNA.
   
   All these are not only stored but are also completely understood by the all-knowing Crea-tor. It would be quaint therefore, for a person to exist for all eternity as a soul only, all the time carrying within, all the information pertaining to his/her body. He or she would only be half the creature he was created to be. It is reasonable to believe therefore, that the Master Engineer will rebuild our body on the basis of the complete blueprint that our soul provides. This time, the er-rors in the blue print, which are the causes of imperfections of some people’s bodies here on earth, will be corrected. (Even human engineers correct errors and bugs as they find them in the process of constructing any gadget.)
   
   Where would God get the material to rebuild a person’s body during the Last Judgement? This question is easily answered by considering that, given its blueprint, even a human engineer can easily build up a computer or any gadget for that matter. We must remember that the universe is an overwhelming source of matter –the stuff our bodies are made of.
   
   What is difficult to answer is: given that our resurrected bodies are made up of matter, how would it be prevented from deteriorating again? Would the Law of Entropy be abolished by the Creator? In other word, why would it be immortal? How would it be prevented from perish-ing in an accidental catastrophe? How could it survive the violent end of the solar system as pro-jected by scientists?
   
   Let us consider the data of our human existence as present science reveals to us. We are told that we are using only a small percentage of our human capacity as we live our earthly lives. And this is true even of the most intelligent and active of human beings on earth. We see a glimpse of this potential when we consider our subconscious mind where all our experiences (e.g. what we see, feel, hear, taste and smell, including what we emotionally feel) are buried. We also see a glimpse of our capability when we consider some well-documented paranormal phenomena. The well known case of Padre Pio’s prodigies is one of these. Think of our power to ‘see’ when we are able to exercise our intuition. Even some autistic people are able to demonstrate wondrous ability to make arithmetical computations or memorization. While we consider these as aberration, are they not indications of our mind’s hidden capability?
   
   It is reasonable to expect that a person’s resurrected body would completely be able to access these buried talents. Otherwise, why would God put them there?
   
   Even in the physical sphere, given the earth being populated by god-like resurrected people, it is not difficult to imagine the capability of surviving any catastrophe that may happen to the planet a billion years hence.

 

[PioYapJr]

1. The existence of the human soul upon conception
   Even as a single celled organism right after fertilization, geneticists tell us that the ferti-lized egg includes its complete DNA as its main component. We know, of course, that the DNA is not just a meaningless piece of particle. Its genetic code is a software (a marvelously pro-grammed software at that) that embodies encyclopedic information and instruction on how a per-son from that single cell would grow up to be. A trained geneticist would be able to tell of some of the physical and mental make up of the individual that will emerge from that cell. God would be able to tell far more than the greatest geneticist about the nature and potential of a fertilized egg. Perhaps this is one sense in which it can be said that the human soul is infused on it upon fertilization.
   
   The significance of that fertilized egg may be illustrated as follows:
   
   Suppose that a researcher discovers an unpublished musical composition of Beethoven.
   He announces his discovery to the world, showing proof beyond reasonable doubt of its authen-ticity. Later on he announces that he did not think much about his discovery and he is going to burn it. How would the people of the world react? We can just imagine the exasperation, anger and other violent emotions that will greet such a patently foolish decision.
   
   It is not an exaggeration to say that the harmony, ingenuity and complexity of the soft-ware encoded in a fertilized egg’s DNA is far greater than the greatest masterpiece of any genius. Furthermore, it is unique. Yet many intelligent and educated people don’t think much about it. Some would consider it as a mere blob of tissue even when already a few weeks old. They be-lieve that destroying it is not a big deal.
   
   The question is, once a fertilized egg is aborted, would it ever acquire consciousness?
   
   This may be answered by the following hypothetical situation: A highly intelligent and scientific person has gotten hold of complex blueprint for a unique Artificial Intelligence device. His analytical mind convinces him that, when realized, the device would be far more superior to anything that has been done by the state-of-the-art technology. And it is within his capability to build the device. The question is, will he build it? The answer is of course obvious.
   
   This is not a proof that God will really do it. That is, develop a fertilized egg into a con-scious being. But it gives added plausibility that God will do it. Being perfect, He would not do things by half measure or by 0.001% measure. Everything that God has started will somehow be completed.
2. Spirit as software
   Going back to the beginning of this article we asked: What is spirit? What is soul?
   
   Soul applies to man and maybe, all living things. It includes the information about its ma-terial part –the body. On the other hand it is not difficult to imagine beings that are made up purely of software. This is how we can imagine angels. Angels therefore are pure spirit. When a person is alive, his soul is intimately mingled with his body. When he dies, his soul becomes pure spirit.
   
   The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that the human soul is infused by God right at the moment of conception. Is the process of “infusion” equivalent to saying that the en-tire DNA which makes up a person’s overall potential is now in existence? Or is there more? Not being a theologian or a philosopher I can not answer this question. So I leave this open.
   
   If a man of science believes in the omniscience of God, then this may be a bridge be-tween his science and his religion.
3. Conclusion
   Although I am not a theologian, I dare point out that what I write in this article is an echo of what St. John the Evangelist wrote about God Himself:
   
   In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. …And the Word was made flesh.
   John 1:1-3, 14
   
   Far be it for me to be blasphemous or disrespectful and it is not the intention of this piece to degrade the Evangelist’s magnificent language; but in this passage, St. John seems to suggest that the nature of God Himself is software.
   
   Perhaps this is one sense of the Christian teaching that man is in the image of God.

 

[JDaniel]

It could be, if you’re a Deweyian (sp?) Pragmatist, but the thing is, I don’t think final causes are really being studied within science at all, right- doesn’t it just focus on efficient causes? The question of final cause, is a religious one unless I am mistaken. For example, the final cause of man from a Catholic point of view is to make the incarnation possible and to create a body capable of (somehow) producing a soul.

Is there any way in theory that we could deduce a final cause from a efficient cause? Of course, some people might say, “darn the question, I don’t care, I just want what works”- I guess Bacon and Dewey would agree with that. However I don’t see how you can coherently deduce final cause from what is known about efficient cause.

mschrank;

Could you exlain the last statements a bit? For example, you seem to indicate that “one cannot deduce final cause from efficient cause”. Why?

jd

 

[epizano1]

Hello, just wanted to add my two bits to the neat discussion here…from a more philosophical less scientific perspective.
The will and reason are two powers of the soul.
As for the division of the soul, St. Thomas divides it into a tripartite much like Plato did in the Republic: the vegetative, sensitive, and rational elements. The vegetative is likened to plant life; it gets fed and grows according to material functions only. The sensitive aspect is part-corporeal part non-corporeal, in that it uses a corporeal organ as well as the mind, which constitute the senses. The rational element is non-corporeal- the mind itself does not depend for its existence on any one organ, but rational nature is what differentiates humans from animals. There is a complex discussion in modern philosophy on the relationship between mind and body, which I’m not getting into here, but I think that the basic assumption is correct. The difference between Plato and Aquinas is that Plato calls them by different, more general names: appetitive, spirited, and rational. Where they agree is that there is a rational and irrational element of the soul.
As Catholics, we believe that every person is created in the image of God, we are made of spirit, which is directly created by God, and matter, which we think of as kind of floating around in this universe we call space and time, temporal existence. Both are created, but matter is finite substance. Spirit is infinite substance. The difference is vast, but that doesn’t mean matter is evil. Sometimes the words spirit and soul are used interchangeably.
It must be remembered that the soul is one, only divided according to our concepts, which help us understand its nature. Also, philosophical thinking is different than scientific discovery- it works with principles and demonstrations which make the pursuit of truth itself possible whereas science limits itself to testing observable phenomena. Philosophy is like working backward to check the very assumptions on which science and any other rational enquiry is based.
However this question is asking whether scientific understanding adds to philosophical understanding and I think it does in a certain way. The problematic issue is when you try to reduce metaphysics to “nothing-but” kind of explanations. There’s a lot of materialistic assumptions made in modern science that are uncritically examined and in my opinion erroneous when trying to understand the world. Materialism is the belief that arises from the conviction that we can explain everything mechanistically, and therefore materially. It goes way back to Descartes, who summarized the mind-body problem by trying to explain it away by the pituitary gland (he thought that’s where the mind and body interact). But we’ve made progress in the scientific aspect, why not philosophical aspect? You simply cannot reduce the life of the mind to interactions between neurotransmitters. Put it simply; which has more being, the thoughts or the thing that thinks the thoughts? And why would you explain the thing that thinks the thoughts in terms of the thoughts? It’s irrational. There must be a better explanation than “nothing-but.” That’s where we need the wisdom of the saints, like St. Aquinas. Hope this helps.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Are St. Thomas’ theories of the soul and its relationship to the person and the body still valid in the light of modern neuroscience?

St. Thomas was a great philosopher and you’d be hard pressed to find a contradiction in anything he wrote. Is it possible though that because he was working from a pre-scientific understanding of how the body works, he might have attributed natural processes to the ‘soul’. For example, intellect and will. Are these really properties of the soul, or are they merely the aggregation of hormones and other compounds like dopamine (will) in the brain?

Have you actually read St. Thomas or one of the reliable manuals on Scholastic Metaphysics? How much have you studied the subject? The fact is that Catholic teaching ( see the Catechism of the Catholic Church ) is that man is a composit of body and soul, whose principle attributes are intellect and will and the governing and ordering substantial form of the body. Please read the Catechism!!!

 

[Marc_Anthony]

Are St. Thomas’ theories of the soul and its relationship to the person and the body still valid in the light of modern neuroscience?

St. Thomas’s theories of the soul can’t be invalidated in light of neuroscience.

edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2011/01/against-neurobabble.html

I suggest reading the article in full, Dr. Feser is an excellent philosopher and just as importantly a great writer who’s quite easy to understand.

A quote:

Now, since A-T is committed to a kind of dualism, albeit of the hylemorphic variety – and since, in particular, it holds that intellectual operations have no bodily organ – it might sound surprising that I should say that “neural processes do indeed underlie all of our mental activities.” But that is indeed exactly what the hylemorphic dualist claims. The reason is this. Keep in mind first of all that A-T regards sensation and imagination – those “mental” phenomena we have in common with lower animals, and which are characterized by what contemporary philosophers call “qualia” – as corporeal or bodily in nature, and in that sense entirely material. To be sure, A-T has a different conception of matter than materialists do. For example, A-T does not hold that the only properties of matter are those described by the modern physicist. But the relevant point for present purposes is that A-T does not regard sensation and imagination per se as involving any sort of immaterial organs or properties, anything that survives the death of the body, or anything that distinguishes us from the brutes.

I suggest the whole article. It’s an excellent and coherent read even for a non-philosopher like me. Dr. Feser is a gem.

 

[djeter]

You’re right Dr. Feser is a great read. May I also nominate Dr. Brian Davies here . writing on Aquinas on Being Human

Aquinas maintains that we share in the life of the Trinity as human beings, and to grasp the implications of that notion we must first know what he thinks human beings are. Dr. Davies summarizes his thought in the above essay.

dj

 

[levinas12]

Who is to say anything has an essence or formal cause? How do you prove this? Isn’t this just a taxonomical title for a random observation about something? Who is to say “this quality” is the essence and “this quality” is superfluous.

But what proves if a metaphysical theory is correct or wrong or somewhere in between? How do you test it?

Metaphysics is like geometry. We don’t prove the Pythagorean theorem through a test. No, we “see” its truth through an insight into what is necessary. Similarly in metaphysics. For example, what is necessary for an entity to be a human being? To ask this question, you are already assuming that some qualities are irrelevant, e.g., color, size, etc.

Quite simply, we are looking for the conditions that have to be met in order to “apply” the phrase “human being” to some entity appropriately.

When Aristotle defines a human being as a rational animal, all that he is doing is making explicit what we already know implicitly, what is already assumed in our use of words.

Again, this whole operation is similar to what happens in geometry. What is a triangle? Size, color, etc are irrelevant. But there are necessary specifications that a plane figure must meet in order to be a triangle.

 

[Ben_Quincy]

Thread is over a year old. Closed.

Feel free to begin a new thread.