What exactly is the soul?

[inocente]

Post 570 cont.

My, you wrote a lot.

Oh, I see. Now science is going to interpret Revelation? I don’t think science can judge what " life force " means, can it show me " live force, " can it put it under a microscope, can it weigh it? Philosophy and interpreting Revelation are beyond the perview of science in my humble opininon.

Yikes. All I said is we know life force is really metabolism. Sorry, I didn’t realize you’re such a big fan of vitalism and New Age.

No, each living creature is a single being composed of matter and form. And in living creatures the form is a living soul.

I was responding to you saying you assume “that God creates these immaterial souls at conception just as he does for the soul of man.” (post #549), which forces God to create the soul of every bacterium at its conception.

How is it more complicated than what your science proposes?

Because good explanations, which help overcome illnesses and disorders, are only as complicated as the phenomena they explain. Whereas non-material substance, etc. explains nothing and so helps no one, which it still manages to do in a cloud of obfuscation.

I would say he creates even the souls of non-intelligent, living beings the same way he creates the human soul. But that is just my opinion.

If every man and his dog can imagine that bacteria can function without God having to rush around adding souls, then why that simple idea never occurred to Almighty God, Ruler of Heaven and Earth, is a real poser. Still, now I’ve heard it all!

*No more than you do to explain how living creatures can live without a soul.

So the bottom line is that you do not believe that man and other living creatures have a soul that is distinct from their bodies but are united to form a single being? So in your opinion man does not have a spiritual soul.

Have you looked at what the early Fathers of the Church had to say? Or do you think that everything taught about the Faith prior to the English Baptist Assembly of 1689 is invalid and that now God has empowered us with special graces and gifts to interpret Revelation as we see fit? *

Wot? 1689? I think you and I are repeating ourselves now, so unless you have any burning issue, you have the last word.

 

[inocente]

I think an encounter, in which one considers another and what they are saying as being merely the mind-from-the-wet-stuff-between-our-ears, helps if one is a neurologist, neurosurgeon, psychiatrist or anyone who is assisting someone with a mental or neurological disorder. If one treats a healthy spouse, a neighbour, the kids, grandkids, or a traffic cop in this fashion, the reaction may not be to one’s liking. Better treat them like persons and try to understand their feelings and point of view.

Sure, when the neuroscientist goes home, she cuddles her baby son. It would be a false dilemma for the substance dualist to argue that she must either see her son as immaterial substance + body, or else as no more than a machine.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Interesting insight thanks.

What say you Linus - if believed, your mind is capable of holding an abstract concept of triangularity without any sensible exemplar of a particular triangle to hang it on…for you believe not in phantasms?

In which case you would be a thinker not a knower .

In my view the senses receive data from the external world which is transferred to the sense centers of the brain. The intellectual soul " sees " this and collates this data and translates it into an image or phantasm and stores it in memeory. At this point what we have is an " image " of a singular particular external thing. At this point the agent intellect takes over and abstracts universal ideas and concepts and presents them to the possible iontellect for judgment. The possible intellect says yes this is a tree you see or no. The possible intellect knows, I guess the agent intellect thinks.

Linus2nd

 

[Linusthe2nd]

That statement is so generic as to be meaningless I think Linus.
Yes, God could be just as unhelpfully said to make the bodies of every new born baby.

But between the first cause and the last effect is much more that can be said about human apprehension and intermediating powers and organs.

Linus2nd

 

[Linusthe2nd]

But you make things hot by the way you treat them.

Yikes. All I said is we know life force is really metabolism. Sorry, I didn’t realize you’re such a big fan of vitalism and New Age.

 

[Richca]

Correct, except I say that it is the soul that " reads " the data the senses receive, collates them and produces an image or phantasm and saves them in memory.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Yes, I understand that you have your own opinion on this matter. But, I will try to explain why what you say here is partly right and partly wrong according to the doctrine of A/T. Take, for example, our eyes which are a corporeal organ of the body and through which we receive sensible images of external things. Our soul’s power of sight is the act of this material organ of the body, for matter is potentiality while form is act. Anyhow, it is obvious that we need our corporeal eyes to receive the sensible images of external things and we can store these sensible images in the imagination and recall them from the sensible memory. Now, is it not sensible that since we received the sensible images of external things through a corporeal organ of the body, namely the eyes, that they are stored and recalled through a corporeal organ of the body through the action of the soul’s interior sensitive powers? The soul’s interior sensitive powers such as the imagination and memory which are the acts of some corporeal organs of the body are like our interior corporeal eyes. And just as we received the sensible images in the imagination through our external corporeal eyes so are they stored and recalled through some corporeal organ or organs of the body (the brain is obviously a good candidate here) which are as it were the interior corporeal eyes. This is the doctrine of A/T and it makes sense to me.

 

[Richca]

I just don’t buy the part where the brain produces images, sounds, smells, tastes, textures. Yes, it makes the data present. It is just as reasonable to suppose that it is the mind that translates these into " images " or phantasms and stores them in its own memory.

Linus2nd

Well, according to A/T, brute animals can store sensible images in the imagination and recall them from sensible memory. But the brute animals do not have intellect. So, in their view, an intellect is not necessary for such operations.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Well, according to A/T, brute animals can store sensible images in the imagination and recall them from sensible memory. But the brute animals do not have intellect. So, in their view, an intellect is not necessary for such operations.

I haven’t read their discussion on animal psychology. However, being that man has an intellect, there is no reason why it cannot take over the duties of the vegetative and sensitive souls.

Linus2nd

 

[JuanFlorencio]

But they can’t, since they’ve already said that the main (well, let’s be accurate) the only property of ISS is that ISS is inexplicable.

Well, I cannot speak for others, but to explain something, as I said before, is to reduce it to something which is considered more basic. If I say that certain actions of ours are inexplicable in terms of material elements, it will mean that I cannot do the reduction responsibly. And, as I cannot do the reduction, I require more than one principle.

If you accept only one principle, you will not be able to “explain” it, because being it a principle already, you could not reduce it to something more basic. If you accept more than one principle (let’s say two), you will obviously need to accept from the beginning that any of them cannot be reduced to the other.

Try instead:

1. Therefore, if oxygen’s properties are explicable, they must rely on the specific organization of the components.
2. This has been found to be the case.

Where I’ve said organization, I guess Aristotle would say form. You’ve tried to ignore form, and reached a false conclusion as a result.

You’ll now see that’s in error as you forgot about organization/form.

As I thought you were a materialist (and I still have some doubts, Inocente: Are you not? What is God for you; or what is matter?), I did not consider form as an element in a possible argument of yours; because form is not matter; organization is not matter. That is why I “forgot” it.

Now, what do you mean when you say that oxygen’s properties are explicable in terms of it’s organization? Let me select an example which might be simple to you: Oxygen is gaseous at Normal conditions of pressure and temperature. So, in terms of oxygen’s organization, how do you explain it?

Same as learning anything else, I guess. Thought patterns (routes through the brain) are strengthened by repetition. At a low level, we can go back to that UT Houston course: neuroscience.uth.tmc.edu/s4/chapter07.html

Let’s suppose you are right: thought patterns are routes through the brain. Logic also would be a set of routes through the brain. And you have said that we learn it, like anything else. So, logic would be a set of routes through the brain which are formed due to certain stimuli and strengthened by repetition of the same stimuli. It would seem that those stimuli must be universally present so that, independently of our unique personal histories, we all have the same routes established. Or perhaps you might say that we don’t need to have identical brain routes, but that different routes produce the same “thought patterns”. Is this how you think? I would like to know, before I continue.

Please see the third section of post #567.

Mmmmh…

 

[Blue_Horizon]

In my view the senses receive data from the external world which is transferred to the sense centers of the brain. The intellectual soul " sees " this and collates this data and translates it into an image or phantasm and stores it in memeory. At this point what we have is an " image " of a singular particular external thing. At this point the agent intellect takes over and abstracts universal ideas and concepts and presents them to the possible iontellect for judgment. The possible intellect says yes this is a tree you see or no. The possible intellect knows, I guess the agent intellect thinks.

Linus2nd

(a) If this highly micro-managing soul is allegedly in every part of the body - why a central nervous system for ducting sense info to the brain? Double redundancy like in aeroplanes?
(b) If the sensible impressions from the body are passed unchanged to the brain - why are the “sense centres” so complicated. Why does the mind need them if the mind weaves all these rather simple sense impressions (which easily pass up the neck in the sense nerve fibres) into its own “image”.

This seems fairly clear evidence that corporeal organs are indeed doing a lot of work on the sensible impressions before the mind even accesses the data.

It looks to me like the brain is forming the “image” of sensible particular external things.
Of course this representation its going to be something of a different order from multiple sense impressions…ah yes, its called a phantasm.

(c) Why cannot a phantasm represent sensible reality in a sensible, malleable interior organ by an accidental change of that organ - ready for the light of the active intellect to shine upon it?

Yes, that would mean that the phantasm was “value added”, not just raw “data” but “information” as IT theory would say. A form of abstraction perhaps (OK call it cogitation or even aestimation, it need not be universalising).

 

[Blue_Horizon]

inocente;13085959:

I’m just giving an opinion. If they have a soul as Aquinas says, how do they get it without God giving it to them? The suggestion that their souls come from matter just doesn’t seem possible since souls are immaterial. All Genesis says is that God commanded the earth to bring forth all manner of living things, which he said were good.

End of my " burning " issues.

Linus2nd

Soul in Aristotle is much broader than Christians make it.
Aristotle believed in some forms of “inanimate” matter having a soul - though he did not care to write much on such things because he explicitly only chose to investigate things with perishable souls

Strangely he assigned immortality only to these mineral souls (the celestial bodies) … it is not clear why, probably because they were only composed of the fifth material element (aether).

These souls were not necessarily “personal beings” - he would see them more like “intelligent” impersonal calculators or clocks I suspect.

Linus also interesting, wrt your difficulties over the meaning of material and immaterial and spiritual, is that some commentators see Aristotle speaking of two types of aether.

There is sensible aethar (the celestial bodies) and insensible aether (what fills the celestial spheres and also makes its invisible crystalline surface). This explains the circular motion, the natural habit, of the visible celestial bodies…they float in an insensible “liquid” aether like a bubble in a spirit level…rolling under the outer edge of the invisible, insensible “crystal” shell.

Which raises a question for you…is insensible aether material or immaterial?
It would have to be immaterial …yet still not “spiritual” (like the First Cause).
So immaterial and spiritual may not be the sane at all…

What about the way in which the four forces (magnetism, charge, gravity etc) cause effects over an empty distance?
What about the higgs field?

On what basis would you say the “animal soul” (let alone the human soul) is of a different “immaterial” order. Or are they?

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Richca;13086627:

I just don’t buy the part where the brain produces images, sounds, smells, tastes, textures. Yes, it makes the data present. It is just as reasonable to suppose that it is the mind that translates these into " images " or phantasms and stores them in its own memory.

Linus2nd

I disagree.
To transfer “explanation” to an occult, opaque and essentially unobservable, insensible substantial cause is a last resort to preserve the law of causality when there is absolutely no evidence of a material causal mechanism.

This is why Aristotle and Aquinas both erroneously attributed the efficient causal locomotion of the celestial bodies, ultimately, to an insensible principle (soul, intelligence, angel, God take your choice). They were wrong, the efficient cause was indeed material - other material celestial bodies.

Sure, in past times it seemed to be a good explanation because people were already superstitious and religious.

However I believe the link was a confusion of different orders of “immaterial” reality.

Which is exactly what you are doing here Linus.

There is every evidence, by reason of the extremely complex makeup of the brain, that matter is indeed “processing” raw sense impressions much more than you give matter credit for.

Therfore there is no convincing reason for your celerity in jumping to occult “spiritual causes”…which seem really over micro-managing of every effect in the body beyond sensible impressions.

There is a sense in which matter can simulate “spiritual causality” but is in fact is mundane “immaterial” material causality - such is the “immateriality” of gravity which the ancients never recognised. I do not say there is some such force in the brain. But “representations” or symbols serve can serve this purpose - mathematical algorithms, boolean logic, comparisions etc are in a sense “immaterial” yet can be symbolised in matter and so process raw data. Even Aquinas says similar and calls this “cogitation”.

I do not deny the possibility of substantial spiritual causality but lets not confuse it with the legitimate “immaterial” potentialities inherent in matter whose operation we often do not see or understand at first pass.

 

[inocente]

Well, I cannot speak for others, but to explain something, as I said before, is to reduce it to something which is considered more basic. If I say that certain actions of ours are inexplicable in terms of material elements, it will mean that I cannot do the reduction responsibly. And, as I cannot do the reduction, I require more than one principle.

Saying that you can’t yourself make an analysis doesn’t seem a sufficient reason to make a claim. I mean it’s hard to see daylight between “I don’t know how the mind works so it must be an undetectable immaterial substance” and “I don’t know how the sun works so it must be an invisible undetectable sun god” or “I don’t know how metabolism works so God must breath vital force into every individual organism at conception” D).

If you accept only one principle, you will not be able to “explain” it, because being it a principle already, you could not reduce it to something more basic. If you accept more than one principle (let’s say two), you will obviously need to accept from the beginning that any of them cannot be reduced to the other.

There’s no need to fix that a priori though. The only principle required is that all phenomena are explicable. Then as a working hypothesis, as an informed guess, we assume that phenomena can be explained from the physical world alone. Our guess may one day be proved wrong, but in the mean time it enables progress, unlike the alternatives.

*As I thought you were a materialist (and I still have some doubts, Inocente: Are you not? What is God for you; or what is matter?), I did not consider form as an element in a possible argument of yours; because form is not matter; organization is not matter. That is why I “forgot” it.

Now, what do you mean when you say that oxygen’s properties are explicable in terms of it’s organization? Let me select an example which might be simple to you: Oxygen is gaseous at Normal conditions of pressure and temperature. So, in terms of oxygen’s organization, how do you explain it?*

In the gas phase, molecules have enough kinetic energy to overcome intermolecular forces, enabling them to move independently.

The kinetic energy depends on the mass of the molecules - lighter molecules move faster at a given temperature. That in turn depends on the mass of the atoms and how many atoms bond to form each molecule, which in turn depends on the electromagnetic forces between them and the structure of each atom.

Similarly the intermolecular forces depend on the geometry on the molecules, which in turn depends on how the atoms bond, etc.

PS I think that’s right but am not a chemist.
PPS I can’t help what conclusions certain posters jump to about other posters .

Let’s suppose you are right: thought patterns are routes through the brain. Logic also would be a set of routes through the brain. And you have said that we learn it, like anything else. So, logic would be a set of routes through the brain which are formed due to certain stimuli and strengthened by repetition of the same stimuli. It would seem that those stimuli must be universally present so that, independently of our unique personal histories, we all have the same routes established. Or perhaps you might say that we don’t need to have identical brain routes, but that different routes produce the same “thought patterns”. Is this how you think? I would like to know, before I continue.

I think there are perhaps three things going on. The first is that we are all born with some things pre-programmed, such as responding to our senses and an ability to pick up language. The second is there is some genetic variation, for instance raw intelligence.

The third is that we learn differently. For instance, does 135 / 5 = 27? I might think 135 * 2 = 270, drop the zero, yes. Or does 95 / 5 = 19? I might think 20 * 5 = 100, take off five, yes. Or 100 / 5 = 20, take off five, yes. You might use completely different rules. So even with something as straightforward as basic arithmetic, we don’t come off an Intel production line.

Suppose we have sufficient pre-programming for basic survival and an ability to learn, and then we learn the rest. So some routes are laid down, the rest are made during our lives. If that’s correct, then any part of deductive logic which is pre-programmed would either have to be necessary for basic survival or for an ability to learn. We could guess which parts and test our guess using those cute experiments which see how babies react (this may have already been done, I don’t know). Any elements we don’t find must thereby be learned, and we’d find the same variations as with the arithmetic.

So we are born (more or less) equal but are all individuals. Thinking of Intel: Our jokes are not your jokes - youtube.com/watch?v=M61xXdVlP5o

 

[inocente]

…

…

Just to say that some of your posts don’t show quotes correctly.

Every QUOTE in square brackets needs to be paired with a /QUOTE in square brackets .

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Just to say that some of your posts don’t show quotes correctly.

Every QUOTE in square brackets needs to be paired with a /QUOTE in square brackets .

Yes, we know that and we get most of them right. Unfortunately, sometimes our age gets in the way .

Linus2nd

 

[inocente]

Yes, we know that and we get most of them right. Unfortunately, sometimes our age gets in the way .

You teenagers always excuse everything on your age. I know you’re young and fed up of schooling but when you grow up you’ll be grateful that us adults took the time to steer you right.

 

[Aloysium]

. . . our eyes which are a corporeal organ of the body and through which we receive sensible images of external things. Our soul’s power of sight is the act of this material organ of the body, for **matter is potentiality while form is act. **

 

[inocente]

Linusthe2nd;13089273:

Just being ornery with the quotes.

No problema.

 

[Aloysium]

Aloysium;13089273:

No problema.