What exactly is the soul?

[inocente]

Well, considering that “to learn” seems to mean for you the formation of certain brain structures, I had assumed already (and of course you are not to be blamed for my interpretation) that for you we learn even before we are born; in other words, that our brain develops quite a lot while we are in our mother’s womb.

Second, do you think that genetic variations affect logic in such a way that there are many different logics? I did not understand your observation.

Third, if you are right, to learn differently would effectively mean that different brain structures are formed in different individuals which provide the same outputs given the same (name removed by moderator)uts. You have to acknowledge that there are some individuals who are able to follow many different procedures when faced to a problem. Perhaps you are one of them, who knows. This might mean that they have several different brain structures which process the same (name removed by moderator)uts to provide the same output. Also, they are able to compare those different procedures, which might mean they have at least another brain structure (or many, you must know), which somehow comprehends the others (a kind of structure of structures) so that a given process in any of the basic structures (the resolution of a problem) is at the same time a different process in the superstructure (the evaluation of the basic structure’s performance, for example). We could imagine nests of structures of structures of structures of…, which could allow us to hypothesize that one physical process is in reality many different processes…

Again, is this how you think?

You appear to be thinking in terms of static structures rather than dynamic processes. You may be right, perhaps at some level the map of the mind contains an arrow labelled “you are here”, but thinking is a process, not a structure, and so instead perhaps “you” is an ongoing process. I don’t know, we’ll have to wait a while before researchers get to that level, there doesn’t seem much point speculating.

I don’t understand your “do you think that genetic variations affect logic in such a way that there are many different logics?”. Are you reifying logic? Or do you think the mind contains a logic unit, like in a computer CPU, replete with NAND and XOR gates? Or perhaps that we come with a built-in law of the excluded middle?

Consider that we don’t come pre-wired with a knowledge of Belgium yet Belgium exists, and there aren’t multiple Belgiums just because lots of people know of Belgium. Now substitute “logic” for “Belgium” in that sentence. Do you think that’s different, and if so why?

 

[ynotzap]

Richca;13089903:

Yes, this is what I was saying above.

Prob not, but the point is the scholastics, ancients and even Descartes all thought matter was continuous (though with variable densities and visibility) and a material-less vacuum was impossible. Hence change in locomotion is always by “pushing” matter against matter. So if there is no material pusher it must be a spiritual being effecting matter directly.
Modern physics just takes it as a given that “lines of force” “exist” across empty space … but it certainly isn’t matter as we know it Jim. We know how it effects matter, we know what sort of matter will source this force… but what the force “is” nobody knows or understands. It certainly isn’t to be identified with the form of the material that sources it. Nor is it sensible matter…though it can be sensed by changes to already existing matter. The Higgs field is even more “form-less” than force.

And then there is Linus who says animals have eternal spiritual souls (does that mean they shouldn’t be called “material” ever) and phantasms are not material but immaterial.

All very confusing, like gay “marriage” really .

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Linusthe2nd;13091274:

Let me get this right - in the face of gravity you jump immediately to the existence of God as the immediate efficient cause of every apple falling to the ground rather than admit, according to your view, that gravity would have to be some sort of immaterial substance?

You don’t believe in secondary causality then?
Why believe in souls then … its just God or a common active intellect .

Do you really believe such throw away responses are a mature way of doing apologetics or maintaining your credibility in the face of reasonable critiques of your views?

If you want to start a thread on gravity as it relates to the existence of God, go ahead. But I think we have said enough about it already. This thread is about the nature of the soul.

Linus2nd

 

[Linusthe2nd]

You’ve gone off on a tangent Linus.
I am asking you to explain why, from the effects of causal action at a distance without material intermediary, you would think it more reasonable to jump to the existence of a subsisting spiritual being rather than an occult (ie hidden) cause stemming from material agency (eg gravity).

What does “detected” have to do with the difference between material and immaterial?

I’m not going to discuss gravity on this thread anymore.

When I say immaterial I mean something of a spiritual nature - living things, the human soul, angels, God,

Linus2nd …

 

[Linusthe2nd]

And these assertions are justified on what reasoned basis or first principles of philosophy?

Gravity looks like a perfectly clear case of an immaterial potentiality somehow linked to matter by most people .

You’ve confused yourself haven’t you Linus ?
Phantasms, by definition, are material according to Aquinas.
That is why he says they are produced and held in the sensible interior organs (eg the brain).
They are coded, “intelligible” representations of sensible reality.
That doesn’t mean they are “images” as you seem to understand that word.
They could be simply temporary neuronal pathway patterns held in “malleable” brain matter, a form of interior “impression.”
I don’t understand what apriori grounds you have against such.

Don’t worry about it. These are my opinions, if you want to hold a different opinion, that is fine.

Linus2nd

 

[ynotzap]

Blue Horizon;13094555:
Blue Horizon, I’m having trouble sharing with you my experiences of weightlessness, perhaps because they are spiritual experiences and the forum won’t allow. I can assure you angels do have power over gravity, and they can be stopped. I was levitated. I am inclined to think that space is filled with some form of matter,(the thought of space being pure potency, receptive to matter and form has crossed my mind) as I can’t comprehend an area of nothing being surrounded by a perimeter of matter. I can comprehend a vacuum at atmospheric levels, which to me is not the removal of matter but a change in compacting pressure, also found in the depths of the ocean. With the reduction of pressure at atmospheric levels, electrons move about more freely as in radio vacuum tubes. AS for the gravitational forces, the earth is rotating perhaps in a field of cosmic radiation inducing a field of electrical forces causing polarity, and this force field tends to center itself in the middle of the earth holding things in place on the surface of the earth. Of course I see this a secondary forces operating through cause and effect. There is always some kind of movement affecting matter, constant change, potency and act, so I can imagine this movement in gravitational forces, something moving is hold us down to the surface, a material force. Of course the ultimate movement is caused by the unmoved mover. So even if we trace all material forces they will eventually come to God. But this will only be achieved by Thomistic Metaphysics, in agreement with what is true according to Aristotle.

 

[ynotzap]

ynotzap;13095389:

Blue Horizon, I’m having trouble sharing with you my experiences of weightlessness, perhaps because they are spiritual experiences and the forum won’t allow. I can assure you angels do have power over gravity, and they can be stopped. I was levitated. I am inclined to think that space is filled with some form of matter,(the thought of space being pure potency, receptive to matter and form has crossed my mind) as I can’t comprehend an area of nothing being surrounded by a perimeter of matter. I can comprehend a vacuum at atmospheric levels, which to me is not the removal of matter but a change in compacting pressure, also found in the depths of the ocean. With the reduction of pressure at atmospheric levels, electrons move about more freely as in radio vacuum tubes. AS for the gravitational forces, the earth is rotating perhaps in a field of cosmic radiation inducing a field of electrical forces causing polarity, and this force field tends to center itself in the middle of the earth holding things in place on the surface of the earth. Of course I see this a secondary forces operating through cause and effect. There is always some kind of movement affecting matter, constant change, potency and act, so I can imagine this movement in gravitational forces, something moving is hold us down to the surface, a material force. Of course the ultimate movement is caused by the unmoved mover. So even if we trace all material forces they will eventually come to God. But this will only be achieved by Thomistic Metaphysics, in agreement with what is true according to Aristotle.

Force can not be applied to the nature of matter in the first place, because matter can not move itself, but is moved by another, cause and effect. If it could move itself, there would be no need for another to move it. Also matter has potency and act as a condition of its nature. The being of matter is “becoming”- a real capacity to become, to the actual becoming. Only in God is Being actually Being. Also matter can not know itself, the soul of man can, and subsist in itself but needing a cause, for it experiences cause and effect, potency and act, essence and existence, but not matter and form.

 

[JuanFlorencio]

You appear to be thinking in terms of static structures rather than dynamic processes. You may be right, perhaps at some level the map of the mind contains an arrow labelled “you are here”, but thinking is a process, not a structure, and so instead perhaps “you” is an ongoing process. I don’t know, we’ll have to wait a while before researchers get to that level, there doesn’t seem much point speculating.

I don’t understand your “do you think that genetic variations affect logic in such a way that there are many different logics?”. Are you reifying logic? Or do you think the mind contains a logic unit, like in a computer CPU, replete with NAND and XOR gates? Or perhaps that we come with a built-in law of the excluded middle?

Consider that we don’t come pre-wired with a knowledge of Belgium yet Belgium exists, and there aren’t multiple Belgiums just because lots of people know of Belgium. Now substitute “logic” for “Belgium” in that sentence. Do you think that’s different, and if so why?

I am trying to understand you: You said before that “thought patterns (routes through the brain) are strengthened by repetition”. On the other hand, logic is a set of thought patterns; so, from what you have said, logic would be a set of routes through the brain. Now you state that “thinking is a process”. But what kind of process is it? Is it one which is completely different from any other physical processes or can it be reduced to one of them, or to a combination of them? Or should we say that thinking is certain process (you must know which) that takes place specifically in the brain routes and nowhere else?

We can become conscious of some astonishing complexities of our mind; and some scientists have accumulated an important amount of information about the human brain. You said before that mind emerges from the brain. And I understand that the complexity of mind was before your eyes when you wrote this: the mind emerges from the brain. Is this an statement which can be said on the basis of current scientific research results, in your opinion?

 

[JuanFlorencio]

That’s a bit bizarre. I said, and you even quoted me saying “In the gas phase, molecules have enough kinetic energy to overcome intermolecular forces, enabling them to move independently.”

I looked it up and here, for instance is Wikipedia: “In a gas, the molecules have enough kinetic energy so that the effect of intermolecular forces is small (or zero for an ideal gas)…”

Indeed!.. but the kinetic energy of oxygen particles does not depend on their organization; and my question was “in terms of oxygen’s organization, how do you explain that it is a gas at Normal conditions of pressure and temperature?”

I imagine that should one of your family start talking of suicide, you would responsibly get them to a doctor who might responsibly diagnose major depressive disorder and prescribe antidepressants as part of the treatment, which are available because researchers responsibly were more concerned with the survival of people than the survival of beliefs in immaterial substances.

Yes!, I would look for a good doctor immediately. What is God for you? Is Him material or immaterial? Is there any God at all, in your opinion?

You previously said that “to explain something …] is to reduce it to something which is considered more basic”, but immaterial spiritual substance doesn’t do that, it merely replaces “I cannot explain mind” with “Mind is ISS and I cannot explain ISS”.

I just quoted your definition of “explain”, which seems to be the same as your definition of “principle”.

OED: “principle = a fundamental truth or proposition that serves as the foundation for a system of belief or behavior or for a chain of reasoning”.

The proposition that mind can be explained serves as just such a foundation for a chain of reasoning.

OED: “dogmatism = the tendency to lay down principles as undeniably true, without consideration of evidence or the opinions of others”.

Science is making guesses and testing them, whereas belief in ISS is by definition dogmatic since for thousands of years no one ever bothered to test it, no one ever considered any evidence, they simply believed Aristotle unquestioningly.

OED: “explicable = able to be accounted for or understood”. “describe = give an account in words of (someone or something), including all the relevant characteristics, qualities, or events”.

OED: “principle = a fundamental truth or proposition that serves as the foundation for a system of belief or behavior or for a chain of reasoning”.

And these, you say, are things you resort to.

Could we try to have a conversation where I don’t have to spend time posting definitions and explanations which anyone can google? Thanks.

Given the fact that words can have more than one meaning, it becomes important to clarify at certain moments what our interlocutors really mean. Just to minimize misunderstandings, Inocente.

“Many researchers focus on the brain to explain aggression. Numerous circuits within both neocortical and subcortical structures play a central role in controlling aggressive behavior, depending on the species, and the exact role of pathways may vary depending on the type of trigger or intention. …] Hormones are chemicals that circulate in the body to affect cells and the nervous system, including the brain. Testosterone is a steroid hormone from the androgen group, which is most linked to the prenatal and postnatal development of the male gender and physique, which in turn has been linked on average to more physical aggression in many species.” - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aggression

Surely, those researchers also study the responses to aggression; and you must know, for example, that though usually our sensation of sound is produced by vibrations in the air, there can be such sensation without vibrations in the air. Analogously, there can be the feeling that we have been attacked by someone when in fact there was no aggression. I guess I would need to be angry at you to be aggressive towards you, but I am not.

 

[inocente]

As far as aether, forces, gravity, etc are concerned, if they are real and if they can only be deduced, as opposed to measured and detected, then I think we are dealing the application power by some supernatural being. Although, it does seem we can cross off aether.

You are a gravity detector, jump off any chair and you’ll detect gravity just fine. To measure gravity, use a weighing machine. Aether was disproved 130 years ago. God didn’t make an occult world, belief in God does not mandate occultism.

Empty space contains no matter and so is non-material. There is no discernible difference between a non-material mind and empty space.

I can’t account for the views of A & T on Celestial Spheres and " eternal " motions and their " souls " except to say that even they should have seen how far fetched such notions were…

I can’t account for the views of Linus et al on immaterial spiritual substances except to say that even they should have seen how far fetched such notions are.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Blue Horizon;13091854:

If you want to start a thread on gravity as it relates to the existence of God, go ahead. But I think we have said enough about it already. This thread is about the nature of the soul.

Linus2nd

What’s with the “we” Linus?
If you are unable to provide a reasonable answer to a reasonable question wrt your unusual definitions of “material” and “immaterial” … saying it has nothing to do with “soul” doesn’t wash well methinks.

On the contrary Linus, it has everything to do with “soul”…
Even Aquinas spent some time on these things (ie human souls, angelic souls and the make up of aetherial bodies and the cause of their motions) - why not you?

Is the real problem perhaps more to do with your unique understanding of “immateriality” having difficultly locating the place of “gravity”.

I think you need to take these sorts of reasonable question seriously if you want you have any further credibility on your unique soul views here .

 

[Blue_Horizon]

I’m not going to discuss gravity on this thread anymore.

When I say immaterial I mean something of a spiritual nature - living things, the human soul, angels, God,

Linus2nd …

Ah, “immaterial” means “spiritual”. This is meaningless tautology/synonymy isn’t it?
Animals are “living things”, does that mean they are immaterial?

To use the terms “material” and “immaterial” you have to define/separate them in a way your common-man colleagues can understand, surely?

Your use of “detection” to contrast the two is intersting - don’t be shy .

I believe you have the terms confused, which is why you disagree with, of all people, Aquinas on the most basic of philosophic points that virtually no scholastic disagrees on . ie Phantasms.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Don’t worry about it. These are my opinions, if you want to hold a different opinion, that is fine.

Linus2nd

You are very welcome to your opinions Linus.
But surely if you want to keep presenting them here to oppose the reasonably argued positions of other persons … then surely you need to show their consistency when likely internal contradictions are reasonably observed by others?

If you feel you have the right to repeatedly oppose the opinions of other Catholics here that you disagree with, simply on the basis of your own unexplained personal authority, … how is that using reason to explain Faith - let alone apologetics?

 

[inocente]

I am trying to understand you: You said before that “thought patterns (routes through the brain) are strengthened by repetition”. On the other hand, logic is a set of thought patterns; so, from what you have said, logic would be a set of routes through the brain. Now you state that “thinking is a process”. But what kind of process is it? Is it one which is completely different from any other physical processes or can it be reduced to one of them, or to a combination of them? Or should we say that thinking is certain process (you must know which) that takes place specifically in the brain routes and nowhere else?

We can become conscious of some astonishing complexities of our mind; and some scientists have accumulated an important amount of information about the human brain. You said before that mind emerges from the brain. And I understand that the complexity of mind was before your eyes when you wrote this: the mind emerges from the brain. Is this an statement which can be said on the basis of current scientific research results, in your opinion?

The evidence (linked earlier) is that memory is about strengthening links, a memory being the patterns so produced. There is also evidence that the patterns are connected, so that recall brings back to mind all aspects of an event. See this article (which is based on this research paper).

I see no reason to speculate that any new physics is needed to explain mind. The science indicates the brain is immensely complex:

“A typical healthy human brain contains about 200 billion nerve cells, or neurons, linked to one another via hundreds of trillions of tiny contacts called synapses. It is at these synapses that an electrical impulse traveling along one neuron is relayed to another, either enhancing or inhibiting the likelihood that the second nerve will fire an impulse of its own. One neuron may make as many as tens of thousands of synaptic contacts with other neurons” … “One synapse, by itself, is more like a microprocessor – with both memory-storage and information-processing elements – than a mere on/off switch. In fact, one synapse may contain on the order of 1,000 molecular-scale switches. A single human brain has more switches than all the computers and routers and Internet connections on Earth” - sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/11/101117121803.htm

It’s significant that while the immaterial spiritual substance model is as empty as a vacuum, the physical mind model contains so much detail in so many research papers. This, I think, is why belief in the ISS model will now quickly die off, there’s no reason to believe in it and every reason to not to.

 

[JerryZ]

The concepts of Soul and psyche have stomped philosophers, theologians and neophytes since the dawn of time.

People have posited that we experience our surroundings via electrical impulses generating on the senses (eyes, ears, nose, etc) and travel to the brain where they are processed into abstract concepts.
We have recently been able, through the advance of medicine technology, to glean some new empirical evidence of the non correlation of the soul with the material body.

Through the study of so called NDE’s cases .
There was one, particularly striking, the patient a man was brought to the ER and was pronounced dead. ECG and EKG had flatlined, no activity from brain or heart.
After a several minutes the person comes back to life and starts asking for a particular doctor. However he did not know the name, hence proceeded to describe the person in vivid details down to the dress, shoes he was wearing.
The problem? Well the guy was totally blind since birth, had never seen in his entire life.

Now since there was no brain activity and the guy lay stretched on a hospital guernsey with his eyes closed. How on earth was he able to describe the doctor in exquisite detail.

In fact he was so exited, BECAUSE, he was able to see the doctor, imagine his shock, of course when he woke up he continued to remain totally blind.

Now this is not an isolated incident, there have been more than 35 cases of blind persons that have had NDE (Near Death Experience) happen to them who report the same phenomena.
People that suffer from a lack of optical nerve therefore it is impossible for them to be able to perceive images with their physical eyes.
What is the mechanism? Well if the memory is resident in the brain, how are these memories stored IF the brain is dead. No blood circulation, no electrical impulses, NADA!
Somehow when they returned they DID have memories of what had transpired while they were DEAD.

There, more food for thought.

…

 

[inocente]

Indeed!.. but the kinetic energy of oxygen particles does not depend on their organization; and my question was “in terms of oxygen’s organization, how do you explain that it is a gas at Normal conditions of pressure and temperature?”

Yes, and if you go back to post #599, I said “The kinetic energy depends on the mass of the molecules - lighter molecules move faster at a given temperature.”

At a low enough temperature, they wouldn’t move fast enough to overcome intermolecular forces and would stick together, i.e. a liquid. But at room temperature oxygen molecules have sufficiently low mass that the heat energy makes them move fast enough to overcome those forces, enabling them to move around independently, i.e. a gas.

And why do the molecules have that all-important low mass? As I said “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.” Etc.

Not sure why you find any of this controversial.

Yes!, I would look for a good doctor immediately.

Then I think you prove my point - when it counts, when a loved one’s life is at stake from a mental disorder, everyone, absolutely everyone, will drop belief in ISS in a heartbeat. Belief in immaterial spiritual substance is incompatible with the real world, it’s a luxury which can only be entertained in ivory towers and internet forums.

What is God for you? Is Him material or immaterial? Is there any God at all, in your opinion?

There’s God and there’s his creation. And, unless you’re a pantheist, you are not God, nor is God the same as his creation. And God made only one creation, not two as the substance dualist would like. And God is not a thing made of substance. And anyway God is light, and would not create something occult such as ISS.

That should be enough to be going on with.

Surely, those researchers also study the responses to aggression; and you must know, for example, that though usually our sensation of sound is produced by vibrations in the air, there can be such sensation without vibrations in the air. Analogously, there can be the feeling that we have been attacked by someone when in fact there was no aggression. I guess I would need to be angry at you to be aggressive towards you, but I am not.

Sounds as if you agree that aggression is yet another thing explained by structures within the brain. Perhaps all emotions have already been explained in a similar way. Memory, mental disorders, also explained physically. Every year, fewer and fewer places for ISS to hide, fewer and fewer things for ISS to do. The writing is on the wall: Here lies belief in ISS. RIP.

 

[JuanFlorencio]

Yes, and if you go back to post #599, I said “The kinetic energy depends on the mass of the molecules - lighter molecules move faster at a given temperature.”

At a low enough temperature, they wouldn’t move fast enough to overcome intermolecular forces and would stick together, i.e. a liquid. But at room temperature oxygen molecules have sufficiently low mass that the heat energy makes them move fast enough to overcome those forces, enabling them to move around independently, i.e. a gas.

And why do the molecules have that all-important low mass? As I said “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.” Etc.

Not sure why you find any of this controversial.

“Controversial” sounds like a big word to me. I am trying to show you why your response does not respond to my question: look how carbon (for instance) is an element which is lighter than oxygen. Still, it is solid at normal conditions.

You see?

Then I think you prove my point - when it counts, when a loved one’s life is at stake from a mental disorder, everyone, absolutely everyone, will drop belief in ISS in a heartbeat. Belief in immaterial spiritual substance is incompatible with the real world, it’s a luxury which can only be entertained in ivory towers and internet forums.

I don’t think my attitude proves your point: before, during, and after looking for the good doctor, I believe that more than one metaphysical principle is necessary to explain human beings (matter being one of them, of course).

There’s God and there’s his creation. And, unless you’re a pantheist, you are not God, nor is God the same as his creation. And God made only one creation, not two as the substance dualist would like. And God is not a thing made of substance. And anyway God is light, and would not create something occult such as ISS.

That should be enough to be going on with.

I don’t know much about what God would or wouldn’t do. That is hidden to me. And, by the way, there are things which remain hidden to me even concerning the physical world. I think they are hidden to you as well.

Sounds as if you agree that aggression is yet another thing explained by structures within the brain. Perhaps all emotions have already been explained in a similar way. Memory, mental disorders, also explained physically. Every year, fewer and fewer places for ISS to hide, fewer and fewer things for ISS to do. The writing is on the wall: Here lies belief in ISS. RIP.

A dualist like Rene Descartes (the father of what is properly known as dualism; which should be distinguished from the aristotelian/ thomist interpretation) wrote a book titled “Passions of the soul”. You would probably be surprised by what he says there about the body, and how he interprets phenomena to explain emotions. Nevertheless, Descartes was a dualist.

If you read “On the soul” (by Aristotle) and “Passions of the soul”, by Descartes, you might develop a clearer idea of what you’re fighting against.

In my opinion, if the ISS notion is buried in the next millennia, it will be buried by the ignorance behind the “etceteras” and by the ignorance behind the “billions and trillions of connections in the brain”.

 

[yppop]

You are a gravity detector, jump off any chair and you’ll detect gravity just fine. To measure gravity, use a weighing machine. Aether was disproved 130 years ago. God didn’t make an occult world, belief in God does not mandate occultism.

Of course gravity can be observed and described, but it can’t be explained, not at least without resorting to God’s involvement.

Empty space contains no matter and so is non-material. There is no discernible difference between a non-material mind and empty space.

Wow! You’ve discovered something. I know you don’t like answering my questions but I can’t help asking: Where is qualia? Might it be found in that empty space? You know continuous space with its infinite divisibility. Could it be that the mind is like continuous space, the only example that we can observe as actually infinite?? Does that sound like it might just be the ISS?? Somewhere for the qualia to hide from the pathetic materialistic scientists that think they will find qualia among the billions of synaptic connections?

I can’t account for the views of Linus et al on immaterial spiritual substances except to say that even they should have seen how far fetched such notions are. :shrug

Shrug all you want, Inocente, Linus presents an honest view [edited]

Yppop

 

[ynotzap]

ynotzap;13095495:

Force can not be applied to the nature of matter in the first place, because matter can not move itself, but is moved by another, cause and effect. If it could move itself, there would be no need for another to move it. Also matter has potency and act as a condition of its nature. The being of matter is “becoming”- a real capacity to become, to the actual becoming. Only in God is Being actually Being. Also matter can not know itself, the soul of man can, and subsist in itself but needing a cause, for it experiences cause and effect, potency and act, essence and existence, but not matter and form.

I question my own statement “that the soul does not experience it’s form,” if by form we mean it’s characteristics, it’s intelligible notes, it intelligible construct, the order and purpose found in the soul. The soul can experience the knowledge of it’s composition, not matter, but spirit. It can know it did not cause itself, that it is an effect. It can know that it can move from ignorance to knowledge, (potency and act), it can know it’s individuality and that it is a “spiritual composite” that acts through the powers of intelligence and will, all of which are not matter but it’s essence It can know that it doesn’t possess existence as it’s nature, and that it “has” existence as part of it’s spiritual composition. All of these characteristics are not matter, even though the soul is united with matter, constituting the “nature of man”, the form of man. Matter can not know itself, self-awareness. There is a "non-material (matter) reality we call “spirit”

 

[Linusthe2nd]

You are a gravity detector, jump off any chair and you’ll detect gravity just fine. To measure gravity, use a weighing machine. Aether was disproved 130 years ago. God didn’t make an occult world, belief in God does not mandate occultism.

Oh yes we experience this " power, " whatever it is. That is not the same as scientifically observing its nature. Until such time as we can definitely identify " gravitons, " I will think of it as a power exercised by the angels or God for the purpose of governing the universe. That does not make an " occult " world. It just shows how God might manage things. Or do you think that God does not govern the universe? Genesis and many other parts of the Bible suggest otherwise. Hardly a book of the Bible goes by without God demonstrating that he governs all things, either directly or through his angels.

Empty space contains no matter and so is non-material. There is no discernible difference between a non-material mind and empty space.

Of course there is, a non-material mind is the intellectual power of man’s spiritual soul. His soul is the principle of life in man, having many powers, including that of intellect and free will - as I have explained many times. And as far as " empty space " is concerned, there is no such thing - in my opinion. Just think of the human mind as a very weak imitation of God’s own nature, which is utterly simple, having no material parts, pure life without physical composition of any description or imagination, not of weak or strong forces, not of electromagnetic forces, not of any thing but pure existence.

I can’t account for the views of Linus et al on immaterial spiritual substances except to say that even they should have seen how far fetched such notions are.

The Catholic Church teaches that God creates an immortal, rational soul immediately, in time, for each human being. It is hardly a " far fetched " notion, since it is supported by the thinking of many philosophers dating back to the earliest philosophers and by the teaching of Scripture and the Fathers of the Church. If you do not share that view, fine. But don’t call it far fetched.

Linus2nd