What exactly is the soul?

[inocente]

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

Einstein explained it a century ago.

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’ve not consciously overlooked any of your posts although I did give up trying to make sense of some conversations on this thread due to all the incorrectly attributed quotes. But that’s the first time ever, as most posters on most threads get it right, and far as I know, I’ve always responded to you.

You’ll have to agree a hiding place for ISS with other ISS fans.

It’s sad when posters insist on calling Christian scientists materialists.

Shrug all you want, Inocente, Linus presents an honest view

You should know that Baptists don’t generally believe in transubstantiation, holy water and consecrated ground either. We are not Catholics. I’ve never met a Baptist who is a fan of Thomas. I remember no sermon in which either he or Aristotle were ever mentioned.

Anyway, what proportion of the world’s Catholics do you think know Thomist theories of mind? What proportion of the world’s Catholics do you think have ever once even heard the word “qualia”?

The notion that all Christians, let alone all Catholics, have to believe in ISS or we’re somehow not in Christ is extraordinary. Christ is our shepherd, not internet posters. Please read Romans 14. “If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord”. We don’t belong to yppop, where on earth did you get such a profoundly wrong idea?

here are a few stickies:

• Civility and a respect for each other should be foremost.
• It is never acceptable to question the sincerity of an individual’s beliefs
• Terms of derision, derogatory remarks, baiting, and inflammatory statements are prohibited.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Einstein explained it a century ago.

I’ve not consciously overlooked any of your posts although I did give up trying to make sense of some conversations on this thread due to all the incorrectly attributed quotes. But that’s the first time ever, as most posters on most threads get it right, and far as I know, I’ve always responded to you.

You’ll have to agree a hiding place for ISS with other ISS fans.

It’s sad when posters insist on calling Christian scientists materialists.

You should know that Baptists don’t generally believe in transubstantiation, holy water and consecrated ground either. We are not Catholics. I’ve never met a Baptist who is a fan of Thomas. I remember no sermon in which either he or Aristotle were ever mentioned.

Anyway, what proportion of the world’s Catholics do you think know Thomist theories of mind? What proportion of the world’s Catholics do you think have ever once even heard the word “qualia”?

The notion that all Christians, let alone all Catholics, have to believe in ISS or we’re somehow not in Christ is extraordinary. Christ is our shepherd, not internet posters. Please read Romans 14. “If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord”. We don’t belong to yppop, where on earth did you get such a profoundly wrong idea?

here are a few stickies:

• Civility and a respect for each other should be foremost.
• It is never acceptable to question the sincerity of an individual’s beliefs
• Terms of derision, derogatory remarks, baiting, and inflammatory statements are prohibited.

I’ll let Yppop fight his own battles. But I want to comment on one item. Catholics do indeed have to believe that man, each man has a spiritual ( immaterial ), immortal soul which is the principle of his life, his intellect and free will, the principle of his spiritual life AND a material body. This has been true for over 2,000 years, so billions of Catholics, not to mention billions of others have so believed. But I will grant that many Catholics may be ignorant of this requirement or who have rejected it. This in no way requires them to be adherents of the teachings of Aristotle or Aquinas. The Church holds many of its Saints in very high regard, but it has not canonized the work of Aquinas, nor that of any of her great thinkers. See paragraphs 355- 368 of the CCC.

Linus2nd

 

[Blue_Horizon]

I’ll let Yppop fight his own battles. But I want to comment on one item. Catholics do indeed have to believe that man, each man has a spiritual ( immaterial ), immortal soul which is the principle of his life, his intellect and free will, the principle of his spiritual life AND a material body. This has been true for over 2,000 years, so billions of Catholics, not to mention billions of others have so believed. But I will grant that many Catholics may be ignorant of this requirement or who have rejected it. This in no way requires them to be adherents of the teachings of Aristotle or Aquinas. The Church holds many of its Saints in very high regard, but it has not canonized the work of Aquinas, nor that of any of her great thinkers. See paragraphs 355- 368 of the CCC.

Linus2nd

Phui as you would say Linus.
All that Catholics have to believe here is that there is bodily life everlasting beyond death with God for those judged righteous, and hell for those judged evil.

How that doctrine gets “dressed up” is prudential because no one really knows how it actually works. Aristotelian natural philosophy (“soul”) may be helpful for many (not that many of those who use this word have any real idea of how the Church actually uses it).

 

[inocente]

“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?

I think I see your mistake now. You’re comparing the masses of atoms, but gases and solids are made of molecules, and an oxygen molecule has fewer atoms, and so is lighter. Then, at a given temperature, the average kinetic energy per molecule is 1⁄2 mv[sup]2[/sup], so the lighter oxygen molecules move a lot quicker. The intermolecular forces will be different as well. All this is standard physics of chemistry, and it all comes down to how the elementary particles are organized, which it has to as all chemicals as made from the same kinds of elementary particle.

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).

So you say.

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.

As interesting as that may be, I answered your off-topic questions and we should perhaps not drift further away.

*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”.*

No doubt many shook their heads in dismay when their world of celestial spheres got punctured. All those libraries, all those books, all those centuries, how could they possibly be wrong? And no doubt many shook their heads in dismay when the Berlin Wall crumbled. All that hardship, all those sacrifices, how could they possibly be in vain?

Such is life.

 

[inocente]

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.

Gravitons is just a hypothesis, there’s no evidence they exist. Spacetime explains gravity and it’s not hard to understand the guist, here’s a high school teacher showing how it works, in a video which now has 13 million hits - youtube.com/watch?v=MTY1Kje0yLg

I see that on top of you having God supply every bacterium with a soul before it can digest anything, you’ve now got God moving all the trillions of stars and planets and moons along the exact precise paths predicted by physics. God must presumably also exercise the power of gravity to move every speck of interstellar dust, every bullet, every football, on the exact paths predicted by physics.

Are you saying God never worked out that he could just get stuff to do it all on its own? Surely you’re not claiming that he deliberately deceives us that it is doing it all on its own?

And this, you say, is what scripture reveals? < sigh >

*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. *

Let me get this straight. You claim God couldn’t get things to work by themselves, but the human mind, which you say is “a very weak imitation of God’s own nature”, can? We send up satellites and God is forced to exercise his power of gravity to keep them moving for us? < sigh >

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.

I’ve never said anything about the Church. You called some of Aristotle’s and Thomas’ ideas far-fetched, and I just substituted your name for theirs. It was you who called some of their ideas far-fetched, I was only talking about you. If you get to pick which of their ideas you think are far-fetched, phrases which come to mind include that one about pots and kettles.

Catholics do indeed have to believe that man, each man has a spiritual ( immaterial ), immortal soul which is the principle of his life, his intellect and free will, the principle of his spiritual life AND a material body. This has been true for over 2,000 years, so billions of Catholics, not to mention billions of others have so believed. But I will grant that many Catholics may be ignorant of this requirement or who have rejected it. This in no way requires them to be adherents of the teachings of Aristotle or Aquinas. The Church holds many of its Saints in very high regard, but it has not canonized the work of Aquinas, nor that of any of her great thinkers. See paragraphs 355- 368 of the CCC.

You made this claim before but there is no mention that spiritual means immaterial in those paragraphs, and no mention of immaterial substances. That seems to be your interpretation alone.

Whenever a lay poster says that all Catholics must believe something, I always ask where is the contract. Never got an answer, can’t think why.

How is a Catholic subsistence farmer or factory worker supposed to even know what an immaterial spiritual substance might be? How do these highfaluting metaphysical concoctions put food in his family’s mouth or make him a better person or contribute to his salvation?

 

[JuanFlorencio]

I think I see your mistake now. You’re comparing the masses of atoms, but gases and solids are made of molecules, and an oxygen molecule has fewer atoms, and so is lighter. Then, at a given temperature, the average kinetic energy per molecule is 1⁄2 mv[sup]2[/sup], so the lighter oxygen molecules move a lot quicker. The intermolecular forces will be different as well. All this is standard physics of chemistry, and it all comes down to how the elementary particles are organized, which it has to as all chemicals as made from the same kinds of elementary particle.

Well, not every element is molecular. There are some whose “atomic” particles bond together through ionic bonds. But for the current purpose this is minutiae.

So, your answer is “Oxygen is a gas because it is organized as a gas, and Carbon is solid because it is organized as a solid”. You seem to have given the answer; but actually you have not. To give your answer you introduced another “organization”: that of a multitude of atoms (or if the element forms molecules, like oxygen, of a multitude of molecules). But originally we were speaking about the organization of the particles themselves; and I selected a very specific property at very specific conditions, asking you to explain -in terms of its organization- why oxygen (O, not even, O2) is “organized” as a gas at those conditions. When I offered my counter example, Carbon, implicitly I was asking you to explain -in terms of its intrinsic organization- why carbon is organized as a solid (though it might be amorphous carbon as well). So, in terms of the intrinsic organization of the particles, the question remains unanswered. However, I want to acknowledge that you were very ingenious in your response.

So you say.

Yes. Sometimes you need to ask more questions before jumping to conclusions.

As interesting as that may be, I answered your off-topic questions and we should perhaps not drift further away.

I agree, you have answered that there is a God, that He is not the world and that He is not a substance (I take it in the sense that He is not material, unless you say otherwise). So, let’s move on.

No doubt many shook their heads in dismay when their world of celestial spheres got punctured. All those libraries, all those books, all those centuries, how could they possibly be wrong? And no doubt many shook their heads in dismay when the Berlin Wall crumbled. All that hardship, all those sacrifices, how could they possibly be in vain?

Such is life.

Yes, such is life. The same thing uses to happen to some scientists when something absolutely new (which appears to contradict their current theories) is discovered by other scientists. Such are we, humans. One of my Ontology teachers (an Argentinian) told us about those times when the Berlin Wall crumbled, nobody in Mexico was interested on Marxism anymore (such is people…). She was dismayed, as you say, because she had come to Mexico precisely to teach Marxism. She had to prepare herself in a hurry to be able to teach something else (to have something to eat, because we humans need to eat, as you know). She is an adorable person.

I am not proposing Descartes to be your idol, but I think that, instead of being dismayed, he would have been very pleased with the discoveries of neurobiology, because there are coincidences between them and his own theories. Still, I insist, he was a dualist, and you would be shocked if you read him to discover that you have been fighting against a straw man. You need to know what your adversaries themselves say (not what is said about them, or what is said that they said) before you decide they are your adversaries.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Phui as you would say Linus.
All that Catholics have to believe here is that there is bodily life everlasting beyond death with God for those judged righteous, and hell for those judged evil.

How that doctrine gets “dressed up” is prudential because no one really knows how it actually works. Aristotelian natural philosophy (“soul”) may be helpful for many (not that many of those who use this word have any real idea of how the Church actually uses it).

All Catholics must believe that " The Church teaches dogmatically that the human being has an intellectual soul ( Fifth Lateran Council ). It also teaches that the soul is the essential form of man ( Council of Vienne ). The Fifth Lateran Council also taught that each human being possesses an individual soul. The Church also teachs that the individual human soul was created immediately, out of nothing ( Fifth Lateran Council, the scriptures, the teaching of the Fathers, etc., post # 230 ). And that at death we will be judged at death and rewarded or condemned accordingly and that at the General Judgment our souls and bodies will be reunited and our eternal reward or punishment will commence. This is all Dogma. The Catechism explains it all in paragraphs 355-368, which I have mentioned several times here.

See Vico’s posts 75 & 82.

On all these matters there are no options.

Linus2nd

 

[GEddie]

The idea of an “ISS” (actually, that’s the abbreviation for a space station; I’d say “rational soul”) may or may not disappear from the general society. That doesn’t really matter very much. The general culture currently holds that human life has up to 51 “genders” and that human gender is defined by the feelings.

But the rational, nonphysical soul, at least in human life, which generates the mind, is formal Church teaching, along with far harder items like the Trinity and the Resurrection. In this context, it’s not going anywhere.

ICXC NIKA

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Linusthe2nd;13095450:

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.

Man is a composit of body and soul, the material as opposed to the immaterial.

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?

Yes, human souls and angelic souls are spiritual substances, similar to the nature of God, who is a spirit. This has nothing to do with gravity or aetherial bodies ( which is pure speculation any way ).

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

If indeed, gravity is a part of the material creation of God, then it is material in some way. If it is not a part of God’s material creation then it has to be the effect of the application of some angelic or Divine power. Is this so unusual, we ourselves are the effect of God’s power. We are manifestations of that power, so why not gravity as well?

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 .

I have taken them seriously but I don’t think we can do no more than speculate on this point and I would never agree that gravity is an immaterial energy of some kind for the simple reason that I regard all forms of energy as material in nature.

Linus2nd

 

[Linusthe2nd]

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

You are using the terms out of context, which is obvious here to all except you and Inocent. When the Catechism or the Dogmas of the Church say man is composed of a body and a spiritual soul, they are contrasting the material and the immaterial. I’m sorry you are incapable of understanding that.

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

Oh, you mean you and Inocent? Everyone else agrees on these points. But I don’t ever expect you or Inocent to agree with me about anything. So I don’t worry about that.

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

For a professional scientist your comprehension is amazingly narrow. Makes me glad I didn’t take it up.

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.

Phui, think whatever you want.

Linus2nd

 

[Linusthe2nd]

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?

A gross and unjustified opinion. I really don’t give a hoot for you judgments, I don’t think anyone else does either.

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?

You are the only one I disagree with on matters of faith.

Linus2nd

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Gravitons is just a hypothesis, there’s no evidence they exist. Spacetime explains gravity and it’s not hard to understand the guist, here’s a high school teacher showing how it works, in a video which now has 13 million hits - youtube.com/watch?v=MTY1Kje0yLg

That video doesn’t prove anything except that some power is at work. Even Newton refused to speculate on its nature or cause - for the very reason that I am getting raked over the coals here, that to do so would greatly displease many.

I see that on top of you having God supply every bacterium with a soul before it can digest anything, you’ve now got God moving all the trillions of stars and planets and moons along the exact precise paths predicted by physics. God must presumably also exercise the power of gravity to move every speck of interstellar dust, every bullet, every football, on the exact paths predicted by physics.

Neither I nor Aristotle nor Aquinas ignored the very real causality of secondary or natural causality. But ultimately God is the cause of every thing and every action ( except our own reasoning and willing ).

Are you saying God never worked out that he could just get stuff to do it all on its own? Surely you’re not claiming that he deliberately deceives us that it is doing it all on its own?

Of course God uses secondary causes, as I just said and have always said.

And this, you say, is what scripture reveals? < sigh >

I said that the Scriptures shows that God has often interposed himself directly in the history of the world. Read the Psalms for examle or Genesis or Job.

Let me get this straight. You claim God couldn’t get things to work by themselves, but the human mind, which you say is “a very weak imitation of God’s own nature”, can? We send up satellites and God is forced to exercise his power of gravity to keep them moving for us? < sigh >

That is not what I said or even intimated, that is just your typical way of twisting what I or others say so you can score points ( in your own mind ). And certainly, since gravity is a primary cause of the order of the universe, God is at least the ultimate agent cause of that power. You reject it simply because you reject Aristotelian/Thomastic notions of causality, which you claim all good Baptists reject because they reject A&T.

I’ve never said anything about the Church. You called some of Aristotle’s and Thomas’ ideas far-fetched, and I just substituted your name for theirs. It was you who called some of their ideas far-fetched, I was only talking about you. If you get to pick which of their ideas you think are far-fetched, phrases which come to mind include that one about pots and kettles.

Phui. I was talking about the teachings of the Catholic Church and you called them far fetched. I don’t care if you think it, but it isn’t nice to say it publically. That is why I pointed out that billions of Catholics have believed it, and an untold number of others as well, including an unknown number of Muslims and Jews.

You made this claim before but there is no mention that spiritual means immaterial in those paragraphs, and no mention of immaterial substances. That seems to be your interpretation alone.

When the Catechism contrasts the body of man with his spiritual soul, I give you credit for being able to understand that it is contrasting man’s material body with his immaterial soul. I am sorry that you cannot see a univical application of terms. But of course I’m sure that if the Church had known that you were going to make such a fuss, it would have been more careful and included the terms material and immaterial in its definitions.

Whenever a lay poster says that all Catholics must believe something, I always ask where is the contract. Never got an answer, can’t think why.

The contract is the new covenant Christ made when he founded his Church and commanding the Apostles to preach the Gospel to the whole world, " …teaching them all that I have taught you…" Notice that Christ did not say, " …teach them to interpret all that I have taught according to their own understanding…" It was the mission of His Church to make the interpretations.

How is a Catholic subsistence farmer or factory worker supposed to even know what an immaterial spiritual substance might be? How do these highfaluting metaphysical concoctions put food in his family’s mouth or make him a better person or contribute to his salvation?

By paying attention to the Catechism. I have no idea what " highfaluting metaphysical concoctions " you are referring to. Nothing in the Catechism is beyond the ability of men to understand. We of course exclude the mysteries which only God can understand, the Incarnation, the Eucharist. I think the rest can be understood well enough. They contribute to salvation by opening up the eternal realities of God and his personal love for us by giving us the sacraments which are the means of sharing his Divine life even today.

Linus2nd

 

[ynotzap]

Inocente: my sister, which molecule, or grain of sand did God not create, and sustain in existence? Is there anything in this universe that escapes Him, or exist apart from Him?

 

[JuanFlorencio]

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).

It was a very good paper. Not that I agree with Descartes, the father of dualism, but look what he wrote centuries ago -with the very limited information he had available-, about remembering (Passions of the soul, Part I, Article XLII):

***"When the soul wills to remember something, this volition brings it about that the gland leans in various directions, driving the spirits towards various regions of the brain until they come to the one containing traces of the object the soul wants to remember. To say that the brain contains a ‘trace’ of an object x is just to say:

The pores of the brain through which the spirits have in the past made their way because of the presence of x have been made by this more apt than other pores to be opened in the same way when the spirits again flow towards them.
And so the spirits enter into these pores more easily when they come upon them, thereby producing in the gland that special movement that represents x to the soul, and makes it recognize x as the thing it wanted to remember."***

Now, if my hippocampus is working fine, we were discussing about possible brain structures and possible physical processes taking place in those structures that might explain the thought patterns usually known as Logic. The fine paper whose reading you suggested, though very interesting, doesn’t deal with Logic.

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.

So far it has been extremely difficult to make you say something that could work as a reason not to believe in the ISS model. I wonder why having you so many detailed information you don’t go the fast track and present something definitive.

Coming back to Logic: is it, in your opinion, a set of standard physical processes which take place in a set of brain structures? Or what is it?

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Might as well save you energy Juan, some minds are congenitally opposed philosophical reasoning and reject Catholic teaching for congenital religious reasons.

Linus2nd

 

[jinglebelle]

That part of you that never required a question mark or 44 posts,it started with a breath and will end with a gasp of glory.

 

[GEddie]

This has nothing to do with gravity or aetherial bodies ( which is pure speculation any way ).

What do you mean by an aetherial body?

ICXC NIKA

 

[Linusthe2nd]

What do you mean by an aetherial body?

ICXC NIKA

Since it was B.H. that brought it up, you will have to ask him. However, here is what Wikipedia had to say:

" The celestial material and its natural motions[edit]In considering the physics of the celestial spheres, scholars followed two different views about the material composition of the celestial spheres. For Plato, the celestial regions were made “mostly out of fire”[1][2] on account of fire’s mobility.[3] Later Platonists, such as Plotinus, maintained that although fire moves naturally upward in a straight line toward its natural place at the periphery of the universe, when it arrived there, it would either rest or move naturally in a circle.[4] This account was compatible with Aristotle’s meteorology[5] of a fiery region in the upper air, dragged along underneath the circular motion of the lunar sphere.[6] For Aristotle, however, the spheres themselves were made entirely of a special fifth element,[7] Aether (Αἰθήρ), the bright, untainted upper atmosphere in which the gods dwell, as distinct from the dense lower atmosphere, Aer (Ἀήρ).[8] While the four terrestrial elements (earth, water, air and fire) gave rise to the generation and corruption of natural substances by their mutual transformations, aether was unchanging, moving always with a uniform circular motion that was uniquely suited to the celestial spheres, which were eternal.[9][10] Earth and water had a natural heaviness (gravitas), which they expressed by moving downward toward the center of the universe. Fire and air had a natural lightness (levitas), such that they moved upward, away from the center. Aether, being neither heavy nor light, moved naturally around the center.[11] "

Linus2nd

 

[inocente]

Well, not every element is molecular. There are some whose “atomic” particles bond together through ionic bonds. But for the current purpose this is minutiae.

So, your answer is “Oxygen is a gas because it is organized as a gas, and Carbon is solid because it is organized as a solid”. You seem to have given the answer; but actually you have not. To give your answer you introduced another “organization”: that of a multitude of atoms (or if the element forms molecules, like oxygen, of a multitude of molecules). But originally we were speaking about the organization of the particles themselves; and I selected a very specific property at very specific conditions, asking you to explain -in terms of its organization- why oxygen (O, not even, O2) is “organized” as a gas at those conditions. When I offered my counter example, Carbon, implicitly I was asking you to explain -in terms of its intrinsic organization- why carbon is organized as a solid (though it might be amorphous carbon as well). So, in terms of the intrinsic organization of the particles, the question remains unanswered. However, I want to acknowledge that you were very ingenious in your response.

I suggest you don’t play poker for money, as you have a number of “tells” .

I think you mixed up molecules and atoms. That’s the only reason why you would “doubt any chemist can” explain why oxygen is a gas (post #611), and carbon is solid even though it’s “an element which is lighter than oxygen” (post #641).

Your original question was “So, in terms of oxygen’s organization, how do you explain it?” (post #595) and my answer (post #599) is standard physics of chemistry as taught in every high school for many years. I’m not trying to claim anything you wouldn’t find in every textbook on the subject, and assumed you would know that oxygen gas is made of molecules, not free atoms.

If you’re still dissatisfied with what’s been taught in every high school for many years, and which provides a very full explanation for this kind of question, I think you would probably be misunderstanding some other point as well, but it’s a long way from the topic of this thread.

*Yes, such is life. The same thing uses to happen to some scientists when something absolutely new (which appears to contradict their current theories) is discovered by other scientists. Such are we, humans. One of my Ontology teachers (an Argentinian) told us about those times when the Berlin Wall crumbled, nobody in Mexico was interested on Marxism anymore (such is people…). She was dismayed, as you say, because she had come to Mexico precisely to teach Marxism. She had to prepare herself in a hurry to be able to teach something else (to have something to eat, because we humans need to eat, as you know). She is an adorable person.

I am not proposing Descartes to be your idol, but I think that, instead of being dismayed, he would have been very pleased with the discoveries of neurobiology, because there are coincidences between them and his own theories. Still, I insist, he was a dualist, and you would be shocked if you read him to discover that you have been fighting against a straw man. You need to know what your adversaries themselves say (not what is said about them, or what is said that they said) before you decide they are your adversaries.*

It would seem that right-wing politicians in Europe have brought about a miraculous resurrection of Marxism. They piled hardship on the Greeks to the point where all hope was lost, and Greece found its hope by electing a Marxist government. There you go, hardship drives extremism. Such is life.

I’ve read bits of Descartes. But Descartes isn’t posting on this thread, nor is Aristotle or Thomas. The question is, if any of them were alive today, would they be blinkered to what is now known, would they shut out modern knowledge and still write exactly what they did, unaltered, as their fans today would seem to want?

 

[JerryZ]

I suggest you don’t play poker for money, as you have a number of “tells” .

I think you mixed up molecules and atoms. That’s the only reason why you would “doubt any chemist can” explain why oxygen is a gas (post #611), and carbon is solid even though it’s “an element which is lighter than oxygen” (post #641).

Your original question was “So, in terms of oxygen’s organization, how do you explain it?” (post #595) and my answer (post #599) is standard physics of chemistry as taught in every high school for many years. I’m not trying to claim anything you wouldn’t find in every textbook on the subject, and assumed you would know that oxygen gas is made of molecules, not free atoms.

If you’re still dissatisfied with what’s been taught in every high school for many years, and which provides a very full explanation for this kind of question, I think you would probably be misunderstanding some other point as well, but it’s a long way from the topic of this thread.

It would seem that right-wing politicians in Europe have brought about a miraculous resurrection of Marxism. They piled hardship on the Greeks to the point where all hope was lost, and Greece found its hope by electing a Marxist government. There you go, hardship drives extremism. Such is life.

I’ve read bits of Descartes. But Descartes isn’t posting on this thread, nor is Aristotle or Thomas. The question is, if any of them were alive today, would they be blinkered to what is now known, would they shut out modern knowledge and still write exactly what they did, unaltered, as their fans today would seem to want?

I really would like to know where in Europe are these “right-wing politicians” located exactly?

The reason Greece is in a bind is that they have spent well beyond their means for years, a welfare state that is out of control and individual entrepreneurship is stifled by an overbearing government. Their collapse was only a matter of time.

The same fate by the way, that Italy, Spain and France are doomed to repeat.

The sad truth is that when given a choice the populace will want to keep their cake and eat it too. It is human nature.
Who if given a chance would not want to receive money and not have to produce it?
And get pissed if then someone tells them the party is over?

If the extreme left had a real solution for these problems I would not only vote for them, indeed I would also campaign for them, alas this is not the case.

Demagoguery is alive and well everywhere in the four corners of this earth.

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