What exactly is the soul?

[Blue_Horizon]

The bodies of living things are made out of cells while inanimate things do not have cells. Inanimate things do not have souls either. A tv set or video camara needs a power source, either AC or DC power, to operate. Similarly, living things are “powered” and animated by the soul and its powers.

This is not Aristotle, nor is it good good physics sorry Richca.

If you think the “power” equivocation above works…then you would have to admit that a camera has “cells” too - as in “(battery) cells” .

Re* “Inanimate things do not have souls either”* … I am surprised you don’t see this is really a fairly meaningless tautology (ie an analytic apriori proposition)…

Afterall the word “animate” means, ultimately, “having a soul” as the latin root word is “animus” (soul). So “in-animate” just means “having no soul”.

Thus you are just saying “things without souls”, not surprisingly, “do not have souls either.” .

 

[Richca]

continuation: You said that you didn’t know why I was referring to Physics, it is because I saw the answer to secondary causes there. You kept treating things “Metaphysically”

The notion of the soul which is the OP’s question cannot be understood apart from philosophy and metaphysics (soul and spirit, of course, are found in Holy Scripture and the CCC says that human beings are a composite of spirit or soul and body). The soul is the substantial form of the body, this is metaphysical. As Aloysium pointed out in a previous post, physics, biology, bio-chemistry, genetics do not study what the soul is. The concept of soul is not even found in these sciences. These sciences are concerned with the material cause or the body and those active and passive qualities or powers which follow matter such as electric charges which remain in a compound body. The soul is a formal cause. Accordingly, if we are going to introduce physics into the study of an animal, then we are not dealing with the soul per se but with the body and the material cause or matter. However, philosophically, it would be inaccurate to imagine that the body or matter acts or is a cause of action because matter is potentiality and it is not a principle of action. Forms are acts. The soul is the act of the whole body and of every part of the body. The soul is the substantial form of the whole body and of every part of the body.

If one would like to find out what elements are in an animal body for an animal body is a compound or mixture of elements, than bio-chemistry or biology I’m sure would be of help here. It should be noted however, that the various elements with their active and passive qualities or powers such as electric charges are not in the compound or animal body substantially but virtually (matter is of the substance of the animal body so the matter of the elements do become part of the substance of the animal but the substantial forms of the elements do not remain. If we eat bread, the bread becomes flesh and bones.) There is only one substantial form in a material substance such as a lion. Any particular lion is one lion and one substance. The substantial form and matter are the substantial principles of the being of the lion. Of course, the lion also possesses sensible accidents such as quantity or size, shape, color, etc. The accidents reveal the substance.

Being that the bodies of plants and animals are a compound or mixture of various elements which elements and their active and passive qualities, powers, or forces remain virtually in the plant or animal, then naturally we will find these elemental powers or forces in the plant or animal.

Now, the inanimate elements with their powers or forces are the lowest grade of beings. Plants are of a higher grade of being and the substantial form of plants which is called a soul possess superior powers than the substantial forms and active and passive qualities of the elements. The vegetative soul of plants are assigned the three powers of nutritive, augmentative, and generative. The vegetative souls of plants virtually contain within themselves the inferior forms and powers of the elements and they do themselves and more whatever the inferior forms of the elements can do. The active and passive qualities (powers or forces) of the elements are used instrumentally by the soul of the plant to carry out its operations. This same is to be said as we progress to still more perfect grades of being and powers such as animals and man. The spiritual soul of man with his spiritual powers of intellect and will which is united to a material body is at the pinnacle of the material, physical universe.

 

[Aloysium]

. . . The vegetative soul of plants are assigned the three powers of nutritive, augmentative, and generative. The vegetative souls of plants virtually contain within themselves the inferior forms and powers of the elements and they do themselves and more whatever the inferior forms of the elements can do. The active and passive qualities (powers or forces) of the elements are used instrumentally by the soul of the plant to carry out its operations. This same is to be said as we progress to still more perfect grades of being and powers such as animals and man. . .

 

[JuanFlorencio]

< sigh >

You saw earlier, because I remember posting it, how human memory works.

neuroscience.uth.tmc.edu/s4/chapter07.html
extremetech.com/extreme/123485-mit-discovers-the-location-of-memories-individual-neurons

Vast quantities of research all over the world, yet you now deny all of that, and instead put facetious words into my mouth and pretend I made it up all by myself.

Did you forget? You can’t see any difference between a fleeting thought and a stable memory? Really?

< sigh >

As I’ve said, I don’t go in for occult notions and am not interested in speculating, what I think about mind is dead easy to see, just look at the research, go with the science, truth cannot contradict truth. Everything out in the open, out in the light. Whereas for all I know, you are the only person who has ever lived, and the only person who will ever live, who believes exactly what you believe about the mind.

Let’s have a look at “how memory works” according to the authors of your article (everybody can read the complete thing through your link). This is part of the presentation:

MIT researchers have shown, for the first time ever, that memories are stored in specific brain cells. By triggering a small cluster of neurons, the researchers were able to force the subject to recall a specific memory. By removing these neurons, the subject would lose that memory.

“We demonstrate that behavior based on high-level cognition, such as the expression of a specific memory, can be generated in a mammal by highly specific physical activation of a specific small subpopulation of brain cells, in this case by light,” says Susumu Tonegawa, the Picower Professor of Biology and Neuroscience at MIT and lead author of the study reported online today in the journal Nature. “This is the rigorously designed 21st-century test of Canadian neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield’s early-1900s accidental observation suggesting that mind is based on matter.”

And then…

“We wanted to artificially activate a memory without the usual required sensory experience, which provides experimental evidence that even ephemeral phenomena, such as personal memories, reside in the physical machinery of the brain,” adds co-author Steve Ramirez, a graduate student in Tonegawa’s lab.

Sounds very promising! What did they do?

***The researchers first identified a specific set of brain cells in the hippocampus that were active only when a mouse was learning about a new environment. They determined which genes were activated in those cells, and coupled them with the gene for channelrhodopsin-2 (ChR2), a light-activated protein used in optogenetics.

Next, they studied mice with this genetic couplet in the cells of the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus, using tiny optical fibers to deliver pulses of light to the neurons. The light-activated protein would only be expressed in the neurons involved in experiential learning — an ingenious way to allow for labeling of the physical network of neurons associated with a specific memory engram for a specific experience.***
Finally, the mice entered an environment and, after a few minutes of exploration, received a mild foot shock, learning to fear the particular environment in which the shock occurred. The brain cells activated during this fear conditioning became tagged with ChR2. Later, when exposed to triggering pulses of light in a completely different environment, the neurons involved in the fear memory switched on — and the mice quickly entered a defensive, immobile crouch.

Even though they just studied mice, I think the research is valuable. Back again with the presenter, for part of his conclusion:

"The main significance here is that we finally have proof that memories (engrams, in neuropsychology speak) are physical rather than conceptual. We now know that, as in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, specific memories could be erased. It also gives us further insight into degenerative diseases and psychiatric disorders, which are mostly caused by the (faulty) interaction of neurons."

CONTINUES…

 

[JuanFlorencio]

For the moment, I will not criticize Mr. Tonegawa’s and Mr. Ramirez pretensions nor this conclusion; I will focus on what they say about memory. They say:

---

• Memories are stored in specific brain cells
• Personal memories, reside in the physical machinery of the brain
• we finally have proof that memories (engrams, in neuropsychology speak) are physical rather than conceptual.

---

What are those “engrams”?

***Engrams are means by which memory traces are stored as biophysical or biochemical changes in the brain (and other neural tissue) in response to external stimuli.

They are also sometimes thought of as a biological neural network or fragment of memory, ***

Once again: what are memories for these guys?: "Biophysical or biochemical changes in the brain". In other words, memories are certain brain structures. Those brain structures can be inactive (and then, the memories are just “stored”); or they can be active ( and then, they become “thoughts”). How does this happen? In general, it happens through the addition of energy (for example, the laser beam, impinging upon photosensitive neurons). “To be active” in this case means that a set of chemical reactions is taking place in the affected neurons. Then “thought” is either the ongoing chemical reaction or the state that results from the chemical reaction. If I understood you correctly, the dynamism of “thought” should lead us to conclude that it must be the ongoing chemical reaction.

So, in a certain way, I was wrong in my christian materialistic role, because I was saying that memories should be processes, and according to the MIT researchers, they are material structures. But if we consider that nothing material is really static (unless it is at zero Kelvin), we could say that “memories” are processes too, though ones in which molecules preserve their identity, while “thoughts” are processes in which molecules are transformed.

So, once it has been corrected, I will assume again my christian materialistic role: what is the physical chemical difference between one thought and another? It could be the reaction rate if it is the same chemicals which are participating in the reaction, or they might be different reactions taking place between different chemicals. But how many different chemicals are there in our brain?

Or perhaps in general it is as I said in the beginning: our mind is a set of physical chemical interactions taking place in a very specific organized body, the brain. I am not going to speculate (speculation is reserved to guys like Mr. Tonegawa and Mr. Ramirez), but without speculation I am absolutely sure that those physical chemical processes that we know as “the belief in immaterial spiritual substances” will disappear very soon, because…, because…, because those reactions are very old!

 

[JuanFlorencio]

Still absurd, right?

 

[ynotzap]

richca: In reference to your post 82l; In Physics 1V, 6 (213b g) Aristotle refers to the principle of activity in the sentient (physical soul) to a principle existing in the embryo- as the intrinsic principle of motion in an animal soul. When the spermatozoa unites with the ovum, we have a fertilization, the beginning of sentient life. The sperm is a living, physical
entity that is capable of physical motion that starts the activity in the corporeal body.

As I see it God created the sperm in male animals, and ovaries in the female animals, the union of these two physical entities begins animal life, by the activity they produce in the parent animals. He did this when He created the first parent animals, it’s in their nature
God caused the first motion, and through cause and effect passed on the motion through secondary causes from animal to animal, and sustaining that motion, since matter can not move itself. You didn’t state anything about motion and how it it exists in secondary causes, this is the issue. I think I have made this clear in my past statements There is also the DNA to consider, the programing of all that the physical animal in going to be, and this is all physical. This is the intrinsic activity in animal bodies ,a material soul.

 

[JuanFlorencio]

As you seem to feel that self-reference, recursion and universals are mysterious, perhaps start with Hofstader’s Gödel, Escher, Bach.

You said before: “Trying to explain our mind by introspection has been the downfall of many philosophers of mind, since most of our mind is unconscious and not available to introspection.” Then I asked you for the names of some of those philosophers. Douglas R. Hofstadter does not practice any introspection in his book Gödel, Escher, Bach. I rather think he is on your side (or you are on his side).

 

[Richca]

So, I’m going to start with trying to understand plants and go from there.

What I get from your effort to explain this (thank you so much) is that

• plants have souls.
• their souls have 3 powers
• the first nutritive, would be that they have the capacity to transform lesser forms of what modern science defines as “matter”, “elements” in this classical philosophical sense, into themselves
• the second, augmentative, has to do with their capacity to grow and mature, again utilizing that which they draw in from the “elements”/“matter” around them.
• the third, generative power permits replication.

Since modern science is not concerned with soul, these three powers are understood as being merely the results of the underlying qualities of the component “elements” - DNA etc…

Although the field of biology would seem to be based on the concept that there does exist a vegetive soul,
that plants do exist, rather than collections of biochemical (i.e. carbon based chemistry) activity,
it is not recognized as such,
that the plant would be as primary as are the subatomic, atomic, molecular events of which it is comprised.

That a plant exists, I suppose might be seen as a purely subjective phenomenon, by some/most modern biochemists.

Your feed-back would be appreciated; hopefully I am making some sense.

Yes, thanks for the post. It appears to me that you have the correct understanding about the 3 powers of the vegetative soul in the first part of your post. Regarding modern science, biology, bio-chemistry, etc, though we have learned a great deal of knowledge concerning living organisms and how they function, we certainly don’t know everything and there are many questions unresolved to say the least. Some of these questions are of a philosophical nature and consequently, are beyond the competence of the natural sciences as such I think.

Philosophically, the soul is considered as the first principle of life in those things which live. St Thomas Aquinas, in the ST, Part I, q. 75, art.1, presents the question “Whether the soul is a body” or something corporeal. He answers in the negative and says that the opinion that the soul is something corporeal can be proved to be false in many ways but he employs just one in his answer that he says is based on certain and universal principles. The soul according to St Thomas (this of course is not just his opinion but also that of fathers of the church and most philosophers in his time and those who followed the doctrine of Plato and Aristotle) is a simple incorporeal and immaterial principle, it is a formal principle. Now, one could do away with the whole idea of the soul as the natural sciences seem to have, but I for one, am not prepared to rashly disregard this teaching of St Thomas in the least. On the contrary, I hold to it.

If we were to ask a biologist, “What is the principle of life in living things?” We may get a number of answers, cells, carbon, DNA, etc. These may be some sort of principles but is there a first principle? The very object of science is to investigate the causes of things and to try and gain knowledge of first and universal principles of things if there be such. The composition of things may involve more than one principle such as the Aristotlelian doctrine of the form/matter composition of material substances. At any rate, a first principle life in living things is an unknown to science from what I know. According to St Thomas, the soul is an incorporeal formal principle, it is invisible and not sense observable. It is inferred by the reason due to the observation of things. In this understanding, a biologist looking for a first principle of life by sensible observation is not going to find it or see it.

A living cell is a complex organism with a lot of activity and movement going on. It may be asked, what is the principle or is there one of all this activity and movement? Is DNA the principle of life? I think DNA is found in living cells. When an animal dies, the DNA remains at least for a time. If DNA were the principle of life, why can you extract it from a dead animal and even supposedly from things that have been dead for millions of years? There are so many particulars one can get involved in here to the point one doesn’t know if he is coming or going. All these particulars in my opinion are way to complicated to hardly make sense out of them which is probably why the scientists use giant computers to process in some manner all the information. All of this makes me think of the greatness of God who created such things in such a highly complex manner.

Sacred Scripture and the Church teach that the existence of God can be known with certainty through his works by the light of human reason. Apparently, this is what such men as Plato, Aristotle, and especially St Thomas inquired into. The instrument or tool they used was not an electron microscope which is a rather recent invention but the natural light of reason. The reason or intellect is that power God gave us by which we have understanding and knowledge of things. An electron microscope in itself is useless without a human being to try and make some sense at what is observed. Human beings, of course, have existed on the earth long before the rise of modern science and the powerful instruments it uses by which it appears, for example, we have knowledge that extremely small atoms have particles of electrons, protons, and neutrons. God, however, did not create us with the vision of electron microscopes or x-ray vision. By the natural powers God created us with such as our external senses especially sight and of course the human reason, according to Sacred Scripture and the Church, we should be able to gain I think some certain knowledge about things at least to some degree, and step by step rise from the knowledge gained through God’s works and creation to God himself.

 

[Richca]

Richca;13156786:

So, I’m going to start with trying to understand plants and go from there.

What I get from your effort to explain this (thank you so much) is that

• plants have souls.
• their souls have 3 powers
• the first nutritive, would be that they have the capacity to transform lesser forms of what modern science defines as “matter”, “elements” in this classical philosophical sense, into themselves
• the second, augmentative, has to do with their capacity to grow and mature, again utilizing that which they draw in from the “elements”/“matter” around them.
• the third, generative power permits replication.

Since modern science is not concerned with soul, these three powers are understood as being merely the results of the underlying qualities of the component “elements” - DNA etc…

Although the field of biology would seem to be based on the concept that there does exist a vegetive soul,
that plants do exist, rather than collections of biochemical (i.e. carbon based chemistry) activity,
it is not recognized as such,
that the plant would be as primary as are the subatomic, atomic, molecular events of which it is comprised.

That a plant exists, I suppose might be seen as a purely subjective phenomenon, by some/most modern biochemists.

Your feed-back would be appreciated; hopefully I am making some sense.

(continued)
Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, the neo-platonists, ect, are examples of men who by the natural light of reason without divine revelation mounted up to God, the first Being. These men made some errors due to the weakness of the human intellect because of our fallen nature and sin for one thing. Thus the importance of divine revelation guiding philosophy culminating to the great height in the sythesis of faith and reason in the work of Thomas Aquinas. Wisdom, just as our intellects, though is a gift from God as the book of Wisdom says "And knowing that I could not otherwise possess her unless God gave it—
and this, too, was prudence, to know whose gift she is—(8:21). I don’t think we can deny that the Holy Spirit bestowed on St Thomas a high degree of the gifts of wisdom and knowledge. He is a canonized saint and doctor of the Church.

Aquinas may have made some minor science errors which we can’t fault him for but I think it would be irrational to think that his whole philosophical doctrine and metaphysics is devoid of any truth. Indeed, we know that it isn’t as a great many of the philosophical truths he establishes are in conformity with divine revelation, can be found in divine revelation or the teaching of the Church. St Thomas did not write anything that was in contradiction to the catholic faith or divine revelation (that he knowingly was aware of anyways), or at least those truths from divine revelation that the Church proposes for our belief.

It is not my intention to knock down modern science by no means. What we have learned though modern science has been very beneficial for humanity in many ways. Of course, it could also be destructive. The power or energy in the elements is astounding. I’m just pointing out something of the nature that when looking at a horse, though some physicist might see atoms, electrons, and electricity, I see a horse.

I kind of got off the topic somewhat. Getting back to the soul and modern science and DNA, atomic nuclei, etc., from the plants I’m going to go to humans. The CCC#365 says:
" The unity of soul and body is so profound that one has to consider the soul to be the “form” of the body: i.e., it is because of its spiritual soul that the body made of matter becomes a living, human body; spirit and matter, in man, are not two natures united, but rather their union forms a single nature." This is the meaning the Church gives to the scripture “then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.” (Gen. 2:7). The dust from the ground represents matter and the elements; “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life” is the spiritual soul; and “man became a living being.” Consequently, what animates and gives life to the body of human beings is not the elements, matter, DNA, electricity, or any such things, but the spiritual soul. The spiritual soul is the principle of life for the body and gives life to it. This is a divinely revealed truth and cannot be doubted or questioned at least for catholics. It’s an article of faith. Concerning DNA, our soul probably uses DNA instrumentally in the formation of the body.

Such being the case, the philosophical doctrine of the soul of animals and plants as taught by Aquinas, the soul being the formal, incorporeal principle of life which animates the body (matter-elements) of animals and plants is quite reasonable I think. The divinely revealed truth that the soul or spirit of man is what makes his body a living body, by extension, though the Church has not said so but maybe it can be found in Holy Scripture, can quite reasonably be applied to the souls of plants and animals which is the philosophical doctrine of Aristotle and Aquinas. The soul of plants and animals which is a formal principle and the substantial form is what animates the body (matter-elements) of the animal and plant.

 

[JuanFlorencio]

That’s just it, we are dealing with “black boxes”.

We observe change, behaviour, functions, accidents, particulars … but never substances or essences. These are inferred through the above accidents, and therefore cannot ever be understood in their fullness.

To that extent we do not fully know what is “inside” animals or ourselves.
And to that extent, yes, we are speaking “black-boxes” from what I can see.

“Inference” of substance seems to necessitate “substance” is in many ways opaque and a “black box.”

Just as this thread demonstrates.

Oh, just to get it clear; if we do not fully know what is “inside” animals or ourselves, do we know fully what is “inside” machines?

 

[GEddie]

Oh, just to get it clear; if we do not fully know what is “inside” animals or ourselves, do we know fully what is “inside” machines?

Yes, at least those who create them do; while we do not create animals, and certainly not ourselves.

ICXC NIKA

 

[JuanFlorencio]

Yes, at least those who create them do; while we do not create animals, and certainly not ourselves.

ICXC NIKA

It seems to me that BH wants to convey a peculiar meaning with the term “inside” in quotes.

Is GEddie’s interpretation according to what you want to mean, Blue?

 

[oldcelt]

Yes, at least those who create them do; while we do not create animals, and certainly not ourselves.

ICXC NIKA

Faith…not philosophy.

John

 

[GEddie]

Faith…not philosophy.

John

And your point is?

Philosophy won’t tell us what is “in” us. Neuroscience can make a start. But ultimately we have to exercise faith in our Creator.

ICXC NIKA

 

[oldcelt]

And your point is?

Philosophy won’t tell us what is “in” us. Neuroscience can make a start. But ultimately we have to exercise faith in our Creator.

ICXC NIKA

Or not…is a direct creator logically required?

John

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Oh, just to get it clear; if we do not fully know what is “inside” animals or ourselves, do we know fully what is “inside” machines?

JF if you now accept my “blackbox” observations then its time to get back on track …

*"…you’ve probably got the wrong end of the stick…
It’s about forming the most likely hypothesis for proving or falsifying so as to build more certainty in the face of multiple possible answers.

If A does B
If C does B
Then let’s hypothesise/test further if a functions much the same as c in respect of b."*

This does not mean “same results imply same causes” from what I can see.
Surely you aren’t suggesting “same results imply unrelated causes?”

In which case, all things being equal, the above logic positively invites a hypothesis for testing does it not?

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Yes, at least those who create them do; while we do not create animals, and certainly not ourselves.

ICXC NIKA

That would be in line with Aquinas who appears to hold that the higher the essence the less we know (eg angels) and the lower the essence the more we know (minerals).

 

[JuanFlorencio]

JF if you now accept my “blackbox” observations then its time to get back on track …

*"…you’ve probably got the wrong end of the stick…
It’s about forming the most likely hypothesis for proving or falsifying so as to build more certainty in the face of multiple possible answers.

If A does B
If C does B
Then let’s hypothesise/test further if a functions much the same as c in respect of b."*

This does not mean “same results imply same causes” from what I can see.
Surely you aren’t suggesting “same results imply unrelated causes?”

In which case, all things being equal, the above logic positively invites a hypothesis for testing does it not?

I don’t accept it yet, Blue. I need you to answer my post 830 above.

 

[ynotzap]

Or not…is a direct creator logically required?

John

Yes, if its correct logic, that’s what Metaphysics is all about. It’s the proof of God’s existence through the use of reason because that’s where true accurate logic leads us. But it doesn’t identify who God is, that is ascertained by Christian Faith, a supernatural gift.