Why human soul is immortal?

[STT]

In the history of western philosophy, Plato was one of the first, or the first, philosopher to argue for the immateriality of the intellect. He got this from an introspection and examination of human thoughts and particularly universal concepts. Since matter individualizes things, if we have universal concepts than it follows that our intellect is immaterial. This is in contrast to the imagination which can only present to us particular and individualized images because the imagination functions through a material organ of the body. It was Plato who came up with the doctrine or theory of Ideas or Forms whom Aristotle, his pupil, also followed but with some important modifications.

Universal concepts are structured, therefore they have forms. This means that it is physical not spiritual.

Though the spiritual human soul is immortal and a simple substance as it is not composed of material parts by which to disintegrate, still, the soul’s essence is not it’s existence. God alone is his own being and existence. All creatures have a participated existence and thus need to be conserved in being at every moment in the same way that the air is lightsome as long as the sun is shinning on it.

Why something which is not existence cannot persist to exists?

 

[Richca]

Universal concepts are structured, therefore they have forms. This means that it is physical not spiritual.

Universal concepts in the intellect are forms but they are not forms in matter. Matter cannot enter the intellect for it is a spiritual power. Images in the imagination are forms in matter as they are produced by the soul through a material bodily organ probably in the brain.

Why something which is not existence cannot persist to exists?

A thing needs to have existence to exist. A thing whose being or existence is caused is not being or existence itself. God alone is being and existence itself and uncaused. Being or existence itself cannot but exist and is eternal. All beings apart from God are caused by Him and they are not eternal. A being who is being or existence itself would not be a creature but God and eternal.

 

[STT]

Universal concepts in the intellect are forms but they are not forms in matter. Matter cannot enter the intellect for it is a spiritual power. Images in the imagination are forms in matter as they are produced by the soul through a material bodily organ probably in the brain.

The universal concepts are within the brain. We can check this now days. The is a correlation between neuron activities and things we experience.

A thing needs to have existence to exist. A thing whose being or existence is caused is not being or existence itself. God alone is being and existence itself and uncaused. Being or existence itself cannot but exist and is eternal. All beings apart from God are caused by Him and they are not eternal. A being who is being or existence itself would not be a creature but God and eternal.

What do you mean with a thing needs to have existence to exist. Existence is not a thing but an abstract object.

 

[Richca]

The universal concepts are within the brain. We can check this now days. The is a correlation between neuron activities and things we experience.

The universal concepts are in the intellect which is not the brain, it’s a spiritual power. And a spiritual power is not sense detectable or observable and outside the scope of the scientific method and the natural sciences. They can deal only with the body and the effects of the soul on the body but not with the soul itself. Since the human spiritual soul is the form of the body and animates the body and the lower sensory powers of the soul only operate through the body and various organs of the body, than it follows that the effects of the soul on the body can be studied to a certain degree. And since in this life the spiritual intellect only knows through the phantasms produced by the sensory powers of the soul operating through the body or some organ of the body, a phantasm may be able to be artificially produced in the imagination which is probably seated in the brain somewhere which may trigger an operation of the intellect if the person willed it or continued to will it. But this very operation of the intellect which is a spiritual operation is beyond ‘scientific’ analysis just as the human soul itself is or angels for that matter.

What do you mean with a thing needs to have existence to exist. Existence is not a thing but an abstract object.

Existence is something real just as being is real, its metaphysical and formal. Being is related to existence if we looked it up in the dictionary and being and thing are convertible terms. God is being and existence itself or rather as Aquinas would say ipsum esse subsistens, i.e., subsistent act-of-being itself. Essence and act-of-being (or act-of-existing) are one and the same thing in God but not in creatures. The ultimate metaphysical structure of creatures is their essence and act-of-being which are distinct. The essence is related to the act-of-being as potency to act. The act-of-being in creatures is not a ‘thing’ but the created formal principle of their existence. In the same way in form/matter composite creatures, neither the form or matter are considered beings per se though they are real created co-principles of the thing, but rather the composite of form/matter is primarily being or what exists and which is called the substance or substances.

 

[Sophie111]

I think you are taking the customary metaphors too literally.

 

[Sophie111]

The form is necessitated to explain how many changing properties over time still have an inferred underlying unity regardless.

 

[Sophie111]

Nor can a substantial form be detected if it has no accidents .

 

[STT]

The universal concepts are in the intellect which is not the brain, it’s a spiritual power. And a spiritual power is not sense detectable or observable and outside the scope of the scientific method and the natural sciences. They can deal only with the body and the effects of the soul on the body but not with the soul itself. Since the human spiritual soul is the form of the body and animates the body and the lower sensory powers of the soul only operate through the body and various organs of the body, than it follows that the effects of the soul on the body can be studied to a certain degree. And since in this life the spiritual intellect only knows through the phantasms produced by the sensory powers of the soul operating through the body or some organ of the body, a phantasm may be able to be artificially produced in the imagination which is probably seated in the brain somewhere which may trigger an operation of the intellect if the person willed it or continued to will it. But this very operation of the intellect which is a spiritual operation is beyond ‘scientific’ analysis just as the human soul itself is or angels for that matter.

I cannot help you if you don’t want to accept a scientific fact: All our functions and experience are correlated with brain activity. You see malfunction once you disrupt the brain activity.

Existence is something real just as being is real, its metaphysical and formal. Being is related to existence if we looked it up in the dictionary and being and thing are convertible terms. God is being and existence itself or rather as Aquinas would say ipsum esse subsistens, i.e., subsistent act-of-being itself. Essence and act-of-being (or act-of-existing) are one and the same thing in God but not in creatures. The ultimate metaphysical structure of creatures is their essence and act-of-being which are distinct. The essence is related to the act-of-being as potency to act. The act-of-being in creatures is not a ‘thing’ but the created formal principle of their existence. In the same way in form/matter composite creatures, neither the form or matter are considered beings per se though they are real created co-principles of the thing, but rather the composite of form/matter is primarily being or what exists and which is called the substance or substances.

There is just mind: Essence of any being with ability to experience, decide and cause. Again act of being is a abstract object which you try to personify it.

 

[STT]

What do you mean?

 

[STT]

The form is necessitated to explain how many changing properties over time still have an inferred underlying unity regardless.

What is form?

 

[STT]

Do you mind to elaborate? What is substantial form? I forgot what accident is.

 

[Wesrock]

Wesrock:

Thomists hold that the Intellect (not all consciousness) is immaterial due to the fact that humans are able to grasp abstracted universals from particulars, and that which is immaterial and physically non-composite is incorruptible. Once it exists, it in itself can’t break down as long as God conserves natural laws, and so it persists.

These are things which I cannot understand. Why intellect is immaterial? We know that human’s decision and thought are subject to a healthy brain. If human soul is immortal then it does not need God to conserve it.

That is a philosophy of the mind question, and one which I don’t currently have time to go into. Everything that is not God needs to be conserved by God. By immortal, we only mean that it is not subject to decay according to natural laws, but it is still God that conserves its nature and those natural laws it exists by.

 

[Richca]

I cannot help you if you don’t want to accept a scientific fact: All our functions and experience are correlated with brain activity. You see malfunction once you disrupt the brain activity.

I cannot help you except to pray for you if you don’t want to accept the catholic faith and what we believe to be the truth. It’s your choice. You are on a catholic forum you know. I believe I have reasonably explained to you according to the catholic faith, sound catholic philosophy, and common sense this brain activity experiment thing you have brought up. The same sort of thing can be effected through hallucinogenic drugs, demonic possession, a person gone mad, dementia, and such like which has been known since the dawn of mankind.

There is just mind: Essence of any being with ability to experience, decide and cause. Again act of being is a abstract object which you try to personify it.

You did not understand what I wrote but that’s okay because it involves deep intellectual abstraction which is the ‘job’ of the intellect and I’m going to take Aquinas’ word for it. I think you may be confusing the imagination and the sensible with the intellect and the intelligible. The act-of-being in God is a person or rather persons, the Trinity of persons for God is not distinct from his act-of-being (existence), He is act-of-being (existence) itself. The act-of-being in creatures is not a person for all creatures are not persons nor is the essence of any creature the same as its act-of-being. It’s the highest metaphysical and formal created principle in creatures which is the principle of their very existence.

 

[Vico]

Vico:

Aristotle divides the world into two categories: substances and accidents and the existence of substances is prior to that of accidents. No accident can exist unless a substance exists for it to be in but it is possible for a substance to exist without an accident. Accidents refer to the features of substances. Creation is not made up of elementary particles but substances. Examples of substances are: a human rock, a planet, a particle and, a dog.

So he and Aristotle got it completely wrong.

No. Metaphysics is not the same as physics. Metaphysics has to do with the first principles of things, including abstract concepts such as being, knowing, substance, cause, identity, etc.

 

[Sophie111]

Sophie111:

The form is necessitated to explain how many changing properties over time still have an inferred underlying unity regardless.

What is form?

It is no more or less than what I just explained.
It is the unseen and underlying unifying cause/force that is necessitated by the sensible effects just described.
What more do you want?

 

[Sophie111]

Form is not simply the shape of a thing.
Shape is a sensible metaphor re an inferred principle that explains sensible effects in a thing.

 

[STT]

I cannot help you except to pray for you if you don’t want to accept the catholic faith and what we believe to be the truth. It’s your choice. You are on a catholic forum you know. I believe I have reasonably explained to you according to the catholic faith, sound catholic philosophy, and common sense this brain activity experiment thing you have brought up. The same sort of thing can be effected through hallucinogenic drugs, demonic possession, a person gone mad, dementia, and such like which has been known since the dawn of mankind.

So, how do explain all these phenomena? They are physical since they are affected by physical.

You did not understand what I wrote but that’s okay because it involves deep intellectual abstraction which is the ‘job’ of the intellect and I’m going to take Aquinas’ word for it. I think you may be confusing the imagination and the sensible with the intellect and the intelligible. The act-of-being in God is a person or rather persons, the Trinity of persons for God is not distinct from his act-of-being (existence), He is act-of-being (existence) itself. The act-of-being in creatures is not a person for all creatures are not persons nor is the essence of any creature the same as its act-of-being. It’s the highest metaphysical and formal created principle in creatures which is the principle of their very existence.

What is the act of being in a person? You are personifying this in case of God. So I completely understood you well.

 

[STT]

No. Metaphysics is not the same as physics. Metaphysics has to do with the first principles of things, including abstract concepts such as being, knowing, substance, cause, identity, etc.

The first principle of things is given by physics. Therefore there is no room left for metaphysics.

 

[Vico]

Vico:

No. Metaphysics is not the same as physics. Metaphysics has to do with the first principles of things, including abstract concepts such as being, knowing, substance, cause, identity, etc.

The first principle of things is given by physics. Therefore there is no room left for metaphysics.

The question of why is answered with metaphysics not physics.

 

[STT]

It is no more or less than what I just explained.
It is the unseen and underlying unifying cause/force that is necessitated by the sensible effects just described.
What more do you want?

So the form is the source of causality in thing? We know that things has certain properties and they cause things based on these properties. Think of electron which has mas, spin and charge. That is reality. There is no underlying reality.