There’s a lot of (mostly very obscure) talk about “the soul” here and elsewhere. (Is it supposed to be different from you, your “mind,” your “ego” etc.? Is it some combo of [some of] them, or what?) A friend recently passed along the following quote from psychologist James Hillman that I thought was nice–and maybe demystifying–at least a little bit.
By soul I mean, first of all, a perspective rather than a substance, a viewpoint toward things rather than a thing itself. This perspective is reflective; it mediates events and makes differences between ourselves and everything that happens. Between us and events, between the doer and the deed, there is a reflective moment — and soul-making means differentiating this middle ground.
It is as if consciousness rests upon a self-sustaining and imagining substrate — an inner place or deeper person or ongoing presence — that is simply there even when all our subjectivity, ego, and consciousness go into eclipse. Soul appears as a factor independent of the events in which we are immersed. Though I cannot identify soul with anything else, I also can never grasp it apart from other things, perhaps because it is like a reflection in a flowing mirror, or like the moon which mediates only borrowed light. But just this peculiar and paradoxical intervening variable gives one the sense of having or being soul. However intangible and indefinable it is, soul carries highest importance in hierarchies of human values, frequently being identified with the principle of life and even of divinity.
In another attempt upon the idea of soul I suggest that the word refers to that unknown component which makes meaning possible, turns events into experiences, is communicated in love, and has a religious concern. These four qualifications I had already put forth some years ago. I had begun to use the term freely, usually interchangeably with psyche (from Greek) and anima (from Latin). Now I am adding three necessary modifications. First, soul refers to the deepening of events into experiences; second, the significance soul makes possible, whether in love or in religious concern, derives from its special relation with death. And third, by soul I mean the imaginative possibility in our natures, the experiencing through reflective speculation, dream, image, fantasy — that mode which recognizes all realities as primarily symbolic or metaphorical.”
James Hillman — Re-Visioning Psychology
I obviously should have read what’s being discussed before chiming in.
Never mind “the soul.” Suppose we had much better correlations than we actually have. What is the basis for claiming that the idea of the unicorn just IS the brain process–rather than holding that the thought is CAUSED by the process? Parsimony?
If it’s a characteristic itself, but has no way of being perceived by the senses or has any entailments, then it might as well not exist. It is of no use to me. Thanks.
LOL! You couldn’t come up with a better example of vague! “It’s a principle, like gravity and space, but it isn’t a thing (which both space and gravity actually are) and it has no entailments (which both space and gravity not only have, but have in really concise ways and have in abundance), but it’s actually a characteristic (uh…I thought it was a principle…), and so forth. Yeaaah…that’s pretty vague there Mr. Erik.
Oh please. “Material” is a perfectly clear concept. That which is made up of matter or a product/effect of matter. E-M^2 pretty much defines the organization of the material universe. Got anything like E=M^2 for the “immaterial”? No? Odd that…
And immaterial is that which is NOT made up of matter, or a product or effect of it. How is that unclear?
Dualists… Since when am I a dualist? If you presuppose that I am, then that explains a lot.
Ok…this I can work with. “Immaterial” is like cold. Good…good.
Uh…here’s the thing…”cold” doesn’t exist; it’s a subjective relativistic scalar associative. There is no material out there in the universe the emanates or gives forth “cold”. There is no quantity or measure of “cold”. It is simply a place-holder term we use to denote a comparison of relative energy states (one state has a lower temperature than another). That’s it.
So if “immaterial” is like cold (which I’m fine with btw), then it’s (as I noted up-thread
) simply a place-holder concept for something you feel has to exist – presumably for those things you feel lack “matter”. Ok. Fine.
I still don’t find it a necessary term since it itself does not seem to have an notable effects, but hey…if you sleep better at night given models of the universe and life that include the “immaterial”, have at it.
For all I know you’re an occasionalist. I presume that (a) it’s something goofy, whatever it is; and (b) you will commit fallacies when trying to defend it.
Anyhow, I was giving a traditional dualist response, since that is a popular position.
Well that’s meaningless to me since I’m not aware of anything not made up of matter or a product/effect of matter. Thus, I have no reference point for this supposed “immaterial”. No iE=iMC^1/2 as it were.
Consciousness doesn’t seem to be anything material. But it also doesn’t seem to be anything immaterial. It just seems to be consciousness.
But if we want to know what consciousness is “in the order of being”, and not just “in the order of knowing”, then MAYBE we can inquire into the metaphysics of consciousness.
We’d still have to be really clear on the underlying distinctions between the order of knowing and the order of being, and also our mode of epistemic access to both orders.
And warm is not? Warm is something totally different? Is warm an absolute?
You are also not aware of anything weighing close to a billion suns, but you can surely get what is being said. Even more, you are not aware of anything that weighs exactly a billion suns or more than billion suns, but you can tell they are three distinct weights. Immaterial is like that. Conceptual distinctions.
“Warm” is not the associative of “cold”; “heat” is. And yes, “heat” exists.
Actually there is a theory and experiments that many psychological issues are can be alleviated by precise release of chemicals such as dopamine to individual neurons. Perhaps caution should be taken in attribution of immaterial causes.
And caution should be exercised with chemicals too. Many psychodrugs perform non-differently compared to placebos, i.e. they either have the placebo effect on psychology or the plain chemical effect on physiology.
How does the “not made of of matter” interact with matter?
So we are comparing a noun to an adjective. And think we are being fair and square and not obfuscating at all. Fantastic.
Let’s get back on topic. Soul.
This is known as a category error. You are trying to equate an entire overarching category with an outlier example from within a category. That’s fallacious to say nothing of disingenuous.
See above.
If you’re going to equate this “immaterial” with completely abstract fallacious analogies, fine. All you’ve done is relegate “Immaterial” to being an abstract fallacious analogy. Happy?
Of course.
If you know that I am making a category error, then surely you can name the category. I was able to name the categories that you mixed up above: cold versus heat, adjective versus noun, a relative judgement versus a physical phenomenon. Now that was an egregious category error.
If you mean that I am talking about material and immaterial by contradistinction and analogy, well, they are the SAME metaphysical category. Namely, the category of existence.
No, we are comparing two nouns. Or are you suggesting that your “soul” is an adjective?
Well…the topic (and thus associative of our discussion) is “matter” (that’s what “material” is the adjective for), but fine. If we are simply focusing on “immaterial” vis-a-vis the material, then cold would associate with hot. Fair enough. Still leaves you with a problem though since the relative scale (hot to cold) is still a measure of overall heat. So are you suggesting that the material to immaterial is a relative scale of matter? Methinks that might put your soul in a bind (hahahaha…now THAT’s irony!)
Ok. That’s a noun, right? 😛
ETA: So based on everything you’ve posted thus far on the subject of “immaterial” the “soul”, I’ve arrived at the conclusion that “soul” = space, or the medium that supports and surrounds time and matter. How’s that?
How about material?
Soul is immaterial. You understand it grammatically, don’t you?
ETA: Once you got the grammar clear, try to understand the semantics too. Not ontology yet, just the semantics.
I find it funny that theists often refer to abstractions when confronting what they perceive as materialists: “If matter is all there is, what are [insert abstraction] made of?” they ask.
How many types of immaterial are there? Because if there are many of them, describing something as immaterial seems extremely vague.
It’s like responding “not-a-baker” when asked what you do for a living
The weight of anything falls under the category of “mass”. That I (or any human) has not encountered or is not aware of every example of every potential weight configuration out in the universe says nothing about my awareness of (and understanding of) the category “mass”. You’re still left with a rather void category “Immaterial” however.
See above.
Nope…not my point. See above.
To summarize: “immaterial” (a category) is not comparable to “specific examples of weight” (subset examples of a category).
I addressed that. See above.
I addressed that too. See above.
Says the man who has demonstrated some confusion between “principles” and “characteristics”…
pots and kettles and all that…
That’s not a metaphysical category. So I take it that you are unable to discuss metaphysics.
Is consciousness an abstraction? Or is it a real thing that makes the difference between life and death? Some people go dead because they get guillotined, but some drop dead for no apparent reason. For the former you may pinpoint some physical differences, but how about the latter? The physical evidence is very elusive in the latter case. Is that what makes it an abstraction?
And is triangle (the definitional concept) an abstraction? If yes, then how is it we can be sure we are talking about the same thing? And since we are talking about the same thing, then we are evidently thinking about the same thing too. If so, then how much of an abstraction is it really? Isn’t it well-defined instead of ill-defined and vague?
Unicorns don’t exist in the physical world. Are they abstractions like triangle and consciousness?
None of them is material, but they are not all abstractions. Perhaps only consciousness is an abstraction, if you give an appropriate argument to prove it. So immaterial can be cut in several ways.
No, it’s like giving answers when being asked questions about what the soul is when the asker absolutely insists it’s material.
It’s like, “I’m a PhD.” – “Oh, that’s like a baker, right?”
I’ve got two souls. Prove me wrong!
Neither is the weight of a billion suns, but that’s beside the point. The category error has nothing to do with metaphysical; it has everything to do with your comparisons not being on the same conceptual level.
What metaphysics? The weight of a billion suns has nothing to do with metaphysics. Ditto analogies to cold and hot. To my reading, you haven’t introduced anything metaphysical yet.
Now, if you are going to tweak your vague description of “soul” and say something like, “well of course it has no entailments and can’t be observed by human senses because it’s a metaphysical concept”, fine, but then you’ve conceded my original point from the beginning of out discussion. To wit:
The burden is on those who propose the existence of things that cannot be detected by the senses and that have no entailments.
If you don’t see it, then you just don’t see it. The soul is nothing to look at in the first place, so it’s all cool.
No, I mean observations such as the impact of trauma and drugs on the mind.
I am not assuming that, I’m pointing out that we only have evidence for material processes. You’ve provided no evidence, argument, or other rationale for why anyone should rationally consider the idea that something else is involved.
Insults are easier than supporting your arguments, but not as effective.
Imagination, consciousness, and mind appear, again based on all available evidence, to be processes that take place in a physical brain. They are therefore material processes. Simply asserting that they are immaterial does not make your case.
Where does the music go when you remove the strings from the violin?
When the substrate is no longer functional, the patterns and processes disappear. The doesn’t make them immaterial.
Apparently the soul is nothing then. Fair enough.
Does the immaterial soul you posit interact with physical brains? If so, describe how and provide some evidence for that. If not, there is no reason to discuss it.
I provided a link to a paper where that was actually measured. Certainly the technology is in its early days, but that’s still infinitely more evidence than you have for anything “immaterial”.
You’re reading me more clearly than Erik, thank you. Please feel free to broaden my perspective — I’m just trying to understand why anyone would make claims about something inherently undetectable.
Theists confuse me.
But you are open-minded and willing to consider other evidence than empirical and physical, right? Because if you don’t, then you are assuming your own conclusion. But if you do, then what is that other evidence like, in your opinion?
How do you know it’s real, then?
How do you differentiate that from “non-existent”?
Sure, hit me with your best arguments. What, exactly, do you mean when you say “immaterial” and how do you know anything like that exists?
Okay, here we go again. How can I say that something immaterial exists?
Consider “visible”. We see lots of things. Is everything visible then? No. There’s stuff we can detect by other means. Let’s call it invisible. It cannot be seen, but it’s still detectable.
Now consider detectable. There are means to detect invisible or other hard-to-detect stuff. But what if the means fall short detecting some stuff? That stuff would be undetectable. It’s undetectable, but it exists.
Material and immaterial work on the same principle: If it’s not material, but its existence cannot be denied, then it’s immaterial. Now tell me it’s impossible.
This really isn’t a good analogy Erik. What you are describing above in terms of detectable is precisely addressed by:
The burden is on those who propose the existence of things that cannot be detected by the senses and that have no entailments.
Let’s take a very specific example: black holes.
The concept of a supermassive body with a gravitational effect that not even light could escape was first proposed by John Mitchell back in the late 18th century. Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity (along with the works of other notable physicists) demonstrated mathematically that such singularities were not just anomalous concepts, but likely existed.
Now, black holes are inherently imperceivable directly, but their entailments (the mathematical models that predict them, the mass calculations that require them, and their effects on light) present compelling evidence for their existence.
So what entailments provide a compelling reason to accept the immaterial and how does one differentiate that the entailments are explicit to the immaterial and not the material? And if there are none, is there any explanation for why the “immaterial” evidently has no effect – not even mathematically – on anything in the universe?
I rephrased things a bit above to match what I have already said earlier: If it’s not material, but its existence cannot be denied, then it’s immaterial.
I will keep saying it until it reaches you or you find a counter-argument.
That would be a good argument if you could show that thoughts aren’t material, but, as mentioned a dozen times now, you can’t without committing a fallacy.
Hmmm…seems question begging to me.
Is there a logically valid way to determine that something isn’t material, but must exist?
Would black holes be immaterial according to your definition? Because according to physics, they are have to be material.
You are welcome to insist anything you want as much and as long as you want. It’s a pretty weak approach to convincing anyone of anything, but if it works for you, have at it.
It’s really hard to figure out good definitions of any of these terms without defining them in terms of each other. Let’s see if we can actually make any progress here:
material: X is material only if X has objectively real, fully determinate properties which are knowable by assigning intensive and/or extensive magnitudes to spatio-temporal locations through intersubjectively verifiable measurements.
immaterial: X is immaterial only if X has objectively real, fully determinate properties which are knowable, but not by assigning intensive and/or extensive magnitudes to spatio-temporal locations through intersubjectively verifiable measurements.*
* for present purposes, we can stipulate that immaterial objects are like that without worrying — for now! — about how we can know what immaterial objects are like. The immaterial objects are just those that aren’t knowable by assigning intensive and/or extensive magnitudes to spatio-temporal locations, however it is that they are knowable.
Using those definitions, it seems pretty clear that consciousness is neither material nor immaterial.
I say that because consciousness has no objectively real, fully determinate properties at all. Consciousness is not a thing. Sartre was onto something very important here when he characterized consciousness as “nothingness”, i.e. as “not-a-thing-ness” (pour soi rather than en soi).
Is there a logically valid way to determine that something is undetectable, but must exist?
Does ANTITHESIS ring a bell?
You mean those things that can be located, i.e. detected? In addition to difficulties with grasping the concept of immaterial, you also have difficulties grasping the material.
Whereas those who assert thought being a material thing do not commit any fallacy, such as the fallacy of equivocation?
What’s the name of my supposed fallacy? De re and de dicto is not that name. Flesh it out.
I admit, I’ve read only a little of the thread, but this:
Patrick: The burden of proof is on those who claim that something other than the physical processes we observe is involved.
Strikes me as too limiting a category for everything out there in the universe. There are many effects of processes out there that I don’t think you would describe as physical effects that you’d still consider material effects. For example, the buckyball experience is pretty cool, but I’m not sure how one would go about explaining it in physical terms. Similarly, I doubt all or most of the effects measured and observed in quantum entanglement could be called physical in the classic sense.
That’s what I mean by limited. I’m not sure what I would suggest as a substitute and I think your perspective that the burden is on those who propose something else is legit, I just think there might be other categories your term use doesn’t allow.
Theists confuse me.
Well, my example of the math that implied (and then required) black holes I think qualifies. That’s why I asked the question as to whether they are immaterial by your definition. According to physics they are not, but I’m interested to hear your argument if you have one.
Are you saying that your argument for the immaterial boils down to, “I believe there’s an antithesis to everything and there’s material stuff so…”? Or are you getting at something else?
Well, they can now (like in the last five years we’ve gained to the technology to actually find them and detect their effects).
So are you suggesting that although they were simply theoretical for…oh…220 years or so, they were material from the get go? How did they not meet your definition of immaterial in that time-frame? Or is “immaterial” simply a stop-gap label (as I noted earlier) until we know better? If so, in what sense is that remotely viable or credible?
I’m not the one with the difficulties here; your term “immaterial” just appears to be rather…uhh…fluid and inconsistent in its application.
So you see no difference between undetectable and immaterial. Blind people simply don’t see. What can I do?
That’s how one gets the definition of immaterial. By the very same reasoning, physicalists get to say unicorns are unreal, while they “exist only in the mind” because there’s evidently lots of talk about unicorns so they have to be categorized somehow. (Note: This last sentence was about how one gets the definition of “unreal”. You do operate with that concept every day, don’t you? So think back how you managed to define it. The fun bit is that materialists seem to have no problem with unreal existents, occasionally.)
Argument for specific immaterial entities, such as the soul, is another step.
Is any of your arguments for the existence of immaterial entities like the soul, at least partly based on their detectability?
No. On their logical undeniability. To deny them would entail a contradiction or an impossibility.