An Immaterial Being ? What 's Up With That.

[oddbird1963]

In another thread I asked the following question, but nobody has addressed it on that thread yet.

 

I've previously asked Christians the question, but so far no response that I can recollect.

 

"God is an immaterial being who is not constrained by the limitations of actualizing a physical instantiated infinite. "

 

Would somebody please tell me how . . . an "immaterial being" [aka god ] can be said to exist?

 

I suppose if you presuppose a "ghost in the machine" view of the mind, then god could be analogous to that "ghost." But the ghost in the machine concept is not nearly a given and serves as a poor analogy on which to base the assertion the "God is an immaterial being."

 

If by immaterial one means "pure energy" then that is no help. Energy and matter are related to one another by e=mc2. So if by immaterial one means energy, that is essentially admitting that god is physical and subject to the laws of this universe.

 

Once again, how can an immaterial being be said to exist?

 

As a christian, I never asked that question. As a skeptic, I'm starting to think of the coupling of the words "immaterial being" as an oxymoron. If somebody, theist or non-theist could explain how such an entity could be said to exist in a cogent and credible way, I would surely appreciate it.

 

OB '63

[Abiyoyo]

As a christian, I never asked that question. As a skeptic, I'm starting to think of the coupling of the words "immaterial being" as an oxymoron. If somebody, theist or non-theist could explain how such an entity could be said to exist in a cogent and credible way, I would surely appreciate it.

 

OB '63

 

What is God made of? Good question. Dunno.

[Ouroboros]

The idea of an "immaterial" being is based on the concept of dualism. The dualism of our being. That we consist of one part body/physical and one part mind. And the mind exists outside or this world, in some kind of parallel reality. God then would be a mind-only being, and able to think without matter or energy being involved. And this is the core of the Kalam argument. There's a hidden premise in the Kalaam which makes its way after the conclusion, which is "since the first cause can't be material, then it must be immaterial, and the only immaterial thing that can exist is a the mind-only, which is God."

[florduh]

It might just be coincidence that the most used definition of "immaterial" is "irrelevant." Maybe not.

 

To me, an "immaterial being" is both irrelevant and imaginary. If it was something real, someone would know what the fuck it is. That not being the case, a lot of people are just making up shit.

[Guest Davka]

This is a remnant of gnosticism in Christianity. The Gnostics were hard-core dualists - to them the material world was corrupt and bad, and the spiritual was perfect and good. Many gnostics believed that Jesus was never really incarnate in a flesh-and-blood body, because the perfect spirit of God could not be corrupted by being poured into the "old wineskin" of corrupt human flesh.

 

Someone writing under the name of Paul fought hard against gnostic beliefs ("he who says the christ has not come in the flesh is the spirit of antichrist") and most gnostic teachings were purged from Christianity, but the belief in a sharp division between the material and the spiritual persisted. Our consciousness was seen as clearly part of the spiritual, but corrupted by residence in the material flesh with its fleshly desires.

 

Anything that can be studied with science belongs to the material realm. It was believed for most of human history that what animates physical bodies was immaterial. Now we know that it is actually electrochemical signals in the brain, which is a complex organic computer. The truth of consciousness has been learned by science, but the belief in a "ghost" or "soul" has been ingrained for too long to vanish overnisght.

[florduh]

Yeah, that's what I meant.

[oddbird1963]

So , per Han Solo, it sounds like the only remaining basis for the idea of an immaterial being lies in some form of a cosmological argument.

 

But that does not make "immaterial being" a real being. The concept still seems like an oxymoron. A nonsensical phrase.

 

Even if the cosmological argument somehow stands up, then doesn't the fact that it leads to the idea of an "immaterial being" refute the cosmological argument? Or at least it indicates a false conclusion that an immaterial being must exist?

[Guest Davka]

So , per Han Solo, it sounds like the only remaining basis for the idea of an immaterial being lies in some form of a cosmological argument.

 

But that does not make "immaterial being" a real being. The concept still seems like an oxymoron. A nonsensical phrase.

 

Even if the cosmological argument somehow stands up, then doesn't the fact that it leads to the idea of an "immaterial being" refute the cosmological argument? Or at least it indicates a false conclusion that an immaterial being must exist?

 

I don't think it necessarily refutes the argument, but it does move it to the level of absurdity. "Immaterial being" is indistinguishable from "magical being." It may as well be an invisible pink unicorn.

[Franko47]

I've met a surprising assortment of Christians from time to time who think that God is a flesh and blood person.

 

I always assumed that in Heaven we would be converted to immortal pure energy forms. It's obvious from watching Star Trek that such a method is the way to go.

 

Many believe that we will have physical bodies in the afterlife and will even eat, drink, burp, sleep and have hot sex.

 

 

Actually, I'm not sure what the official position of the Roman Church is on this, or even the current popular Protestant world.

[Ouroboros]

So the roads of gold aren't real gold in Heaven? They're just immaterial gold? That sucks.

[par4dcourse]

"The invisible and the imaginary look very similar."

[florduh]

Try putting some immaterial cash in the collection plate.

[Antlerman]

Anything that can be studied with science belongs to the material realm. It was believed for most of human history that what animates physical bodies was immaterial. Now we know that it is actually electrochemical signals in the brain, which is a complex organic computer.

And therefore everything can be reduced down to the purely material world; the world that can be touched, and measured, and analyzed, scrutinized, objectified, where the subject becomes outside itself, etc. This defines the basis of reductionism and philosophical materialism.

 

I don't accept that. It's a worldview inconsistent with the heart of the human 'soul' that has inspired its movement upward towards the unseen possible from the dawn of human consciousness. This essence of Life, this pull towards 'becoming', this emergence into ever-evolving awareness is not explainable in merely analyzing the the electrochemical processes of the machine. It will never explain what it is to BE, these essence of Being. That is only understood from the inside, not in the mechanics of the machine. It is the interior space of existence that transcends the material - to the 'immaterial being'. It is the being inside the machine, which transcends the machine.

 

The truth of consciousness has been learned by science

It has?

 

but the belief in a "ghost" or "soul" has been ingrained for too long to vanish overnisght.

Indeed it will not vanish overnight because of those who are aware of their own existence, and an existence greater than themselves, that is more, much more than the physical alone. The 'Soul' to use the term, is not a mere metaphysical device to explain the scientifically 'unexplainable'. It is the Heart of Existence inside all that is, apprehended through the conscience moving into the interior.

 

No rejoicing for the traditional "orthodox" of Christianity however. Their notions of this 'immaterial being' remove it from the world, and the world from it. Whereas this world is an indivisible expression of it in a Unified Reality of Being. The reality where the exterior and the interior are the essence and emanation of Universal Being.

[Shyone]

 

I don't accept that. It's a worldview inconsistent with the heart of the human 'soul' that has inspired its movement upward towards the unseen possible from the dawn of human consciousness. This essence of Life, this pull towards 'becoming', this emergence into ever-evolving awareness is not explainable in merely analyzing the the electrochemical processes of the machine. It will never explain what it is to BE, these essence of Being. That is only understood from the inside, not in the mechanics of the machine. It is the interior space of existence that transcends the material - to the 'immaterial being'. It is the being inside the machine, which transcends the machine.

Sorry, but this mystical "soul" talk just says, "I don't know." People with "soul problems" frequently happen to have biochemical and anatomic problems, and the sooner we study them and learn how to "fix" the problem the better off the person will be. It does not "transcend" the material. It is the material. From memory to aggression, depression to elation, and even awareness, the chemistry and anatomy had better be right or it doesn't work any better than a care without gasoline.

 

Here's the thing. Study neuroscience. Learn about where the reticular activating system is, the Pons, and the limbic system.

 

Here's a little tract about "Evolutionary Cognitive Neuroscience."

 

Here's a little bit abaout Chemistry and Thinking.

 

Perhaps the nail in the coffin of the soul is what happens to brains when people have diseases. Surgical removal of parts, strokes, infections, tumors and even hereditary diseases. Huntington’s chorea can take a decent loving law abiding person and make them into an antisocial sexually promiscuous violent addict. It is hard-wired into our genes and inescapable except through death.

 

Spend some time with someone with severe dementia and see if you can tell when the soul leaves the body. Talk to someone with brain death for a while and see if you can tell the difference. Brain disease = no "awareness".

 

Take some drugs and see if your consciousness, awareness and everything else you think "transcends the material" isn't affected in a big way. It's chemical.

 

Go to a pathology laboratory and look at some of the monsters that have come out of wombs and then tell me they had "souls." You don't even know what a soul is if you think they had them. Anencephaly is tantamount to stillbirth except for the transiently beating heart. And that heart could be taken out and put into another baby, so don't say the "soul" rests in the heart. It's a pump.

 

One day I will suffer diseases that render me less than I am now, and eventually I will die. When thought, consciousness and awareness are gone, then "I" am gone and it will be because of physical causes, not religious or metaphysical causes.

[Deva]

I don't accept that. It's a worldview inconsistent with the heart of the human 'soul' that has inspired its movement upward towards the unseen possible from the dawn of human consciousness. This essence of Life, this pull towards 'becoming', this emergence into ever-evolving awareness is not explainable in merely analyzing the the electrochemical processes of the machine. It will never explain what it is to BE, these essence of Being. That is only understood from the inside, not in the mechanics of the machine. It is the interior space of existence that transcends the material - to the 'immaterial being'. It is the being inside the machine, which transcends the machine.

 

There are some things you write Antler which I do not understand; but I agree with this 100%.

 

There are still mysteries in the universe.

[Antlerman]

Sorry, but this mystical "soul" talk just says, "I don't know."

Yes, that must be it. A lack of rationality. I don't know, so I just fill in the gaps with myths. That describes how I think to a T.

 

Or maybe I have examined all this stuff you say I need to study to be more rationally enlightened, to move more into the so-called rational world of material reductionism, but I find it insufficient, incomplete on a rational level that demands to be reckoned with. There are many great rationalists who feel that this sort of reductionism is an incomplete picture. I am in good company.

 

I feel you mistake what I was saying, hearing words like "Soul" and conclude it is the sort of mythical use of those terms, equated me with the 'superstitious'. You may do a re-read of what I said and how I said it.

 

People with "soul problems" frequently happen to have biochemical and anatomic problems, and the sooner we study them and learn how to "fix" the problem the better off the person will be.

Ahh.. I know this conversation... medicate them.

 

No... no mental illness here.

 

It does not "transcend" the material. It is the material. From memory to aggression, depression to elation, and even awareness, the chemistry and anatomy had better be right or it doesn't work any better than a care without gasoline.

It is? My thoughts, the content of them, the substance of them, the essence of "I" who is the one doing the looking, is material goo? I am material goo? The world is just a collection of rocks? No essence? No identity? No soul?

 

Mind and body are linked, but mind is not body. But when I speak of spirit, it is beyond emotions, aggressions, disorders, etc.

 

Here's the thing. Study neuroscience. Learn about where the reticular activating system is, the Pons, and the limbic system.

Here's the thing, study any of the humanities. Study existentialism. Study other mind philosophies. That is of course if you can see past the faith of material reductionism.

 

Perhaps the nail in the coffin of the soul is what happens to brains when people have diseases.

The world has a soul, but has no brain.

 

But you equate personality with soul. I don't.

 

Spend some time with someone with severe dementia and see if you can tell when the soul leaves the body.

The soul, as I might call it, doesn't leave or enter the body. The body is in the soul. I neither enter nor leave the universe either.

 

Take some drugs and see if your consciousness, awareness and everything else you think "transcends the material" isn't affected in a big way. It's chemical.

Are you carbon? Or are you something more than carbon? Does carbon define you? Does carbon affect you, but you are still you at a different level of emergence above carbon, even if carbon is part of the lower levels that comprise you? Do chemicals affect the mind and the process of the brain? But are you chemicals? Are you even you, and not just chemicals? What is you, exactly? Should I not speak to you as an aware being because you are a vat of lower level chemicals, and not a person? You understand where this goes?

 

Just because my conscious thoughts may be affect by the machine, they are not the machine. Moreover, they are not the soul. That level of awareness is ego. But I see there is a transcendence that goes beyond that, my chemically affected mental processes.

 

You don't even know what a soul is if you think they had them.

I guess not, since you know what a soul is and define this way.

 

Anencephaly is tantamount to stillbirth except for the transiently beating heart. And that heart could be taken out and put into another baby, so don't say the "soul" rests in the heart. It's a pump.

Nope, won't say that. I don't believe it's tied to the physical. BTW, I don't consider it MY soul, either.

 

One day I will suffer diseases that render me less than I am now, and eventually I will die. When thought, consciousness and awareness are gone, then "I" am gone and it will be because of physical causes, not religious or metaphysical causes.

I won't survive death either. But what is the essence of "I" IS. There is no "after" or "before".

[agnosticator]

Mind and body are linked, but mind is not body. But when I speak of spirit, it is beyond emotions, aggressions, disorders, etc.

 

 

But you equate personality with soul. I don't.

 

 

The soul, as I might call it, doesn't leave or enter the body. The body is in the soul. I neither enter nor leave the universe either.

 

I'm trying to understand what you are explaining. AM, could you elaborate on the soul as you see it?

 

 

Are you carbon? Or are you something more than carbon? Does carbon define you? Does carbon affect you, but you are still you at a different level of emergence above carbon, even if carbon is part of the lower levels that comprise you? Do chemicals affect the mind and the process of the brain? But are you chemicals? Are you even you, and not just chemicals? What is you, exactly? Should I not speak to you as an aware being because you are a vat of lower level chemicals, and not a person? You understand where this goes?

 

This, I get, and agree with.

 

Just because my conscious thoughts may be affect by the machine, they are not the machine. Moreover, they are not the soul. That level of awareness is ego. But I see there is a transcendence that goes beyond that, my chemically affected mental processes.

 

 

Nope, won't say that. I don't believe it's tied to the physical. BTW, I don't consider it MY soul, either.

 

 

I won't survive death either. But what is the essence of "I" IS. There is no "after" or "before".

 

 

So personality, conscious thoughts, I understand are tied to the physical, but the "I", ego, and the soul are different? Or are you saying something else? Could you expand on this?

 

I realize it is a difficult thing to put into words. I think my "I" transcends and also eminates from the physical. I don't see how "I" can be separate.

[Shyone]

You asked a lot of (rhetorical) questions and made some statements, so I accept that your statements reflect your thinking, but I would like to address some of the questions.

 

 

Are you carbon? Or are you something more than carbon? Does carbon define you?

 

There are three questions here, but similar enough to address together. 1) I am carbon. And nitrogen, and phosphorus, and water and calcium and complex fatty acids and proteins and neurotransmitters and complex glycosamine compounds and galactocerebrosides and thousands and thousands of other chemicals and compounds that I can't begin to list here. Arranged very carefully by DNA and affected by environment, they constitute ME. I am the combination of these chemicals. Where there are environmental or hereditary diseases affecting the synthesis of neurotransmitters or myelin or any number of chemicals dealing with the storage and retrieval of information, then I am affected - and everything I am may be affected.

 

In this sense, "carbon" as a representative of the many many chemicals that I am does represent me and define me. More specifically, if it were theoretically possible to place every molecule of my being in its identical position in another place, that "person" would be me in every sense, but from that moment would have a separate consciousness, and the differences in thought and behavior would diverge after that point.

 

Memories are chemical bonds created by dendrites. Destroy the bonds, and you destroy memory. And if you remove pieces of the brain, pieces of function, and thought itself, will become impossible.

 

Remember when "HAL9000" was shut down at the end of 2001, A Space Odyssey? The machine, although fictional, was concious in some sense, but as the physical apparatus required for his thought was disassembled, his essence was dismantled. This is an appropriate analogy for human thought, intelligence, and conciousness.

 

 

 

Does carbon affect you, but you are still you at a different level of emergence above carbon, even if carbon is part of the lower levels that comprise you?

 

I understand this to mean that "we are larger than the sum of our parts." Chemicals make up humans, but a dead human has the same chemicals and is clearly not "human" in the same sense as a live human. A human that has been through a wood chipper still has the same chemicals, but not the level of organization and hence not "humanness". I grant this in the same sense that I grant that a group of humans is more than an individual, and a nation is more than a group. Likewise, a computer chip is not a computer, and a computer is not as highly organized as a network of computers. I could even grant that at some weird level, the Earth is a type of "organism" with some means of balance, harmony, and shared life that may even include the inorganic matter. But it's still all based on an arrangement of atoms.

 

 

Do chemicals affect the mind and the process of the brain?

 

Yes.

 

 

But are you chemicals?

 

Yes, unquestionably.

 

Are you even you, and not just chemicals?

 

Essentially, I am "just chemicals" but more like Fire. I am an ongoing chemical reaction; I consume, produce and modify energy and matter. This is still ultimately chemistry and physics, but there are so many levels of organization above the chemical that is seems mysterious - especially when we get to the fact that I am self-aware. But this is only one level of organization above being unaware.

 

 

 

What is you, exactly?

 

I am the organization that is defined by the interdependence of chemistry and physics, biology and intelligence, and by the mutually supporting systems that keep my Chemical reactions going. I have primitive reflexes that make me refrain from that which is harmful, I have love and sex that makes me want to reproduce, and I have talent and speech that come from the unexpected benefit of intelligence that has helped my ancestors to survive (to the detriment of the other species that were competing with my ancestors).

 

Should I not speak to you as an aware being because you are a vat of lower level chemicals, and not a person? You understand where this goes?

 

To speak of me as a "vat of lower level chemicals" denies the millions of years of evolution that has transformed chemicals into beings, and beings into intelligent beings. The chemistry of life got a lot more complicated when animals started to cooperate AND compete.

 

Consider that we have gone one level of organization beyond merely human. I do not see you or feel you. I move my fingers over a keyboard that transmits my words and thoughts across a network and you use your computer to translate the impulses that contain my thoughts and finally read what I write.

 

We are beyond even plain animal interaction. Some day, we humans will no longer be necessary for this type of interaction.

 

And some day, two computers will disagree about whether computers have souls, or whether they are merely wires, metal and electricity.

[NotBlinded]

In this sense, "carbon" as a representative of the many many chemicals that I am does represent me and define me. More specifically, if it were theoretically possible to place every molecule of my being in its identical position in another place, that "person" would be me in every sense, but from that moment would have a separate consciousness, and the differences in thought and behavior would diverge after that point.

I'm going to jump in here because I understand what AM is talking about...it's my beliefs also.

 

What you said above is absolutely correct. It doesn't have to be your molecules though. Everyone of us is "I". You know you're you and I know I'm me. This is the Life-force AM is addressing, I do believe. It has nothing to do with who you think you are, as he said, that is the ego.

 

All we are are quanta receptors. There is no sound without an eardrum vibrating, there is no sight without the retina picking up those vibrations, the same with the touch.

 

Memories are chemical bonds created by dendrites. Destroy the bonds, and you destroy memory. And if you remove pieces of the brain, pieces of function, and thought itself, will become impossible.

Yes, that is true, but it has nothing to do with what he is talking about. The problems come in when people equate the ego with the Essence.

 

Have you every had a dream to where you were someone totally different than yourself with no memories of your real life? Did you still feel like you? This is the "Love you neighbor as yourself" that Jesus was talking about, IMO. Love them because they are Yourself.

 

Remember when "HAL9000" was shut down at the end of 2001, A Space Odyssey? The machine, although fictional, was concious in some sense, but as the physical apparatus required for his thought was disassembled, his essence was dismantled. This is an appropriate analogy for human thought, intelligence, and conciousness.

That again is equating thought and memories with essence. That isn't what is being addressed here.

 

One thing that materialists and religious (theists) have in common is this notion of a dead, unintelligent earth, or universe. The theists posit an outside creator whereas the materialists/reductionists say that intelligent life somehow came from an unintelligent universe...all by itself, without intelligence. Both are agruing different causes for the same understanding. Both never question whether that initial presupposition could be wrong.

 

I understand this to mean that "we are larger than the sum of our parts." Chemicals make up humans, but a dead human has the same chemicals and is clearly not "human" in the same sense as a live human. A human that has been through a wood chipper still has the same chemicals, but not the level of organization and hence not "humanness". I grant this in the same sense that I grant that a group of humans is more than an individual, and a nation is more than a group. Likewise, a computer chip is not a computer, and a computer is not as highly organized as a network of computers. I could even grant that at some weird level, the Earth is a type of "organism" with some means of balance, harmony, and shared life that may even include the inorganic matter. But it's still all based on an arrangement of atoms.

 

And this arragement of atoms is nothing more than chance? I'm not saying there is a external God that sits back and programs the atoms. The intelligence is inherent in the atoms.

 

 

Essentially, I am "just chemicals" but more like Fire. I am an ongoing chemical reaction; I consume, produce and modify energy and matter. This is still ultimately chemistry and physics, but there are so many levels of organization above the chemical that is seems mysterious - especially when we get to the fact that I am self-aware. But this is only one level of organization above being unaware.

We are exactly like the flame of a candle. There is no ego in the flame, yet it is also a recognizable pattern. When it goes out, another flame can be ignited. This is a process because of the intelligence that is already here.

 

To speak of me as a "vat of lower level chemicals" denies the millions of years of evolution that has transformed chemicals into beings, and beings into intelligent beings. The chemistry of life got a lot more complicated when animals started to cooperate AND compete.

There is no drive in unintelligent, lifeless chemicals.

 

Consider that we have gone one level of organization beyond merely human. I do not see you or feel you. I move my fingers over a keyboard that transmits my words and thoughts across a network and you use your computer to translate the impulses that contain my thoughts and finally read what I write.

 

We are beyond even plain animal interaction. Some day, we humans will no longer be necessary for this type of interaction.

 

And some day, two computers will disagree about whether computers have souls, or whether they are merely wires, metal and electricity.

I hear an echo of a watchmaker argument here somewhere.

[NotBlinded]

Anything that can be studied with science belongs to the material realm. It was believed for most of human history that what animates physical bodies was immaterial. Now we know that it is actually electrochemical signals in the brain, which is a complex organic computer.

And therefore everything can be reduced down to the purely material world; the world that can be touched, and measured, and analyzed, scrutinized, objectified, where the subject becomes outside itself, etc. This defines the basis of reductionism and philosophical materialism.

 

I don't accept that. It's a worldview inconsistent with the heart of the human 'soul' that has inspired its movement upward towards the unseen possible from the dawn of human consciousness. This essence of Life, this pull towards 'becoming', this emergence into ever-evolving awareness is not explainable in merely analyzing the the electrochemical processes of the machine. It will never explain what it is to BE, these essence of Being. That is only understood from the inside, not in the mechanics of the machine. It is the interior space of existence that transcends the material - to the 'immaterial being'. It is the being inside the machine, which transcends the machine.

I'm with you 100% AM, yet you know this.

 

It is confusing to speak about this because of the split in our understanding about the "It" in "It is raining." Our language, culture and everyday life reflects this "ghost". We can't even talk about our bodies without saying "my" body. I want to change the language such as Bohm has suggested that incorporates this unity. Let's talk in verbs! When you say, "It is the being inside the machine" people will automatically jump to the conclusion that you mean there is a controller that is controlling the body. It's as you said in a later post, "The body is in the soul." The body and soul are one. They don't exist without each other. There is no ghost in the machine, the machine is the ghost. It gets confusing to folks.

 

The truth of consciousness has been learned by science

It has?

Nope, not according to David Chalmers. He posits that consciousness is a fundamental aspect of reality. We are quanta receivers afterall.

 

but the belief in a "ghost" or "soul" has been ingrained for too long to vanish overnisght.

Indeed it will not vanish overnight because of those who are aware of their own existence, and an existence greater than themselves, that is more, much more than the physical alone. The 'Soul' to use the term, is not a mere metaphysical device to explain the scientifically 'unexplainable'. It is the Heart of Existence inside all that is, apprehended through the conscience moving into the interior.

 

No rejoicing for the traditional "orthodox" of Christianity however. Their notions of this 'immaterial being' remove it from the world, and the world from it. Whereas this world is an indivisible expression of it in a Unified Reality of Being. The reality where the exterior and the interior are the essence and emanation of Universal Being.

Amen...to steal a word.

[NotBlinded]

The idea of an "immaterial" being is based on the concept of dualism. The dualism of our being. That we consist of one part body/physical and one part mind. And the mind exists outside or this world, in some kind of parallel reality. God then would be a mind-only being, and able to think without matter or energy being involved. And this is the core of the Kalam argument. There's a hidden premise in the Kalaam which makes its way after the conclusion, which is "since the first cause can't be material, then it must be immaterial, and the only immaterial thing that can exist is a the mind-only, which is God."

Hans said it great right above in the bolded area.

[Legion]

I’d like to briefly entertain a view which may differ somewhat from others here.

 

We could take any living organism, which is a material system, and administer a small amount of some potent poison to it, so as to kill it. Its material constituents have barely been altered, yet it is now dead. So something has been destroyed, namely, its life. So we are left wondering, what is this “life”?

 

Increasingly for me, what differentiates an organism from a rock has less to do with its material composition and more to do with how it is organized. An organism is no doubt a material system, but I think its “life” is an immaterial pattern of organization.

 

This is not vitalism or even dualism. It’s simply a recognition that nature offers us more to study than matter alone.

[NotBlinded]

I’d like to briefly entertain a view which may differ somewhat from others here.

 

We could take any living organism, which is a material system, and administer a small amount of some potent poison to it, so as to kill it. Its material constituents have barely been altered, yet it is now dead. So something has been destroyed, namely, its life. So we are left wondering, what is this “life”?

 

Increasingly for me, what differentiates an organism from a rock has less to do with its material composition and more to do with how it is organized. An organism is no doubt a material system, but I think its “life” is an immaterial pattern of organization.

 

This is not vitalism or even dualism. It’s simply a recognition that nature offers us more to study than matter alone.

Oh Legion, I knew I always liked you.

 

As Alan Watts once said, we can view consciousness as a complicated form of minerals or we can view minerals as a rudimentary form of consciousness. The distinction is profound in its implications. I'm with the latter group.

[Shyone]

I’d like to briefly entertain a view which may differ somewhat from others here.

 

We could take any living organism, which is a material system, and administer a small amount of some potent poison to it, so as to kill it. Its material constituents have barely been altered, yet it is now dead. So something has been destroyed, namely, its life. So we are left wondering, what is this “life”?

 

Increasingly for me, what differentiates an organism from a rock has less to do with its material composition and more to do with how it is organized. An organism is no doubt a material system, but I think its “life” is an immaterial pattern of organization.

 

This is not vitalism or even dualism. It’s simply a recognition that nature offers us more to study than matter alone.

I would agree with this. It is very difficult to express what I think, and not very popular, but "organization" is the principle of life. There are many examples from nature and not from nature, but the organization, regardless of how complex, is natural and based on material.

 

I have seen a lot of people die, and so I have an appreciation for what it takes to keep a dying person "alive" for a while. I also know what a person looks like that is dead, but has a heartbeat and every other chemical and physical property of life short of "brains."

 

But that doesn't sound very romantic, and not very mystical. It just is.

[florduh]

That we consist of one part body/physical and one part mind. And the mind exists outside or this world, in some kind of parallel reality.

 

That "feels right" to a lot of people, but there is no evidence. Could it be true anyway? I guess so. Everything imaginable is possible in varying degrees of probability.

 

People like me who don't accept feelings, hopes and philosophical musings as evidence for factual reality get accused of being dogmatic, closed minded, etc. What those with a spiritual bent always say is that we have closed ourselves off from half of reality - the half they propose exists. I say "propose" because in addition to the lack of evidence for a "spirit" independent of our physical power plant, there is no consensus on the specifics of that "other dimension" or "parallel reality." If people knew of another reality or dimension and experienced it, they would all be in agreement on the details. There's more consensus on the nature of UFO abduction and Bigfoot than there is on spirituality.

 

It can be demonstrated that thoughts, feelings, emotions, personality - everything we are, do and the ways we experience - are the result of the physical brain at work. Since that organ is always busy making us who we are, what happens when that brain can no longer create what we call "mind?" If there is an independent "me" why does it need a physical brain to temporarily create itself? If I exist whether there is a physical body or not, why does my physical body have to make the electrical and chemical connections for me to exist right now? Why am I unaware of any existence other than in this body?

 

Since physical brain activity can be shown to be a cause for thought, emotion, dreams, hallucinations, perception, and everything that makes us who we are, isn't that the most probable explanation? Is an invisible force from another dimension acting as a puppeteer for our bodies a reasonable hypothesis?