(March 3, 2022 at 2:01 am)Belacqua Wrote: For Aristotle and for Christians, the soul is the form of the body. "Form" here doesn't mean just "shape," because a newly-dead body has the same shape but no soul. As always in Aristotelian hylomorphism, "form" refers to the shape of the parts, their function and interaction. How they work, what they do. 

Roger.

Quote:Souls always give form to matter. The matter of the body is carbon, calcium, hydrogen, etc. The way this matter is put together, to make it into the unique thing that it is, is the form -- the soul.

Souls give form to matter and you said "form" refers to the shape of the parts, their function and interaction.
So, you seem to be saying that a piece of graphite has a soul.
You can call it that I suppose. I would just call it the properties of the material, as it is done in chemistry and various textbooks of a scientific nature.

Quote:This is why Paul doesn't say that after death the soul will fly away immaterially. He says that the same soul will go to new matter. This is the part of Christianity that demands supernatural belief. We can all agree that bodies have forms, but not that the same form can somehow go to new matter. Aristotle didn't think this was possible, either.

You seem to be using the word soul in the sense of consciousness or ghost in this case which is different from the soul of the piece of graphite.
In other words, if the soul leaves the body, that body is dead (non-moving, non speaking, no thoughts happening in the brain).
Like you said, maybe the soul gets transferred to some other body or to some other universe or maybe it goes to the aether level or heaven level. It very much depends on what the believer wants to believe.

I think the reason for this type of belief is that Aristotle and some of the other boys from centuries ago were not aware of the microscopic world, did not know what the brain was exactly, they did not perform the necessary experiments to figure out how nature operates, they did not have equivalents to compare to.
A person from the 20 th century can compare the human brain with a computer hardware and software or an ASIC. There are various AI software as well.
I use these as clues as to what consciousness is.

Quote:Traditionally, however, consciousness is one of the activities of the body made possible by the fact that the body is put together in a certain way -- the form, the soul. Soul is responsible for more than consciousness, however. It's also responsible for all the unconscious processes, and everything that makes a person a person.

Roger.

---

(March 3, 2022 at 12:31 pm)GrandizerII Wrote:

Ferrocyanide Wrote:I already gave the arguments.
I’ll simplify it for you:
We live in this reality. This reality has some stuff called space and has various other stuff called subatomic particles, you also have photons.
The way these things interact together is via 4 fundamental forces.
I consider all these things as material things and they exist.

This doesn't refute the opposition to materialism. These are statements regarding what has been observed through science, but none of this negates the existence of non-material things, such as (say) angels.

I wasn’t trying to prove that angels do not exist.
What I was discussing is the difference between what is real and what is imaginary.
You have stuff and you have nothing.
A proton is some stuff. Space itself seems to be some stuff. Nothingness is ............ just nothingness.

For example, you can have number 5 printed on a piece of paper. That isn’t number 5. It is a representation of number 5 made of a collection of atoms/molecules.

You believe that number 5 isn’t made of matter, right? So, number 5 is made of what?

I think that a person should be able to tell what is real and what is not real. That is what this is about.

(March 3, 2022 at 11:02 pm)Ferrocyanide Wrote: So, you seem to be saying that a piece of graphite has a soul.

This was addressed in my earlier post.

Quote:I think the reason for this type of belief is that Aristotle and some of the other boys from centuries ago were not aware of the microscopic world, did not know what the brain was exactly, they did not perform the necessary experiments to figure out how nature operates, they did not have equivalents to compare to.
A person from the 20 th century can compare the human brain with a computer hardware and software or an ASIC. There are various AI software as well.
I use these as clues as to what consciousness is.

Nothing in modern science shows that hylomorphism, or Aristotle's definition of the soul, is incorrect.

If you insist that "soul" is a synonym for "consciousness," that's your choice.

Blame Descartes (and his immense influence) for making consciousness and soul synonymous. I wouldn't blame Ferrocyanide for embracing that paradigm. It's a decent paradigm to embrace.

(March 4, 2022 at 1:23 am)vulcanlogician Wrote: Blame Descartes (and his immense influence) for making consciousness and soul synonymous. I wouldn't blame Ferrocyanide for embracing that paradigm. It's a decent paradigm to embrace.

Descartes said that mind is a substance -- res cogitans -- and body is a different substance -- res extensa.


Does he say that mind is simply consciousness, or is there more to the mind? At what point does he state that mind and soul are the same?

(March 4, 2022 at 1:30 am)Belacqua Wrote:

(March 4, 2022 at 1:23 am)vulcanlogician Wrote: Blame Descartes (and his immense influence) for making consciousness and soul synonymous. I wouldn't blame Ferrocyanide for embracing that paradigm. It's a decent paradigm to embrace.

Descartes said that mind is a substance -- res cogitans -- and body is a different substance -- res extensa.


At what point does he state that mind and soul are the same?

I didn't say he did. But he's at least partly responsible for the paradigmatic equation of the two. He at the very least influenced the way people parsed the idea of extended vs thinking things. 

Are we, in contemporary times, prone to ascribe extension to the soul? Probably not. That's due to Descartes' influence. It's not horrible to be influenced by the way Descartes thought about things, even if you reject substance dualism.

(March 4, 2022 at 1:39 am)vulcanlogician Wrote: But he's at least partly responsible for the paradigmatic equation of the two.

I still don't see how.

Of course he's responsible for substance dualism. But that doesn't mean that for him mind and soul are the same, or that substance dualism points to this.

Aristotle would say that both mind and body are determined by soul. 

Plotinus would say that consciousness is the portion of the world which is currently present to an individual's mind, but that mind itself goes much further. As with Nagarjuna and other eastern guys, he says that the division between mind and not-mind is an illusion, so that the tiny amount we are conscious of is far from full mind. 

Freud sort of modernizes this, to say that consciousness is only a part of mind. 

Jung uses soul to refer to the whole of the human combination of conscious mind, two levels of unconscious mind, all types of emotion and emotional complexes -- that is, mind, consciousness, and soul are all separate terms with separate meanings. 

Anyway, all the words mean different things, and fuzzing them all up just makes our thinking less clear.

(March 4, 2022 at 1:23 am)vulcanlogician Wrote: Blame Descartes (and his immense influence) for making consciousness and soul synonymous. I wouldn't blame Ferrocyanide for embracing that paradigm. It's a decent paradigm to embrace.

When people today talk about the soul they usually mean "person's inner character, containing their true thoughts and feelings," as you will usually find in dictionaries
https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.c...glish/soul

Of course, some people believe that it survives after death, but how it is not known.

And it seems that the idea of soul originated from the idea that when the ancient man cremated dead bodies, they thought how the smoke coming out of the body is a soul going to heaven.

(March 3, 2022 at 10:20 am)emjay Wrote: Basically, first and foremost this is an abstract idea in my head... ie it including notions such as infinitely divisible, means it could never be faithfully represented if trying to put it into any external form, but at least simplified versions of the idea could in theory be made into 'art'... either as a picture or some sort of sculpture. I've never done that, but it's always been a possibility in the back of my mind. Would you [...] consider such a thing art?

[...]

So when you describe art as a 'fundamental integration of form and content', that's probably not anything like what I've described?

Yes, I'd certainly say it's art. 

And since you are clearly imagining the shape, and seeing how the shape and the combination of lines (which are form) are the way in which the content is expressed, then the form and content are indeed integrated. It's not as if you pick a random shape and then write the meaning on it in words -- the shape is a part of how the meaning is embodied. The fact that the physical object can't actually be infinite isn't a problem, I think -- suggesting or symbolizing that which isn't physically showable is a big part of what it's all about.

Naturally you'd get into questions which ALL artists deal with. For example, the object has a clear and specific meaning for you, but you have to think about to what extent a viewer would be able to pick up this meaning. (Long explanatory labels on the wall of the gallery are cheating.) But a lot of artists are fine with being quite obscure, and have no problem demanding research from the viewer, if their vision leads them that way. Journalism and science books have to be immediately readable on their faces, but art may pose puzzles that reveal themselves through time and effort. 

I also think that there is a strong personal value in imagining such a work. (Which might be somewhat greater if you made the object and kept it handy in your room for the next few decades.) Our ideas are fuzzy and fleeting, and making objects out of them is a way to get them into solid form. From there you have something to grasp and hold on to, and it can prompt in you further ideas that might not have come otherwise. I think of it as a ladder, and each work of art is a step you add at the top, which allows you to go a little higher and see a little further, and allows you to make the next one. 

I'm absolutely snobbish and elitist about art. I also believe that a person can enter at any point, and the reactions you have are valid and valuable, even in the absence of training and experience -- very much so. One way of keeping track of your growth is to look again and again at the same things, and notice how your reactions change over time. No reaction is wrong.

When I am emperor I will mandate some kind of school or institute where people read Proust every ten years, and record their personal growth by how their opinions of the characters change.

(March 4, 2022 at 3:51 am)Fake Messiah Wrote: Of course, some people believe that it survives after death, but how it is not known.

And it seems that the idea of soul originated from the idea that when the ancient man cremated dead bodies, they thought how the smoke coming out of the body is a soul going to heaven.

That's an interesting take. I always thought it was because we seem to be able to live in a place intangible and invisible to the physical world when we dream. It didn't seem to necessarily follow that when our bodies died, the part of us that dreamed also died. But I'm being very speculative.

(March 4, 2022 at 5:59 am)Belacqua Wrote:

(March 3, 2022 at 10:20 am)emjay Wrote: Basically, first and foremost this is an abstract idea in my head... ie it including notions such as infinitely divisible, means it could never be faithfully represented if trying to put it into any external form, but at least simplified versions of the idea could in theory be made into 'art'... either as a picture or some sort of sculpture. I've never done that, but it's always been a possibility in the back of my mind. Would you [...] consider such a thing art?

[...]

So when you describe art as a 'fundamental integration of form and content', that's probably not anything like what I've described?

Yes, I'd certainly say it's art.

Thank you Belacqua, I really appreciate that... it's a little bit of validation I really wasn't expecting  

Quote:And since you are clearly imagining the shape, and seeing how the shape and the combination of lines (which are form) are the way in which the content is expressed, then the form and content are indeed integrated. It's not as if you pick a random shape and then write the meaning on it in words -- the shape is a part of how the meaning is embodied. The fact that the physical object can't actually be infinite isn't a problem, I think -- suggesting or symbolizing that which isn't physically showable is a big part of what it's all about.

Thank you, I understand what you mean now about integrating form and content and how it would apply to something like this, both to the thought process behind it and the end result.

Quote:Naturally you'd get into questions which ALL artists deal with. For example, the object has a clear and specific meaning for you, but you have to think about to what extent a viewer would be able to pick up this meaning. (Long explanatory labels on the wall of the gallery are cheating.) But a lot of artists are fine with being quite obscure, and have no problem demanding research from the viewer, if their vision leads them that way. Journalism and science books have to be immediately readable on their faces, but art may pose puzzles that reveal themselves through time and effort.

I've never really thought about it beyond personal - ie for my consumption alone - interest, so I have never thought about how it would be received by others, but hypothetically yes, it would be interesting to see if people would easily get my meaning. It has certainly peaked my interest given the way you're talking about it, to see what sort of things others have done, and how they go about titling/explaining their work.

Just as an aside, there's a wonderful episode of One Foot In The Grave (a classic British comedy... Season 6, episode 1: "The Executioner's Song", in case you're interested), which perfectly exemplifies the whole modern art/understanding art issue for me. There's this artist getting rid of modern art paintings he's not 100% happy with, but nearby there are people also dismantling a shed. So with the purest of intentions Victor Meldrew goes there looking to buy/get some art for his neighbour's birthday, and is very happy to acquire one of these discards for free, and after some time presents it to the neighbour, who receives it aghast. Victor leaves, completely oblivious, saying things like 'you try and do something nice for someone...', and after he's left the neighbour says, deadpan 'it's not just that he's given me a sheet of plywood splattered with bird shit for my birthday...' It's just a perfect scene and I wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a splattery piece of modern art and a sheet of plywood splattered with bird shit either

Quote:I also think that there is a strong personal value in imagining such a work. (Which might be somewhat greater if you made the object and kept it handy in your room for the next few decades.) Our ideas are fuzzy and fleeting, and making objects out of them is a way to get them into solid form. From there you have something to grasp and hold on to, and it can prompt in you further ideas that might not have come otherwise. I think of it as a ladder, and each work of art is a step you add at the top, which allows you to go a little higher and see a little further, and allows you to make the next one.

I get what you're saying. Ideas are indeed often way too fleeting, but that particular one isn't really because it's just based on my general metaphysical stance regarding consciousness, which rarely changes at that sort of level, but yes in general making those ideas more concrete makes sense, not just to preserve them but also as stepping stones to further ideas like you say. I do to some extent already do that, in that I do have a few bits and bobs around that I have created and refer back to in that way... like where visual art is concerned I like working with simple geometric shapes and perspective, as something that's fairly easy to draw/calculate, in my symbolic ideas... whether that be on paper or, very rudimentarily, if that's a word, in Blender (a 3D modelling program), because in either case that's about as far as my drawing skill extends; ie I'm more interested in, and capable of, systematically constructing some concept/art out of simple components than painting/drawing/sketching real life etc, ie classical art.

Quote:I'm absolutely snobbish and elitist about art. I also believe that a person can enter at any point, and the reactions you have are valid and valuable, even in the absence of training and experience -- very much so. One way of keeping track of your growth is to look again and again at the same things, and notice how your reactions change over time. No reaction is wrong.

When I am emperor I will mandate some kind of school or institute where people read Proust every ten years, and record their personal growth by how their opinions of the characters change.

What do you think of Swann's Way? I started reading that/listening to it as an audiobook a long time ago, based on the recommendation that it was a good book about love, but found it very hard going and gave up about half way through. If I recall correctly (which I might not, it really has been a long time), I found it very heavy going and repetitive its descriptions of the scenery. I understand that that's important for painting a picture with words, but it was still very hard going for me, and not what I really enjoy most about reading books... I prefer dialogue I guess, as a means to move a book along, than descriptions of the surroundings. Basically I found reading Dickens easier, and that's probably saying quite a lot. But still, is that a book you'd recommend revisiting?... indeed in line with, like you say, a measurement of personal growth... ie like with the layers of Plato or any revisiting of ideas, usually there is a change in perspective, so maybe I'd see it different now. Or would you recommend something else?