How exactly am I to understand "physical ideas"? Is it that a principle describes the behavior of bodies or that the "properties" of ideas -- such as a perfect right triangle -- necessarily involve a notion of "physical space," that makes an idea "material"? What about the differences inherent in the properties of odd numbers versus even... Are these "material"? If by materialism it is meant that nothing immaterial exists then I cannot see how this is consistent with experience, in which I have no more reason to doubt that thoughts and the principles by which intellection is made possible are every bit as real as the material objects that make impressions on the mind; and that a mind is not divisible, or extended, as bodies are (and infinitely so, at least conceptually), seems obviously true; therein lies the essential difference between what the early modern philosophers, following the Greeks, termed nonthinking bodies and thinking souls. It most certainly is a chicken or egg question, though I lean towards materialism in the sense that the mind "emerges" (a word that admittedly is no more descriptive than if I were to say "is miraculously brought into being from nothing") by some unknown configuration of bodies in motion; a free standing "idea" that exists not as a single thought in any mind, though itself not inconceivable, but that it might moreover possess causal efficiency, is something that is too detached from experience for me to understand what could be meant. All of this to say, I'm halfway towards agreeing with Benny, if only I can see what benefit is derived from conceiving things in this way... Perhaps it is simply that the alternative is less intelligible or consistent with experience?
He who loves God cannot endeavour that God should love him in return - Baruch Spinoza
