We Know . . .

Continuing to look into how a non-material mind can have any effect on the material world, we saw yesterday that the explanation is not going to be in the familiar mode of physical causation or composition, which is fine and not unique to this question. With that squared away, we can take the next step in the answer, which is to show that, like other examples listed yesterday, difficulties in explaining "how" need not reduce our confidence "that" the human mind is non-material.

Moreland and Craig begin their treatment of the mind-body problem with this:

It is virtually self-evident to most people that they are different from their bodies. Almost all societies throughout history (unless they are taught to think otherwise) have believed in some form of life after death, and this belief arises naturally when a human being reflects on his or her own constitution. Moreover, throughout church history, the vast majority of Christian thinkers have correctly understood the Scriptures to teach the following: (1) Human beings exhibit a holistic functional unity. (2) While a functional unity, humans are nevertheless a duality of immaterial soul/spirit and material body, both of which are intrinsically good.*

This introduces the converse of what we have discussed previously: a positive argument for a non-material mind, which for these purposes, can be treated equivalently to soul or spirit. (There are some neighborly disagreements among Christians as to how they all connect, but none of that affects our direction here.) The point is that there is something that is "us" that is not our bodies.

We all grasp certain things by immediate intuition. We have knowledge we just know immediately, that does not depend on a chain of inferences from either experience or logic. Our perceptions are the most obvious of these. What we perceive, we perceive, and we know we perceive it, without having to subject our perceptions to further testing. What we perceive may be distorted, we may be victims or error or illusion, but nevertheless, our perceptions are real, and our knowledge of our perceptions is real.

We know by immediate intuition that we think, and we know what our thoughts are. The same is true of our feelings.

We know by immediate intuition that we are the same person today that we were a year or two ago, or even at birth. Our physical bodies have changed, and probably there's not an original molecule left in there from those early days. Our mental selves have changed--our knowledge, attitudes, capacities, beliefs, memories, and so on. But we're not the old farmer's axe. Have you heard that story? The old farmer was bragging about how he'd kept the same axe through his entire life. "I've had to change the head three times and the handle five times, but it's still the same axe!" If we were just physical, we really couldn't be sure we were the same person--it would be a challenge even to decipher what that could mean--but you and I both have confidence that our selves are a unity through all our years.

We know by immediate intuition that we have the ability to think through a question, reasoning it through from start to finish, and that it is reasons like these--non-material, non-algorithmic, non-programmed--that lead us to certain beliefs and actions.

We know by immediate intuition that we have free will, that if we sit or stand, it is because we have made that decision, not because of some physical chance or necessity that has programmed to do it.

We know by immediate intuition that (to a great extent, if not perfectly) we command our bodies; there is something in us, separate from our bodies, that tells our bodies what to do.

We know by immediate intuition that in spite of the unity of our selves, we can have disputes within ourselves, between one desire and another, between bodily desires and mental preferences, and that there is something there that finally judges what will prevail.

In summary, we know that there's somebody in there, and that we are not just our bodies. Our thoughts, values, desires, beliefs, and actions are not just brain secretions.

There are some, like the radical behaviorists, who say it's all illusion, that our consciousness, our decisions, our freedom, our self-ness are all grand fallacies thrown up for us out of our brains. That could be answered in a number of ways, but the simplest is this: I don't believe it, and I don't believe you do either. You know better than that. Behaviorism is a logical conclusion of a physicalist view of the organism (they liked to use that term for humans), and they only way anyone could conceivably come to that conclusion is by being committed to physicalism in the teeth of all one knows to be true about oneself.

So where does all this get us? We're not yet at a point of "proving" a non-physical reality to mind or soul or showing how it relates to physical reality (no need to point out in the comments that it's not proved yet), although we're moving forward with building a case for it. Part of that case is in the incoherence of physicalism. Part of it is in giving ourselves the freedom to admit what we know about ourselves. We do not have to be like the behaviorists, who let their devotion to one theory blind them to evidence that is constantly right before their eyes.

That's as far as I can get with this today, time being what it is. I suggest you allow yourself some time today to consider what you know about yourself. Give yourself permission to agree with it, regardless of some theory out there that tries to deny it. You are a self, you are not just your body.

Part 3 in a series
Part 1: Neural States and Rationality: Can a Materialist Think?
Part 2: Non-Material Vs. Material Mind
Part 4: Mind and the Material World

*For the sake of Christians who did not expect that final phrase: the problem of sin and its effects is dealt with elsewhere in their book. Their point here is in reference to soul/spirit and body prior to the experience of sin or independent of its effects. This is in distinction to other beliefs, for example, that spirit is inherently always good and flesh or matter is inherently evil.

Posted: Fri - March 10, 2006 at 12:54 PM |

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We Know . . .

Thinking Christian by Tom Gilson