Mind and the Material World

We've been talking about human minds as non-material substances that have an effect on the material world. With some preliminaries covered, it's time to pull together an answer to the question, how can this be? We're so thoroughly steeped in a scientific, physicalist mindset in the Western world, it's almost impossible to conceive of an immaterial substance existing, let alone interacting with matter. Yet it seems this must be the way things are.

This being the fourth in a series, let's review what we've covered so far:

Part One: Neural States and Rationality: Can a Materialist Think?
Here I argued that a purely physical explanation of mind cannot be correct, because it does not explain rationality, free will, or a causal link between our thoughts and our actions in the world. (If there is any disagreement with this, your comments are welcome but please make them at the original blog entry.)

Part Two: Non-material vs. Material Mind:
The question about non-material mind affecting the material world had been raised in comments to Part One, and this was the start of the answer. The intent here was limited to just one thing, which is to show that we cannot set a standard of explanation, such that it must be given in terms of physical causes or composition. There are limits to physical explanation that we are already familiar with.

Part Three: We Know . . .
We know certain things by immediate intuition--that's the gist of Part Three. I gave several examples.

Let's tie these together into an answer to the question now. It boils down to this:

We know by reflection on our own experiences (immediate intuition) and by logical necessity that we have rationality and free will. Rationality and free will are, if Part One is correct, incompatible with a physicalist view of mind. Therefore we must consider alternate explanations for mind.

If mind is not purely physical, it seems necessary that it be, to at least some extent, a non-physical substance. The philosophical term "substance" refers to

an entity like an acorn, a leaf, a dog, or an angel. Substances . . . are particular. A particular acorn cannot be in more than one place at the same time. . . . A substance is a continuant, that is it can change by gaining new properties and losing old ones, yet it remains the same thing . . . . Substances are basic, fundamental existents. They are not in or had by other things [as properties are]. . . Substances are unities of parts, properties, and capacities . . . . A substance has causal powers. It can act as a causal agent in the world.

(J. P. Moreland in Christian Perspectives on Being Human, p. 58.)

Nowhere in this definition is there the statement that a substance is necessarily material; and though that is the way we are accustomed to thinking of substances, to set that as part of the definition is to assume that physicalism must be true. This would be begging the question, for one thing, and it would also leave us with an unresolvable dilemma regarding mind, if it is indeed true that physicalism is incompatible with rationality and free will. So the more open definition seems more suitable.

Mind, I propose (following a long train of much smarter thinkers than myself) is an immaterial substance coexisting with the material body. We are forced to that conclusion by the inadequacy of the physical alternative. Mind interacts with body primarily through the brain, and according to the brain's capacity to express mind. Native (genetic) brain capacity, nutritional condition, education, sleep, health, etc. all physically affect the capacity of the brain to operate, and mind is subject in its physical limitations to the capacity and functioning of the brain.

But where do mind and brain hook up? Where's the interface? That's the problem we've been working on. We do not have an answer in the familiar sense of physical composition, connection, or causation. One of the entities is nonphysical, so we can't have that kind of answer. This is unsettling to Western empiricists, yet as I showed in Part Two, there is no logical requirement that explanations have to be given in that physical form. Sometimes--as in the connection between mathematics and the material world--we have to admit we don't know what the source or mode of the connection is. We have to accept the mystery.

I'll quote Moreland again (link previously cited, pp. 76-77):

There are several cases where we know that one thing causes another even though we do not know how causation works and even though the causes are different from the effects. Even if one is not a theist, it is not inconceivable to believe it possible for God, if he exists, to create the world or to act in that world, even though God and the material universe are very different. A magnetic filed can move a tack, gravity can act on a plant millions of miles away, protons exert a repulsive force on each other, and so forth. In these examples, we know that one thing can causally interact with another thing, and we can even describe the interaction, even though we have no idea how such interaction takes place. Some interactions are simply taken as basic and ultimate. Further, in each case the causes would seem to have a different nature from the effects--forces and fields vs. solid, spatially located, particle-like entities.
. . . .
Furthermore, it may even be that a "how" question regarding the mind and body cannot arise. A question about how A causally interacts with B is a request for an intervening mechanism between A and B that can be described. . . . But the interaction between mind and body may be, and most likely is, direct and immediate. There is no intervening mechanism, and thus a "how" question describing that mechanism does not even arise.

We know that there is something inside of us that thinks and decides, and that those thoughts and decisions come out in physical things like words and movements. We know that the physical world can also affect that something inside of us that thinks and decides. The "something" inside of us is not physical. There we stand, we can explain no other. Nor do we logically have to explain it further--its unexplainability is not unique in the world.

At the risk of redundancy, I'll acknowledge again what an unfamiliar way of thinking this is to many of us, yet it appears we are forced to it by the nature of things.

As I prepare to publish this entry and open the door for comments, I recognize that this is just the outline of an explanation. It depends for its validity on whether I successfully made the case in Parts One through Three. The most pressing debate following those posts seems to be over whether, by virtue of its great complexity, the brain can produce mind as an emergent property. We may yet have to do more work on this, especially the form in which it commonly appears, epiphenomenalism.

Again, I suggest that if you have disagreements regarding with what is in Parts One through Three, you make your comment there; and I request that you read what has already been said and interact with it. That will help us keep our discussion topics straight avoid covering the same ground twice.

Part Four in a Series
Part 1: Neural States and Rationality: Can a Materialist Think?
Part 2: Non-Material Vs. Material Mind
Part 3: We Know . . .

Posted: Mon - March 13, 2006 at 02:02 PM |

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Mind and the Material World

Thinking Christian by Tom Gilson