Aristotle's definition of soul: the first grade of actuality of a natural body having life potentially in it. — Metaphysician Undercover

“You use soul as a metaphor for chemical reactions behind gene expression?”
— Read Parfit

No metaphor here, this is a description of reality. Prior to what I think you mean by "gene expression", we need to account for the creation and existence of genes themselves. If we are describing things in terms of semiotics, we cannot just refer to the reading and interpreting of signs, we must account for the creation and existence of signs. — Metaphysician Undercover

Evolution accounts for the creation of gene expression. Phosphodiester and hydrogen bonds are examples of expression between the handful of molecules comprising and animating DNA?

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK21261/

At this point it seems we have reached the first grade of actuality of life on earth as specified in the Aristotle definition you provided. Digging further into what causes these molecules to express themselves through these bonds seems to be a broader question than the subset of nature that we call life?

It is often the case that we can describe the same act by referring to either a physical agent or a non-physical agent. If we say that a certain person did such and such, the person, a physical human being, is a physical agent, acting in the world. But if we turn to the person's intent, then we must account for the non-physical cause of that physical agent's action. Here we must turn to a non-physical agent. — Metaphysician Undercover

A few posts earlier, I made the case that the term non-physical is unhelpful since it requires further parsing to get at an author's meaning. Are you referring to unknown physical processes? Are you talking about some theory of an actual non-physical entity? I see no reason to believe intention is anything more than a complex aggregation of physical processes based in the mind/body mechanics given us through evolution.

This would appear to be our fundamental point of disagreement. — Galuchat

Which part do you disagree with, that what creates genetic code is somewhat unknown, or that the logic leads us to conclude that this cause is non-physical?

Evolution accounts for the creation of gene expression. Phosphodiester and hydrogen bonds are examples of expression between the handful of molecules comprising and animating DNA? — Read Parfit

The article you referred describes the chemical composition of DNA, and the duplication of genetic material, it does not describe what created it, or caused its existence. Nor does evolutionary theory explain this cause.

Digging further into what causes these molecules to express themselves through these bonds seems to be a broader question than the subset of nature that we call life? — Read Parfit

Why do you assume that this, the cause of genetic material, is a question of a broader nature than life? Isn't genetic material confined to living things?

Evolution accounts for the creation of gene expression. — Read Parfit

It really doesn't, you know. The theory of evolution doesn't account for the existence of DNA.

Which part do you disagree with, that what creates genetic code is somewhat unknown, or that the logic leads us to conclude that this cause is non-physical? — Metaphysician Undercover

With reference to gene expression, both.

An agent is something active, actual. In semiotic processes it is required that there is an agent which produces signs and an agent which interprets signs. That's why it doesn't make sense to say that both the categories, mind and matter, emerge from semiotic process. — Metaphysician Undercover

What is your concept of the relations between Form, Matter, and Mind? Hopefully, it is not based on an Aristotelian/Thomist equivocation of "soul".

Sorry Galuchat, but I really have difficulty with your terminology, and this makes it very hard to answer your questions. You ask me "what is your concept of the relations between Form, Matter, and Mind?", when each of these concepts are extremely broad, requiring pages to describe. Where am I supposed to start? If you do not understand my use of terms, then you probably are not educated in classical philosophy, and it would be extremely difficult for me to teach you that in this sort of forum. You would need to read it yourself.

Hopefully, it is not based on an Aristotelian/Thomist equivocation of "soul". — Galuchat

So here's a question for you which is more straight forward. What do you mean by "Aristotelian/Thomist equivocation of "soul'"? I've never seen such an accusation, that these philosophers equivocate with this word. Aristotle was very explicit with his definition of "soul" as you outlined above, and I think Aquinas adhered to it quite strictly. So what is the basis for the charge of equivocation?

“Evolution accounts for the creation of gene expression. Phosphodiester and hydrogen bonds are examples of expression between the handful of molecules comprising and animating DNA?”
— Read Parfit

The article you referred describes the chemical composition of DNA, and the duplication of genetic material, it does not describe what created it, or caused its existence. Nor does evolutionary theory explain this cause. — Metaphysician Undercover

Right, the article just described the chemical expression side.

@Wayfarer too. If you are not familiar with the leading evolutionary theories related to the forging of the krebs cycle 3,400 - 2,500 million years ago, I suggest the book “Life Ascending, The Ten Great Inventions of Evolution” written by Nick Lane. I imagine if he read my sentence”Evolution accounts for the creation…” he would suggest I change it to “It is broadly plausible that Evolution accounts for the creation…”.

What do you mean by "Aristotelian/Thomist equivocation of "soul'? — Metaphysician Undercover

"Aquinas, capitalising on Aristotle's obscure remarks about the active intellect, argued that 'the intellectual principle which is called the mind or intellect has an operation through itself (per se) unless it subsists through itself, for activity belongs to a being in act...Consequently, the human soul, which is called the intellect or mind, is something incorporeal and subsisting' (Summa Theologiae I, 76, 1)." (Bennett & Hacker, 2003)

So, Aquinas changed the meaning of "soul" from "form" to "mind" and separated it from "body" for theological reasons.

Your posts suggest to me that you may be conflating "form" and "mind", or using "soul" in an equivocal manner, and that you may not recognise the mind-body unity of human beings, hence; my request for clarification.

So, Aquinas changed the meaning of "soul" from "form" to "mind" and separated it from "body" for theological reasons. — Galuchat

What Aquinas argues in this passage is that the intellect and the soul of the human being are united as one, such that the human soul is an intellectual soul. The soul was always understood as separable from the body, even following Aristotle's definition, designating it as the form of the body, because forms are in principle separable. The question considered by Aquinas was whether the intellect is separable in the same way that the soul is separable. Aquinas argues that the human soul is an intellectual soul. So the soul maintains its status as the form of the living body, but in the case of intellectual beings, the soul is an intellectual soul

So it is not as you claim, that Aquinas changes the meaning of "soul" to "mind". What he argues is that the soul of an intellectual being is a special type of soul, an intellectual soul. "Soul" maintains its definition as the first actuality (form) of a living body, but he gives the intellectual soul special status in comparison with the vegetative soul, etc..



.

Aquinas changed the meaning of "soul" from "form" to "mind" and separated it from "body" for theological reasons. — Galuchat

Actually, there's a very deep philosophical issue here. Although such terms as 'soul' now sound antiquated, I have learned from my reading that the so-called 'hylomorphic' (matter-form) dualism of Aristotelean and Thomist philosophy, is really pretty sophisticated. But to unpack it and understand why this is so, takes quite a bit of explanation. Also your earlier comments in this thread about the inherent conflict between scientific and religious views are likely to incline you against such a philosophy. Nevertheless I will have a shot at a thumbnail sketch, so to speak.

The Platonic idea of 'form' and the related idea of the universal, is often, nowadays, reduced to caricature, in my view, as it has fallen so far out of favour that it is hardly understood any more. But it all goes back to Platonic epistemology and what it means to say that we really do know. Such things as logical truths and geometric proofs are known with a directness and intuitive certainty that is not characteristic of the knowledge of the sensible (sense-able) domain; when the mind knows such things, it actually in some sense becomes completely united with them in a way that is impossible with sensible particulars; such an understanding allows us to 'see the essence', as it were. And when it comes to the underlying arche, the 'forms' of humans and creatures, and even the form of general things like virtue or justice - to really 'see the form' is to understand the essence with a direct insight which is likewise apodictic and indubitable - like mathematical knowledge, dianoia, but of even a higher quality than that. Whereas knowledge of everyday affairs and phenomena is only knowledge of 'what appears', so it is of a lower order - it is doxai or pistis, belief or opinion.

While it's true that Aristotle didn't accept that the forms were real in a discarnate sense that Plato seemed to imply, he nevertheless accepted that the forms are what informs matter, or makes matter intelligible. That is why his view is called 'hylo-morphic' where 'hyle' is matter and 'morphe' is form (although that term itself is a neologism.) But in any case, the forms of things are what determines what kind of being they are. So very simplistically, intellect perceives the form (morphe), and the senses perceive the matter (hyle) which is 'accidental'. But this is very different from Cartesian dualism, because there's no conception of 'spirit' and 'matter' being separable in that way. I suppose it is more like a dual-aspect monism in some ways; 'the soul is the form of the body'.

What Aquinas argues in this passage is that the intellect and the soul of the human being are united as one, such that the human soul is an intellectual soul. The soul was always understood as separable from the body, even following Aristotle's definition, designating it as the form of the body, because forms are in principle separable. The question considered by Aquinas was whether the intellect is separable in the same way that the soul is separable. Aquinas argues that the human soul is an intellectual soul. So the soul maintains its status as the form of the living body, but in the case of intellectual beings, the soul is an intellectual soul

So it is not as you claim, that Aquinas changes the meaning of "soul" to "mind". What he argues is that the soul of an intellectual being is a special type of soul, an intellectual soul. "Soul" maintains its definition as the first actuality (form) of a living body, but he gives the intellectual soul special status in comparison with the vegetative soul, etc.. — Metaphysician Undercover

I am curious, do you believe what Aquinas argued?

Thanks for your clarification.

I find it unfortunate that Aquinas conflated soul (form) and mind, because it is:
1) Theologically unnecessary. Other theologians have managed to posit human beings consisting of a united body and mind, and separable spirit (i.e., tripartite being).
2) Metaphysically unnecessary and confused. It doesn't derive from the intuitively obvious unity of human mind and body.

Also your earlier comments in this thread about the inherent conflict between scientific and religious views are likely to incline you against such a philosophy. — Wayfarer

True science and true theology will not contradict each other.

I like the basic Platonic and Aristotelian framework of Forms, because it involves the process of information (which provides a direct link to modern science) and allows for the possibility of spiritual things. So, I find the reality/existence, form/matter, pure/empirical, and other, distinctions useful to science.

In attempting to modernise this framework, I find it useful to distinguish between data (asymmetries), communication (the discovery of pure data or creation of empirical data), and information (communicated data). Data being Form re-defined (it wouldn't be the first time).

I currently view semiotics as a specialised type of communication (i.e., signification), so have no problem with assigning it a significant role in a modern metaphysics.

I think the issue of the unity of the soul and body is complicated, as Wayfarer says. Aquinas wrote a lot about it so he is a good source. At other places he clearly argues a distinction between independent Forms, and the objects which the human intellect comes to know as intelligible objects, because the human intellect is dependent on the body. Because of this, the intelligible objects known to the human intellect are not truly separate Forms.

Here though, the question appears to be whether the intellect itself ought to be related to the soul or to the body. I would say that since the intelligible objects are essentially non-physical, that their essence is non-physical, and they have only physical accidents, then the intellect is more closely related to the non-physical soul. What I mean by this, is that the concept of numbers, or triangle, for example, is essentially the same in its non-physical form, in all sorts of human beings, while the differences within these concepts due to the individuality of the various human bodies, are accidental to the concepts.

So I can agree with Aquinas, that the intellect is more properly referred to as a property of the soul, rather than a property of the body, such that the human being has an intellectual soul rather than an intellectual body. This is because the objects associated with the intellect, the intelligible objects, are essentially non-physical, like the soul, and the physical aspect of them, that they occur in various different individual human beings, is accidental.

I find it unfortunate that Aquinas conflated soul (form) and mind, because it is:
1) Theologically unnecessary. Other theologians have managed to posit human beings consisting of a united body and mind, and separable spirit (i.e., tripartite being).
2) Metaphysically unnecessary and confused. It doesn't derive from the intuitively obvious unity of human mind and body. — Galuchat

These are good points, but the issue becomes much more difficult when we consider the existence of intelligible objects. If we have a unity of body and mind, and a separate spirit or soul, then the intelligible objects are either a product of the mind/body unity, or they are directly associated with the separate soul. Clearly intelligible objects are non-physical, in essence, and ought to be associated with the separate soul. But we have the problem exposed by Aristotle, that the intelligible objects known to the human intellect only have actual existence after being "discovered" by the human intellect.

So your three part categorizing, body, intellect, and soul, only unnecessarily complicates the issue. Instead of having the intellect as part of the relation between the soul and body, as Aquinas does, you have a relation between intellect and body. But we now need a further relation between this unity, and the independent soul, to account for how the intelligible objects are "discovered" by the unity of intellect and body, when they are described as non-physical, and separate from any individual human being. So instead of having two things, soul and body with a relationship between them, intellect being part of this relation, you have mind and body, with a relation between them, and another relation between the unity of these two, and the soul or spirit. So you introduce an extra relation which is an unnecessary complication.

I agree that a triadic formulation of human substance is more complicated than a dyadic one. Whether or not it's necessary depends on the relevant science and one's theology (or lack thereof).

I agree that a triadic formulation of human substance is more complicated than a dyadic one. Whether or not it's necessary depends on the relevant science and one's theology (or lack thereof). — Galuchat

I think my formulation is triadic. Yours is much more complicated requiring as much as five elements. I have body and soul as the two principals, with the third element being all those features of the relationship between the two, such things as desire, passion, emotion, will, intention, and intellect. If you start with a unity of mind and body, then you still need the third element which is the relationship between these two, desire, passion, emotion, etc.. Further, you have a fourth element, the soul, which you posit as something separate from all of this. So you will then need a fifth element, which will describe the relationship between the mind/body unity, and the soul itself. This complication is unnecessary because it is sufficiently avoided by maintaining the classical soul/body unity instead of your proposed mind/body unity, where the intellect, or mind, becomes a feature of the relationship between the body and soul, instead of one of the two principals.

“The article you referred describes the chemical composition of DNA, and the duplication of genetic material, it does not describe what created it, or caused its existence. Nor does evolutionary theory explain this cause.”
↪Metaphysician Undercover

I know I owe you a couple more replies that I hope I can get to this weekend, but I just want to do some quick mopup.

Although I mentioned Nick Lane’s book on evolution as a reference to leading scientific theories concerning the evolutionary creation of the krebs cycle and RNA/DNA, I did not provide links.

https://www.nature.com/articles/nrmicro1991

http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/362/1486/1887.short

At this point, one can only invoke the Fourth Law of Holes.

Looks like some wild speculations there:

The following compounds appear as probable candidates for central involvement in prebiotic chemistry: metal sulphides, formate, carbon monoxide, methyl sulphide, acetate, formyl phosphate, carboxy phosphate, carbamate, carbamoyl phosphate, acetyl thioesters, acetyl phosphate, possibly carbonyl sulphide and eventually pterins.

I have enjoyed this conversation. I think your assumption that a soul is a separate entity is an error that makes further conclusions based on the assumption nonsensical. In my life, I have heard plenty of personal testament about a separate soul, but have seen no evidence. What I have seen is science continually discovering physical activities in our brain and the rest of our body that humans have historically assumed is the work of a separate soul.

Aristotle had no way of knowing about the fossil and biological evidence showing plants and animals share common ancestors in bacteria that lived 2.5 million years ago, yet he showed his brilliance in deducing there was something plants and animals had in common. In 2018, I think it is unfair to Aristotle to invoke his name as a reason to conclude there is a separate soul. In light of the current facts we know about evolution and biology, I like to think that if he were alive today, he would be the first to point out the updates to that are necessary to his theory,

I have enjoyed this conversation. I think your assumption that a soul is a separate entity is an error that makes further conclusions based on the assumption nonsensical. In my life, I have heard plenty of personal testament about a separate soul, but have seen no evidence. What I have seen is science continually discovering physical activities in our brain and the rest of our body that humans have historically assumed is the work of a separate soul. — Read Parfit

It's not physical evidence which tells us that the soul is non-physical, that doesn't make sense. It's logic which gives us this conclusion. Here's a sample. Consider that the entire living body, any living body, consists of directed activities. I think that there is evidence of this, that every part of the physical body is active, and directed in the sense of acting as a part of a whole. This means that no physical part of the living body could come into existence without consisting of a directed activity. Therefore we must conclude that the thing which directs the activity of the physical living body is prior in time to the physical body itself. This is the non-physical soul. Do you see what I mean? If the living body only exists as directed activity, then the thing which directs the activity must be prior to the physical body.

If the living body only exists as directed activity, then the thing which directs the activity must be prior to the physical bod — Metaphysician Undercover

You mean, like the information of a genome?

Physical configurations encode constraints and thus tendencies generally. So finality, as globalised or collective tendencies, can simply evolve so long as physical configurations are a thing. You just need enough cohesion for the world to have a history being written into its state.

Time itself can thus evolve like the way a river gets established with a direction. Once constraints arise on material possibility, you get the emergent thing of a past as the information now fixed in a physical configuration, the future as the limits being imposed by that configuration, and the present as the point in between where possibilities are being actualised and being added to that configuration information.

Such things as logical truths and geometric proofs are known with a directness and intuitive certainty that is not characteristic of the knowledge of the sensible (sense-able) domain — Wayfarer

If this is so, why do 99% of humans really suck at maths in this fashion? :razz:

Either they lack a rational soul or in fact it takes considerable training to routinely look past the immediate world and “see” it’s abstract structures.

So very simplistically, intellect perceives the form (morphe), and the senses perceive the matter (hyle) which is 'accidental'. But this is very different from Cartesian dualism, because there's no conception of 'spirit' and 'matter' being separable in that way. I suppose it is more like a dual-aspect monism in some ways; 'the soul is the form of the body'. — Wayfarer

This works better. It speaks to the information theoretic view of physical reality. You have the complementary duo of information and entropy.

So it is a kind of dual aspect monism. But that says the two faces of reality are simply ontically different. And I would argue that everything slots into place once we can see the two aspects composing physical reality as being formally complementary. We need them to be a dichotomous pair of limits connected by a reciprocal relation.

So Aristotle - before the manglings of scholasticism - was on the money. Form does in-form material accidents, or entropy/degrees of freedom, with necessary limits.

The physical - that is the substantial and not just the material - is a story of the complementary things of top down constraints and bottom up accidents of history. Forms stabilise the instability of unrestrained potential.

We do need a duality of some kind at the heart of substantial being. And physics now agrees with hylomorphism to the degree it understands information and entropy as the complementary faces of the one physicalist world.

That leaves out “mind” of course. Physics talks about the simple and life and mind are another angle on the story - where you get to when the basic semiotic trick of the informational regulation of entropic instability evolves to have incredible hierarchical complexity.

why do 99% of humans really suck at maths in this fashion? :razz: — apokrisis

I'm among them. The point being, though, that when you know an a priori truth, that knowledge is apodictic and invariant. That is why the Platonists thought that mathematical knowledge - dianoia - was of a higher order than sensory knowledge. It's because of the ability to perceive the forms, which are the type, and the ability to then abstract, categorise and compare. All of this is fundamental to science. Galileo was greatly influenced by the Italian renaissance philosophers, Ficino in particular, who translated all of Plato's works into Latin; that's where you get 'the book of nature is written in mathematics'. From E A Burtt, Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science, we learn that Galileo took dianoia and used it to re-define the fundamental concepts of physics, which hitherto had been entangled with Aristotelian (and very anthropomorphic) notions of teleology (along with the rest of the Ptolmaic model). And that was indubitably a huge breakthrough, the beginning of the 'scientific revolution' and arguably modern science as such.

But it's also where problems were to arise:

The modern mind-body problem arose out of the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century, as a direct result of the concept of objective physical reality that drove that revolution. Galileo and Descartes made the crucial conceptual division by proposing that physical science should provide a mathematically precise quantitative description of an external reality extended in space and time, a description limited to spatio-temporal primary qualities such as shape, size, and motion, and to laws governing the relations among them. Subjective appearances, on the other hand -- how this physical world appears to human perception -- were assigned to the mind, and the secondary qualities like color, sound, and smell were to be analyzed relationally, in terms of the power of physical things, acting on the senses, to produce those appearances in the minds of observers. It was essential to leave out or subtract subjective appearances and the human mind -- as well as human intentions and purposes -- from the physical world in order to permit this powerful but austere spatiotemporal conception of objective physical reality to develop. — Nagel, Mind and Cosmos

However, what this overlooks is that the human mind remains inextricably an aspect of the picture, but one that is forgotten or suppressed. Hence:

The fundamental absurdity of materialism consist in the fact that it starts from the objective; it takes an objective something as the ultimate ground of explanation, whether this be matter in the abstract simply as it is thought, or after it has entered in to the form and is empirically given, and hence substance, perhaps the chemical elements, together with their primary combinations. Some such thing it takes as existing absolutely and in itself, in order to let organic nature and finally the knowing subject emerge from it, and thus completely explain these; whereas in truth everything objective is already conditioned as such in manifold ways by the knowing subject with the forms of its knowing, and presupposes these forms. Materialism is therefore the attempt to explain what is directly given to us from what is given indirectly. Everything objective, extended, active, and hence everything material, is regarded by materialism as so solid a basis for its explanations that a reduction to this....can leave nothing to be desired. All this is something that is given only very indirectly and conditionally, and is therefore only relatively present, for it has passed through the machinery and fabrication of the brain, and hence has entered the forms of time, space and causality, by virtue of which it is first of all extended in space and operating in time. — Arthur Schopenhauer

(This most pristine expression of this suppression is, of course, eliminative materialism.)

Which is why Jacques Maritain is correct in saying of the empiricist:

Unaware of his own intellect's spiritual activity, which he cannot do without, but which he has repressed in his unconscious, he gladly enjoys a mental behavior in which human reason limits itself to the most clever and intelligent use and penetration of the animal field of sense-experience.

...The myopic intellect uniquely concentrated on the empirical world acquires increased efficacy in this inexhaustible [but] limited field, especially thanks to that wonderful instrument, the mathematical analysis of sense-observable and measurable phenomena. What is wrong is not physico-mathematical science, which is a splendid token of the creativity of the human spirit. What is wrong is the fact that the modern man has sacrificed wisdom to science instead of uniting them. Thus the extraordinary power he is gaining over matter is paid for by his estrangement from human and spiritual realities, and his desperate loneliness.

Semiotics does overcome this to some extent, but only by its ability to impart or project mind-like attributes to the natural domain; however this is still supposed to be a result or consequence of an essentially mindless process, so ontologically it is still derivative rather than primary.

Consider that the entire living body, any living body, consists of directed activities. I think that there is evidence of this, that every part of the physical body is active, and directed in the sense of acting as a part of a whole. This means that no physical part of the living body could come into existence without consisting of a directed activity. — Metaphysician Undercover

Fossil and biological evidence show that we slowly evolved from bacteria over millions of years. While there are still details to fill in related to abiogenesis, we know for a fact that the tiny krebs cycle and RNA/DNA were the necessary drivers for our branch of life to kick start from single celled organisms. These very physical and basic molecular activities, which are driven by chemical bonds, are that force I think you miss.

https://www.ducksters.com/science/molecules.php
https://www.ducksters.com/science/the_atom.ph

Therefore we must conclude that the thing which directs the activity of the physical living body is prior in time to the physical body itself. This is the non-physical soul. Do you see what I mean? If the living body only exists as directed activity, then the thing which directs the activity must be prior to the physical body. — Metaphysician Undercover

Since there is a broadly plausible and very physical explanation for how our bodies came into existence, I disagree that we must conclude anything non physical is necessary. Overwhelming fossil and biological evidence provide a detailed story of how living creatures developed our capacity to conduct directed activity through physical means over millions of years.

Semiotics does overcome this to some extent, but only by its ability to impart or project mind-like attributes to the natural domain; however this is still supposed to be a result or consequence of an essentially mindless process, so ontologically it is still derivative rather than primary. — Wayfarer

Nope. Semiotics does reimagine the fundamentally simple as being pansemiotic and thus as much mind-like as matter-like in some good sense. But consciousness - and its material technological products - are derivative of this simplicity in being the product of complexity. Or multiple levels of increasing informational and abstracted semiosis.

So the simple becomes semiotic. And complex semiosis arises out of that. You are conflating the simplest form with the most highly complex form in talking about the world being mind-like in some conscious, and even super sensible or divine sense of the word.

So we have humans and their machines. We have the semiotics of maths piled upon speech, piled upon neurons, piled upon genes, to result in some sharp division between conscious beings and their mechanised environments. In one tiny corner of the Cosmos where a steep entropic gradient was begging to be colonised, there was a brief eruption of this fantastical complexity.

But only hubris would lead you to want to read that exceptionalism into the generally far simpler tale of a thermalising Cosmos, doing everything it wants with far less semiotically developed machinery.

We have the semiotics of maths piled upon speech, piled upon neurons, piled upon genes, to result in some sharp division between conscious beings and their mechanised environments. — apokrisis

But as I think we have agreed, the 'furniture of reason' is not the product of the brain. At that point of evolution, the mind is sufficiently advanced to discover a pre-existing order:

The soul's deeper parts can only be reached through its surface. In this way the Eternal Forms, that mathematics and philosophy and the other sciences make us acquainted with, will by slow percolation gradually reach the very core of one's being, and will come to influence our lives; and this they will do, not because they involve truths of merely vital importance, but because they [are] ideal and eternal verities. — C S Peirce

Quoted by Thomas Nagel. I don't see it as hubristic; what I see as hubristic is the attitude that we can be defined in the terms of what the natural sciences can know.

But as I think we have agreed, the 'furniture of reason' is not the product of the brain. At that point of evolution, the mind is sufficiently advanced to discover a pre-existing order: — Wayfarer

But what we see is a world divided into its structural necessities and its material accidents. And is the world actually divided, or instead hylomorphically whole?

So it is impressive once we reach a mathematical level of semiotic engagement with the world. But it is still a modelled “world” we end up “perceiving”. You are talking as if the mind is the kind of thing that eventually arrives at direct access to the truth of being. All we have is a more sophisticated umwelt forming our phenomenal experience.

Yes. There is something deeper about that view. It sees the whole of the Cosmos in getting down to the structural necessities of “existence” itself.

But it is still a model - indirect. The mind does not discover in some simple fashion, like finally opening its eyes to find what is nakedly right there. It has to build up to an understanding by way of conceptual abstraction. It has to in fact erase and forget every particular or detail it can. The grand structure is then whatever is finally left as that which cannot be cancelled away.

You are talking as if the mind is the kind of thing that eventually arrives at direct access to the truth of being. All we have is a more sophisticated umwelt forming our phenomenal experience. — apokrisis

But the point about the Western philosophical tradition was to discern those elements in the flux of sensation that were indubitable and certain - hence the respect for mathematics and rationalism in the first place. That’s where the entire distinction between sensible and intelligible ideas originated. And science itself is based on the mathematical modelling of experience on the basis of the observed regularities of nature - natural laws, as they used to be called.

And, of course I agree that the mind builds understanding by way of abstraction [and why I think it’s important to understand Kant]. The mind is capable of that abstraction - that is the basis of rationality and language after all. It’s where that is said to be only ‘the product of evolution’ that it sells intelligence short - it is explaining intelligence as an evolved adaption, not evaluating it on its own merits. The classical tradition valued rational thought and mathematics, but that wasn’t the top-most level of the hierarchy of knowledge, which was ‘noesis’. And I don’t think there’s even an analogy for that in current philosophy, as there is no heirarchy - it’s the vertical dimension that has been eliminated from the landscape.

And anyway, as I said to Uber, the argument I’m reading up on, is the ‘argument from reason’. I don’t necessarily concur that it ‘proves’ the case for ‘theism’. What interests me about it, is that reason is always prior - no matter where you look, what empirical data you cite, it is always already ‘informed’ by reason, so to speak. But I have a lot more work to do on developing that - I’m slogging through some of the literature on it, and there are many nits to pick.

But right now, I have to go and wash the dog.

You mean, like the information of a genome? — apokrisis

No, the genome is the physical body. There is an activity which creates and interprets the information. What directs the activity cannot be the genome, because the activity has created the genome. That activity must be directed by something prior to the genome. It's like what I was saying about semiotic processes. We cannot simply describe these processes as interpretation of symbols or signs, because we need to also account for the creation of such signs. If the living physical body consists of signs, we need to refer to something non-physical as prior to the physical signs to account for their creation.

These very physical and basic molecular activities, which are driven by chemical bonds, are that force I think you miss. — Read Parfit

I am fully aware of all that. What I am saying is that there must be something non-physical prior to these molecular activities to account for their occurrence. Activities of the living body may be accounted for by these molecular activities. But these molecules have already been created by specific activity, directed activity. When we get to the bottom of the physical realm, the most fundamental physical components of living beings, we still need to account for the activities which have brought these most fundamental physical components into existence. These activities can be nothing other than non-physical activities. Abiogenesis is unsupported, random speculation, therefore unreasonable.

Since there is a broadly plausible and very physical explanation for how our bodies came into existence, I disagree that we must conclude anything non physical is necessary. Overwhelming fossil and biological evidence provide a detailed story of how living creatures developed our capacity to conduct directed activity through physical means over millions of years. — Read Parfit

Did you read and understand my argument? I'm not talking about "our bodies" specifically, I'm talking about living bodies in general. So evolution is irrelevant here. Directed activity was present with the very first life form, and this is what must be accounted for. Since that directed activity was the cause of the very first life form (living physical body) on earth, then the directed activity must be prior to the very first living physical body. There is absolutely no evidence of such directed activity in nonliving physical things, therefore it could be nothing other than non-physical living activity.

Sure. We can grant noesis as an advanced skill of a suitably trained human mind. We can have such a well developed concept of the abstract that we can perceive it’s structures in a mental imagery sense.

But your thesis is stronger. It follows from the Greek claim that what we humans can do with our rational faculty is a diminished form of the omnescient rational vision that would be native to a creator god.

So I say we climb the semiotic ladder of our own ability to conceive of the Cosmos as a whole.

You are aiming at the story that we aspire to the kind of rational perception that a creator would be endowed with. We are cut down gods rather than cranked up animals.