Hey Scott. No worrise on the delay. I've been putting 60-70 hours in a week at work, and between that and being slack-jawed and some of my more recent discussions, I don't know how I would have been able to offer a clear-headed response anyway. In any case, I have four hours of doing nothing but answering phone calls today, so I figure I would go ahead and respond to your last post.
I understand, and consider some composite substance dualistic positions to be quite sophisticated. For example, I have been intrigued by Merleau-Ponty's existentialist position which I never got to research, but as I understand, sees it as a category mistake to try analyse the mind external to our own physical existence. To try separate the two is nonsensical for such involves an external perspective looking in, but we should work from our existence. I'm not saying you necessarily agree with this, but it does add coherency and therefore some weight to a composite dualistic position.
I've actually not heart of the Merleau-Ponty position. I'll need to look into it myself, but I do agree that we should start from our existence. Following Veatch, Gilson, Owens, and ultimately, Aquinas, I've always been taught that a philosophy proper must begin with a study of being, out of which can flow a proper metaphysic. Actually, in light of that, I wonder what method Moreland employs to create a systematic philosophy.
Yes, I believe in two distinguishable substances that exhibit different properties.
To give quick examples as to what I mean by substance, water is a substance which has the properties of "wetness" or "transparency". A fruit such as an orange is a substance which has properties like an orange skin, roundness and tastes a certain way. So by substance, I simply mean that something can be classified as a substance if it possesses properties. Properties like mass or weightlessness, colour, a type of sound, shape, etc.
Sounds like a pretty universal conception of substance. So, question for you - do all substances have both form and matter (in the Aristotelean/Thomistic sense of the words)?
Our bodies are forever changing. I am sure you have heard that every seven years (?) every atom in our bodies has been replaced. Thus, so the argument goes, our identity is not tied to our bodies. Which leads to whether our identify is bound to our memories, which leads to absurdities when considering questions like "what if those exact same memories were implanted in someone else?" Your position does not contain such absurdities since the self is comprised of both the physical and mental properties in one composite substance.
I would agree with your statement "I am my body" is false. I also agree that if our self is comprised of a physical (body) + immaterial (mind) composite, then it makes no sense that the body can be removed and our self (person) remain intact. Given this, I do not understand how you reconcile your position with being able to remove our body so that we are left with our spirit? If we comprise a body+soul composite substance, and indeed these can not be separated without destroying who we are, then how can we be raised up a spiritual body? (1 Cor 15:44) What does Paul even mean when he clearly distinguishes to between the two two types of bodies - natural and spiritual? Or what does Christ mean when he says: "Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell." (Matt 10:28) If the two can be clearly divided into two, then we are talking about two substances.
There are at least two ways to answer this, depending on if you hold to di- or trichotomy. Since I am undecided on that issue, I'll present both, each of which I think are valid.
From a dichotomist's perspective (to which I probably lean a bit), you can point out the fact that "matter" in the form/matter scheme does not necessarily mean physical atoms. More properly, it is the stuff out of which the thing is made, which gives any particular form a "thatness," as in THAT tree or THAT dog. Now, we certainly believe that angels have bodies of some sort, and yet I doubt anyone would declare that those bodies have a chemical composition. From this, I can only conclude that there is literally a type of matter that we, as mortal humans, have never (knowingly?) interacted with. Thus, we could very simply say that the form of the person is, at death, given a new matter to inform in paradise--a temporary spiritual body--and therefore, the person is indeed a person in the correct sense of the word.
From a trichotomists perspective, we can affirm the above, but add the factor of the spirit. Here, the language may start to sound a bit Cartesian (although we certainly wouldn't affirm that system!) in that the identity could perhaps be rooted in the
pneuma moreso than the body/soul composite. As a result, you could simply say that the spirit is given a new body/soul composite in heaven, and the issue is resolved.
Now, my problem with
that view is that I think it has the same problems I accuse subtance dualism of having. In fact, I regularly wonder if trichotomy isn't substance dualism after all (for, if we aren't saying that the spirit is a separate substance, what are we saying it is, and how is it different from the form/soul in the form/matter composite?!?). But I'll also say that I've not read any metaphysical treatments of trichotomy. In fact, if I were to convert to substance dualism, this would be the way it would have to go. First, prove the biblical position is trichotomy of dichotomy, and second, prove that trichotomy presupposes substance over composite dualism. But as it stands, I don't know that either of those statements can be proven.
But that is more than you asked for. The short answer: while awaiting the Resurrection, I believe we are given temporary bodies. Thus, personhood is preserved after death.
Talk of the two being radically different actually lends itself against a composite substance position. If we really do have two radially different "substances" (or "aspects" if your prefer), then this radical difference finds a hard home in a position which views the two existing harmoniously in one composite substance. On the other hand, if you see a commonality between the two "aspects" in the one substance, then your arguments that the two are radically different can no longer apply. It is unreasonable to argue that the two are radically different, and then embrace the contrary of the two being harmonious. Looking at it another way; where you see substance dualism is hard-pressed to provide a commonality which allows interaction to take place, a dualistic composite substance is hard-pressed to explain how the two aspects can be harmonised together while being radically different.
I would make a much stronger distintion between "substance" and "aspect" than you are. Let me explain. I believe that all real things, being substances, have both form and matter. A rock, for instance, has both. Now, matter is clearly material, but form is immaterial. By that, I mean what the rock
is is not a thing that can be measured, tasted, weighed, etc. It's nature is "rockness." The matter is clearly material (in this case), and we say that a rock is in fact a particular rock becasue matter has been informed with the form of rock.
Now, in this example, are we saying there is a separate subtance called "rock" that is immaterial? Not at all! Consider Aristotle's old example of a king's signant ring. When pressed into wax, what is left is the form of the right, not its matter. That form is not material, but is expressed in the material. Likewise, that form is what is impressed in our minds. I would suggest that if you go so far as to consider form a substance, then you have absolutely no way to claim any knowledge of anything. The necessary result must be total epistemological skepticism. That's the problem that all Cartesianism encounters.
I assert, then, that form is NOT a substance. It is nothing like a substance. It is that aspect of a thing that makes it what it actually is. One final example should demonstrate this:
Consider, again, a rock. Now suppose that rock is cut in two and reshaped and painted randomly. Is it still a rock? Yes, it is. Is it still the same rock t was before? Yes it is. We say that
that particular rock has changed. If it is not the same rock, then the rock, it turns out, has not changed at all. It has only been replaced with a new one. How, then, do we say that things can change and yet still be the same thing substantially as they were before? The answer is that a thing's matter changes while its form remains the same. But this proves my point, or if matter changes, but the form does not, then the form is not material. But it is obvious that rocks do not have in them a separate, immaterial substace, and still less do they have a substance called a "soul." But we must affirm that the
whatness of the rock is still real, and that it does not change, and that it consquently must be immaterial. To deny this will, again, land a person in complete epistemological skepticism.
Moving on, what commonality is there between male and female that the two can be united and made one? Were not the two created in a manner where they could bond. Is commonality required for the two different objects to relate (interact) with each other? I do not evidently see that it is, however I do see that there must be a "common language" in which two different objects (or substances) can relate to each other. You believe this "common language" is provided in a composite substance. I too would advocate their being combined, yet they are also separate for they each exhibit radically different properties (which you yourself understand when calling them "radically different").
The commonality between male and female is that they are both human. They both have material bodies, and therefore, they can affect one another--they can bond--on a material level. So I would still assert that ontological commonality (as opposed to the linguistic commonality you here propose) is required. In the case of composite dualism, we do haev ontological commonality, for form (immaterial) and matter (material) are grounded in substance, that is, they have the same substance in common.
But I do not see how a linguistic commonality (I take your word "language" here rather literally, even though you put it in quotation marks--some clarification if I have misunderstood you would be appreciated) could serve as a sufficient basis for interaction to occur. Language only describes reality. It does not determine it. I can see no means by which an immaterial substance can "talk" to a material substance and vice versa.
Let me expound what I believe our self consists of. I believe we have a bodiless substance that has the capacity for thought, sight, hearing, touch, certain sensations. This substance is the essence of who we are. However, in and of itself, this bodiless substance can express nothing - no thought, no sight, no hearing, touch, experiencing sensations. God Himself sustains us in this most purified bodiless state. Ultimately this could be seen as Monism, however although we might have a human essence we are not really human until expressed. Such expression happens when God envelopes and interpenetrates (akin perhaps to the Trinity) a human bodily substance with our pure essence. This actualises our human capacities for thought, sight, hearing, touch, taste and so forth to be expressed. As the Trinity is one God, this substance might be seen as one composite (I have no qualms with that), but as we distinguish between the different persons in the Godhead which exhibit different roles, we can clearly distinguish between different substances which exhibit "radically" different properties.
This is precisely the way Descarte understood the self. How, then, can you avoid complete epistemological skepticism? Descarte did it by arguing that God would never lie, but that begs the question, because he has no proof of God. His ontological argument fails. If our true selves are little souls that drive around bodies (which, I realize, is a simplistic caricature of your position!), then how can you know anything at all? When I see a tree, my brain is only interpreting light patterns and creating a picture in my mind (for you, the soul). But if that is the case, then all your soul has direct access to are the pictures it itself creates based on the sense perception handed to it by the body (however that happens). This means that since you have no access to the world in itself, you cannot know the world in itself. You can only know the world as your mind interprets the signals it receives.
In short, how do you know the picture your mind paints of reality actually matches reality if you have no direct access to reality itself?
To counter, may I ask how you believe God in His immaterial (spiritual) existence was able to interact to bring about the material existence of our world and His creation? This argument, if it held up, would also knock God's creation of our material world ex nihlo on the head.
The case with God is justifiably different on the level of Being. Ultimately, God is pure existence, or existence actualized. What ALL things have in common, be they natural or supernatural, sensible or supersensible, is that they have being (existence). As a result, God grants all things existence. He interacts with them at the level of being itself. This, by the way, also goes a long way in grounding God's omniscience in Himself, for if you take God to be static with reference to time, and you take all existence as coming from God, then you can say everything that existed, exists, and will exist, do so directly because God grants it existence. But if God grants it existence, then He certainly must know about it as well.
Of course, none of this helps with reference to the body/soul duality, because we cannot say that they interact on the level of being (the soul does not give being to the body; God does).
To answer how the two could interact (if indeed they can not do so on their own), what is wrong with believing in God's sustenance? What makes you think there must be a physical commonality between two objects to enable them to interact? There is no reason why God should be divorced from the equation in which everything holds together: "He is before all things, and in him all things hold together." (Colossian 1:17)
There is a view very similar to the one you are positing here that was held by many Christians shortly after Descarte came on the scene. I forget its name, but basically, it recognizes that there can be no causality between two unlike substances (for there can be no relationship, as relationship presupposes commonality of substance), but argues that God basically holds the two together like two positive ends of a magnet. Further, it argues that any time something happens to the body, God Himelf causes the thing to happen to the soul. In the strictest sense of the word, then, there is no relationship between body and soul. Just a correspondance that God administers. When I prick my finger and experience pain, my soul experiences pain, not because my body did anything to my soul, but because God created the sensation Himself (being that there is no bridge other that God Himself that would be capable of that).
If that were a last resort, I suppose I could hold to it, but if you think through it, I'm sure you can see it is rather silly. It smacks, to me, of a conclusion reached in desparation . . . like the limited atonement of Calvinism.
Yes. I recall also having this discussion with you in the past so might be worth trying to track that down.
However, poke a dog with a pin. If it seems to experience the qualitative sensation of pain and react accordingly, then a transaction from the body to the soul and back again has likely taken place. This transaction starts from the physical body which takes in the signal of being poked with a pin via nerves beneath the skin, which then causes certain neural firings to occur throughout the body and brain, impressing the phenomenal qualia (the sensation of what it is like) of being stuck with a pin onto their soul, after which they react producing a physical reaction such as yelping or biting.
Of course robots could be programed to provide certain reactions based upon certain events that happen to them. A robot dog might for instance be created and programmed to provide the exact same reactions as a normal living dog. God could have created animals like such machinery. Meaning they don't really experience pain. Their reactions have just been programmed so it looks like they do. However, I believe such skepticism is counter-intuitive. Such skepticism pushed to its logical conclusion would lead to someone even questioning whether other people around them really do experience the same things they do.
I thought you had said that you believed as much. For the life of me, I can't remember why I asked. In any case, I do agree with your discussion on sensation here and artificial life as well as the slippery slope you provided. I'm still not sure how you actually get sensation from the body to an immaterial soul, but I suppose we'll get more into that when you get a chance to respond.
). *shrugs* Lol. We should be clothed in Christ as well, which could make it sound like we get swallowed up (if you wanted to go there), but we don't. I don't see that the translations are that different either. I believe God intended for everyday people to understand his Word - the hope He offers - without nuances or subtleties that would make them doubt or cause division.
God is spirit and he interacts with the physical somehow. It's a mystery, it's not silly. Sound waves and other forces like that do not seem physical to us, yet they have physical effects. I would say that radio waves are not physical at all, in a material sense, yet they interact with my physical radio. There are many examples. And I'm sure God's spirit and whatever part of us that is spirit is much more mysterious than that.