The greatest joys that we experience are not physical. Let’s face it, the so called physical world that we live in can be quite apart from the inward world that we experience. So some folks surrounded by all the physical comforts are miserable, while some folks who have nothing at all live in ecstasy. Its perception that counts. What is the substance of love, comradery, courage, admiration, pride, adulation, joy, community, wonder, hope, interest, compassion, belief, empathy, or loyalty? No substance; just perception. These things are spiritual. So it is beyond me what physical proof of God’s existence has to do with faith. God is a spiritual thing, like all of the sentiments I mentioned above. Even if God walked among us every day, I would wager that the net effect on the human situation would be negligible. If he walked around and did not interfere with us, we would consider him impotent. If he got really pissed and decided not to put up with all the shit we do, he would be considered a tyrant who we needed to overthrow. Its no wonder he just chooses to remain a spiritual presence! So if you want physical proof of God’s existence, look around. Its all over the place. You just have to perceive it for what it is.
Perception of what? What is it that we perceive that makes us happy?
Um, isn’t that answered by the next sentence of the OP? That is, perception of “love, comradery, courage…”
How have you proved God’s existence? You have proved people have emotions and have made a huge leap from that.
Democritus,
I did not set out to prove the existence of God. I suggested that perception is the mediator between the internal and external world. I posited that the internal world is what is really counts. A theist might perceive a certain aspect of the outside world as evidence of God’s existence. An atheist might perceive the same aspect of the outside world as having nothing to do with God. When theists and atheists to seek common ground, physical evidence is useless due to perceptual differences. Common ground might, however, exist in a discussion of perception. What molds an individual’s perception?
OK, I confess, f12hte was a bad choice in monikers. It says nothing about me. I was too dim to realize that my every post would cite this meaningless jumble of letters and numbers. As such, perhaps I do deserve to be called F-bomb.
Again I apologize for the unfortunate ambiguity regarding the word “spiritual”. I meant the word as it would be used in the phrases “human spirit”, “esprit de corps” or “that’s the spirit”. I did not mean to imply anything like soul or “spiritual” apart from substance. I agree with you totally, as I quote you above. Perhaps it is due to your laboring under this ambiguity, that I do not understand the point of your post.
This is interesting. Can you tell me more about the physical stimulation experiments/treatments that produce feelings of joy love, etc?
So you are (or he is) saying that to perceive something like “love” is not to perceive something physical?
Bullshit.
Everything about “love” is physical. You might begin by addressing tortoise’s point about the crucial role played by the brain in emotions like “love.” If “love” is purely metaphysical then why is it that the removal of parts of the brain stops “love” from occurring? Why don’t Alzheimers’ victims continue to “love” even after catastrophic brain damage?
What do you mean when you say that you “love” someone in the first place? Emotions are electrochemical events that take place within human bodies. They are not disembodied something-or-others that float around in space.
Reality Check. I feel that the following quotes, that I copied from my previous posts, both address tortoise’s concern and reiterate the point of my post. I hope that you will see that a non-corporeal view of “the spirit” was not the point of my discussion.
“I apologize for the unfortunate ambiguity regarding the word “spiritual”. I meant the word as it would be used in the phrases “human spirit”, “esprit de corps” or “that’s the spirit”. I did not mean to imply anything like soul or “spiritual” apart from substance. I agree with you totally. Perhaps it is due to your laboring under this ambiguity, that I do not understand the point of your post.”
I suggested that perception is the mediator between the internal and external world. I posited that the internal world is what is really counts. A theist might perceive a certain aspect of the outside world as evidence of God’s existence. An atheist might perceive the same aspect of the outside world as having nothing to do with God. When theists and atheists to seek common ground, physical evidence is useless due to perceptual differences. Common ground might, however, exist in a discussion of perception. What molds an individual’s perception?"
It’s true that removing or injuring parts of the brain can stop someone from perceiving love, etc. But that merely demonstrates that the physical brain and subjective perceptions are intimately connected - that observation is not definite evidence that the perceived love is physical. Here’s a little metaphor to show what I mean. Imagine a piece of paper, one side of which is black, representing the brain, and the other side white, representing the perceiving mind. If you cut off a corner of the black side (= removing parts of the brain), you invariably cut off a corner of the white side as well (= removing the perception of love). But that is not evidence that the paper has only one black side. The strong ontological claim that “love is physical” is equivalent to the claim that the white side of the paper is really black.
we have evidence for the white side–“the perceiving mind”
(the part which is reading this now)
Like meddler said, the perceiving mind is evidence of the white side. I never mentioned a “soul”.
Huh? My analogy explicitly indicated that mind is represented by the white side. Where did you get that “the mind is the whole paper”?? My point was that both the brain and the mind, like both the black and white sides of the paper, are real and you cannot priviledge the brain or one side of the paper.
The analogy is black = physical brain, white = non-physical mind. Let’s keep it simple and not bring in “soul” when everyone has a different take on what that word means.
Great, everyone agrees that both the brain and the mind exist. And indeed the question is about whether the mind is physical or not (an altogether different question). And that is exactly what my analogy is useful for - to show that the mind is not necessarily physical. To claim that the mind is physical because removing parts of brain results in removing parts of the mind as well = claiming that the white side of the paper is black because removing parts of the black side results in removing parts of the white side as well.
Feel free to expand on that.
What does the ‘I’ refer to when you say “I’m starting from scratch”? I suggest you were referring to your rational mind rather than your physical brain. That’s why you wouldn’t say “My brain is starting from scratch”, but it would make sense to say “My mind is starting from scratch”. You can’t help but “presuppose” the white side exists because the white side - your rational mind - is doing all the presupposing or non-presupposing!
I wouldn’t express it like that, the idea that “the mind is at least partially physical”. Rather, I’d say a person has both a physical aspect (body, brain) and a non-physical aspect (mind, experiences). Don’t forget that even though the brain undoubtedly affects the mind, it’s just as apparent that the mind affects the physical body too. My mind wants to type these words on the keyboard and my physical fingers follow the order. My main concern is that the physical brain shouldn’t be priviledged over the non-physical mind and experiences.
There is definitely an agreement here.
In other words, while I am not prpepared to demonstrate, or even explain fully how the details work, since I don’t know them, it is certainly not outlandish to hypothesize this—
–that every phenomenon of which we can conceive is entirely physical, and that it is impossible to speak of anything at all as existing in a non-physical way whatsoever…
just a consideration
…just because we cannot see and therefore explain the physics of the mind
does not prove that the mind exists in a non-physical way…
…On the other hand, I can anticipate the reaction to such a claim, (and it comes from my mind!)
What of “concepts”? Are they physical?
Concepts are not real, then, if we stay on the black page…
Various perspectives and perceptions of concepts are real, and they are physical, emotive, chemical states of “mind” which react to symbols…
Fascinating to think about nonetheless.
It should not lessen the value of our great thoughts to admit that they are indeed biological processes
We’ve already agreed that the mind exists, so you want me to provide evidence for its non-physical nature. Let’s take any thought or experience you may have - OK, the desire to type blah blah blah. Can someone else see, touch, smell, hear, or taste this desire you have? Nope - and that’s evidence of its non-physicality. Can someone use an instrument to examine your brain while you have such a desire, and discover that certain neuron activity always accompanies the desire? Yep, but that merely establishes a link between your desire and your brain activity - it doesn’t show that your desire IS the brain activity. Remember, it’s your neurons that get detected (showing they are physical) and not the desire itself - and this inability to physically detect your desire is evidence of its non-physicality.
Rocky, your position, which is strong, is helped by the unknown.
But does this kind of reasoning mean that, for example,
prior to the invention of the microscope, “evidence” existed for the non-existence of microscopic life?
In other words, can it simply be the case that we have no access to the physical aspect of such “intangibles” as desire?
Furthermore, wouldn’t it seem to stand to reason that if something such as desire can be felt, and even traced via physical counterparts which we do notice (neurons, etc.),that desire itself might possibly be physical in a way which we are at this point in our technological development simply unable to “physically detect.”
The above possibility is at least equally as likely as the existence of an utterly NON-physical realm. For at this point, equal evidence exists for both of these states of reality we are interested in figuring out— “physics w/ non-physics” and “physics only.”
UMMM. I’m not smart enough to conjecture on physical mind/non-physical mind. After you philosophical icons have established the corporeal/non-corporeal nature of the mind, can we talk just a little bit about perception. My original post was more concerned with “perception” and how it mediates between the external world and the world of our experience.
I’ve noticed here how we do tend to sometimes get off-topic, so I decided to re-read your original post, f12hte.
It seems to me that we are not off-topic by discussing the mind where perception is concerned.
Because?
It is the mind which perceives, right?
To say that we are off-topic by discussing the mind where perception is concerned would be sort of like saying we are off-topic discussing (x) 
…
…Actually, you know, f12hte, there is no suitable analogy,
and I hate to resort to analogy anyway, since it never seems to be a perfect match –
better to just “talk it straight.”
I
I’m starting to realize you may have a point that I, for one, have missed.
You are not concerned with whether or not the mind itself is corporeal or non. You are simply comparing experiences which are blatantly physical for their own sake, such as indulgence in fine foods, for example, or a luxurious spongebath, with experiences which are “of the mind”, such as a perception that I should feel grateful to merely possess a healthy set of feet to walk, such gratitude being a sentiment of spirit, nevermind how the emotion technically relates to physical, chemical states of being.
Is this closer to your point than what seems to have developed into an attempt at a metaphysical exposition of the brain/mind/soul trichotomy?
Sorry to jump in the middle here, but it looks to me like the opening post would make more sense if it were phrased in terms of what is “objective” (or perhaps empirical) and “perceptual” rather than “physical” and “emotional” or “spiritual”; he doesn’t seem to be talking about what is composed of matter and what we feel, but what we can measure and what we can’t. The whole point, as I read it, is that belief in God is dependent on our self-awareness, not our awareness of the outside; we shouldn’t expect that, if God existed, He’d be here performing miracles and kissing babies because it’d be pointless and irrelevant to how we’d relate to God. We relate to God in accordance with our perspective; belief in God changes how we feel and see, not what we feel and see.
I’d make a similar argument in a different way, although I’m not sure any of this is coherent: Our perception depends inherently on God, if in fact God exists; therefore there is no empirical proof to be expected that could possibly prove God’s existence. By definition our knowledge of that proof would be tainted by the senses through which we attained it; there could always be something else beyond our senses that masters them further than we can see. As such, the world we experience today is exactly what one who does believe in God would expect, yet it also fits in the worldview of someone who does not believe in God.
One final way of phrasing the argument, and this is all assuming I read f12hte correctly, is that the only way to decide whether or not to believe in an ultimate reality is to rest that belief on irrational impulses–on emotion. Hence, faith in God, or 100 gods, or a godless universe, cannot rest on physical proof, only our perception.
Also, sorry if I threw your thread further off track f12hte.
Meddler
My argument only seems to depend on the current lack of technology to detect thoughts and experiences directly, when in fact my claim won’t be affected by any future technological advances. I can make such a general claim because scientific instruments, by definition, are able to detect physical or objective properties only, whereas thoughts, perceptions and emotions are, by their very nature, subjectively experienced, and hence undetectable by objective means. Regardless of how advanced your scientific instruments are, they will not measure your mind but only its physical/objective correlations, as occurred in the brain.