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You can still say that many of those things (memories, feelings) are material impressions or tendencies in the brain. But cognition itself must have an immateri
by silent_cal 5y ago
You can still say that many of those things (memories, feelings) are material impressions or tendencies in the brain. But cognition itself must have an immaterial component, because it deals with immaterial realities (justice, truth, abstracted quantities and shapes, etc.) That's the Aristotelian and Thomistic theory.
- burnished 5y agoThat doesn't follow from your premise. You could justify any number of absurd theories with similar reasoning.
- silent_cal 5y agoWhat do you mean? We couldn't know anything immaterial if all we are is material. That's all I'm saying.
- burnished 5y agoThen why posit the existence of the immaterial? What I'm getting at is I could use your reasoning to posit insane things that you would heartily disagree with, using your reasoning without twisting or bending it. Because your reasoning is baseless, or rather it rests on its own conclusion. Even to just stick to the realm you're suggesting - why would anything about us need to be immaterial to have concepts like justice? I don't see the necessity of an unprovable, nebulous, unnecessary immaterial reality to explain anything.
- silent_cal 5y agoI grant that I'm assuming you also think justice exists. But if you do, I think that you'd have to grant that justice itself is not material. The fact that you can know it, even though it's not material, suggests that your mind is also immaterial.