Posted: Mar 20, 2017 1:41 pm
archibald wrote:John Platko wrote:So obviously the soul does not need neurons to exist. Whether or not a mind can exist without neurons is irrelevant to discussion of souls. However, when we're talking about the immaterial nature of the soul, i.e. the spiritual part of a human being, that does not mean that it does not require some physical substrate to exist - nothing is known that doesn't require some physical substrate of one sort or another. But the soul, like many things, can exist in whole or part on many different types of physical substrates.
Immaterial nature. Hm.
I'm really not sure. You may have an unnecessary dichotomy (immaterial plus substrate). That's an odd thing for a physicalist to have.
I accept that it's hard to avoid using dualist language at times and that we all succumb to it.
I'm happy to fix the language problems. When I think immaterial I think of the immaterial quality of information - the way it's not bound to one material. The substrate isn't the information. The organization of the substrate carries the information or you could say, the information organizes the substrate.
The way this usually works, pretty much in any field, is that you define what a term means and then the common meanings for that word are irrelevant to the discussion. For example work = force X distance. Not what most people think of when you say work.