Bleed Out Thy Soul!

I posted this a couple of years ago but it was relevant to my last post and I decided to repost it here. 


That which animates our earthen bodies is unique to the universe and can only manifest itself upon this earth through our material bodies.  We can let that  unique intelligence which was made with the same material as God retain itself and not flavor the earth with its precious ingredient, or we can let our soul bleed out over the earth and leave behind our scent for others to sense as they too pass through in their earthen vessles.  Slash your soul to pieces! Grind it, mutilate it, and let its essence run, glowing, upon the dust to bring it out all the more green and alive for others.  Bleed out thee, thy soul, upon the earth! Bleed out, and touch the fate of the material universe!

Of Men and Mousetraps

Of Men and Mousetraps

Does a mousetrap perceive the mouse it traps? No, it is simply actuated by the mouse.

If the mousetrap had a million parts, would it then perceive the mouse? Does the number of mechanical steps involved change a mechanic chain reaction into perception?   Between each step of action there is only one step of actualization.  If no single step of actualization can constitute perception, then no long chain of single steps could produce perception either.   Thus the number, or complexity of the steps involved is irrelevant.  The trap is actuated and it produces the effect predicated by the physical laws governing the material that makes it.  In fact the simplest mousetrap, when viewed from a molecular level, is made of billions of parts all interacting with each other anyway. 

What if the trap uses a high definition camera linked to a powerful computer which scans the image a thousand times per second, analyzing the image so as to snap at the precise time when death would be most likely and would not snap on the hand of the setter, or anything else that wasn’t a mouse - would it then be said to perceive the mouse?  If the image of the mouse is the actuator and not the physical touch of the mouse, can we then say the trap perceives the mouse?  When dealing with images it is often tempting to project perception upon the machine that captures or utilizes imagery - vision being our primary perceptive mode - but doing so projects a human, extra-natural essence onto the image.  The “image” as processed by the device has no such extra-natural essence and is simply another form of material actualization.   The light bouncing off of the mouse hits the cameras sensors creating a specific profile on the sensors inside the camera.  That impulse is then relayed through some ingeniously written software that either suppresses the chain of action or allows it to continue based entirely on mechanical principles.  It is still actuation for it is an entirely mechanical chain of reactions, no matter how long or circuitous it is.  We can trace the exact chain of mechanical process, right down to the molecular patterns on the hard drive plates making up the magnetic codes which, given the correct series of electronic impulses from the camera sensors, would allow the actuation to continue and let the mouse trap snap.   Although a salesman may use verbiage that personifies the machine – “The Ratslap 3000xl sees the mouse and then decides whether or not to strike,” – in fact the process is as mechanical and free from perception and decision making as a simple, spring-loaded mousetrap.   What we personify as decision-making ability and image perception is really all physical inevitabilities and chemical mechanics.

Are humans just a complex mousetrap?

To many in the secularized West, possibly a majority, would say that man is the material that makes up his body and nothing more – so, for them, the answer to that question would be “yes!”  If a human sees a mouse, for example, the light bouncing off of the rodent enters the eye, actuating a material process involving the parts of the eye (lens, retina, rods, cones, etc.) and the nerves of the ocular system (optic nerve, crux, Cerebral cortex, etc.).  This chemical chain reaction ends in the sight centers of the brain, where they are interpreted.  The final step between the physically actuated chemical process and the phenomenon we experience as sight is usually bridged by some statement akin to: “the stimuli of the optic nerves are interpreted and that is how you see.”  Likewise, if the interpretation of said light signals indicates that an action needs to take place, say to slap the mouse silly, the brain actuates a nervous impulse that carries through the correct channels of nerves to the muscles of the arm and hand, and other balancing muscles of the body, hopefully with enough coordination and speed to actually slap the rat.   Hence the brain is the end-of-the-line interpreter of incoming sensations (perception) and the beginning-of-the-line propagator of outgoing signals (purposeful action).  Everything in the human experience is explained by material cause and effect, and the human is only a very complex machine.  A priceless, precious, and much-loved machine, mind you, but a machine nonetheless.

This is the mentality that predominates the secular west.  Man is the material that makes him and nothing more.  Yet, this ultra-materialist mentality rests on several illogical assumptions.  First, even for the ultra-empiricist, perception can only be explained by an existential duality, for it states that two separate processes are involved in seeing (or hearing, or tasting etc.) – a signal has to be properly relayed, and an interpretation must be made of that signal.  To be conscious of something is to be separated from it, at least in part. The ultra-materialist then illogically cordons off the brain as the necessary second entity of perception.  Furthermore, it acknowledges that the signal relayed to the brain is not sight; rather, the interpretation of that signal is sight, thus imbuing “sight” with an extra-material, or extra-natural essence, and undermining its own primary materialist assumption. By this logic the brain is conferred an unstated magic – a fantastic place where consciousness is distilled and bottled with a medulla oblongata cork.   And yet there is no magic line crossed when the signal enters the brain.  It continues in a ongoing chemical chain reaction. Is the brain not made of cells just like the rest of our body?  Are those cells not made of the same carbon based organic molecules that the rest of the body is made from?  They differ slightly to be sure, just as a bone cell differs from a skin cell, but the relevant point is that the chain of actuation is still a material/chemical process inside of the brain, and as pointed out earlier, complexity of a chain reaction is not a sufficient explanation for consciousness.

The assumptions are even more clearly out of logical alignment when we reverse the direction of the impulse.  Everything that a person does, the people with this secularist mindset may say, is theoretically traceable back to some material cause.  Often times the brain is given as an answer to the question, “what is that material cause in human decision and action.”  Presumably, a brain cell (or set of them) actuates whatever it is we are doing, thinking, or experiencing at any given moment.   For example, if I choose to write the letter ‘f’, what is the impetus that actuates the physical process which ends in my finger pushing the letter ‘f’ on my keyboard.  If I answer “the brain” I am again cordoning off the brain as something other than the body and giving it the inexplicable ability to self actuate (and not at random either).  It is as if the ultra-materialist has decided that an uncaused cause inside the brain is in perfect logical harmony with their own materialist principles when in fact it deeply contradicts it.  (See posting “Metaphysical Man”).

 The ascent of the brain to emperor of existence is understandable.  The empirical facts show that all externally actuated sensations end in the brain.  It is also true that all internally actuated signals to the body come out of the brain (with the exception of certain reflex bundles).  Thought and imagination both begin and end inside the brain.  All signs point to the brain as the terminus of perception and the propagator of thought and action.  While this seems in sync with the facts, a bit of further thought shows it to be spurious.  In order to resolve the flaws in this logic the brain must be understood to be a nexus.   The brain is simply that last material link in the externally activated chain of perception, and the first material link of internally caused signals.  In the case of thought/imagination, it is the first and only material link.  Thus the brain is part of the body and is part of the physical process, a very important part, but it is not the locus of either perception, or the impetus of movement and thought.  I am the source of perception. I am the impetus.  My brain doesn’t see – I see through my brain.  My brain doesn’t move my fingers; I move my fingers by way of my brain.  My brain doesn’t think; I think with my brain.  While the Western world believes that man is the material that makes him and nothing more, I maintain that reason just as easily indicates that man is the material that makes him and a little bit more.

But what is this ‘little bit more’?

That will have to be another posting, on another day.