This idea came to me today---I do not know how to express it---at risk of being confused I will just try to write the idea---sketch it.
Pardon me if I make preliminary remark:
The background I expect of my reader: a basic knowledge of Aristotle's book on the soul (De Anima)---and in particular, the insight that souls are purely figurative and allegorical---it is the best approximation or adequation of human knowing to the actual state of affairs under inquiry. The actual essence and truth concerning the soul can never be stated simply because it is the soul that is doing the thinking in the first place. The correct order of the investigation is hence, "I am I find myself first of in thinking---this act of thinking is evidence of a truth that may be expressed verbally but I am not under the illusion that my account is the substantive truth of the actual phenomenal evidence --- the truth is the source and beginning of my investigation---it is the awakening of this question which begins the move of thinking toward understanding.
Be this as it may: it is soul that gives understanding to human beings---this phenomenal act is is not a thing, we must not hypostasize it---it is not somehow imbedded in algorithms, quanta, or neural connectivity or any materialistic reduction of the act of understanding which dear reader may I remind you that you too are engaged hic et nunc in the act of understanding that is, reading with understanding!
Understanding rises as it were from the level of the mineral through the vegetative and into the animal or mammal soul. It is also evident that in the material world---certain animals possess capacities that are not shared equally amongst all levels of soul---for example the worm has a far greater capacity to move than does a mineral, though there may be 'movement' even at the level of the mineral---think of the crystal's glacially slow movement---if soul means the cause of motion within a particular kind of being---the human being moves toward the store because he or she has decided to get a 6 pack of beer----the worm moves as it were blindly wriggling its way toward ??? the amoebic protoplasm moves away from a toxic chemical injected into its environs. The 'principle of motion' is what Aristotle calls 'psukhe' which is rendered in latin as 'anima'----motion starts, has a cause, begins---but how? It is different in each case and each case must be considered carefully and individually in order to be understood properly. (The proper method for the study of nature is analog observations using eyes and ears---the method is phenomenological---one describes the coming to be of that which is coming to be and passing away.
You read this essay and you can take my word as evidence of my honesty but at the end of the day you know and understand the truth not because you read it in this essay, it is true because you may obtain evidence of the same phenomenal truth by conducting the same method of investigation where all substantives are held at bay, methodically---Husserl called this 'bracketing'---when I mentioned above that I am using the term 'soul' and yet I am not hypostasizing this soul as a thing---it is not a thing! It is the soul that first of is thinking, that is conducting this investigation. The act of thinking is immediately present from the very beginning of any inquiry I dare to make in to whatever realm of understanding nature, the soul is coextensive with any investigation whatsoever. This is what Thomas Aquinas means by saying "the soul is in some sense all things." All of this by way of introduction.
Now here is the insight that I had this morning: the meaning of human existence is not to be found on "higher" levels of the soul. Meaning arises as understanding does---from below. It begins in the nascent cosmos be it 15 billion light years or right now in the eye's next blink. Understanding in a simple way manifests itself as order in a crystalline formation, evidence of a "mineral soul"?
But charting the "ascent" of higher levels of reasoning through primitive mineral levels, up through the vegetative soul and up to the mammal soul, finally to the level of the human soul.One familiar with Teilhard de Chardin's book called the Phenomenon of Man can grasp this easily. The insight of this morning is that understanding and meaning arises from the "lower" souls' (mammal, vegetable, mineral, and as many more as there may be. It is not necessary to seek a transcendent source of thinking---the earth thinks man through and through!
Pardon me if I make preliminary remark:
The background I expect of my reader: a basic knowledge of Aristotle's book on the soul (De Anima)---and in particular, the insight that souls are purely figurative and allegorical---it is the best approximation or adequation of human knowing to the actual state of affairs under inquiry. The actual essence and truth concerning the soul can never be stated simply because it is the soul that is doing the thinking in the first place. The correct order of the investigation is hence, "I am I find myself first of in thinking---this act of thinking is evidence of a truth that may be expressed verbally but I am not under the illusion that my account is the substantive truth of the actual phenomenal evidence --- the truth is the source and beginning of my investigation---it is the awakening of this question which begins the move of thinking toward understanding.
Be this as it may: it is soul that gives understanding to human beings---this phenomenal act is is not a thing, we must not hypostasize it---it is not somehow imbedded in algorithms, quanta, or neural connectivity or any materialistic reduction of the act of understanding which dear reader may I remind you that you too are engaged hic et nunc in the act of understanding that is, reading with understanding!
Understanding rises as it were from the level of the mineral through the vegetative and into the animal or mammal soul. It is also evident that in the material world---certain animals possess capacities that are not shared equally amongst all levels of soul---for example the worm has a far greater capacity to move than does a mineral, though there may be 'movement' even at the level of the mineral---think of the crystal's glacially slow movement---if soul means the cause of motion within a particular kind of being---the human being moves toward the store because he or she has decided to get a 6 pack of beer----the worm moves as it were blindly wriggling its way toward ??? the amoebic protoplasm moves away from a toxic chemical injected into its environs. The 'principle of motion' is what Aristotle calls 'psukhe' which is rendered in latin as 'anima'----motion starts, has a cause, begins---but how? It is different in each case and each case must be considered carefully and individually in order to be understood properly. (The proper method for the study of nature is analog observations using eyes and ears---the method is phenomenological---one describes the coming to be of that which is coming to be and passing away.
You read this essay and you can take my word as evidence of my honesty but at the end of the day you know and understand the truth not because you read it in this essay, it is true because you may obtain evidence of the same phenomenal truth by conducting the same method of investigation where all substantives are held at bay, methodically---Husserl called this 'bracketing'---when I mentioned above that I am using the term 'soul' and yet I am not hypostasizing this soul as a thing---it is not a thing! It is the soul that first of is thinking, that is conducting this investigation. The act of thinking is immediately present from the very beginning of any inquiry I dare to make in to whatever realm of understanding nature, the soul is coextensive with any investigation whatsoever. This is what Thomas Aquinas means by saying "the soul is in some sense all things." All of this by way of introduction.
Now here is the insight that I had this morning: the meaning of human existence is not to be found on "higher" levels of the soul. Meaning arises as understanding does---from below. It begins in the nascent cosmos be it 15 billion light years or right now in the eye's next blink. Understanding in a simple way manifests itself as order in a crystalline formation, evidence of a "mineral soul"?
But charting the "ascent" of higher levels of reasoning through primitive mineral levels, up through the vegetative soul and up to the mammal soul, finally to the level of the human soul.One familiar with Teilhard de Chardin's book called the Phenomenon of Man can grasp this easily. The insight of this morning is that understanding and meaning arises from the "lower" souls' (mammal, vegetable, mineral, and as many more as there may be. It is not necessary to seek a transcendent source of thinking---the earth thinks man through and through!
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