An Unembodied Mind is Very Complex

Against Pro Note the resolution, “An Unembodied Mind is Very Complex” … Note what the resolution is not, “An Unembodied Mind’s Thoughts & Actions are Very Complex” Note Pro affirmations, “This is simply exploring a hypothetical” “a disembodied mind is just about the most complex thing I can think of” “It’s more likely that a disembodied mind that creates universes would be very complex.” “a disembodied mind that creates universes, life, the laws of physics etc would likely be very complex.” Thus by Pro’s own admission we are debating the hypothetical possibility of whether or not an unembodied mind (any unembodied mind), would itself be complex or simple, regardless of whether or not it is “capable of complex thoughts.” So by Pro’s own admission he must defend that such a mind is not simple, but complex. But instead Pro brings up the irrelevencies of the mind’s thoughts and actions despite his previous admission, and despite the content of the resolution. He even attempts to erradicate the distinction between the thoughts and actions of a mind with the mind itself. He does this unsuccessfully since in order for a mind’s thoughts and actions to exist, the mind must exist as a mind in the first place! Thus thoughts and actions are emergent from the mind, not the other way around; they are two distinct things. The mind is simple, not made up of any composite parts, yet its thoughts and actions can be complex. Now Pro doesn’t deny that “God’s mind would be in unity or … divided in its intentions.” So then what proof does Pro give for thinking that an unembodied mind is complex? He initially says that in entertaining the possibility of an unembodied mind, we’re “simply exploring a hypothetical.” But then he argues that: I. "Brains are our only frame of reference for a disembodied mind and are extremely complex.” On the contrary, insofar as an unembodied mind is possible, then the reference frame of embodied minds is irrelevent to the issue of whether or not unembodied minds are complex or not. Indeed this point actually goes against Pro’s case! For if embodied minds are as complex as Pro says, and they are complex primarily because they are embodied, then presumably an unembodoed mind is not complex by comparison. Furthermore, just because a brain itself is complex doesn’t imply that the immaterial self using the brain is itself complex, it may sift through memory as a librarian sifts through a library, it may use the brain to process representations and data like you’re using your computer right now as a processor of information.... But that doesn’t mean that the librarian is a collection of books, or that you’re a bunch of chips! If it’s even possible that the mind is immaterial, but is causally effected by and interacting with the brain, then it doesn’t seem at all likely that such a hypothetical mind would be complex itself, it just uses complex things but isn't itself complex. If Pro wants to argue otherwise, then he would be guilty of failing to treat an unembodied mind as a possibility (or a hypothetical as he calls it). II. How does the sheer amount of data imply that unembodied minds must also be complex? Pro attempts to argue that “the more complex the information available the more complex the mind.” But he equivocates mind with brain again, “the more complex memory or processing power the more complex the brain.” … Remember the debate is about an unembodied mind, not simply a brain. Now what reason does Pro give for thinking that a “disembodied mind would need some kind of switch or hardwired change to store each individual piece of information.”? The only support he gives for this is the assertion that this is how “any electronic memory storage device or even written information is stored.” But why think a disembodied mind is anything like an electronic memory storage device? Why think such an entity would be like the letters on a newspaper? This is a very strange view of a disembodied mind. A disemodied mind would itself be a substance of causality, not a property thing. Pro continues to assume that an unembodied mind is the latter and not the former. Now even if it’s the case that an unembodied or ultramundane mind needs a framework to process information, why think that the mind itself is a composite of that framework plus the mind also? Pro is again forgetting what the resolution is, “An Unembodied Mind is Very Complex.” We’re not debating whether such a mind and its tools altogether are themselves complex, just the mind. So it’s irrelevent whether a noncomposite mind would need to store data, but in fact an ultramundane mind wouldn’t require such tools in order to exist. There is nothing incompatible with the notion of a unembodied substance capable of intention. It may be mysterious to us, but there’s nothing incoherent about it. Lastly, why think that an effiecient cause (rather than a material cause) of the universe would need to be extremely complex simply because it can cause things into existence ex materia? III. How does our limitation as created minds with a complex brain imply that an unlimited and unembodied mind is more complex? Pro answers by saying that a “mind that could make a universe would be enormously more complex than our own.” But why? For a disembodied mind to cause the universe into being would necessarily be creating from an efficient cause, and not a material cause, since the universe is all matter, along with space and time as well as energy. So such a mind is uniquely simple since prior to embodiment, there just was no embodiment! Meaning that without the universe, God as an ultramundane being existed without matter, energy and space or time... what could be less complex and more simple an entity than this? IV. What we know about an unembodied mind is that it is unembodied, and that it would act in terms of volition or will, that it would have the ability to be the eficient cause, etc... Pro is repeatedly attempting to import empiricism into the debate yet this is, again, a hypothetical possibility. So just because we’ve “never examined a disembodied mind” doesn’t at all imply that “we would know absolutely nothing about it.” Indeed we can know a great deal about such a mind. Even possible that theistic cosmological arguments are correct, then this would mean that we know a great deal about an unembodied mind: timeless without creation, temporal subsequent to creation (since time itself came into being), it would act from volition since we have a temporal effect from an atemporal cause, be the efficient but not material cause, be extremely powerful if not omnipotent since it created all of space and time, it would be immaterial since it created all matter, it would be non-spatial since it created space. Such a being by definition is simple since it fills no space! But insofar as cosmological arguments are possible then it follows that we know these properties of an unembodied mind, and it sounds like these properties are more likely simple than complex! Lastly there’s nothing incoherent about an unembodied mind knowing at any time t the counterfactuals of what is going on in existence. An entity need not store information in order to know it, knowing, as such, is a mental property, not a physical one. Nevertheless Pro forgets that the case for a simple unembodied mind doesn’t depend on its being able to know anything! I’m not arguing for God here, rather just the simplicity of an unembodied mind. Pro forgets again that the complexity of en entities actions and thoughts are irrelevent to the simplicity of the entity itself. Pro takes these to be one and the same which is question begging, he must show that the mind necessarily depends on the brain or matter in general for its existence. Thus he must show comsological arguments to be impossible, which is an enourmous burden for Pro as a (radical) empiricist. Again, what reason has Pro given to think that “complex thoughts and actions” of an entity implies the “complexity” of the entity itself? Furthermore a mind isn’t a mere composite of its complex thoughts and actions, for in order to have a thought or do an action, the mind must first exist! Therefore Pro’s argument that a mind is a composite of its thoughts and actions is literally nonsense. Lastly, Pro even admits that he equivocated a mind itself withthe thoughts and actions of the mind, he therefore has lost the resolution, which, again, is “An Unembodied Mind is Very Complex” It is not, “An Unembodied Mind’s Thoughts & Actions are Very Complex” Would you call a magnetic field which exists iron if iron filings produced it as an emergent property? Clearly an emergent feild isn’t the same as the thing it emerges from, and as in the case of humans, our “selfhood” is in terms of consciousness and mental states, not brain states. Likewise the thought processes and behavior of a thing is emergent from the thing itself, namely the mind. And we’re not debating whether the thought processes and behavior of a mind is complex, we are debating whether or not the mind qua mind is itself complex, wholly apart from any thought processes or behavior it may or may not have. For Con An unembodied mind which is causal isn’t composed of matter, space or energy and so it would be a very simply entity. All that’s needed for this argument to work is for one to conceptualize just what an unembodied mind is. It is not its thoughts, not its actions, not its creation, not its words… an unembodied mind is just that, not composed of anything with which it can be said to be complex, otherwise it would be, well, embodied! An unembodied mind by contrast is a substance that is aware but not composed of what it's aware of, it thinks but isn't the sum total of its thoughts, experiences but isn't its past collection of experiences, reasons but isn't the product of its reasoning, understands but isn't what it has understood. Therefore, an unembodied mind is by definition simple. Thus I declare victory.