An Unembodied Mind is Very Complex

Pro’s entire case boils down to three blunders. The first two are fallacies of equivocation, one equivocates unembodiment with embodiment, the second equivocates an unembodied mind with that mind’s capabilities. The last blunder is a red herring fallacy, and it deals with Pro bringing up the existence of an unembodied mind rather than dealing with the question of whether such an entity would, in principle, be complex or simple if it existed. Thus the relevent issue is an unembodied mind’s comlexity or simplicity, not its existence. We’re asking how it would exist, not if it does. Let us deal with the equivocations first. Unembodied Mind, not its Capabilities It’s strange to call the concept of a brain-independent mind “non-standard” … from Plato’s soul to Descartes’ cogito, Freud's id to Hasker’s emergentism, the concept of a brain-independent mind has held strong as a top contender for explaining human experience or self-hood and identity. But even if the mind originates in the brain, that doesn’t imply the impossibility of an unembodied mind no more than the generation of a magnetic field from iron filings implies the impossibility of the field itself. Furthermore, none of Pro’s definitions is incompatible with there being an unembodied mind. Such an entity can interact with physical things and states; like how God would interact with the natural world, or like how we as immaterial selves would interact with our bodies. Insofar as this is possible it follows that an unembodied mind is concievable, and such a conception is distinct from the things it causes, namely physical composites. So Pro is mistaking the things an immaterial mind can interact with with the mind itself. Things secondary to the mind itself, like its thoughts and actions, are not relevent to this debate. So here is the issue, Pro knowingly mistakes, 1) an unembodied mind itself, as an individual whole … with that mind’s, 2) capabilities (e.g., thoughts, actions, experiences, reasons, understandings, predicting, planning, interactions … etc) The capabilities (#2) are an irrelevent a fallacy of equivocation for our debate. As I’ve argued, these capabilities are emergent from a mind, not the other way around. Why? Because remove a mind’s thought or action and the individual remains, remove the mind and what’s left? How can we even speak of a “thought process” or “action” existing if there is no mind to ground such phenomena? Again, remove the mind, and we are no longer talking about an individual, but remove the mental processes, like thinking logically, and we’re still left with an indivicual (albeit irrational one). Minds are necessary for thoughts, not the other way around. All Pro says to support his case is that, “complex thoughts are needed for intricate actions.” Right, but a mind itself is needed for complex thoughts and its subsequent actions. And we’re talking about the mind, not its complex thoughts and later intricate actions. Pro says, “Every complex thought or process [attributed] to the creator are exactly what we are referring to when we say a mind.” … But Pro hasn’t dealt with the fact that such complex thoughts and actions are necessarily dependent upond the existence of the mind itself, not the other way around. Insofar as this is the case, Pro’s statement (from which he builds his case) is false. So it is false that we are referring to God’s thoughts and actions when referring to God… how would that even work? God could be thinking of calculus while training lions. So is God therefore calculus and lion training? Imaginations don’t create things, persons or minds do. Imaginations may be used to create something, but so are tools, is a construction worker a hammer? An unembodied mind just is the individual, not its mental processes, etc. Nor is an unembodied substance intention, it’s just capable of intention, and why think intention itself is complex? In what sense is it complex? I intend to shower, how is that intention itself complex? But leave that aside, why think an unembodied substance is complex if what it is capable of may be complex? Pro is leaving us disatistfied here. Nor is the mind a complex process, it may be involved in certain processes but it doesn’t exist as the process itself, so it’s irrelevent what sort of processing power it is capable of. All that follows from that is that the mind is causally active.. how does this imply that the mind itself is complex? It may use a medium for memory but it isn’t that medium itself, it may collect but it isn’t collecting itself, it may store but it isn’t the processes of storing or retrieving. Nor is a mind mere information or a task, it’s a substantial self. Thales once said, “mind is swiftest, for it runs through everything.” … He never said, “mind is everything it moves through.” Unembodiment, not Emobodiment Pro says that an unembodied mind requires a disembodied brain… that’s saying that a disembodied being requires embodiment. But how can a mind be unembodied if it is in a brain (which is a type of embodiment)? Even if this weren’t such an obvious a contradition, it’s still irrelevent to our debate. So if the brain is an embodiement, not an unembodiment, then since the debate isn’t about whether a mind requires a brain for its existence, but rather about whether an unembodied mind is complex or not, then every objection Pro raises that appeals to the complexity of brains is wholly irrelevent to our debate. Even if his point were relevent the burden would be on Pro to demonstrate that embodiment in terms of a brain is “necessary for all minds.” But this isn’t the only thing he must demonstrate, he must also demonstrate that embodiment in terms of a brain is “necessary for all minds” including unembodied minds. Yet how does the complexity of embodiment in terms of a brain illustrate and imply that an unembodied mind itself is complex? Here Pro only appeals again to an embodied mind and also phenomena that are emergent from it, like thoughts, emotions, will, memory and imagination. But as we’ve seen, these emergent phenomena may be complex… but that’s not the mind, nor is it an unembodied mind, nor is an embodied mind an unembodied mind. A mind’s storage for information isn’t the mind itself, so it’s irrelevent how many microprocessors are used, is an unembodied mind a collection of anything like a microprocessor suite? If so, then it is embodied, not unembodied. So the debate again isn’t about whether or not the human mind is incredibly complex. Rather the debate regards the question of the simplicity or complexity of an unembodied mind. Pro just asserts that the “mind, or consciousness, is complex in and of itself.” He gives no further support for this other than to appeal again to an embodied entity, the brain. He says it “demonstrates the enormous number of complex thoughts and processes that combine to form a conscious mind.” But recall again that thoughts and thought processes don’t form a mind (much less an unembodied one) they are formed from a mind. So again the brain is irrelevent since it is a type of embodiment. I never conceded that “an elaborate form of memory storage would be necessary for a creator mind.” All I said was that “an unembodied mind may sift through memory (in whatever form or medium) as a librarian sifts through a library.” But a person who just so happens to be a librarian can still exist after the library burns to the ground. Likewise an unembodied mind is still an entity long after any medium it uses for memory is gone, or is changed. And a mind is at issue here, not whatever medium it uses for storage if it chooses to use storage at all. The burden is on Pro to show that “there is no immaterial self-using the brain.” Nevertheless this too is irrelevent, we’re not debating whether an immaterial self uses the brain or not, we’re debating whether the immaterial self is itself complex or not. Pro even agrees that he is guilty of equivocating a mind with a brain, he admits to this fallacy of equivocation. It is irrelevent to the question of the simplicity or complexity of an unembodied mind whether the only minds we are aware of require embodiement in terms of a brain. Why? Because we’re wondering about an unembodied mind, not an embodied one. Complexity or Simplicity, not Existence We’re not asking about the existence of an unembodied mind, we’re asking about the complexity of such an enity were it to exist. Pro still doesn’t understand the debate. So this debate is not a matter of “defining things into existence.” I’m not attempting to prove or disprove the existence of an unembodied mind here, I’m asking the question, “why think an unembodied mind is complex?” Pro hasn’t gone one inch in answering the question, all he’s done is bring up points that are only mildly relevent to embodied minds (even if all his points are true!). For instance, another “zone of reality” is itself a spatial term, and if an unembodied mind doesn’t fill space by definition, then its doesn’t fill zones of reality, it just is part of the real world if it exists. But its existence is irrelevent to whether or not it would be complex if it did exist. Nevertheless, I didn’t just explain an unembodied creator mind by what it is not, I also explained what it would be, namely [a causal substance capable of intentionality and extreme power] … this is sufficient information for our debate. And such capabilities isn’t the mind itself, it is its capabilities, and its existence isn’t relevent to the question of its possible simplicity or complexity. I Declare Victory! Thus I continue to declare victory, starting from the second round, since there is no possible way Pro can demonstrate that an unembodied mind is embodied, and so since only embodied beings can be complex, it follows that unembodied beings are starkly simple.Give Pro sources, he'll need em...