I was recently in a debate with a heathen and he brought up the “interface problem”, which is the ability of the immaterial soul to interact with matter. \u00a0 Now note this is not the same as Cartesian dualism, i.e. the belief in an ectoplasm ghost soul. \u00a0For even the Thomist view of the soul, the form\/information about some THING has a problem with interface. \u00a0We know that the Will is probably 100% immaterial, the intellect appears to be a mix, and emotions are probably 99% material. \u00a0So how does your immaterial Will cause the brain to fire off a pulse to move a muscle? \u00a0Interesting question, though it is a bigger problem for heathens.<\/p>\n

Consider the electron. \u00a0We know that an electron has “charge”, that it can create electromagnetic “fields”, and that foreign “fields” can cause the electron to move, i.e. they exert a “force” on the electron. \u00a0The problem for heathens is that this is one heck of an interface problem as the things in quotes are all immaterial. \u00a0They immaterially exist. \u00a0Other examples are gravity, strong force, and weak force. \u00a0They are all immaterial, yet science states that they exist.<\/p>\n

So if heathens readily accept that all of these immaterial realities can exert force on matter, why do they consider it wrong for Thomists to accept that the immaterial soul can exert force upon matter; or the material actions of angels for that matter?<\/p>\n

I don’t think that there will ever be a physical explanation of the mechanics of electromagnetic forces (just descriptions) nor where there ever be a physical explanation of the mechanics of forces originating from the Will. \u00a0I do think that within about 20 years we will observe phenomenon in the brain that can’t be explained. \u00a0We’ll observe a neuron synapse being closed, and we will not observe any physical phenomenon to explain how it happened. \u00a0I believe the 4 forces, bosons, and the body \/ soul interaction are fiats from God. \u00a0They work because it is true that they work, and that is as far as we can go with it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was recently in a debate with a heathen and he brought up the “interface problem”, which is the ability of the immaterial soul to interact with matter. \u00a0 Now note this is not the same as Cartesian dualism, i.e. the belief in an ectoplasm ghost soul. \u00a0For even the Thomist view of the soul,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"libsyn-item-id":0,"libsyn-show-id":0,"libsyn-post-error":"","libsyn-post-error_post-type":"","libsyn-post-error_post-permissions":"","libsyn-post-error_api":"","playlist-podcast-url":"","libsyn-episode-thumbnail":"","libsyn-episode-widescreen_image":"","libsyn-episode-blog_image":"","libsyn-episode-background_image":"","libsyn-post-episode-category-selection":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_thumbnail":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_theme":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_height":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_width":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_placement":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_download_link":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_download_link_text":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_custom_color":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-explicit":"","libsyn-post-episode":"","libsyn-post-episode-update-id3":"","libsyn-post-episode-release-date":"","libsyn-post-episode-simple-download":"","libsyn-release-date":"","libsyn-post-update-release-date":"","libsyn-is_draft":"","libsyn-new-media-media":"","libsyn-post-episode-subtitle":"","libsyn-new-media-image":"","libsyn-post-episode-keywords":"","libsyn-post-itunes":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-number":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-season-number":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-type":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-title":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-author":"","libsyn-destination-releases":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data-enabled":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data-input-enabled":false,"libsyn-post-episode-premium_state":"","libsyn-episode-shortcode":"","libsyn-episode-embedurl":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jamesdeprisco.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jamesdeprisco.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jamesdeprisco.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jamesdeprisco.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jamesdeprisco.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=537"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jamesdeprisco.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":538,"href":"https:\/\/www.jamesdeprisco.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537\/revisions\/538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jamesdeprisco.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jamesdeprisco.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jamesdeprisco.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}