Hereafter: Has Dirty Harry Found Religion?

[Dennis Hardin]

There are at least two excellent reasons to see Herefter. One would be Belgian actress Cecile de France, an enchanting screen presence if there ever was one. The other would be the opening scene: an amazingly realistic depiction of what it might be like to be caught in a tsunami. No thank you. I'll pass.

After that dramatic opening, the rest of the movie has to be described as anticlimactic. Three interwoven stories about the possibility of an afterlife revolve around Matt Damon’s character, a psychic working in a blue collar job because he regards his ability to communicate with the dead as a curse. Following the tsumami, the special effects are minimal. All the drama derives from the controversial theme.

Director Clint Eastwood is being applauded by critics for his courage in dealing with “unconventional material in a classical way.” Some Eastwood admirers are undoubtedly surprised that a self-acknowledged agnostic would even make such a movie.

"I've always been, If I see it, I believe it," Eastwood says. "I guess it's an agnostic position. But it (the afterlife) is a subject people are curious about. I don't think I'm as curious about it as I was at a younger age, but I'm curious enough to do a story like this.”

"I remember when I was very, very young, my dad took me in the Pacific Ocean off Santa Monica. I was riding on his shoulders, and a big wave came along and knocked him down, and me off him... It certainly wasn't a near-death experience like Cécile had in the movie, but I remember the colors vividly, being underwater and swirling around, as a panicky little kid. For an adult who knows they're in deep trouble, it's a whole other thing."

My own opinion has changed somewhat since I saw the film. Initially, as soon as I learned about Eastwood's subject matter, I was immediately skeptical. I thought of the TV show "Crossing Over" with John Edward, and the contempt I felt for the way this so-called "psychic" was manipulating the gullible. (Incidentally, Hereafter features one scene where such a "medium" is shown to be a total fraud.) The film succeeds in at least making you wonder: maybe we shouldn't let those who prey on human anguish completely rule out the possibility that some form of consciousness survives biological death.

Is it rational to speculate about an afterlife? Is Dirty Harry baring his mystical soul? Shouldn’t we just assume that death is simply a matter of “lights out, end of story”? Cecile de France’s boyfriend in Hereafter says something very close to that to her French journalist character in the film. As Cecile's obsession with her own near-death experience continues, he ultimately spurns her for another woman, underscoring the level of scorn such speculation often incites. Maybe this benign review will incite similar scorn here on OL. (What could be more fun?)

For me, the question relates directly to the mind-body controversy in philosophy. Consider this quotation from Nathaniel Branden:

“…Obviously we are not compelled to believe that reality is ultimately constituted by matter or by consciousness. We can be dualists and maintain that neither matter nor consciousness is reducible to the other. Further, we can maintain that both matter and consciousness are manifestations of an underlying reality that is neither…Positing an underlying reality of which both matter and consciousness are manifestations would offer us a way out of this dilemma and provide a solution to a problem that has troubled philosophers for centuries. We might even hypothesize that the ‘unity consciousness’ of which transpersonal psychologists and mystics sometimes speak, the ultimate enlightenment they celebrate, may be the experience of consciousness somehow accessing its source, that ultimate underlying reality of which it is a manifestation…”

Nathaniel Branden, Honoring the Self, pp. 248-249.

Perhaps it’s a wild leap to go from the notion of an “ultimate underlying reality” to embracing speculation about an afterlife. Personally, I strongly believe that death is basically just a matter of the stage going dark. On the other hand, I know there is a lot of scientific ‘data’ (much of it likely hokum and wishful thinking) about so-called near-death experiences. (I haven’t read Dinesh D’Souza’s recent book Life After Death: The Evidence.) But until science truly understands the phenomenon of consciousness, I don’t think it’s irrational for a movie director (or anyone else) to speculate about where we might possibly go from here.

[kiaer.ts]

We are bodies.

Physically, we are comprised of matter, which makes up our extended parts. The relationship of matter to body is that of part to whole, but that we are made of matter is not given - it is a scientific discovery.

Consciousness is a complex harmonic relation of the body to its environment that exists thanks to the excitability of the nervous system, in the same way that a tuning fork can be excited by a vibrating musical instrument. Consciousness is not a thing or a part of a thing, but a relationship between certain types of things.

Consciousness is the subject's partial assimilation of the form of its object without the assimilation of its substance - the converse of nutrition, which is the assimilation of substance without the assimilation of form.

Since your consciousness is a relation between your body and its environment, it follows rather simply that the end of your body means the end of that relationship.

Branden's idea above is that of Spinoza, who makes mind and matter "modes" of the one infinite substance, which is God. It is a move away from Aristotelianism.

[Dennis Hardin]

Branden's idea above is that of Spinoza, who makes mind and matter "modes" of the one infinite substance, which is God. It is a move away from Aristotelianism.

Ted,

I think it’s historical denigration to dismiss Branden’s notion of an “underlying reality” by equating it to Spinoza’s notion of “God.” Obviously there are similarities, but Branden is talking about an ultimate, undiscovered dimension of reality rather than Spinoza’s pantheistic super-substance. I don’t see anything anti-Aristotelian about such speculation.

To me, the strongest evidence in support of the view that that consciousness does not survive the body’s death is the extent to which physical impairment can cause mental impairment. For example, anesthetic medication that has the side effect of severely hampering memory and other cognitive functioning.

Whatever it is that mediates thought—whatever it is that makes the experience of the self possible—it definitely does appear to be dependent upon the body.

[kiaer.ts]

Branden's idea above is that of Spinoza, who makes mind and matter "modes" of the one infinite substance, which is God. It is a move away from Aristotelianism.

Ted,

I think it's historical denigration to dismiss Branden's notion of an "underlying reality" by equating it to Spinoza's notion of "God." Obviously there are similarities, but Branden is talking about an ultimate, undiscovered dimension of reality rather than Spinoza's pantheistic super-substance. I don't see anything anti-Aristotelian about such speculation.

To me, the strongest evidence in support of the view that that consciousness does not survive the body's death is the extent to which physical impairment can cause mental impairment. For example, anesthetic medication that has the side effect of severely hampering memory and other cognitive functioning.

Whatever it is that mediates thought—whatever it is that makes the experience of the self possible—it definitely does appear to be dependent upon the body.

Well, I am a huge fan of Spinoza, and his notion of God is simply what he calls "Natura naturans," or "Nature naturing." It's brilliant, and well intentioned, but wrong. The mind is not a substance, it is a relation.

But the Scholastic analysis of matter as the parts of the extended physical body and the mind as a harmonic relation between bodies is perfectly clear and cogent, while equating the mental and the physical as if they were metaphysical species of the same genus is a step backwards and positing some underlying superreality which generates them is a both arbitrary and unnecessary step backwards toward dualism and mysticism.

The problem is materialism, the doctrine that the material is the given and the real. The implicitly accepted metaphysics of our time is materialism, which holds that only matter (and energy) in space is the only thing that is real. This leads to silly ideas like reductionalism that holds that all the truths of science are truths of physics. It leads to substance envy, where those who believe in the reality of consciousness become convinced that if the mind is just as real as matter it must be a substance (a kind of entity) just like the body.

But it is the body, with its qualities and relations, one type of which is consciousness, not atomic theory which is the given. To be is not so narrow as to being matter. Indeed, even such things as simple as shadows are not material things. What is the weight or atomic makeup or wavelength or inertia of a shadow? In three dimensions a shadow is potentially infinite. When it falls on a surface, it is two dimensional in a way that no body or atom is. If strict materialism deals so poorly with shadows, is it any wonder that it cannot deal with the mind?

But the solution is not to equate matter and mind or to seek some strange third substance. It is simply to recognize that the bodily - the physical - is the given, tha the atomic theory of matter is one of the parts of the physical substance, and that mind is a relation between the forms of certain bodies.

Edited October 31, 2010 by Ted Keer

[BaalChatzaf]

Well, I am a huge fan of Spinoza, and his notion of God is simply what he calls "Natura naturans," or "Nature naturing." It's brilliant, and well intentioned, but wrong. The mind is not a substance, it is a relation.

Mind is a process. It is a process caused by the actions and interactions of physical objects and energy exchanges.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[kiaer.ts]

Well, I am a huge fan of Spinoza, and his notion of God is simply what he calls "Natura naturans," or "Nature naturing." It's brilliant, and well intentioned, but wrong. The mind is not a substance, it is a relation.

Mind is a process. It is a process caused by the actions and interactions of physical objects and energy exchanges.

That's a rather broad approximation. What is important here metaphysically is that consciousness is a relation, not an entity or a substance. Consciousness itself is a complex harmonic relationship. A "process" is a series of steps which lead to some end, such as concept formation or deduction which leads to a conclusion.

[BaalChatzaf]

That's a rather broad approximation. What is important here metaphysically is that consciousness is a relation, not an entity or a substance. Consciousness itself is a complex harmonic relationship. A "process" is a series of steps which lead to some end, such as concept formation or deduction which leads to a conclusion.

Yes, it is a broad statement. But it expressed one of the things I wanted to say, to wit, mind is not an object or a substance.

Some processes lead to an end; others just happen. Like the oscillation of a pendulum. What end does that lead to, in the sense of achieving a purpose. If there is an end it is the dissipation of energy because of friction and the pendulum just hangs there.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Edited October 31, 2010 by BaalChatzaf

[Mikee]

Well, I am a huge fan of Spinoza, and his notion of God is simply what he calls "Natura naturans," or "Nature naturing." It's brilliant, and well intentioned, but wrong. The mind is not a substance, it is a relation.

Mind is a process. It is a process caused by the actions and interactions of physical objects and energy exchanges.

That's a rather broad approximation. What is important here metaphysically is that consciousness is a relation, not an entity or a substance. Consciousness itself is a complex harmonic relationship. A "process" is a series of steps which lead to some end, such as concept formation or deduction which leads to a conclusion.

Isn't consciousness a dynamic, active "process"? Not merely a relationship. How would you define a static consciousness? A process can loop back on itself, like a state machine which always returns to a ground state (starting point) if no action is needed.

[kiaer.ts]

Well, I am a huge fan of Spinoza, and his notion of God is simply what he calls "Natura naturans," or "Nature naturing." It's brilliant, and well intentioned, but wrong. The mind is not a substance, it is a relation.

Mind is a process. It is a process caused by the actions and interactions of physical objects and energy exchanges.

That's a rather broad approximation. What is important here metaphysically is that consciousness is a relation, not an entity or a substance. Consciousness itself is a complex harmonic relationship. A "process" is a series of steps which lead to some end, such as concept formation or deduction which leads to a conclusion.

Isn't consciousness a dynamic, active "process"? Not merely a relationship. How would you define a static consciousness? A process can loop back on itself, like a state machine which always returns to a ground state (starting point) if no action is needed.

The point is that the broadest and most fundamental categories of metaphysics are substances/entities, their qualities, and the relations between them. Entities are primary, qualities secondary, and relations tertiary. The distinction being made here is between bodies as (material) entities and consciousness as an admittedly complex relation between entities.

The relevant principle in a philosophical investigation is that one start with fundamental distinctions. It is a bit inaccurate to describe consciousness as such as a process, a failure of perspective, since processes result in products, although it is correct to say that processes are involved. That is subsumed under my saying that consciousness is a complex harmonic relationship (think symphony orchestra of tuning forks).

To speak of consciousness as a process here might be like comparing a man to an oak, and then, instead of describing the man as an animal, instead of a plant, which would be the fundamental difference, describing him as a primate, or perhaps as a monotypic species, which is true, but beside the point.

That consciousness is essentially relational is the fundamental and necessary point in this discussion. There are plenty of processes like the evolution of stars which are processes, but which are not relational in the sense that consciousness is relational. To fail to make the distinction between relations and entities is to run the risk of accepting the false materialist metaphysics by default.

Edited October 31, 2010 by Ted Keer

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I hold the traditional Objectivist view that the mind is a causal agent (on a primary level).

That causes problems for the process and relational views, but there it is.

I also hold that the mind comes with a lot of prewiring (from the brain, but I suspect it also has a lot of primary prewiring of its own) and this differs from the tabula rasa view.

So I think there is still a lot to speculate about and learn.

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

I hold the traditional Objectivist view that the mind is a causal agent (on a primary level).

That causes problems for the process and relational views, but there it is.

I also hold that the mind comes with a lot of prewiring (from the brain, but I suspect it also has a lot of primary prewiring of its own) and this differs from the tabula rasa view.

So I think there is still a lot to speculate about and learn.

Michael

Mind is a physical manifestation of brain activity. It has no independent or substantial existence apart from the brain/nervous system.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Mind is a physical manifestation of brain activity. It has no independent or substantial existence apart from the brain/nervous system.

This, for instance, is one speculation.

Micheal

[BaalChatzaf]

Mind is a physical manifestation of brain activity. It has no independent or substantial existence apart from the brain/nervous system.

This, for instance, is one speculation.

Micheal

Not speculation, rather hypothesis and supported by EVERY advanced brain scan technology. From an evidential p.o.v. the hypothesis has been corroberated for the last thirty years and has never been falsified by empirical and objective means. Objective in this instance means capable of being measured and observed in a body not owned or controlled by the observer. Observing one's own "mind" is ka ka non-objective clap trap.

Mind is an effect or epiphenomenon of a brain and nervous system. It has no independent substantial existence outside a brain/nervous system.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Bob,

It sure seems to need a lot of explanation for such a simple fact.

I'm curious. How come people of your speculative views do not manage to convince others if the facts are so evident?

After all, there seems to be no disagreement on the earth being round, the sky being blue (as we see it), human beings being born, living and dying, and things like that.

Michael

[william.scherk]

Mind is a physical manifestation of brain activity. It has no independent or substantial existence apart from the brain/nervous system.

This, for instance, is one speculation.

I've got one of those 'the dog did not bark' questions, Michael. Let's say you or I retained a belief that there was a substantial and independent existence of mind apart from the body (brain/nervous system). How would we go about finding evidence for the belief? Where would we expect to find substantial evidence and yet do not?

When a brain is injured, it seems that the mind is injured, whether in small lesions to particular areas -- causing small but profound deficits in function -- or large blunt force trauma leading to unconsciousness, coma and death.

I think I recommended to you the Antonio Damasio book "The Feeling of What Happens." I hope it is on your reading list. In it there is some fine, thoughtful speculation on the detailed connection of mind and brain.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Let's say you or I retained a belief that there was a substantial and independent existence of mind apart from the body (brain/nervous system).

William,

How you science folks salivate for a strawman enemy to trounce!

I don't necessarily entertain that. In fact, I don't state anything about that as fact other than the fact that the brain and mind are connected.

I've mentioned this before, but I'll say it again. This kind of discussion to me is like arguing over what determines the shape of objects, the top or the bottom, and which one can be sacrificed and still have a shape. Or what governs the object, the form or the content and speculating on how we can have one without the other. Or worse, claiming that the top "emerges" from the bottom, or the form "emerges" from the content and calling that stuff fact and/or science.

It doesn't make any sense to me. Nor does making factual claims (like how the universe was caused) when there is no way in hell to verify them make any sense to me.

I'm happy with my human limitations for ascertaining facts. And I'm happy with my human imagination that makes great dreams and speculations so I can look for new facts with a purpose.

As to Damasio, I haven't read anything by him yet (I remember seeing him on part of an interview with Charlie Rose), but he is definitely on my study list.

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

I don't necessarily entertain that. In fact, I don't state anything about that as fact other than the fact that the brain and mind are connected.

That implies brain and mind exist separately. Do they?

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Bob,

I said what I said. It was clear enough.

And I've said it elsewhere.

It's like me asking if you know anything about logic.

Michael

[kiaer.ts]

You need to make the distinction between form and substance. Consciousness is a formal relation between bodies, not a type of substance or material. One cannot reduce consciousness to matter. The relationship between consciousness and the physical is one of supervenience, not reduction.

For example, the equation "two plus two equals four" can be expressed in an infinite number of ways, (e.g., "2+2=4" "dos más dos son cuatro" "два плюс два равно четырем") none of which reduces to any particular atomic structure, but each of which requires a physical substrate in order to be expressed. Your specific consciouness of a specific fact could be held in all sorts of different ways physically, in just the same way that one can physically construct logic gates out of different materials and in potentially different arrangements. Some specific form will be necessary, but how that form is realized physically may differ over a broad material range. And what matters ultimately will be the formal arrangements and the states they end up causing. Any meaningful analysis will attribute your actions to the forms, the ideas, you realize, not the atomic weight of the chemical compounds in your brain.

[BaalChatzaf]

Bob,

I said what I said. It was clear enough.

And I've said it elsewhere.

It's like me asking if you know anything about logic.

Michael

I do. Do you know anything about physics or neuro-physiology?

Have a PET scan and watch your mind in action.

I know mind is neurophysiological process the same way I know things are made of atoms.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[kiaer.ts]

Bob,

I said what I said. It was clear enough.

And I've said it elsewhere.

It's like me asking if you know anything about logic.

Michael

I do. Do you know anything about physics or neuro-physiology?

Have a PET scan and watch your mind in action.

I know mind is neurophysiological process the same way I know things are made of atoms.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Wrong, Bob.

Consciousness as a relation may exist as the result of neurophysiological processes in the brains of certain entities, but that is not the same as saying that mind is that process or those entities, any more than saying that a reflection is a mirror or a shadow is an umbrella. Mind is no more matter than the meaning of 2+2=4 is the arrangement of the pixels on your computer screen.

[BaalChatzaf]

Bob,

I said what I said. It was clear enough.

And I've said it elsewhere.

It's like me asking if you know anything about logic.

Michael

I do. Do you know anything about physics or neuro-physiology?

Have a PET scan and watch your mind in action.

I know mind is neurophysiological process the same way I know things are made of atoms.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Wrong, Bob.

Consciousness as a relation may exist as the result of neurophysiological processes in the brains of certain entities, but that is not the same as saying that mind is that process or those entities, any more than saying that a reflection is a mirror or a shadow is an umbrella. Mind is no more matter than the meaning of 2+2=4 is the arrangement of the pixels on your computer screen.

Mind is process carried out by material entities exchanging physical energy. It has a purely physical basis and does not exist as a non-physical substance or object. I would love to see the words mind and soul as currently used purged out of the language. They do more harm than good.

Motion is what a moving car does. Minding is what a living brain does. Brains mind for a living. That is their main occupation.

In fact all that exists is physical. There is nothing else. Democritus and Luekipus were right.

We are Nature's latest exercise in Monkey Business.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Consciousness is a formal relation between bodies, not a type of substance or material.

Ted,

I disagree with the first (on a primary level, but not a secondary level) and agree with the second (presuming you are talking about the parts of the universe we can reduce to the senses.

Consciousness is a causal agent. That is more than a relationship or a process.

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

Consciousness is a formal relation between bodies, not a type of substance or material.

Ted,

I disagree with the first (on a primary level, but not a secondary level) and agree with the second (presuming you are talking about the parts of the universe we can reduce to the senses.

The operation of one's brain causes a lot of things to happen. Brains send out signals; the make glands secrete and muscles twitch.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[kiaer.ts]

Consciousness is a formal relation between bodies, not a type of substance or material.

Ted,

I disagree with the first (on a primary level, but not a secondary level) and agree with the second (presuming you are talking about the parts of the universe we can reduce to the senses.

Consciousness is a causal agent. That is more than a relationship or a process.

Michael

Only entities are causal agents. The causal powers of conscious entities follow from their formal, not their material characteristics. That is, one cannot reduce the causal powers of conscious entities to statements about mere matter. But consciousness is inherently relational, inherently consciousness of.