Material soul

A. Okay. I also meant the entire mental dimension
B. You presented emergentism as a strange phenomenon in which mental phenomena suddenly emerge from matter that are not related to the elementary particles of matter, but if we look at the structure itself as an existing entity (ontological and not epistemological), it makes perfect sense that such a structure does indeed create phenomena that do not exist in the building blocks. After all, it is not possible to make a reduction from the structure to the elementary particles.
Moreover, according to any theory we must assume a structure that creates a conscious (or mental) entity, what advantage is there in assuming that this structure is spiritual and not physical?
I hope I was a little more understandable. And thank you very much for the answer.

You couldn't have been more understanding. I see here a typical picture of impermanence.

Do we agree that the problem with emergencies is the ability to reduce the structure to its elementary particles?
If so, this itself needs explanation or proof, otherwise it is simply the desired assumption.

Chinese. We probably don't speak the same language.

Too bad. I'll try one last time.
What do you think is the problem with the emergent explanation?

See column 593.

It sounds like he's referring to panpsychism and says:
Consciousness cannot emerge from unconscious particles, but there's no need to assume that consciousness is therefore something spiritual, one can assume that consciousness has always been there, even in the foundation stones.

As I think the rabbi wrote a column about, too, right?

That was exactly my point. Consciousness does not emerge from the particles. It arises from the structure. The idea is that the structure itself is a real being, just as the spiritual soul can create consciousness.

This doesn't sound like anything you said before, now you're describing a classical emergent theory, with John Searle's idea, which compares the emergence of consciousness from unconscious particles – to the emergence of fluidity from non-fluid molecules (in your words: the structure is a real being.
You may have tried to somehow combine panpsychism with classical emergentism – even though they seemingly eliminate the need for each other – or is it just confusion.
The structure is a mental being, not an ontological one. A structure is still a collection of particles, and if it has a new property, it must arise from the properties of the parts.

I did not talk about panpsychism. I do talk about emergentism, but I am referring to the claim that emergentism is implausible since there is no way to go from phenomena that exist in particles to new phenomena.
The discussion is exactly about this: Is the structure an ontological or epistemological entity? I said that just as the spiritual soul is an entity that can create mental reality, there is no reason why a material entity cannot create it. What priority does a spiritual entity have over a physical entity? In both cases you are referring to a structure that produces consciousness.
This can be described in the opposite way. Let's say that you are aware that there is a soul. What were your requirements for its structure? It seems to me that we would expect it to be a unitary entity, that reacts to changes, reacts to changes in itself… and so on. All these requirements are met in a material structure. At no point would I demand in advance that it be a spiritual entity

And another point. Intuitively, it seems to me that the structure is a real existence. Think of complex structures like life (not talking about mental reality, but biological life). If there were no human being who perceives this complexity, wouldn't there be more than a collection of molecules? I think that both intuitively and conceptually, the configuration itself is an objectively existing entity.
And this does mean that it is not some random order that suddenly created a mental reality, but the structure itself exists no less than the elementary particles (perhaps a planned existence according to the principle of sufficient reason)

First, my view is that structure is an epistemological entity, not an ontological one.
Second, even if we assume that structure is an ontological entity, I still need to understand how consciousness can emerge from it.

My requirement for a structure is that it exhibit the properties in it that explain consciousness. In contrast, I have no requirement for what I call a “soul,” since I did not create this concept to explain consciousness—as you seem to think.
I see consciousness as an entity that exists in itself, just as matter exists. I simply choose to call it “soul” for convenience, but I do not claim that there is an entity called a soul that produces consciousness—consciousness *is* the soul.
I am dealing with an entity that cannot be explained through matter, and so I define it in a different category. Would you call it “spiritual”? It's flowing.

Regarding your second comment:

Okay.. not critical for me.

In other words.
I'm not arguing for a soul. I'm just making an elimination.

I agree that the connection between any object (physical or spiritual) and consciousness is indeed not self-evident. But to explain the correlation between mental reality and physical phenomena, it is not enough to identify consciousness with a soul. You have to posit an object that can act on the body through thought, and vice versa.
If we do posit such an object, you will agree with me that the way in which the object produces consciousness is no more clear when it is spiritual.

And one more thing. What you are claiming is of course not dualism. You are simply claiming that there is a mental reality and that is it. There is no dispute about that. All attempts to build a dualistic or materialistic theory are to describe the connection between mental and physical reality.

Agreed.
But that's a different question. I thought we were dealing with the question of essence and not the “psychophysical” question (which I find less interesting, by the way)

Are you trying to explain the very existence of consciousness, or its interaction with the physical?

And to your second response:

What?
Who cares what I call consciousness?
If there is a non-material dimension to reality, then I am a dualist (you mean not necessarily an interactionist dualist? OK… as mentioned, that's a different question)

Are you finally surfing towards the question of interaction?
I'll find you a link on the site to a thread on the subject I participated in

I do not try to explain the psychophysical phenomenon, but I do prove from the very phenomenon that a conscious entity cannot be dispensed with. After we agree on the existence of that entity, I want to argue that it does not have to be a non-physical entity.

And to your second response.
Regardless of the interaction question, no one in the world explains mental reality using physical terms (mass, force, etc.). You are simply saying that apart from physical reality (mass, force, charge…) there is mental reality (emotion, thought, etc.…). A trivial statement

I didn't understand what you were saying at all.
Obviously we agree on a conscious entity, I also understood that you were trying to claim that it could be physical, I didn't understand where there was a new argument. Did you read the column on emergentism that Rabbi Michi linked to?
What do you mean that you haven't already said?

To your second response.
So you are also a dualist. Come to Zion Goel 😃.
Unfortunately you are wrong when you write: “Nobody in the world”
It is the materialist claim. That emotions and thoughts are an electric field in the brain and there is nothing outside of physical reality. I wish my statement were trivial.

Now I am completely confused. You say – that it is clear to everyone that there is an extra-physical reality “mental” and at the same time you claim that there is no extra-physical reality, because it can be said that mental reality is also physical?

I think I've exhausted my words for now. Thanks for the discussion!

I will also conclude.
As someone who read the column, it is clear that anyone who claims that there is nothing but particles and relationships between them simply denies reality. That is not what we are talking about.
We start from the premise that there is both a physical reality and a mental reality and try to find an explanation or source for mental reality. You suggest that it simply exists and that is it. I think that this neither fits with the principle of sufficient reason nor explains the interaction with the physical body.
The materialist explains mental reality as an outgrowth from physical reality, and for this reason Mikhi argued that an outgrowth from completely different categories is unlikely.
I tried to address this question. My argument is:
If we define physical reality only as elementary particles and relationships between them, it is indeed unlikely. But if we refer to structure as an ontological entity, not only is it plausible, but it is no less plausible than a spiritual entity. I agree that this means that it is not a random creation but a planned one (because it exists on its own). The difference in my opinion between this and dualism is in the question of whether mental reality needs physical reality to exist.
Thank you too and Shabbat Shalom.

I will just note that I do not find a significant difference between your theory and John Searle's example.
It does not explain anything, it simply links the mental phenomenon to the physical one – without being physical itself (to answer the interaction problem?!) The suggestion is not resolved, but we do not hear from you that you are even trying to solve it. You only note that we do not find where it emerges from.
The theory receives a low score for speculativeness and complexity, I am also doubtful about some of its basic assumptions, and therefore I prefer to remain without a positive claim about the essence of consciousness.

Regarding the motivations in general for finding a theory:
The question of interaction does not need a solution in my opinion (you can see questions on the site about the psychophysical problem). And the question of essence is similar to the question “Why is there matter” – Answer this, God, or answer “like this”

It's a shame I responded, because once again I see all the problems and contradictions in your theory, and I no longer agree with my previous response, and I'm not interested in repeating the claims that have already been made in the discussion. The theory actually says nothing. Either you try to claim that the mental phenomenon is not only parallel to the entity that you call a structure, but also arises from it, and then you perhaps explain the origin of consciousness with strange speculation but are left with problems of the essence of emanation, the essence of being, and in general don't say too much. (You don't explain the interaction either, but that really doesn't interest me) Or you say that the mental phenomenon is parallel to this being, and then you really haven't innovated anything. It's clear to all of us that mental phenomena are parallel to physical ones.

By the way, this entity that you call a structure is also metaphysical.
So let's call it a spiritual ”structure” from now on and we will bring peace to the land.

I addressed this explicitly. I have no problem calling it “spiritual”. The essential difference is whether the mental reality depends on its existence in the physical reality or not.