Conceptual Analysis – Lesson 23

Table of Contents

• Schedule and continuation of the lectures
• The prohibited labor of building: parameters, transitivity, and a new definition
• Creating a tent as a case of gathering parts and turning a space into a whole
• The Chazon Ish and electricity on the Sabbath as building: “from dead to alive”
• The definition of an organism: a fundamental whole versus a collection of particulars
• Fascism and individualism as an ontological debate about the collective
• Indicators of a “people” versus an organic essence
• Organism in a broad sense: a vehicle, a building, and a computer
• Computer, levels of integration, and Yeshayahu Leibowitz
• Vitalism, materialism, and the difference between biology and consciousness
• Emergence: John Searle, liquidity, weak and strong
• Critique of science’s ability to prove strong emergence
• Mental phenomena, “yellow,” and a critique of naive materialism
• Application to organisms in the laws of the Sabbath: building as organism and the prohibition of electricity
• Questions from the audience: psychiatric medications, resuscitation on the Sabbath, and death
• Opening the next topic: self-reference in halakhic structures

Summary

General Overview

The lecture continues the discussion of the prohibited labor of building and proposes a conceptual definition of building as turning a collection of parts into a functional whole, such that even creating a tent is understood as gathering together parts of “the space” and not as a separate parameter. This definition is applied to understanding the Chazon Ish’s approach to the prohibition of electricity on the Sabbath as an aspect of building, based on the idea that activating an electrical circuit “animates” a system and turns a collection of components into a functioning entity. The lecture then proposes a philosophical distinction between an organism and a group, and discusses metaphysical debates about collective versus individual, about weak and strong emergence, and about the limits of scientific explanation of consciousness and mental phenomena. Finally, it opens an introduction to the next topic in the series: self-reference in halakhic structures, with examples from tort law and lashes in which one person fills two halakhic roles in the same action.

Schedule and Continuation of the Lectures

The lecture notes that in previous years they usually stopped on the Ninth of Av, during the break period of the Three Weeks. It emphasizes that this time it does not overlap with August, and that further messages will come after coordination with Yitzhak. The lecture states that in principle there probably will not be a lecture next week, and that updates about future dates will be sent in the relevant WhatsApp groups.

The Prohibited Labor of Building: Parameters, Transitivity, and a New Definition

The lecture presents the analysis of Rabbi Isser Zalman, the Even HaEzel, according to which the prohibited labor of building has two components: gathering parts and creating a space, with the primary category requiring both, while each derivative category has one different component. The lecture argues that such a structure violates the requirement of transitivity in resemblance, because creating a tent is similar to building a house and making cheese is similar to building a house, but making cheese and creating a tent are not similar to each other. The lecture concludes that logically and halakhically this is strange, because if both components are essential then the derivative categories are not prohibited at the Torah level, and if only one is essential then only one derivative category ought to be prohibited, and if each one is sufficient on its own then there ought to be two primary categories rather than one.

Creating a Tent as a Case of Gathering Parts and Turning Space into a Whole

The lecture suggests taking the Even HaEzel one step further and arguing that creating a tent is itself a type of gathering parts, namely gathering the “parts of space” into a new functional whole. The lecture defines the prohibited labor of building as turning a collection of parts into a functional whole, and in that way also solves the problem of transitivity: the tent gathers the parts of space and the cheesemaker gathers the parts of the cheese, and both are similar to each other and similar to the primary category.

The Chazon Ish and Electricity on the Sabbath as Building: “From Dead to Alive”

The lecture explains that in the various formulations of the Chazon Ish regarding electricity as building, the intent is that electricity turns the wire “from dead to alive.” The lecture compares a body without life-force to a collection of adjacent cells that is not an organism, and compares the insertion of a soul to the creation of an organism, including the example of the Golem of Prague, to whom the Maharal puts the divine name in its mouth and it awakens. The lecture argues that activating an electrical circuit turns the device into a functional whole, and that this is the logic underlying the Chazon Ish’s approach. It is presented as the most logical approach in the topic, despite the common perception that it is strange and isolated.

The Definition of an Organism: A Fundamental Whole Versus a Collection of Particulars

The lecture explains that in building a house, a functional entity is created that includes the space and the parts surrounding it, and in that way the house is seen as a functional whole. The lecture clarifies that the term “organism” here is not biological in the narrow scientific sense, but refers to a situation in which the collective entity is perceived as fundamental and the parts are defined as its parts, rather than a situation in which the whole is merely a collection of parts. The lecture illustrates this with a biological organism in which the organs are absorbed into the entity, so that the cat is what is fundamental and the organs are “the cat’s leg,” and so on.

Fascism and Individualism as an Ontological Debate About the Collective

The lecture presents fascism as seeing the nation as an independent entity and the individuals as its organs, as opposed to liberal individualism, which sees the individual as the basic existent and the collective as a legal-cultural fiction. The lecture defines the debate as a metaphysical argument about “what exists,” not a moral argument, and claims that value judgments derive from different metaphysical conceptions. The lecture challenges the individualist: why is a person or a cat considered an existing entity while a society is not? It answers that the difference is that a person is an organism in which the cells are that person’s cells, whereas a group is a collection that does not receive the status of a fundamental entity.

Indicators of a “People” Versus an Organic Essence

The lecture addresses debates about “what counts as a people” and questions such as whether the Jews are a people and whether the Palestinians are a people, and argues that territory and language are indicators, not causes. The lecture says that one can be a people even without territory and a common language if there is an organic shared existence through religion or culture, and that there is a difference between seeing characteristics as constitutive and seeing them as signs.

Organism in a Broad Sense: A Vehicle, a Building, and a Computer

The lecture argues that a vehicle and a building are organisms in the broad sense of a functional whole, even though a biologist would not define them that way because they lack the ability to reproduce and transmit heredity. The lecture explains that in a vehicle, the parts receive meaning only within the framework of the overall entity, and therefore we say “there is a vehicle, and the vehicle has an engine/wheels,” not “a collection of parts.” The lecture distinguishes between an organism and an artificial grouping such as putting together a book, a fan, and a ceiling, where there are no shared functional relations among them, so at most that is an interpretive grouping.

Computer, Levels of Integration, and Yeshayahu Leibowitz

The lecture uses a computer to demonstrate different levels of description: particles, components, logic gates, and systems like the CPU and memory. The lecture argues that a computer does not “know” that it is adding numbers but is just running electrons, and the meaning of calculation is our interpretation of the outputs, similar to how the legs do not “walk” but rather the person walks by means of them. The lecture attributes this example to Yeshayahu Leibowitz in the context of the psycho-physical problem, and nevertheless states that a computer is an organic entity in the sense of a complex shared action in which the parts are absorbed into the whole.

Vitalism, Materialism, and the Difference Between Biology and Consciousness

The lecture presents the debate over vitalism as the question whether there is something in a living body beyond physics and chemistry, and argues that among biologists vitalism is practically a dirty word and there is agreement that there is nothing beyond physics. The lecture emphasizes that materialists still recognize the concept of an organism even without some additional “living substance.” The lecture argues that the discussion of organism is disconnected from assumptions about soul and consciousness, and that even on the purely biological level people see a human being or a cat as a defined entity.

Emergence: John Searle, Liquidity, Weak and Strong

The lecture presents the idea of emergence through John Searle and the example of liquidity in water, where a single molecule is not “liquid” but a cluster of molecules is. The lecture argues that the example is not successful, because the properties of the molecules determine the state of matter unambiguously, so this is really just an aggregation of properties and not “something new,” and from here comes the distinction between weak emergence and strong emergence. The lecture defines weak emergence as something reducible to, or computable from, the properties of the particulars, and strong emergence as something not computable from the particulars. It presents the materialist claim that consciousness and mental properties are a case of strong emergence from a brain composed of neurons.

Critique of Science’s Ability to Prove Strong Emergence

The lecture argues that science can never show strong emergence, because if the property of the whole cannot be computed from the properties of the parts, then there is no way to prove that it “emerges” from them rather than resulting from some addition like a soul. The lecture argues that anyone presenting strong emergence in the name of science is “taking the name of science in vain,” and that even the materialist is making an assumption that does not follow from the scientific picture. The lecture adds that the move from the biological to the mental is not a scientific determination, and illustrates this also in the discussion of death and experience, where one can determine the cessation of biological function but cannot scientifically determine the absence of experience.

Mental Phenomena, “Yellow,” and a Critique of Naive Materialism

The lecture tells of a conversation with Professor Yosef Neumann, a materialist and atheist, who claimed that there are colleagues who deny mental phenomena out of confusion. The lecture brings Bertrand Russell’s example of the color yellow and argues that yellow is not an electromagnetic wave but an experience in consciousness produced when a wave hits the retina, and that a sophisticated materialism can accept this without positing an additional entity. The lecture adds that there is no way to know whether two people experience the same color, and calls this “the accordion in the eye.”

Application to Organisms in the Laws of the Sabbath: Building as Organism and the Prohibition of Electricity

The lecture concludes that an organism does not require consciousness and does not require strong emergence, and that even in biology one can understand organism in terms of weak emergence, at least in principle. The lecture argues that all the wholes relevant to the laws of the Sabbath, such as a house, a tent, cheese, a vehicle, and a computer, are cases of weak emergence, and still they are functional wholes in which the whole is perceived as an existing entity and the parts as its parts. The lecture argues that this definition makes it possible to see activating an electrical device as reviving a system, and to understand the Chazon Ish’s approach in a way that defines the prohibition rather than getting stuck in categories such as generating current, kindling, or rabbinic laws.

Questions from the Audience: Psychiatric Medications, Resuscitation on the Sabbath, and Death

The lecture answers that psychiatric medications treat the chemistry of the body and that there is interaction between body and soul, but there is no calculation that establishes the transition from chemistry to the mental. The lecture confirms that resuscitation on the Sabbath falls under saving a life, and adds that without the category of saving a life there would be room to view “blowing a soul into a dead body” as the prohibited labor of building, with a side remark about a connection to taking life and demolition. The lecture emphasizes that there are medical criteria for death, but the determination that there is no experience after death is not a scientific determination but an assumption.

Opening the Next Topic: Self-Reference in Halakhic Structures

The lecture introduces the topic of self-reference in Jewish law through examples such as setting another person’s dog on another person, and the question raised by later authorities (Acharonim) whether setting one’s own dog on someone is also exempt, even though there ownership and culpability coincide. The lecture also brings the example of someone who throws a vessel off a roof and another person comes and breaks it, and the question raised by later authorities: what is the law if the thrower himself runs and breaks it before impact? The claim is that this is treated as though there are “two people” even when it is the same person. The lecture also cites Atvan DeOraita, principle 20, according to which when the Torah prohibits both acting upon another and receiving an action from another, someone who does it to himself violates two prohibitions. It illustrates this from Makkot 20b, where one who rounds off his own hairline receives eighty lashes, both because he performs the rounding and because he is the one whose hairline is rounded, emphasizing that this requires a conceptual analysis of “two forces in one person” as preparation for what follows.

Last time—and by the way, regarding the continuation of the lectures—Yitzhak, as far as I remember, in previous years we usually stopped on Tisha B’Av, right? During the break period of the Three Weeks. Since now it doesn’t overlap with August, well, announcements will come, we’ll talk more and I’ll let you know. In any case, last time we talked about the labor of building, and my claim was—I’ll say it briefly—I started from the analysis of Rabbi Isser Zalman, the Even HaEzel, who shows that the labor of building has two components, or two parameters: assembling parts and creating a cavity, and he proposes a kind of complex logical structure in which the primary category requires both parameters, while each of the two derivative categories contains only one of those parameters. And I said that in fact this does not satisfy the requirement of transitivity that we would expect from resemblance—that resemblance should be a transitive property or relation. Because if A resembles B and B resembles C, then A should also resemble C. Now here that doesn’t happen: creating a tent resembles building a house, making cheese also resembles building a house, but making cheese and creating a tent do not resemble each other at all, because each of them contains one of the two components, but a different one. So in effect it comes out that there is no resemblance at all between the two derivatives. And I said that this is very strange both logically and halakhically, because if both components are essential to the definition of the labor of building, then only the primary category should be prohibited and the derivatives should not be prohibited at the Torah level at all, because each of them lacks one of the essential components. If we say that one of them is essential and the other is secondary, then only one type of derivative—whether it’s assembling parts or creating the cavity doesn’t matter right now—but only one of the two derivatives should have been prohibited, while the other should have been permitted. And if I say that each of the two components by itself is sufficient, then I would expect these to be two separate primary categories, not one primary category with two different derivatives, but two separate primary categories: one is assembling parts and the other is creating a cavity. What exactly is the connection between them? Therefore my claim in the end was—and I said this solves many difficulties, though I didn’t get into them—that really we need to take Rabbi Isser Zalman one step further. And what I really want to say is that creating a tent is also a kind of assembling parts. It is assembling the parts of the space. Meaning: turning the space into some new functional whole, in such a way that the parts composing it no longer have significance except within the larger framework. And so the claim is that if you take Rabbi Isser Zalman one step further, beyond the halakhic difficulties that this solves, it also resolves the logical problem. And that’s what I spoke about last time. I didn’t get into the halakhic difficulties because the logical problem of transitivity is resolved. Now there really is one primary category and one parameter that is the important one, and that is assembling parts to create a functional whole, where the cavity is an example of assembling parts that creates a functional whole—it’s not some additional thing. And therefore the two derivatives do resemble one another, the two derivatives do resemble one another and resemble the primary category: they all assemble parts. The tent assembles the parts of the space, and the cheesemaker assembles the parts of the cheese. And therefore the definition I proposed for the labor of building is turning a collection of parts into a functional whole. That is the definition of the labor of building. And in light of that I explained all the formulations—the four different formulations—in the Chazon Ish when he explains that electricity on the Sabbath is prohibited משום building, and I showed in each of those formulations that this is really what he means: electricity turns the wire from dead to alive. It basically—I said that if there is a corpse lying there, without a spirit of life, then it is a collection of cells attached to one another, but they do not create an organism. They are not joined into a functional whole defined on the collective level; rather, you simply have a collection of cells one next to the other. The moment you insert a soul into that corpse, “and He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life,” think for example of the Golem of Prague, when the Maharal puts the Divine Name into its mouth and it comes to life—that in effect turns that collection of cells into an organism. And that is really the essence of the labor of building, and that is what activating the electrical circuit does to the circuit or to the device: it turns it into a functional whole. And that, I think, is the logic underlying the claim of the Chazon Ish. And when you look at it this way, it seems to me that the Chazon Ish comes out as the most sensible in this whole discussion, even though he is usually seen as some strange, isolated approach that no one takes seriously. The only thing I said was that I still need one more little step. I skipped over the issue of defining an organism, which is really the essence of this topic, and of course the essence of the definition, of the conceptual analysis, which is really what this series is about. So here I want to spend a little time on this issue, on the definition of an organism. And my claim is basically this.

When we talk about constructing a building, a house, we take a collection of stones or boards or something, connect them with cement or with nails or whatever, and a functional whole is created: the house. That includes both the interior space and the parts that surround the space, but some functional whole is formed here. And therefore, when we view house-building in the abstraction of the Sabbath labors, we see it as the creation of a functional whole. To understand a little better the meaning of this, let’s think for a moment about an organism in the biological sense. I already said that the organism involved in the labor of building on the Sabbath is not a biological organism. When we build a house, I called the house an organism, but biologists would not define it as an organism. It’s not something biological. Why am I calling it an organism? So let’s think for a moment about the biological organism. What happens in a biological organism? We essentially have a collection of cells, or if you like a collection of organs, joined into some functioning whole. And in that whole, we no longer relate to each part as something existing on its own. It is basically absorbed—well yes, in the end with an aleph, absorbed—into the whole. And now what I see in front of me is a person, or a cat, or whatever it may be. And from my perspective this is an entity that I relate to on the collective plane. And the cells that make up the cat, or even the organs that make up the cat, for me are organs of a cat. Not that the cat is a collection of organs, but rather the more fundamental creature here is the cat. And the organs are the cat’s leg, and the cat’s tail, and the cat’s ear. But all the organs are defined as organs of the functional whole, of the organism. And that is really the meaning of the formation of an organism: the separate parts merge together and become a collective entity such that now the parts are its parts, not that it is merely a collection of the parts. When I speak of the collective entity as a collection of the parts, then it is not an organism. It is a collection of parts. When I see the collective entity as the fundamental entity and the parts as its parts, then I am really speaking about an organic entity.

Let’s take a look—I spoke about this in one of the earlier series—let’s take a look at how we relate to a society of human beings. Fascists relate to a society of human beings, say a people, a nation—okay?—as an independent entity, and the individuals making up that nation are its organs. They basically see the nation as some kind of organism, of which the individuals are organs. In contrast, the individualist view—liberalism generally tends toward individualism—and in individualism people basically see individual persons as the basic entity, as the thing that really exists. A collective is a cultural, legal, whatever kind of definition, a useful definition, but not a reality. The collective is not, in their view, some kind of actually existing entity. And again, I am not speaking here about the evaluative dispute between fascism and individualism, but about the ontological dispute—that is, the dispute about the metaphysical question of what exists. Quite apart from values right now—whether to be cruel, whether to sacrifice the individual for the public or not sacrifice the individual for the public, which has all sorts of evaluative and behavioral implications. What I am talking about right now is the metaphysical outlook of the fascist and the individualist, okay? And I claim that the difference between them begins with a different metaphysics, and the evaluative differences are derived from different metaphysical conceptions. And therefore, at the most basic level, it is not even clear that this is really a moral dispute. First and foremost it is a metaphysical dispute. From there you get moral implications in one direction or the other.

So the dispute is seemingly really about how to relate to a people or a defined group of people. But let’s try to take it one step further, and I’ll now ask, as an ontic fascist—on the level of ontology, not on the evaluative level, but I am a bit of a fascist on the ontological level—I’ll ask the individualist: how do you see a single individual person? Not society—a single person. You yourself after all claim that what really exists is the individual person. The collective is some sort of definition, it’s a fiction, but the individual person exists. Now I say, what do you mean the individual person exists? Just as society is a collection of people, the person is a collection of cells. Or organs, or whatever—depending on what resolution you’re looking at. Or each cell itself is of course a collection of very many, very many, very many molecules, and then atoms, and elementary particles, and so on. At every level of resolution you choose, you can go further and further inward, and you will see that none of the entities—even the most basic entities you speak about—are really simple entities. They are composite entities. And if you are unwilling to recognize the existence of a composite entity, then you really cannot recognize the existence of anything at all, perhaps except some utterly elementary particle, if there even is such a thing. It isn’t even clear that there is such a thing, the most elementary particle there is. But aside from that, nothing exists. So a person also doesn’t really exist. Why did you stop there? Why do you claim that the person exists but society is a fiction? The person is also a fiction.

The answer the individualist gives is that he is not speaking about the physical person; he is speaking about the person—the being of the person, the concept person. First of all, I’m not entirely sure, because many liberals today, it seems to me—maybe even most of them—are materialists, in which case the question is what exactly you are talking about here. But beyond that point, I’m speaking now even on the biological level—not the physical level but the biological level. On the biological level I think people see the human being as an actually existing entity, defined in itself, even without relating to the fact that he has consciousness. Let’s talk about a cat. Fine? And let us assume for the sake of argument—I’m not sure, but let’s assume for the sake of argument—that it has no consciousness, no thoughts; it basically operates instinctively. Okay? I still think we would agree that a cat is a well-defined entity. So now I ask the individualist: why yes to a cat, or yes to a person, but no to society? What is the difference? This too is a collection of people and that too is a collection of people. And the answer called for here is that a person is a collection of cells, but the person is an organism. And the collection of cells creates an entity now defined as something that is no longer just a collection of cells. On the contrary: now the cells are the cells of this person or of this cat. And that is something entirely different from a collection of parts that do not create an organism.

Now notice: I am not assuming any spirituality, soul, or consciousness at all at this point. I am speaking now purely on the biological level. On the biological level we can define the concept of organism in biology—not in psychology, not with mental dimensions, without anything psychic, soulful, or spiritual, whatever you want. Pure biology. And still, the greatest materialists—most of them at least, it seems to me—would fully agree that a person is not a collective entity. A person is a well-defined entity, unlike a collective. And why? Because they too understand that assembling things in a way that creates an organism is not the same thing as fictitiously defining a collection of people and producing a group from it. That is a fictive definition. You can define it or not define it; there is nothing here in reality itself. It is only a definition; it happens inside us. In reality itself there is no expression of it. By contrast, the assembly of particulars in a way that creates an organism is something that exists in reality itself; it is not our interpretation. We notice it, but it is not our perception that determines the matter.

Here, by the way, there is a dispute among philosophers. And there are philosophers who might claim that indeed the definition of organism is philosophy, not biology. Meaning that in the end, the decision that an organic body is an entity standing on its own or existing in its own right is merely our interpretation. It has no anchor in the world itself. In the world itself it is simply a collection of cells. You choose to relate to that collection of cells as a cat; that is your interpretive decision. I do not agree with that view. I think—and again, I also claim that there are materialists who do not agree with that view. So I say I am not hanging the disagreement here on my dualism. The disagreement here does not depend on dualism; there are also materialists who would not agree with that outlook. And they would claim that biology deals with the world. Biology is not interpretation. And the fact that biology deals with creatures that are alive, and living creatures are organisms, means that there is a root in reality for this way we look at a cat or a person or a plant as an organism. It is not merely our interpretive definition. After all, there are scientific laws governing how organisms behave. A car? A car? It sounds choppy. A car. A car? Yes. Is it an organism or not? I think yes. An organism in the broad sense I have defined here. A biologist would not say it is an organism, because it has no ability to reproduce, there is no heredity. There are all sorts of requirements there of that sort—I mentioned that. But on the level of creating a functional whole, absolutely yes. A car and a building are the same thing. According to this level, it is not an organism—a group, when is it not considered… when? When? When I do not see the whole as the fundamental entity of which the particulars are organs, but rather I see the collection of particulars and define it as a whole or as a group. That is exactly the point.

In other words, the dispute between the fascists and the individualists concerning society is exactly on this point. The individualists also understand that there is a group of people that defines itself as a people. They do not deny that; everyone agrees to that. They only claim that this is your definition, it has no anchor in the world itself. It is an interpretive matter. And because of that, they are not willing to see in that thing an entity or something with some kind of existence. It is a definition. We can define it; we could also define every second person in that nation as some group. Two to the power of the number of people—that’s the number of subsets in a set with n elements. So you can define every such group as a group. All those are definitions. The claim of the fascists—the ontological fascists—is that this is not a question of definition; it is a different reality. And the fact that we manage to notice it is because we have the ability to notice it, not because we created it. We notice this thing, and that is exactly the point. Meaning that the fascists are basically claiming that a people is not a fictive, conventional, agreed-upon definition, but something that exists in reality. And the fact that we have a shared feeling and define ourselves as a people—the definition is an expression of something that we understand to exist in reality itself. Not that the definition constitutes the concept of a people.

This is actually very important for many disputes about self-definition, and about who is a people and who is not a people. There are disputes about whether the Jews are a people—you asked me that, Eliav. There are disputes about whether the Palestinians are a people, and many of those disputes revolve precisely around this point. The question is whether you—for example, the answer I gave you to your question, Eliav, was exactly this point. For me, all those technical definitions—territory, language, and so on—are the same as defining replication and genetics in biology. That is not the essence of the matter; it is an indication. For me, this thing is defined as a people if it is a collective in reality. What makes it a collective? Is it a common language, a common territory? Maybe not. There could be another collective sufficiently defined as an organism such that even without territory and without language I would be willing to see it as an entity standing on its own, one that is well-defined. I claim that territory and language are signs, not causes. They are indications that we have some kind of shared existence, an organic existence. But if we manage to do that through religion, or through some shared culture, then even if we have no common language and no common territory, we are a people. Why not? That is exactly the difference between trying to see the characteristics as constitutive and seeing the characteristics as indications, and not as the thing that is the organism.

So the same thing I also say in our context. If you ask biologists what an organism is, they will tell you something that reproduces itself, something with dividing cells, heredity, and all kinds of things of that sort. I claim that those are only indications; they are not the thing itself. As far as I am concerned, a house is also an organism, a car is also an organism, even though there is no replication and heredity there. Why? Because once again, the definition I am proposing here for an organism is that when I look at this whole, it is a whole that functions collectively and functionally. And the particulars—when you see a car wheel, when you see a car, you do not say that this is a collection of four wheels, an engine, a steering wheel, brakes, gears, and transmission. Okay? On the contrary, you say: there is a car here; this car has various organs or various parts. It has wheels, it has a steering wheel, it has an engine. But none of these parts has any meaning outside the framework of the car. The engine is the engine of the car. Therefore the fundamental entity here is the car, not the parts. The parts are its parts. And therefore, as far as I am concerned, a car or a building is an organism. Again, I’m not arguing with biologists; you can define it one way or another. But it is an organism in the sense I am speaking about here. It is a functional whole that has independent standing. It is not a collection; it is not merely the result of a definition.

If someone says to me that a car is only a definition—I could also define an object made up of the book lying beside me here, the fan over there, and the ceiling above me. Those three together, as far as I’m concerned, are a group. Can I define that group as an organism? The answer is no. Because there are no symbiotic relations among those things; they do not function together as one functioning whole. That is a definition. Now someone may come and tell me: look, this definition is meaningful to me, it matters to me to define it this way. That’s perfectly fine, no problem. I have no problem with your definition. But it still is not an organism. You can define groups that are not organic wholes. That is fine; you are allowed to define such groups. I am only claiming: don’t call it an organism; call it a group. An organism is something that does not begin with a definition. The definition does not constitute it. The definition tries to capture it, tries to grasp what it is. A non-organic whole is a whole that the definition creates. Once you define it, it becomes a whole. But it has no existence as a whole beyond our way of looking at it. It is simply our interpretation; we see it that way, okay? So in that sense, this is really the definition I am proposing for organism, the broader definition I am proposing for organism in our context, at least in the context of the laws of the Sabbath.

Now I’ll say even more—I’ll sharpen it further. When I talk about biology without the spiritual dimensions, because after all I constantly want to explain to you why a house or cheese is also an organism. That’s very strange, yes? But why is that too called an organism for me? So look, that’s why the best example is really to treat a person as a biological entity. Forget the mental, psychic dimensions—a person as a biological entity, a living biological body, an amoeba, fine, I don’t care, a living cell, okay? Some basic creature, which apparently has no consciousness, no brain, no thought, no will, no emotions, no anything. Forget spirituality and dualism for me. Right now I am a materialist, okay? Now my claim is that even then we are still dealing with an organic entity.

Now you know there is a dispute among philosophers—among biologists probably not anymore, but among philosophers there is a dispute—about vitalism. Does a living body contain something beyond physics and chemistry? Is there, in biology, something more there, beyond atoms and molecules and electrons and physical particles—is there some additional living substance there? The view that says that there is something more there in order to produce the phenomenon of life is called vitalism. Yes, “vital” means alive. Now among philosophers there has been an age-old dispute; there are even some who still want to claim this today. Among biologists there is already broad agreement—I would say even total agreement. Vitalism is a dirty word for them. There is no such thing. There is nothing in the living body beyond physics and chemistry. Beyond physics—chemistry is just complicated physics, that’s all. There is nothing beyond physics. Okay? And still—and this is what I want to sharpen here—even such a materialist will tell you that a living body is an organism. He does not deny the difference between an organism and a physical body. I’m not even talking now about—throw spirituality out of the room for me. I’m speaking even about biological matter. Even if you claim there is no such thing as biological matter and everything is just inanimate physical matter, even so, the concept of organism is still well-defined. Therefore I am trying to clean this of all the philosophical and ideological disputes that often accompany the issue. It has nothing to do with that. The definition I am proposing here is a definition in the inanimate world. A definition in the inanimate world. It is unrelated to all the previous disputes.

Now I’ll say one more thing. Maybe—maybe an example, and then one more thing. Take a computer, for example. A computer is perhaps a particularly clear example of an organism in the sense I am speaking about here. Extreme materialists will say that a computer is an organism in every sense. It is an organism like us, okay? But that is an extreme view, though it is becoming more widespread. But I am speaking now—I don’t want to compare it to human beings, okay? Still, why do I call it an organism? Try to think for a moment what a computer really is. You can view it, as I described the living body earlier, on many levels of integration or at different resolutions. You can view the computer at the level of elementary particles. A lump, a pile of metals, wires, and so on, composed of all sorts of elementary particles arranged in certain forms, moving around, whatever—a collection of particles. If we go to a higher level of integration, then we see that essentially we are dealing with a collection of—I don’t know what—components. Or before components, a collection of physical constituents, but not elementary ones, okay? If you want, transistors—fine—certain physical units. I already jumped much too high, but I skipped several levels of integration. I’m doing only a schematic demonstration here. Then I move to the level of logic gates, okay? I basically say that every computer is built from a collection of units that perform logical operations: AND, OR, XOR, negation, all sorts of such logical operations. Then I say that at a higher level of integration I relate to it as a collection of—this is like the organs of a person—so there are organs of the computer. There is the CPU, there is memory, input-output, whatever, all sorts of such components. Of course, inside the CPU too there are very many parts and registers and all kinds of things like that. You see that there are many, many levels, and at each level I can view the computer as a collection of different things. Okay? This whole thing together is what is called a computer.

Now I’ll tell you something more extreme. In fact even that whole thing is not the computer. A computer computes nothing. A computer does not engage in calculations. When a computer performs the operation one plus three equals four, we see on the screen the words one plus three equals four. In the past it was tubes, whatever, today it’s done differently—they light up some pattern in certain typographical forms that for us looks exactly like the form of one, and plus, and the form of three, and the form of equals, and the form of four. The computer does not know that it is doing one plus three equals four. The computer knows nothing. A computer runs electrons. We build the computer in such a way and cause it to operate in such a way that the interpretation we receive is that it is now performing addition. One plus three equals four. But the computer is not doing that. Just as, for example, the legs do not walk—the person walks by means of the legs. The one who walks is the person, not the legs. The person uses the legs and by means of them he walks. But the one who walks is not the legs; the one who walks is the person. The one who thinks is not the brain; the one who thinks is the person, or the intellect. The intellect thinks; it uses the brain in order to think, just as it uses the legs in order to walk.

You see that these organs or different divisions can be viewed as collections of particles, they can be viewed as collections of organs, depending on what level of integration you are discussing. None of that tells me anything. By the way, this is an example from Yeshayahu Leibowitz when he talks about the psycho-physical problem; he talks about the computer. What is a computer? A collection of these things. Where exactly is the computer here? Who is doing the calculation? It is simply a collection of particles running from place to place. And everything is, seemingly, only a matter of interpretation. The different levels of integration are simply modes of relation by a human being, depending on what resolution he chooses to relate to this object in front of him called a computer, okay? Like what I said earlier about the car. And still, it is clear to all of us that a computer is an organic entity in the sense I spoke about before, because it performs some very complex operation in which all its parts participate. The computer’s memory has no meaning unless it is the computer’s memory; the CPU is the computer’s CPU. The computer is not a collection of CPU, memory, and input-output. On the contrary: there is a computer, and the computer has memory, CPU, and input-output. Okay. So that is just an example that further illustrates what I said before.

Now I want to take one more step, and with this I will more or less finish this point. I think maybe I mentioned this last time, I don’t remember—did I talk about emergence? The claim of many people who are materialists is that when they explain the emergence of mental phenomena in a person, they say that this is basically a result, an emergent phenomenon. To emerge means to come forth. There are phenomena that emerge when we are speaking about a whole, a material whole. An example of this—John Searle, an American philosopher, was one of the first to raise this thesis, perhaps even the first. He just didn’t yet call it emergence. Today this is a very widespread approach and it is called emergence. What he said—he spoke about liquidity. Didn’t I speak about that last time? He spoke about liquidity. He asks: the property of liquidity—of what object is that a property? After all, a water molecule is not liquid, right? A single molecule—liquid, solid, and gas are states of matter. Why is it called a state of aggregation? What is aggregation? Aggregation comes from the notion of an aggregate. It is a state of an aggregate of molecules. The question is how the relation between the molecules determines whether this is liquid, gas, or solid. But a single molecule does not flow; it is neither solid nor gas. It is not defined for it at all.

Now look—there is nothing in water except a collection of molecules. And in that respect—is it still found in the property of the individual molecule? I can’t hear. Is it still found in the property of the individual molecule? I can’t hear you. It doesn’t sound good. There’s something wrong with your microphone. The claim is that yes—even the greatest vitalists agree that in water there is nothing except H2O molecules and dirt. Yes, but aside from that, H2O is water, right? There is nothing there. We understand that completely; everything is known, everything is clear, everything is physics and chemistry. There is nothing beyond that. Okay? And yet it turns out that there are properties that are not properties of the individual molecule making up the water, but they are properties of the whole, of the aggregate of molecules called water. What does that mean? John Searle claims that there is such a phenomenon called emergence. There are properties that emerge at the level of the whole, or suddenly appear at the level of the whole, and they do not exist at the level of the individual object.

And they claim that the same is true, for example, in the brain. We have a collection of neurons. Every neuron is a cell, a nerve cell, right? And we are a biological creature—a cell. How do mental phenomena suddenly arise? After all, an individual cell apparently has no mental phenomena. Mental phenomena belong to a creature composed of a collection of cells. How does that happen? The materialists claim that if you gather very many nerve cells, this whole, when grouped together, suddenly acquires properties that are not properties of the particulars, of the individuals composing the whole. The individual cell does not think, does not want, does not feel, and does nothing, but the whole of the cells of our brain does want, think, feel, suffer, and so on. That is the claim of the materialists. Now—and here I come to Yossi’s comment from before—in water, it is true that an individual molecule does not have the property of liquidity or solidity or gas; that is a property of an aggregate of molecules, not a property of an individual molecule. But the physical properties of the individual molecule determine what the properties of the collection of molecules will be. It is not the property of liquidity; it is the force field around the molecule. But the force field around the molecule, which is a physical property of the individual molecule—we know that very well, there is no problem, we can write the formula or sketch the field around the molecule. Once we know that, do the calculation and you will see when a collection of such molecules will be solid, liquid, or gas. Thermodynamics, okay? We do such calculations all the time.

Therefore, while it is true that the individual molecule does not have the property of being liquid, it is also true that the properties of the individual molecule determine in a one-to-one way that the aggregate will be liquid. Even though at the level of the individual molecule it is not called liquid—it is not liquid—but its properties well define how and when the aggregate will become liquid. And in that sense, the example of liquidity brought by John Searle is not a successful example. Because on the plane of liquidity we would all agree that there is a property that emerges at the level of the whole, but it does not really emerge at the level of the whole—that is what Yossi was constantly trying to say earlier—but rather it is simply the sum of the properties of the individual molecules, that is all. That sum appears at the collective level as a liquid. But there is nothing truly new here.

By contrast, if I speak about a nerve cell, then a nerve cell has no—it experiences nothing mental, it has no mental aspects. But a collection of nerve cells, according to the materialists, does create mental phenomena. And now I ask: who says such a thing is possible? I, as a dualist corresponding with the materialist, say: if it does not exist at the level of the individual cell, then it does not exist at the level of the whole either. And if it does exist at the level of the whole, then there is something else there—a soul, spirit, psyche, something else. The materialist says no, no, there is nothing else; it emerges. These are properties that emerge at the level of the whole, of the collection of cells. So now the lucid materialist already understands that liquidity is not a good example, because in liquidity no truly new property was created at the collective level. It is merely the sum of the properties of the individual molecules. Here there is something else. So materialist philosophers now invented a name for it: weak emergence and strong emergence. Weak emergence is when the property of the whole is reducible, or can be calculated, by summing the properties of the particulars that make up the whole, as with water. The emergence that exists in our brain is strong emergence. We have no way to calculate it from the properties of the whole—also, by the way, except for all sorts of confused brain scientists. Of course brain scientists do make such calculations, but they are not calculating—emergence in English is emergence. “Emergence” is an English word; the Hebrew word is “coming forth.” That is just a Hebrew inflection of the English word. The calculations they do are calculations of phenomena they call feeling, identifying, learning, remembering—but of course that is nonsense. They are speaking about electrical phenomena. When I speak about feeling, remembering, identifying, I am talking about mental phenomena. There is no way in the world to reduce mental phenomena to biological calculations. Nobody knows how to do that today, nobody has any method that can even begin to think how such a thing could be done. They simply do not know; there is no language, no way to do it.

But the materialists insist on saying that this is merely emergence—yes, but true, strong emergence. Now of course this is only a side remark; it really no longer concerns us. I claim that they say this in the name of science, because science says it shows us no existence beyond matter, and therefore they claim that one must be a materialist—whoever is faithful to the scientific worldview must be a materialist. And I say that science can never show us strong emergence. So you have to abandon the assumption that there is strong emergence too. Because how could science show us that there is strong emergence? This is the argument in my book “The Science of Freedom.” How can science never show us—and will never be able, ever, to show us—a phenomenon of strong emergence? Why? Because in order to show such a phenomenon, what would you actually need to show me? You would have to show me a whole composed of a collection of particulars, where the whole has a property that cannot be reduced to the properties of the particulars. Okay? Now I say: but how do you know that there is not something else in that whole which is responsible for that property? How will you know that it emerges from the particulars? How will you know that? If you can calculate the thing, no problem—you have shown that it comes from the particulars; you can calculate it. But if you can calculate it, that is weak emergence. Strong emergence is defined as emergence that cannot be calculated from the particulars. But if it cannot be calculated from the particulars, then how do you know that it really comes from the particulars and not from something else in addition to the particulars? You will never be able to prove that scientifically. Therefore science can never prove the existence of strong emergence. And there are many confused people trying to do so, even on the website there was someone not long ago trying to make all sorts of such scientific claims, but it is all just a bundle of conceptual confusions. There is no such thing. Strong emergence cannot be demonstrated scientifically. It is a logical proof: you can’t, there is no way, and there never will be a way to show scientifically the existence of strong emergence. Since whenever there is strong emergence, the dualist can always come and say: fine, apparently there is something else here besides the collection of particulars, and that is what creates the collective properties. So therefore it is not emergent, it is not a property that comes from the particulars; it is a property created because a soul entered this collection of particulars. Therefore that claim is not a scientific claim. It may be true, but it is not a scientific claim. If you say it in the name of science, then in my opinion you are taking the name of science in vain. And therefore you are really making an assumption just as I am making an assumption, and what I assume does not follow from the scientific picture—and neither does what you assume follow from the scientific picture. So in any case, in the context of a human being there is something that science does not know how to touch. Everyone has to agree to that. Now the question whether that “something extra” is matter or is not matter—that is already a less interesting discussion.

Now why am I saying all this? Rabbi? Yes? What about metabolism? Can you hear? Metabolism—I say metabolism. First of all, do you think we can distinguish between a living and a dead state, and if so, supposedly one could regard that as when the organism falls apart. Death is a state where there is no organism. Right—in death it is not an organism. In death it is a collection of cells; they do not have shared functional activity. No, but the point is, when a person dies, consciousness stops, right? It seems to me, no? That’s what they would say. It seems that way to me too. So supposedly they have a criterion by which one can know when consciousness exists and when it does not, according to physics. What do you mean, what criterion? You decide that this is so. Why did you decide? On what basis? Did you ask the dead person whether he has consciousness? No—you decided. Fine, I agree too, but my decision is not science. Wait, then if we claimed that we can’t really distinguish between death and life, between dead and alive? No, we can distinguish, but we cannot determine that the dead have no consciousness. You can say that, but you can say it as a matter of reasoning. You have no scientific proof for it. It is not a scientific determination. If the soul continues to experience all sorts of things and does not use the brain—wait, why can’t we say that communication? I didn’t understand. Suppose the test is communication. If there is communication. There are tests for death. I don’t need tests for death. That’s what doctors are for. They have tests by which they determine death. That is not the problem. Obviously death can be determined. I am only claiming that determining death does not mean determining that the person no longer experiences. We assume in our minds that he no longer experiences.

Wait, then—just a second, I didn’t understand. So in their view we determine a person as alive? I didn’t understand. “In their view” of whom? Of the materialists. No, they think like you do, that when a person dies he no longer experiences anything. I think so too. I just think that he experiences nothing because his soul has left the body, while they think he experiences nothing because the brain no longer functions and nothing remains, there is only the body. But both I and they are saying something that cannot be scientifically tested. Ah, I see. It’s not that we have no disagreement—we agree. I am only claiming that what they say is not scientific either, not only what I say is not scientific. That’s the claim. Because the move from the biological to the mental is always a non-scientific move; scientific tools cannot measure it. Wait, so basically if a scientist thinks in purely scientific terms, will he really tell me that he can’t distinguish between dead and alive? No, he can distinguish, depending on how you define “dead.” If you define dead as a body that has ceased functioning on the biological level, that we can distinguish. But if you mean a person who no longer experiences, thinks, or wants, you can assume that he is already like that, but that is an assumption. There is no scientific determination of that. All you can say is that in the brain there are no physical processes that usually accompany those mental processes. That you can determine with instruments.

Wait, and scientifically am I forced to admit that there is consciousness beyond matter? No. But you also cannot determine scientifically that there isn’t. I didn’t understand—is there a scientist who would tell me, listen, I don’t know whether there is consciousness? No, I think if he tells you that, then he is confused. There are all sorts of scientists and philosophers too. I told you some time ago—what? This basic point is accepted, that there is consciousness. It is accepted even scientifically. After all, that is a fact. There are confused people who deny it, but certainly. Yes. I told you some time ago—at some point, I don’t remember—there was a professor at Tel Aviv University named Yosef Neumann. He passed away a year or two ago. When I published the book on evolution—he was a materialist and an atheist, quite militant in these areas—he called me after I published that book, and we had a phone conversation. A very nice man. I even quoted him in the book; I argued with him. He called me afterward, we spoke on the phone. He said to me, listen, I have colleagues of mine, the materialists, because this thing called materialism. And now he says, I can’t manage to explain to them the stupidity of the thing. He said that to me as a materialist. Because as a lucid materialist, he understands that the fact that you think there is only matter in the world does not mean that there are no mental processes. It only means that the mental processes emerge from the material whole. You do not need some additional thing, some additional substance, in order to explain the mental dimensions. But you cannot deny the facts—there are mental processes within a person. Does this mean there is something else in us besides matter? That was the dispute I had with him, with Neumann. But both of us agreed that of course a person has mental processes. He just told me about friends of his who are professors like him and atheists and materialists like him, and you can often see all kinds of stupid remarks like that—no, absolutely not, there is no such thing, it’s all chemistry and biology and that’s it. That is confusion. It is all produced by chemistry and biology if you are a materialist, but not that everything simply is chemistry and biology. A chemical-biological system has no emotions. A chemical system—not even a biological one—has no emotions, no desires, no thoughts. Nonsense. You cannot say that thought is an electrical current. You can say that the electrical current generates the mental phenomenon called thought. There is nothing else here besides the electrical system—that is the materialist claim. But you cannot say there are no mental phenomena. That is simply a misunderstanding.

Similarly, my favorite example is Bertrand Russell, another militant atheist. He once asked: what is the color yellow? Those materialists—the naïve ones—will say, what is yellow? It is an electromagnetic wave of such-and-such wavelength, which is complete nonsense. An electromagnetic wave of a certain wavelength, when it hits our retina, creates in our consciousness the image of the color yellow. There is no yellow color in the world itself. The yellow color exists only in our consciousness, inside. In the world itself there is an electromagnetic wave. The yellow color exists only in my consciousness. Now this does not mean there is something else in the world besides the electromagnetic wave. You can be a materialist or a physicalist and accept everything I just said, that the yellow color is not the electromagnetic wave. The claim is only that yellow is not some additional thing, but a phenomenon, a property of the eye when an electromagnetic wave strikes it. That is all. You do not need a soul here to experience the yellow color—that is what the materialist claims. I claim that yes, you do, but he claims you do not. That is a lucid materialist. But someone who says there is no such thing as the color yellow, or that the color yellow is an electromagnetic wave of such-and-such wavelength, is an idiot. He is not a materialist. He simply does not understand what he is talking about. There are many such people, by the way. There are idiots on both sides, that’s fine. It’s just that often there is this inferiority complex that says the materialists are always more intelligent, wiser, more scientific. In my view that is nonsense. There are many, many fools there too—including scientists, not only blind followers. Fools on the philosophical level. No, scientists can be very successful scientists, but when they move into the philosophical sphere, they miss very, very basic things. It is sometimes surprising to see how poor the philosophical thinking of such people can be.

Anyway, so for example this Neumann—so not everyone is like that. Neumann, for example, was a materialist, but he understood very well that he cannot deny mental phenomena, and therefore he speaks about emergence, because he understands that this thing emerges from the material whole. That is a materialist claim. I do not agree with it, but that is a claim one has to argue with. It is not a confused claim; it is a claim that one can dispute. Fine, what does that have to do with us—why did I enter this discussion, besides the fact that it is interesting? Why did I enter this discussion? Because what I want to claim is this: all the organisms I spoke about earlier—like a car, or a building, or cheese, or rice—are of course organisms not in the biological sense, and not only that: in all of them there is weak emergence. In all of them you can perfectly explain the whole through the sum of the particulars. If I want to explain how a car works, there is no problem—if I understand every component of the car, how they function together, I can explain to you exactly how a car works. There is no need to assume strong emergence here. This is weak emergence: a calculation of all the microscopic components in the car, and all in all I can show you, in principle, how a car works, okay? From elementary particles you won’t succeed in explaining it. But at the level of the parts of a car, that can be done fairly easily.

So what does that mean? That basically all the wholes I am talking about in the context of the laws of the Sabbath are wholes of weak emergence. What does that mean? How is the whole of the house formed? What is a house? A house is a collection of bricks. Put them in a certain way, and I can explain to you exactly that a house will result; I can even tell you in advance that that is what will result if you assemble them that way. So clearly this is not strong emergence; it is weak emergence. But what is the distinction between weak and strong? In strong emergence you cannot explain the property of the whole through the properties of the particulars. There is no calculation that takes you from the properties of the particulars to the properties of the whole. And in weak emergence there is such a calculation, as with the liquidity of water. By contrast, the materialist view of the brain or of the human being is that the human being is basically a system with strong emergence. Mental phenomena cannot be calculated on the basis of biological or physical phenomena, but they emerge from there. That is the materialist claim. Even though there is no way to show it, that is the claim. That is strong emergence.

What I only want to claim here is that even on the biological level, I am trying to show you that to speak about an organism, you do not need to arrive at strong emergence. Even when I spoke about vitalism in biology—now I am not talking about the mental dimensions, now I mean biology proper, our ordinary physiological system—that is a system of weak emergence. In principle, it is accepted—at least among biologists today—that extremely complex physical and chemical calculations would yield all of biology. It is just terribly complicated; we cannot really do it. But that does not matter. In principle there is nothing there except physics, and if we had a sufficiently powerful computer we could perform the calculation. There are, by the way, attempts to make such calculations for very, very simple systems. There are many efforts to connect chemistry and physics to biology through biochemistry and all kinds of things of that sort. But the basic claim—the accepted view today—is that we are dealing with weak emergence, not strong emergence. And still, that does not prevent anyone from treating a living body as an organism.

What I want to say is that an organism does not have to be something that has consciousness. It does not have to be strong emergence, or something containing something beyond its components. In my view there is something beyond, because I am a dualist, but in the materialist’s eyes that is strong emergence. There is nothing additional in it, but you still cannot explain the whole on the basis of the components. It is not a simple sum of the components, okay? What I only want to show you is that even in biology, an organism does not require strong emergence. Weak emergence can also yield an organism. If the whole body, like a car, creates some functioning of the whole, a collective functioning, which already subsumes within it all the parts composing it, then we call that an organism—even though we can explain the total phenomenon by summing the individual phenomena.

And therefore I say: now I take one more step. If that is so, then I can also go to the inanimate world—to speak of a car, to speak of a tent, cheese, a structure. All these things are all weak emergence. I understand the whole perfectly through the particulars. I can explain to you by means of the particulars how the whole stands. That is true. But now when I see the whole, for me the whole exists. That’s it. The particulars are only its particulars. Once I look at it that way, even if the mechanism is weak emergence, we are really dealing with an organism. That is my claim. Therefore in fact there is no obstacle—this is the conceptual analysis—to defining the labor of building on the Sabbath as the creation of an organism. Because it is really no different from a living body. There too there is a functioning whole; there too I can explain it on the basis of the particulars, and here too. So what is the difference? That it has no heredity and cannot reproduce? So what? On the cybernetic level, on the level of function, there is here the functioning of a functional whole, and therefore it is an organism.

And if that is so, then an electrical circuit which is activated by current in a certain way, creating some function, a functioning device—a lamp, a fan, a washing machine, whatever, a computer, whatever—it can indeed be said that you have animated it, transferred the wire from death to life, as the Chazon Ish says. You basically turned that whole into an organism. Now I have a fan, not a collection of wires, switches, plastics, and blades. I have a fan. The fan has switches, the fan has blades, the fan cools me by means of its blades and its motor. But not that the fan is the sum of blades plus motor. And therefore the fan is an organism. And the moment I activate this organism, I have turned it from a dead body into a living body. To breathe a soul into a dead body is the labor of building. That is what the Chazon Ish says. Therefore this conceptual analysis that I carried out, when I spoke about collective and particulars in another series in the past—but here I did it briefly—this conceptual analysis of the concept of organism actually opens before us a completely different way of understanding the issue of electricity on the Sabbath, and in my opinion it also explains the view of the Chazon Ish. This is really how the Chazon Ish understood the matter, and I think it is also the most logical approach. And whoever has not done this conceptual analysis gets stuck with generating a current, with kindling, with all sorts of rabbinic laws of one kind or another, and does not really succeed in defining what exactly the prohibition is in activating an electrical device on the Sabbath. So here too this is a good example of how conceptual analysis can open before us a path that ordinary Talmudic-style learning usually does not manage to hit upon or uncover.

Fine, that took me a long time. So what I can do now is begin the next topic, the next chapter in this series. We are already approaching the end. When? I can’t hear. When will the continuation be? After the break? After the break. That’s it, only a few meetings left; we’re more or less at the end of the series. Yes, you could say that. I want to talk a little about something not entirely disconnected from the analysis I just made—hence the association—and that is self-reference, self-relation. Self-reference comes up in the halakhic context in all sorts of settings. For example, I mentioned—I think even in this series, right?—someone who sets another person’s dog on someone else, and then I moved to someone who sets his own dog on someone. We talked about that fairly early on. There is an opinion in the Talmud in tractate Bava Kamma that if I set someone else’s dog on a third party, then I am exempt and the owner of the dog is exempt. I am exempt because the dog is not mine, and he is exempt because he is not to blame—I incited the dog. Now there are later authorities who want to claim that if I set my own dog on someone, I too would be exempt. Meaning: if the two parts of the action are both done by me, they are still two parts. This is something very strange. Very strange. Why? Because when I set someone else’s dog on someone, why am I exempt? I am exempt because the dog is not mine. Why is he exempt? He is exempt because he is not to blame—I set the dog on him, not he. But if I set my own dog on someone, then the dog is mine and I am also to blame. Everything is present. So why should I be exempt?

I talked about this. I said this is even an a fortiori argument. If I leave the door open and the dog goes out—my dog, yes?—and causes damage, I am liable. So if not only did I leave the door open and cause it indirectly, but I actively incited it with my own hands to go out and cause damage—there I should be exempt? That is no less serious than negligence. Yet there are later authorities who want to claim that he would be exempt. This basically means that I relate to the two parts of a person’s action as though there were two people here, except that in this case those two people happen to be me. But it still does not matter that those two people are me; I still see it as though there are two people here. I simply assign Mickey in place of X and also assign Mickey in place of Y. And once I have X and Y in the system, then you are exempt. So it does not matter that in place of X and in place of Y I assign the same person—I would still be exempt.

And there are other phenomena like this. For example, I think I mentioned this too: one who throws a vessel from the roof, and another comes and breaks it—there is an opinion that both are exempt. I threw the vessel from the roof, but in the end someone else broke it, so I am exempt. The other one broke it, true, but he broke a vessel that would have been broken in another moment anyway because of me, so he too is exempt. Now several later authorities ask: what if I throw a vessel from the roof, run down quickly, and break it before it hits the ground? There are those who want to claim that I would still be exempt, like the two-person case. Again, the same idea, yes? Meaning that if there are two people here, I am exempt; even if I myself serve in the role of both people, I am still exempt. By contrast, in Yosef Engel’s Atvan DeOraita, he discusses all sorts of cases in which when one person performs an action on someone else, then each of them is liable. What happens if he performs the action on himself? Would he be liable twice? Who will make him liable? He’s doing it to himself—who will make him liable? No, no, no—not liable to pay. I’m speaking now about a halakhic action.

Look, Atvan DeOraita, principle 20: “Here it will be explained that wherever the Torah prohibited doing something to another and also prohibited receiving that action from another, then if a person does that thing to himself, he transgresses twice: once as the actor and once as the recipient.” That is the rule. Let’s take a simple example instead of explaining the rule; the example will explain it for us. In the Talmud in tractate Makkot 20b it is explained that one who rounds off his own sideburns receives eighty lashes: once because he is the one who rounds off, and once because he is the one whose sideburns are rounded. One who rounds off the corners of the head is liable, “You shall not round off the corners of your heads,” okay? Now if I am a barber and I round off the sideburns of someone who comes to get a haircut from me, then he is liable as the recipient, and I am liable as the actor. What happens if I am my own barber? Would I receive two sets of eighty lashes, one as the one doing the rounding and one as the one receiving it? Or not? Would I receive only once because in the end it is the same person? Atvan DeOraita says he gets eighty, once because he is the actor and once because he is the recipient. He brings proof from the Talmud in Makkot 20, and he claims that this is basically a general principle everywhere in the Torah. That is, he sees here not a principle that speaks only about the laws of cutting sideburns, but some general philosophical conception. Whenever there is one who receives an action and one who performs an action, if the same person is both the receiver of the action and the performer of the action, then he is liable both as the receiver and as the performer; he is liable twice.

I’ll just say one sentence to explain why this is not trivial, or what exactly Atvan DeOraita is talking about. Look, if there is a prohibition on the actor and a prohibition on the recipient, then obviously if I cut my own sideburns I should be liable twice, no? I was both the actor and the recipient. So if I cut someone else’s, then I am liable as the actor and he is liable as the recipient. So these are really two separate prohibitions. There is a prohibition of acting and a prohibition of receiving. So if I cut my own, why write a whole section about it in Atvan DeOraita? If I committed two prohibitions, I get lashes twice. No—the question is, Rabbi, the question is: when I do both prohibitions, I created one new reality. So what? If I cut someone else’s. So what? There is a prohibition to cut and a prohibition to be cut, and I transgressed both prohibitions, so I get eighty lashes. What is the problem? Don’t there need to be two actions? If on the Sabbath I both trapped and built, then I am liable twice, two sin-offerings. I committed two prohibitions. Can’t one person commit two prohibitions? I was both the actor and the recipient, so I committed two prohibitions. Obviously I get lashes twice. What is there to discuss? Yes, but the standard recipient created some kind of consent to be cut. Here I agreed that they should cut me, but here it is the same person. What is the whole discussion about? What is the whole section in Atvan DeOraita talking about? You see that this requires conceptual analysis. Atvan DeOraita, by the way, never does that—that’s one of its problems. He always enters into some philosophical principle like this without clarifying conceptually what he means. The truth is, after the course—after this series—we should read Atvan DeOraita section by section. Because what he actually does every time is take some such general principle, show lots and lots of examples for it, but he does not explain the principle, he does not do conceptual analysis of the principle itself. What is the discussion? What are you trying to prove? Obviously if a person commits two prohibitions he gets lashes twice. What is the question? You have to explain to me why there is any question here at all. And “two forces in one person” is the sugya I am now going to enter. I don’t know who wrote that here, but that is the sugya I am going to enter. A bit. I’ll do it by way of that. Because there the Talmud itself raises this. So that is exactly the sugya I am aiming at.

Okay, so I’ve only posed the question here. Think about it for next time. We actually now have quite a lot of time to think about it. So think about it, and we’ll return to it next time. Thank you very much. If anyone wants to comment, you can ask. Yes, Rabbi, can I? Is everyone connected—will everyone be able to get the information afterward? What? Will everyone be able to get the information—everyone is linked up? What information? Regarding the continuation—are we taking a break? Ah, in the WhatsApp group. Everything goes through the WhatsApp group. Not only the Petah Tikva WhatsApp group. There is the Petah Tikva WhatsApp group, which is one group. Besides that, there are two groups for my lectures. Two WhatsApp groups, and every message about a lecture—I’ve been sending it until now in all three groups. I understand, so everyone is connected. Everyone is connected. But there won’t be a lecture next week? Next week probably there won’t be. Rabbi? During the break period. No, so we need to define that, we need to tell people. We’ll let people know when there will be. So I’ll speak with Yitzhak and we’ll announce it on WhatsApp. Okay? When will the next lecture be? Next week there won’t be. That’s it—basically we usually do it this way: we went into the break period and resumed in Elul. Now Elul falls in the middle of August or the beginning of August, I don’t know, something like that, it’s early. So people may be on vacation, I don’t know. We have to think how exactly to structure the break in that context. Okay.

A comment about psychiatric medications? What? I’m saying regarding psychiatric medications—where does that fit in, psychiatric medications… Psychiatric medication, where does that enter regarding what we discussed earlier, Rabbi? If it calms you down—does that belong to strong emergence or is it neither this nor that? Psychiatric medication is not related to the issue. Psychiatric medication treats the body, and changes in the body sometimes create psychological change. Obviously there is interaction between body and soul. With psychiatric medication it is also chemistry. Psychiatric medication—chemistry attacks chemistry, chemistry treats the chemical plane. But the chemical plane is connected to the psychological plane; there is interaction between the planes. Both dualists and materialists agree to that. Is that called—is that a good example of emergence or not? No. Since there is no way to make the transition from chemistry to the mental. We know that it works, and we do not know exactly how that interaction happens. We have no calculation that will show us why this chemical change in the body produces a different mood or a different mental state. But we can predict it, can’t we? Predict it, yes, but not calculate it. This dosage will cause that, this dosage, this medication will cause that. No—by the way, of course it is not deterministic, far from as deterministic as people make it out to be. But even if it were deterministic, there would still be a strong leap here, not a weak one. How does the materialist explain emotion, thought, all of that? They see these as emergent phenomena. They claim that a whole made up of neurons suddenly develops mental properties. But those are properties of the collection of neurons—there, they claim, there is nothing beyond biology. Like liquidity is a property of water. But that’s something they can’t prove. No. They assume it; they can’t prove it. Even though these are physical things that… Fine, but Rabbi—yes—what about someone who dies on the Sabbath and they perform CPR to revive him, is that in the category of saving a life? That is saving a life, yes, but if there were no exemption because of saving a life, would it count as building? Yes, he would say so. More than that, there might even have been room to say that after he dies there is no longer a law of saving a life. Saving a life means rescuing a living person, not bringing a dead person back to life. Then one could perhaps have said that it would be prohibited to do it. No, but if he can be revived again, then he is not completely dead, he is dead in a… That is the discussion. That can be debated. If you do not define him as completely dead, then of course that claim is not correct. I only say it to sharpen the point. But still, you would be transgressing building if there were no exemption of saving a life, in your view. Taking a life—the labor of taking a life on the Sabbath—there is also demolition there. Very good.

Rabbi, you spoke about a wavelength hitting the retina, so let’s say it will produce yellow light. Will it always, for everyone, no matter what retina, what kind of retina, produce yellow light—the same yellow light? That is an unsolvable philosophical problem. Some call it “the philosophers’ harem”—with an ayin, yes, a harem with an ayin. Nobody can pull it out of the fire. Meaning, there is no way to know whether when you and I talk about the color red, we see the same color. There is no way to know that. We are synchronized on the level of speech, but there is no way to know whether we are synchronized on the level of experience. Fine then, thank you. Okay, more power to you, goodbye, Sabbath peace, and we’ll see each other in… probably—we’ll still announce it, we’ll still announce it. Fine, thank you, good night.