Q&A: Spiritual Reality
Spiritual Reality
Question
Hello, lately I’ve been thinking about a few points regarding material and spiritual reality, and I wanted to ask whether what I’m saying seems correct to you. I spoke about it with a few people who more or less agreed with me, but I wanted to ask you because I appreciate your analysis and precision.
A. The limitations of the senses – The first point is the understanding that our perception of reality is limited. Our grasp of reality is mediated through the senses. A person also has intellect, but the intellect is based on information presented to it by the senses. So all the reality that a person pictures outside himself is only material-sensory reality.
A blind person cannot see. Reality is pictured before him only on the basis of the other four senses. If all people were blind, they would never be able to picture the visual appearance of reality.
So it is easy to understand that there are additional aspects of reality that a person cannot perceive. Just as the blind person cannot grasp the visual appearance of material objects, so too we cannot grasp additional aspects that are not registered by one of the five senses.
We should note that just as visual appearance is not of some other object than the very object we perceive, say, through touch, but rather is the appearance of that same object, so there is no reason to say that the very objects we perceive through the five senses do not also have additional aspects that we do not perceive. That is, in those same objects whose material side we perceive, there may be additional aspects as well. [Although one could also understand things to mean that there are separate entities that cannot be perceived materially, and can be perceived from other aspects.]
B. The human being – There is one non-material existence that we do in fact manage to encounter: the human spirit. A person’s personality is a non-material entity. A person encounters, experiences, and is aware of himself not through the senses, but in an immediate way. If so, through a person’s encounter with himself, it is proven not only that there is no difficulty in understanding that there is indeed a reality not perceived through the senses, but that this is in fact so.
Another important point is that although a person becomes aware of his spiritual reality through his consciousness in an immediate way, his spiritual reality is not identical with his consciousness; rather, through consciousness he encounters part of his spiritual being. Besides the fact that it is clear to a person that his spiritual reality includes many parts of which he is not at all aware, it is also clear that when a person is asleep, for example, or in other states in which he is not conscious, he still exists.
C. The connection between matter and spirit – After we have become convinced, through reflecting on the reality of human life, that there is a non-corporeal, spiritual reality that cannot be perceived through the senses, we should consider the relation between that non-material reality and matter. That is, what is the relation between body and spirit?
I won’t get into trying to understand the wonder of that relation, but for present purposes I’ll proceed from the simple intuition that it exists. There is a two-way connection between matter and spirit, such that material, physical events affect a person’s spirit, and a person’s spirit in turn affects his body.
D. A material view of the human being – Let me sharpen the point that even according to what we’ve said, namely that there is a connection between the spiritual side of a person and his body, it would still be possible to analyze a person’s physical conduct while ignoring his spiritual side. Of course, such a view would miss part of the causal chain, and presumably could also lead to errors (even setting aside the fact that there is free will).
E. Additional spiritual existences – We encounter only one spiritual existence, ourselves. The question is whether it makes sense to assume that just as there is a human spiritual existence, there are also additional spiritual existences. Of course, “we haven’t seen” is not evidence, since as explained, we perceive reality through the senses, and those grasp only material aspects. Likewise, the fact that we are able to explain reality even without assuming the existence of a spiritual existence does not contradict the fact that such an existence may exist, and may even influence matter.
Regarding other people, without really noticing it we project from ourselves onto them, and assume that they too are not merely bodies, but are composed of both a bodily side and a spiritual side. The explanation is that we encounter this within ourselves. Likewise, with animals for example, most people assume that there is some sort of spiritual reality, and that an animal is not only a physical entity. The question is whether there is any rational reason to assume that specifically in people and animals there is a spiritual reality connected to their physical existence, or perhaps this principle is true of reality in general. From ourselves we learn about all humanity, and most people also extend that to the more developed animals—but why stop there? In less developed animals like a bacterium, is there reason to assume there is no such reality? And why stop where there is biological life, and tie spiritual existence to a biological bodily reality? And why stop at plant life and not continue to inanimate matter?
Of course, when we say that there is a spiritual reality connected to material realities, the meaning is not that it is ‘in’ them, since it is a non-material reality and does not exist in space. The intention was only to say that it has a relation of (mutual) influence with them. Of course, there is also no problem in saying that there are spiritual existences that are not connected to, and do not influence, a corporeal entity.
Answer
A. Obviously. It is clear that such aspects could exist, although there is no necessity that they do.
B. That is of course assuming that spirit is a separate entity and not a function of the material whole. I agree with that, but some disagree (materialists). Regarding your later remark, see Column 81 on Shalom Hanoch. Also see Columns 157-8.
C. Indeed. I don’t know whether it’s a wonder, but fine.
D. I didn’t understand. You can analyze, but it will miss things. So you can’t really analyze. You can also study mathematics in a language you don’t understand—you just won’t know mathematics.
E. “The fact that we are able to explain reality even without assuming the existence of a spiritual existence contradicts the fact that such an existence may exist, and may even influence matter.” How did you make that logical leap?
There is no indication of the existence of spirit in inanimate objects, so people assume there isn’t any. Of course, it could be that there is.
Discussion on Answer
A. Sounds reasonable.
D. Sure. What’s the question? The human body is an entirely physical whole that is subject to the laws of nature. Except that if you are a dualist, it is also subject to influences from the spirit.
E. Sure. Especially since the explanation we currently have is still incomplete (it has gaps. We still haven’t gotten from physics to biology, and certainly not to the mental).
1. By that logic, a monkey or a stone knows how to solve Maxwell’s equations of electromagnetism just as a human does. Why assume not? Because there is no indication of that whatsoever. In human beings there is such an indication because they behave like me and express mental phenomena in speech.
2. As I said, I wouldn’t say that other things have no flavor, especially when you don’t see any connection between what you tested and everything else. But in the present case there are various indications of the existence of spirit in human beings and to some extent in animals, but not in other objects.
Thank you very much for the answer.
A. As for there being no necessity, that’s clear. What I wanted to ask is whether in your opinion one can say that it is reasonable to assume there are such aspects simply from the fact that it is unlikely that human senses ‘just happen’ to include everything there is to apprehend in being. Especially if we say that the animal world is in a process of development / evolution (I don’t know how proven that is; I don’t understand that field), such that man developed from less developed living creatures that did not have five senses—if so, why would it be reasonable to assume that right now (in humans and more developed animals) we have the tools that give us the whole picture?
B. Of course. I haven’t yet read those columns; I will.
D. Maybe I didn’t explain myself well enough. I meant that one can describe human behavior from a physical standpoint, and even find a certain regularity, so that for example one can say that when you hit a human body hard, it produces a sound from its mouth (a scream). That is a correct description, but a partial one, because it misses the whole causal chain (and especially the spiritual part—the feeling of pain). That’s what I meant when I said it can be analyzed.
E. There was a typing mistake; I meant to say that this fact does not contradict the fact that such an existence may exist. The explanation for that is what I wrote in section D.
As for the last point, that there is no indication for the existence of spirit in inanimate objects and therefore you assume there isn’t any—I wanted to sharpen why I think there is some indication for it: 1. I think that intuitively we perceive that an animal has a spiritual reality. My question is why there is any indication for that. Is it because it makes sounds and has facial expressions? I think that may be why intuitively it seems that way to us, because there is a certain similarity to a human being, but I do not see any rational reason why biological reality should be a condition for, or a cause of, the presence of spirit. Especially if one assumes that man developed (if that is true, as above) from less developed creatures—or in other words, does a bacterium have a spirit? At what point along the spectrum of the animal world does spirit connect, and why is that reasonable? I hope I managed to clarify my intention.. 2. I don’t know whether the following argument is correct (which is also why I didn’t include it in the question). If a person were only able to put one particular object in his mouth (for technical reasons), and he tasted flavor in it, would it be reasonable to assume that everything else in the world has no flavor? I thought not. Can one not infer from that to spiritual reality—that the only case in which a person has the ability to encounter something in a non-sensory way is himself, in his own spirit, and there such a reality exists; is it right to limit that reality to that case alone? It’s not clear to me whether the example is really analogous to the issue…