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Atzilus and the Mind - Body Problem, part II
 
Posted: 06 Dec 2006 01:22 PM CST
http://www.aishdas.org/asp/2006/12/atzilus-and-the-mind-body-problem-part-ii.shtml


In the original entry, I suggested that the brain is the physical implementation of the soul. That the soul is the same Light shining from the Source of all, but on a higher plane. Therefore, there is no causal connection between the soul and the brain  the soul doesnt do things to cause the brain to move the body, nor do chemicals in the brain impact the soul. The connection isnt causal, its the connection is between form, and the (imperfect) implementation of that form in substance. One could say the ball flattened because its form changed, but in essence they are just different descriptions of the same thing. To use another metaphor: The soul is the flickering of the light from the movie projector to the screen, the bodys motions are the actions on the screen itself.

(This idea is akin to that in Hashgachah Peratis as a Level of Abstraction. In both, Im arguing that the difference is one of which aspect one is describing. Both Divine Providence and nature are the same thing, both soul and the intellectual content of the brain are the same thing. The difference is the plane on which we look at the problem.)
I Atzilus and Malakhim

In Models of Creation, I mentioned the Rambams embracing both the manufacture model of creation as well as that of atzilus, both describing creation as Hashem making the universe, and has it being something He chooses to emanate. Heres a quote from the Yad (Yesodei HaTorah 2:3,5-6), which ties in the notion of atzilus with that of malachim (angels):

ג: כל מה שברא הקדוש ברוך הוא בעולמו, נחלק לשלושה חלקים: מהם ברואים שהם מחוברים מגולם וצורה והם נהווים ונפסדים תמיד, כמו גופות האדם והבהמה והצמחים והמתכות.  ומהם ברואים שהם מחוברים מגולם וצורה, אבל אינם משתנים מגוף לגוף ומצורה לצורה כמו הראשונים, אלא צורתם קבועה בגולמם לעולם, ואינם משתנים כמו אלו  והם הגלגלים והכוכבים שבהן, ואין גולמם כשאר גלמים ולא צורתם כשאר צורות. ומהם ברואים צורה בלא גולם כלל  והם המלאכים, שהמלאכים אינם גוף וגווייה, אלא צורות נפרדות זו מזו.



ה: ובמה ייפרדו הצורות זו מזו, והרי אינן גופין  לפי שאינן שווין במציאתן, אלא כל אחד מהן למטה ממעלתו של חברו והוא מצוי מכוחו זה למעלה מזה; והכול נמצאים מכוחו של הקדוש ברוך הוא וטובו.  וזה הוא שרמז שלמה בחכמתו ואמר כי גבוה מעל גבוה, שומר, וגבוהים, עליהם (קוהלת ה,ז).

3. Everything which the Holy One, blessed be He created in His world is divided into three parts: Those creations which are joined substance and form which come into existence and are destroyed continuously, like the bodies of people, the animals, the plants, and the metals. Those creations which are joined from substance and form but do not change from body to body or form to form like the first [class]. Rather, there form is permanent in their substance for ever, and they do not change like those [of the first class]  these are the spheres and the astronomical bodies in them. They substance are not like other substances and their forms not like other forms.

And there are those which are created of form with no substance at all  and these are the angels. For angels have no body or matter, rather forms that are distinct one from the other.



5. How are the forms distinct from each other if they have no bodies? Because they arent equal in their ontology (their real-ness mi). Rather, reach one of them that is lower than the level of its peer exists from the potential of the one higher than it, and they all exist from the Potential of the Holy One, blessed by He and His Goodness. And this is what Solomon in his wisdom hinted at by saying, for one higher than the other guards, and there are higher than they. (Qoheles 5:7)

The Rambam here gives us a two-part definition of malakhim: First, that they are steps in the atzilus from Hashem to us. Second, that they are pure forms, unimplemented in any substance.

Form, tzurah, in this technical sense, refers to more than just the shape of the object, more like the set of all its attributes. Its compliment is substance, usually called chomer but the Rambam here uses golam, the primal matter that assumes a form the thing that has the attributes. In the Rambans commentary to opening of Bereishis he explains the first pasuq as the creation yeis meiayin (ex nihilo; something from nothing) of hyuli, a transliteration of the Greek word for substance, hyle. The subsequent steps of creation are yetzirah, giving form to substance.
II Intellect, Action and Malakhim 

There is a third facet to the Rambams understanding of angels, given in the Moreh Nevuchim (II:6; tr. Friedlander):

We have already stated above that the angels are incorporeal. This agrees with the opinion of Aristotle: there is only this difference in the names employed  he uses the term Intelligences, and we say instead angels. His theory is that the Intelligences are intermediate beings between the Prime Cause and existing things, and that they effect the motion of the spheres, on which motion the existence of all things depends. This is also the view we meet with in all parts of Scripture: every act of God is described as being performed by angels. But angel means messenger; hence every one that is entrusted with a certain mission is an angel. Even the movements of the brute creation are sometimes due to the action of an angel, when such movements serve the purpose of the Creator, who endowed it with the power of performing that movement; e.g., God hath sent His angel, and hath shut the lions mouths that they have not hurt me (Dan. vi. 22). It is also used of ideals, perceived by prophets in prophetic visions, and of mans animal powers, as will be explained in another place.

When we assert that Scripture teaches that God rules this world through angels, we mean such angels as are identical with the Intelligences. In some passages the plural is used of God, e.g., Let us make man in our image (Gen. i. 26); Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language (ibid. xi. 7). Our Sages explain this in the following manner: God, as it were, does nothing without contemplating the host above.

Here we see the Rambam defines a malakh, a messenger (which is also what the Greek

angel means), as an Intelligence that does G-ds Will in this world. He explains the malakh with Aristotles terms of the intellects that mediate between Hashems world and actions in this world. This is much like the notion of steps in the flow of atzilus, but here they are Intelligences, not forms.

The need for intelligences to perform action is part of Artistotelian physics. Aristotle didnt have a notion of momentum, which is conserved. Unsurprising, because in the real world momentum is generally turned into heat (the momentum of molecules) by friction, and thus we see motion dissipate. Instead, Aristotle taught that Intellects impart impetus to objects, which then continue moving until the impetus runs out. It is for this reason that the Rambam asserted that the spheres are intellects (Yesodei haTorah 2:7), since the stars and planets continue in motion eternally, there must be intellects repeatedly imparting impetus to them.

Thus, the Rambams conception of a malakh is a being of form without substance that is a step in the chain of Divine Atzilus by being the intellect that drives the actions of the next step in the chain, down to actions in this world.
IV Computers and Forms 

What would that mean to us, given todays conceptions of matter and physics?

Computers do their work in bits. The only relevant feature of all the physical processes going on in its chips is whether the state of the wire is closer to the state we label 1 or closer to the one we label 0. In some chips, that could mean 5 volts vs 0 v. In another, it could be 3 volts, or that 0 volts is 1, and to have power is 0. Nor does a bit need to reside in a wire. We encode them as transitions between pits and non-pits on a CD. For that matter, its theoretically possible to make a very large very slow digital computer by pumping water through pipes and valves, or even shooting billiard balls at a table with the right set of bumpers and guides on it.

We then combine those bits into patterns, such as the convention used by most computers today to use 01100001 to represent an a. When your file has an a in it,  that sequence may be represented as a pattern of pits in a CD, patterns of iron filings on a hard drive, a time sequence of voltages in a wire or light in a fiber optic cable. But all the physical phenomenon share one feature, they represent the 01100001 pattern.

The information involved is form without substance. Only one aspect of the form of what encodes them, its true, but the relevant point is that they do not require physical implementation because they lack substance.

Im not suggesting that the mind or soul is nothing more than computer software, which in the case of a human mind is implemented on a computer called the brain. I would instead suggest it as an analogy: mind is to brain as program is to computer.
III Shoes and Brains

Why do so many mitzvos involve shoes? In Ruach Chaim 1:1, Rav Chaim Vilozhiner writes, The body is only like the shoe for the soul. Just as the shoe only clothes the very bottom extremity of the body, so too the body only clothes the very bottom portion of the soul. A shoe is called a body, in that a body is considered the end of the feet of the soul. This is why moments or locations of extreme spirituality, such as Yom Kippur, serving in the Beis haMiqdash, or when Moshe saw the burning bush, call for removing ones shoes. Also, when in mourning, removing ones shoes is a way of remembering that only the body is gone. For  chalitzah, the widows refusal or inability to continue her husbands line is brought home by having her spit in a shoe. All in the sense of shoe representing the body, as it is a house for the bottom-most portion. The brain is only the shoe, only the manifestation of the bottom-most aspect of the form that is the soul. The bits on the CD.
IV Atzilus and People

Rav Chaim Vilozhiner in Nefesh haChaim 1:6 (mentioned in the past) expounds that man alone has the power to bring sanctity into this world, because man alone is a combination of all the forces, across all the worlds. The ladder in Yaaqovs dream was Yaaqov himself, as only a person stands earthward with his head reaching toward heaven.

This stands in contrast to the Rambams concept of malakhim as intellects which only influence the thing below them in the chain until we get down to the lowest intellect which moves objects  and with their lack of intellect the chain ends. Man is a being who has form at every level of perfection from 10 tefachim below [Hashems] throne of glory down to earth.  (cf Sukkah 5a)

To tie to yet another theme that recurs in this blog: Man can choose where his consciousness resides, as in Rav Desslers explanation of the Maharals position on nissim (miracles). (See Mesukim miDevash for Beshalach and this entry on the role of perception.) One can live in the empirical world, where the absolutes are laws of gravity, or in  a moral one, olam hayetzirah, where the absolutes are notions like freedom vs oppression.

The lowest level of perfection, but still very much the soul, is the form of our brains. Like bits, not everything about our central nervous system is an implementation of the soul, but there is no need to distinguish significant aspects of the brains design from the soul itself. Albeit, the soul as it appears in this world, olam haasiyah, the world of action and physical events, the light as it finally hits the screen of matter.


This posting includes a media file: http://www.aishdas.org/mesukim/5764/beshalach.pdf

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