THOUGHTS ARE THEY SPIRIT OR MATERIAL?

 
Anybody who thinks we can sense something non-material, or as they call it spirit,  imagines that because thoughts and feelings and ideas are not like anything physical they are not physical at all and have nothing to do with the physical and can be there if there is no physical. That is their fundamental logical error. If something does not seem physical that does not mean there is nothing physical about it.

When you imagine something, when you see a picture in your mind’s eye, is it real or is it not? Is it material or is it spirit?

The fact that you cannot touch it or measure it does not mean it is a ghost or spirit. Those who think their thoughts are proof of the existence of spirit, that is, something that is real but is not made of any matter or parts are forgetting that. It is as mad as thinking that if you see a tree and cannot touch it that it probably cannot be touched at all. This simple error is at the bottom of all the nonsense about God, the supreme spirit, and that the real you is your spirit or soul and your brain and body are not really you.

Spirit is that reality which is not made up of parts. If the mind is immaterial then we might live on after death. Matter is reality that is made up of parts. If the mind is material it might survive death if it is not part of the body. So proving you are spirit or matter might mean you still go out of existence at death.

Thoughts have to be entities or made of energy or we would not be able to have them.

Here is a stupid refutation of the idea that the mind and thoughts are material.

 “Infinite means all possible. If I imagine infinite custard and thoughts are energy then all things would turn into custard because I am using all energy to create the image. Thoughts are not energy because everything is not transformed. I would have the power to live forever if I can awaken infinite power in my mind.”

The argument is valid and true if I can visualise infinite custard but I cannot. I just visualise finite custard that I pretend is infinite or classify as infinite.

Another: “If I visualise an apple on the table and X imagines that there is none then surely the opposing visualisations cancel? This proves that it is impossible for thoughts to exist though we have them.”

The energy is inside my head and hers not on the table. Even if the image of the apple is real (ie a real image) it doesn’t exist on the table if I imagine it there! X is using her energy to see the picture of the empty table while I do the opposite. Different energy means there can be different mental pictures.
 
If the argument were correct, then if I paint a picture of an apple on a table and X paints her picture without it then it is impossible for the pictures to exist! This is nonsense for her picture will be over the top of mine!

Some argue that when I imagine a message going from my mind into the mind of X it really must go in if thoughts are real but this does not happen so thoughts are not real. But I send the thought into my mental picture of X not X. Even if I see X I don’t see X but only an image of X. X does not go through my eyes into my brain to be seen. The image does that. If thoughts are made of energy it could be that they cannot go into another mind at all or that they are filtered and changed on entry.

Seeing an image of my thought going into the mind of another means I see an image not that a thought really is going in.

Are thoughts spirit or matter? Here is “proof” that they are spirit.

"To be conscious is to know that you exist and to perceive things.

The mind is conscious only of thoughts and feelings. When you hold a piece of ice you are not aware of the ice but of the sensation that you are holding ice.

You cannot sense anything unless you bring yourself into contact with it.

Your mind is able to perceive only by making the image of the object a part of itself for it is not a part of the mind then it cannot reach it. A picture cannot get into a television unless it becomes part of the television. It becomes the energy that composes the television and that is what appears on screen. The mind is conscious of itself alone because it cannot concentrate on two things at once. So, its being aware of, say, a ball, is its being aware of itself, the ball is a vision created by itself or some force. Matter cannot contradict itself like this so the mind is spirit."

The refutation is that the radio is not the station it plays in any sense.

Another try: "The idea of the mind becoming an image that is also not part of it at the same time, appears to be lunacy. Why? Because it is easy to think that the mind does not concentrate on itself being aware all the time. When you focus on a ball do you forget that you are aware? It is because you are aware or know you are aware that you perceive. The answer that you can only concentrate on one thing at a time fails as an objection. The reason is that you are concentrating on one thing which is the ball but you are not concentrating on your awareness of being aware alone but you are concentrating on your awareness of being aware of a ball. The two things are really only different activities of the same function and power. The power to focus on being aware and on being aware of something imply that you can do the impossible and concentrate on two things at the one time and so must be a spirit having thoughts made of spirit. Matter couldn’t do that. Spirit could for it is an immaterial reality and like God is able to be three persons in one being so spirit is able to be one and many at the same time."

REPLY: The mind does not have to become the image of the ball to perceive the ball. It would need to perceive the image before it could become it in which case it does not need to become it. The eye does not have to become the tree it looks at.

The argument that the images in the mind are spirit because nobody else detects them with some instrument is wrong for you might just have undetectable matter here.
 
How can the mind control the body if it is a different kind of matter from the body? There must be a form of matter that enables it to act upon the body when it is evolved enough and which ties it to it until the body dies. It can cross the divide. It is certain that we cannot control just any material thing merely by the power of thought. We are our bodies for we control them and thought somehow is part of them.

If the soul is spirit then it is not subject to the rules of matter. It should be able to imagine heat a hundred times greater than we can feel heat. It cannot so it is subject to some kind of material laws even if these laws are different from what we know.
 
A dualist thinks you are not your brain and body and the real you controls them like instruments. You can believe that the soul is made of invisible or undetectable matter and still be a dualist. You can hold that this material soul is the real person and the body is not. This theory might appeal to many because when the soul is matter itself it ends their worry about how a spiritual soul can manipulate and incarnate in a body. And the problem with spirit is nobody has any reason to believe that it makes any sense.
 
Whether mind and thought are material or not, we can reject the notion of resurrection because there is no divine being to raise us up. And there is no need for a resurrection if the mind is material. Even a person who has no body can imagine having one and be fulfilled for their mind powers should be stronger without a clumsy brain to hold things back. Buddhists and mystics are clear that they know that you don’t need a body to be happy – the mind can do all that. The Bible attacks this fact when it stresses resurrection so heavily. It is not worth all the rejoicing done over it. The promise of resurrection is just cheese in the mousetrap of Christianity and Islam.

And we need not be alone forever if each one of us survives death. Perhaps the body hampers our psychical contact with others and without it we will be able to interact with others better.

If the soul is not the body then if the body dies will the soul have power to create virtual reality if it lives on? If I will be alone forever, I might have the power to make myself believe that my joyful fantasies are real when I am free from the body so I will think I am not alone for all eternity.
 
Just as if our mind is made of matter and ceases to exist at death the same could happen if this matter is mental matter. By mental matter we mind that the mind is the same kind of invisible and undetectable matter that thoughts are.  Only you can detect them nobody else and no machine can do it and neither can science. Science can’t tell you what you are thinking about.
 
We have no evidence of having complete control over the matter that makes up our minds. We only control a bit. We cannot make ourselves smarter than our brains will let us be. If you are not your brain then why have you so little control over it? Why is your brain too strong for you?
Brain matter might be unaffected by thought matter but be able to control it. So there is no reason to think that the real you not the brain is the source of thought matter or mental matter.
Thoughts die so the mind can die too.

It is thought by superstitious people who imagine that we have great power over mental matter and that it is part of us it is clear that when we die we live on. It is reckoned that the mind must be made of indestructible and undetectable matter when it is able to perceive such. The problem is that my mental matter could disintegrate with my death – people might only have it when they are alive. There is no need to assume that if we are bigger than our thoughts that we are bigger than our brains and can live forever.

Here is an argument from mental activity that claims to refute everlasting life. Infinite means power without limit or all. If I live forever it would take infinite power for me to be conscious forever. It takes all power. But I know there is power that is not there just for me to be conscious. Therefore, I cannot live forever.

Why not? Matter or whatever energy it came from will last forever so why can’t life do the same?
 
But it may be answered that matter changes into life and non-life. Life is energy that was once non-life. Life can end with death.

FINALLY

Thoughts are composed of a form of matter that we cannot detect except with our minds because spirit is an impossibility. Each mind must have a certain amount of this matter with which to mould and shape in pictures and voices.  Or maybe our minds are using matter as we know it in some way that we cannot work out.  Not knowing how thoughts are made does not mean they are possibly or probably spirits or quasi-spirits.

Thoughts really exist or we would not be able to see them or perceive them.  When you see an apple in your minds eye, the apple is made of energies that you transmute into this image. Those who don’t believe in souls or spirits must hold that thoughts are made of some kind of matter different from the matter we all know. Thoughts are material and we have no reason to think otherwise.

Thinking and deciding and feeling are mistaken for spirit activities or non-material activities because they are what material things do and are not things. It is like thinking what the breeze does is non-material! But is not about material or immaterial but what the breeze does!