
Why You Can't Reverse-Engineer Human Beings: The Metaphysics of the Soul | Prof. Joshua Hochschild
The Thomistic Institute
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Aquinas's Mind Body Question
Aquinas argues on purely philosophical grounds that the soul can only be created, not made, from other things. The intellectual power does not depend on any physical organ and can even be fully grasped through empirical observation. Aquinas also offers an implicit response to the mind body question. Cognition is essentially natural. Artificial intelligence would be, for aquinus, an oximorm were at the very best metaphor. He doesn't exactly face puzzle about how one type of thing interacts with another type of thing since a soul and body are not two things, but two principles of one thing,. unified by the fact of the soul actualizing the body.
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