The Immateriality Of Consciousness

In a somewhat recent post I introduced the concept of phenomenology, the study of consciousness, and distinguished between sentience and self-awareness when speaking about consciousness, the former being the ability to perceive and the latter the awareness that there is a self which is doing the perceiving [1].  Here I will explain how consciousness itself is an immaterial thing, regardless of its actual relationship to the physical brain.  Substance dualism is the position that the mind and brain or body are distinct in some ways; I myself am a substance dualist because substance dualism is true.  Consciousness is one of the things I know most intimately, and yet much about it remains enshrouded in enigma.  But not everything about it is beyond my ability to know and grasp.  Indeed, it is omnipresent in my existence and experiences.

A common stance is that the mind, the seat and sum of consciousness, is the nonphysical counterpart to the physical brain, the organ which produces consciousness.  It is extremely easy to demonstrate that consciousness itself is still not material, even if it has a material biological cause (the brain).  I need only to experience consciousness, reflect on it, and utilize the inviolable laws of logic (which are also immaterial, might I add) to realize the immateriality of consciousness itself.

I recently wrote this:

"See the following syllogism for a quick logical explanation of what I am claiming:


1. If it is possible for the mind (consciousness) to exist independently from the body, then the mind and body are not synonymous.
2. It is possible for the mind to exist independently from the body.
3. Therefore the mind and body are not synonymous.


One may cause the other, yet the very fact that it is possible at all for a mind to exist without a body and vice versa proves that the two are not of identical substances: the former is immaterial and the latter is material.  Whatever connection or interaction or causal relationship they have does not affect the truth of my conclusion in any way: consciousness is immaterial and a body is material. [2]"

Nothing logically necessitates that consciousness dies with the physical body or brain.  Indeed, this is what makes the concept of an afterlife one that no one can dismiss without immediately begging the question.  Now, the mere logical possibility that consciousness can exist apart from a body or survive the death of the body proves that consciousness is something distinct from the material world (note that I do not need to prove that the brain, a material thing, does not cause it for me to know this).  Otherwise, the very concept of an unembodied mind would be logically impossible.  My mind is not unembodied, as I do indeed possess some sort of body, but the concept of a mind itself is a concept of something with immaterial essence.  A mind is not a material thing, whatever its relationship to the material brain may be.  Substance dualism can acknowledge that the two can coexist, whereas other philosophies may attempt to deny the one or the other.  Even if consciousness did die with the body--even if consciousness had a purely material cause (meaning that apart from the biological life of the brain it could not exist)--consciousness itself is still not a material thing.  Here I distinguish between something having a material cause and being material itself.  The ability to perceive is not a property that matter in and of itself possesses and this ability still transcends mere matter.  Consciousness is an intangible phenomenon.

The very concepts of a brain, a physical organ, and a mind, a consciousness that perceives, are distinct and clearly not identical.  Anyone who denies this leaps into irrationality, so it is most useful to clarify that there is no legitimate disbelief in the mind and brain being separate concepts and things, only legitimate doubts about how the two interact and if in actuality and not just hypothetical reasoning the mind can continue to exist apart from the body.  The very fact that the two concepts (of mind/consciousness and brain) are not synonymous at all, along with the fact that it is logically possible for the mind to not cease to be after the brain biologically dies, show that there is rational proof for the position that an afterlife is very possible.  I mean that judging it possible for an afterlife to exist is not a mere product of one's religious upbringing or existential preferences; it really is logically possible not just abstractly but because the mind and brain are not synonymous.

I find it ironic indeed, considering my culture's attraction to asinine and easily-falsifiable philosophies like naturalism (again, see [2]) and scientism, that the fact that I experience or perceive anything at all proves to me that my consciousness exists, whereas it is much more difficult to prove to myself that anything material exists outside of my mind, the seat of my consciousness.  Something material does indeed exist outside of my mind [3]--but knowledge of this is nowhere near as immediately evident to me as the existence of my own consciousness, which does not have physical substance.  A huge dilemma in philosophy has involved trying to prove that something material exists outside of one's immaterial consciousness, a task that is not impossible, but one that can seem overwhelmingly difficult (see [3] for a more elaborate explanation of how I know for sure that something material exists and the relationship of this awareness to the consciousness of the mind).  Interestingly, the very fact that such a dilemma exists at all proves that the mind and the material world are not comprised of the same substance--one is immaterial and one is not.

I hope that readers can see that experience and reason incontrovertibly prove that consciousness, however it interacts with the brain, is not composed of matter.  It is when one realizes this and recognizes the immateriality of logic and truth that one sees that the very core of reality, the collection of things of which knowledge is most accessible to us, is immaterial.  Idealism, the belief that nothing material actually exists, is objectively false.  But so is naturalism (sometimes also called physicalism or ontological materialism), the belief that only matter and nature exist.  I want readers of my blog to know exactly why both are not only unverifiable even if they were true, but also impossible.  I find it interesting that naturalism/physicalism and idealism each deny different aspects of reality that must exist in order for Christianity to be true, with one denying anything immaterial and the other denying anything material.  But reason and certain infallible experiences [4] reject them both and embrace substance dualism instead.  Immaterial things do exist; something material exists; reality is not reducible to exclusively nonphysical or physical things.


Summary of observations:
1. Conceptually and in actuality, a mind is objectively distinct from a brain; even the very facts that it is logically possible for one to exist without the other and for a person to conceive of such a thing proves that the two are not synonymous.
2. If it is possible for one to exist without the other, then it is possible for the mind, being a different "substance" than the brain, to survive the death of the physical body--an afterlife is possible.


[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/07/aspects-of-consciousness.html

[2].  Naturalism is very easy to disprove, as the existence of a single immaterial thing or thing which would exist even if nothing material existed refutes the entire theory.  See here for an explanation of how immaterial things like logic and truth, in addition to consciousness, totally falsify naturalism:
https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/07/a-refutation-of-naturalism.html

[3].  Despite how some skeptics might say (as Descartes did for a time) that one can only know that one's mind exists and not one's body, I can prove to myself and know for sure that I have an actual body, although its appearance is not necessarily what I currently perceive it to be.  See here:
https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/08/the-external-world.html

[4].  See here for information on what I mean by infallible experiences as opposed to fallible experiences:
https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/07/the-reliability-of-experience.html