There are (at least) three "levels" of awareness/consciousness.

(1) Sensation. An example is seeing a round or elliptical white patch, i.e., having an experience characterized by a white quale* of one of a certain range of shapes. Animals operate at this level. (So, arguably, might some plants, though probably not with visual qualia. It seems possible that some plants might experience e.g. smells, tastes, or pressures, though I'm not aware of any really good reason to think that they actually do.**)

(2) Perception. An example is experiencing that round or elliptical white patch as a disc-shaped physical object in three-dimensional space. Animals operate at this level too, and it does seem to involve forms in some way.

(3) Intellect. An example is recognizing the round white disc as the consecrated Host and understanding intellectually that it is in substance the body and blood*** of Christ. Here our intellect in some manner receives the "form" of that body and blood without our becoming them; if understanding were sufficient for that, we wouldn't have to consume the Host. I think it's obvious enough that animals don't operate at this level. (And please note that the example still works even for readers who don't believe in Transubstantiation. The ability to form the belief is sufficient for present purposes, even if, unlike me, someone doesn't think the belief is correct.)

I've deliberately chosen an extreme (indeed miraculous) example because I think it makes the point in the clearest possible way. Before continuing with an account of why this last level requires an immaterial intellect, I'm going to wait -- partly to allow brian_g to ask questions, partly to allow other posters to comment on any shortcomings in the example, and partly because I'm going to be busy this morning and part of the afternoon and I don't have time to extend this post much further.

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* The singular of qualia, pronounced "qually," not "quail".

** If panspychism/panexperientialism is true, then there could even be such "raw feels" at the level of inanimate nature -- subatomic particles, say.

*** As (most) Catholics here will know but others may not, the teaching of the Church about the Eucharist is not that the Host is the body and the wine is the blood, but that each particle of either one is the entire body and blood.

Last edited by Scott (7/13/2015 4:12 pm)

Thanks for the link. That's helpful.

A good part of brian_g's question is why similar considerations don't apply to sensory perception even though, through such perception, non-rational animals seem to receive the forms of perceptual objects without thereby becoming those objects. And that really is a bit of a puzzlement; we've discussed it several times at length on Ed Feser's blog. (The best answer so far, I think, is that the perceptual process itself can't occur at all without a material organ like an eye or an ear.) The paper you've linked does seem to address that, though I don't have time at the moment to read it in its entirety.

Last edited by Scott (7/13/2015 9:53 am)

brian_g wrote:

So what's the next step?

There are at least a couple of possible next steps.

(1) Aristotle's own, nicely described in the essay to which Heyzeus7 linked, is to argue that because the intellect can receive any form, it must not require a bodily organ, for any such organ would itself place a limit on the forms that could be received. I'd recommend a thorough reading of that essay to see whether it addresses your questions. If not, let us know what it's left unaddressed.

(2) Another is to argue that the intellect must be immaterial because thought is "determinate" in a specific sense in which the physical can't be. Ed Feser is the go-to guy on that argument; search his blog posts, and I recommend starting here. If you've already tackled Feser's arguments and you have questions about them (or if you do tackle them and you end up with some), I'd recommend posting the specific questions so that we can deal with manageable chunks.

(3) Yet a third would be to argue that the intellect can receive kinds of forms that bodily organs can't; I'm thinking here specifically of substantial forms, as contrasted with the accidental forms (colors, shapes, and so on) recerived via sensory perception. I don't offhand know where to look for development of this approach, but surely someone has devoted some attention to it (and it's surely hinted at in the linked essay and other similar sources); maybe other posters will know something on the subject that I don't.

I'm hoping to hear from other posters on this general topic anyway. I'm not new to it by any means, but I'm sure there are people better equipped to expound on it at length and in detail than I am.

Last edited by Scott (7/13/2015 4:54 pm)