De Anima (On the Soul)
Lecture 36: Brain, Thought, and the Error-Prone Mind

Transcript
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Okay? And I remember one time I was teaching the Dianima, and I had a student who was firmly convinced, you know, that the brain is an organ of thought, so I gave a couple arguments confirming his opinion, you know, and ta-da. And then I go on to show the defect in the argument, huh? I suppose you put that before, right? A blow in the brain interferes with thinking, right? Just as a blow in the eye interferes with seeing. I say, just therefore as the eye must be the organ of sight, right? Because interfering with that interferes with seeing. So likewise, the brain must be the organ of thought. If a blow in the brain interferes with what? Thinking, right? Or alcohol going to the brain interferes with thinking, right? Okay? And so, you know, I was kind of, you know, stating his arguments better than he could maybe state them, right? But simply saying, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's confirming his position, right? That the brain must be the organ of thought. And then I said, now, suppose you and I were in a, what? A room with no windows, huh? And the only source of light was a light bulb in the center of the room that was on, so we could see each other, right? Now, a blow on that light bulb would, what? Interfere with you seeing me. Therefore, the light bulb must be the organ of sight, right? Obviously it isn't, huh? And even more simply, if you leave the room, that's going to interfere with my seeing you, right? Therefore, you must be the organ of my sight, right? If we blow you up, you know, the terrorist blows you up, right? It's going to interfere with my seeing you, right? You must have been the organ of my sight, right? So there's obviously something insufficient about that, right? The fact that a blow on the brain interferes with thinking. The fact that alcohol going to the brain interferes with thinking, right? That sleep interferes with thinking and so on. This shows a connection between the two, right? Between the brain and thought. But, as these other examples I gave you show, there's two connections that something can have with knowing, right? When a blow on the eye interferes with what? Sight. It's, I think, because you interfere with the organ of sight. When a blow on the light bulb interferes with seeing, you're interfering not with the organ now, but with the, what? Object. Object, right? So what the thinker should have done was to say, if a blow on the brain interferes with thinking, and there's some truth to that, I certainly think so, right? Then, the brain must be either the organ of thought or pertain to the object of thought in some way, right? But the fact that a blow on the brain interferes with thinking doesn't, by itself, tell you which of those two possible connections it is. And what I thought we'll show later on here is that the images which are maybe in the brain, right, they are to thought on the side of its, what, object, right? But you can't know which it is, you can't separate the true from the false there, until you have a reason, you know, to think that reason is immaterial, right? And there's all kinds of reasons to think that reason is immaterial. And once you realize that, then you realize, well, then the organ, the brain, cannot be the organ of thought, therefore it must be related to thinking on the side of the object. And that comes out very clearly when Aristotle brings out what the object is. That's the what it is of something sensed or imagined. And so you don't think about the what it is of something sensed or imagined without sensing or imagining. And Aristotle will have a beautiful comparison, just like I don't see the color of you without you. And so if we take away you, I can't see the color of you. But you're still not the organ of my sight, are you? And so as the exterior object, in a way, is to the senses, right? So the images are to the what? To the reason, huh? And so we don't think without an image, huh? And that's the reason why people tend to think that everything that is is a body, that everything that is is something, what? Continuous, or tied up with the continuous. Because the images are continuous and in time. Okay, we're getting a little bit ahead of ourselves here, though. This is, but it's very easy for people to get into the, you know, they naturally might say in the beginning, we'll think that whatever it is must be somewhere, right? And even Catholics who might have some belief, you know, that there are angels and so on, they can't really understand this very much, huh? And they tend to fall back upon this way of thinking. And partly because they thought that, as he says in 295, that like is sensed and judged by like, huh? And so if we know these material things, right, as our reason does know the material things, it must have these material things in it, right? And therefore it must be material, right? Okay. Now, Aristotle gives some very interesting critique of this, huh? And he first of all criticizes them for trying to explain the cause of knowing, which is likeness, and they didn't explain the cause of what? Deception. Now, in this place, and especially Thomas in his commentary when he comments on it, it's one of the most strongest places that I know of in Aristotle and Thomas, where they speak of the, what, prevalence of mistake or error in man, huh? Okay. Now, if you want to talk about what takes place in man and other animals, he says, you shouldn't talk about just about knowing, but also about, what, deception, error, or mistake, right? And yet it was necessary for them to speak also at the same time of Uri, for this is more proper than animals, he says. And the soul remains in this for a longer time, huh? Okay. Nice to give you Thomas' expansion on that in the commentary of the animal. Nice to give you Thomas' expansion on that in the commentary of the animal. Nice to give you Thomas' expansion on that in the commentary of the animal. Nice to give you Thomas' expansion on that in the commentary of the animal. Nice to give you Thomas' expansion on that in the commentary of the animal. Nice to give you Thomas' expansion on that in the commentary of the animal. Nice to give you Thomas' expansion on that in the commentary of the animal. Nice to give you Thomas' expansion on that in the commentary of the animal. He says, therefore, first, that the philosophers assigning the cause of knowledge to be likeness of the knower to the known, they ought to also have assigned some cause also of deception, right? Because deception seems to be more proper to animals than knowledge according to the condition of their nature. As if animals, including man, are more apt to be deceived than to be truth, right? And of course, and Thomas goes on, Vidaemus, we see that men from themselves are able to be deceived and to err, right? Now, I have to know a little bit about the history of human thought to see how men disagree, right? And you remember how, back in natural philosophy there, when Aristotle gives a kind of logical division of the thinking of his predecessors, everybody's got a different opinion. And no two people have the same opinion. So one man says that the beginning of all things is one. Others say the beginning of all things is many, right? And those who say they're one category, some say it's water, some say it's air, some say it's fire, and so on. Well, at best, one of these men could be correct, right? But most men, at least, if not all, are mistaken, right? Well, at best, one of these men could be correct, right? Well, at best, one of these men could be correct, right? Well, at best, one of these men could be correct, right? Well, at best, one of these men could be correct, right? Well, at best, one of these men could be correct, right? Well, at best, one of these men could be correct, right? So you can say, to be mistaken seems to be the usual, what, condition of man, huh? Okay? and there seems to be an infinity of mistakes that can be made. So the iconic used to say, you know, it's kind of like an infinite distance to the truth from it, in the sense that there's an infinity of, you know, errors along the way that they can fall into. So we see, he says, that men from themselves are able to be deceived and error. That's interesting. Exipsis, huh? You need a teacher, right, to avoid some of these errors, huh? Now, I have a teacher of logic. I've taught logic for years. And I always come into class and I'm going to teach the if-then syllogism. I'll come into class, and this is what I used to do for years, and I taught logic, taught some of these things. But I'd go to the blackboard, and I'd put the four forms of if-then speech on the table. If A is so, then B is so. A and B are what? Representing simple statements, right? And then A is so. And then if A is so, then B is so. If A is not so. So the if part they call the antecedent, right? And the then part, the consequent. So if you affirm the antecedent, or you deny it being antecedent, does something follow or not, right? And then I get the other two forms here, if A is so, then B is so, and B is so, and B is not so. So in this case you're looking at the consequent, which is the then part, and either affirming that B is so, or denying that B is so, right? I put these four on the board, but I have them stretched out and crossed the board, and I look down and get four people up at the board, right? And I say, now, if something follows necessarily, under the line, write what follows necessarily. If nothing follows necessarily, right? Write under the thing, no conclusion or invalid or something like that, okay? Now, they never got all four of them right. Never. In all the years I taught logic, you know? Years and years, right? And, but they would think that something does follow when it doesn't follow, and vice versa. I remember one time getting all four wrong. Amazing, right? So if you have some experience of that, this is a very simple logic, really. But if you say, if A is so, then B is so, B is so, most students, you know, who never had any logic, they get up to the board and they'll say, A is so, right? I don't think that follows necessarily. And if A is so, then B is so, A is not so. Most students who've never studied logic will say, what? B is not so, right? And you tell them to say, no. Now, you give me that as being necessary, I'll put you all in jail right away. See? If you're the man who robbed the bank today, then you are a man. It's true, isn't it? But you are a man. If you're the man who robbed the bank. I say, admit that, I could hang you all, right? And there's a girl up there, I'd say, now, if you are a mother, then you are a woman. But you're not a mother. You're both true, right? Therefore, you're not a woman, right? Okay. So, if I say, you'll usually find that students, most of them, many of them, will think that these, what, follow, right? And sometimes they'll say, down over here, no conclusion, right? By here, it follows necessarily, but the A is not so, right? Occasionally, this one, which is the most obvious form, they'll say, no conclusion, right? Once in a while, right? They don't usually get this so much, there's no obvious form, right? So, you see how easily men are, what? To see, right? It's not just in logic, but in other areas. When you first start out, you know, they make the most gross errors, right? And it's kind of obvious to the teacher. So, he's saying, men, exe, exe, son, from themselves, exe, son, we see that men, from themselves, are easily, they're able to be deceived and durer. And for this, that they know the truth, it's necessary that they be taught by, what? Others, right? And again, the soul, for a longer time, is in deception than in the knowledge of, what? Truth, right? Because, to a knowledge of the truth, vix pervenitur, hardly does one arrive, right? Post-studium, after the study of a long time, right? After a long time, one hardly arrives at the truth, right? That's very strong, you know? Of course, we could say, like we were talking about, even Aristotle himself, they're talking about light, huh? You see? And Aristotle thought, as Thomas did, and many men thought. The illumination is, what, instantaneous, right? It takes no time, right? Yeah. See? And it took a long time to say that was a mistake, right? Mm-hmm. So we've been much longer in error, right, than in the truth, huh? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So it's kind of a sad thing. Thomas, in the Summa Contra Gentiles, when he's reasoning that we don't have perfect happiness in this life, he says, error, mistake, right? Magna pars miseries, that's a great part of misery, to be mistaken, right? Especially to be mistaken about these great things. To be mistaken about light is a visible thing to do, right? Men spend more time, right? And again, we make the mistakes that our predecessors made, right? If reason is something immaterial, as we're going to see reasons for later on, almost all men are mistaken about that, right? And it takes a long time for them to get out of that mistake. Now he says, either you didn't give any explanation of this, or if you take your opinion, that likeness is the cause of knowing, and what's the cause of deception? Yeah, yeah. In other words, go back to the old probable statement that opposites are the causes of opposites, right? So, if likeness is the cause of knowledge, then unlikeness or difference would be the cause of mistake or error, right? But Erstad goes on to say that there seems to be, though, the same knowledge of what? Opposites, right? And if you're deceived about the sweets, you're going to be deceived about the bitter, right? It's not if you know the sweets, you're going to be deceived about the bitter, because that's contrary to the sweet, right? But it seems that the error and the science of opposites is the same, right? You're going to be deceived about the bitter, right? And you're going to be deceived about it. Now he's starting to distinguish, in a preliminary way here, reason from the senses. Therefore it is apparent that sensing and judging are not the same, for the one is present in all, but the other in few of the animals. I'm not going to be too precise yet, right? Because some of the higher animals seem to have something like reason, right? In that they can, what? Judge, right? Okay. Now the second argument here in 299. But neither is, and you're applying now to understanding more than judging, but neither is understanding in which there is correct and uncorrect. It is just the same as sensing. For sensation of the proper is always true and exists in all the animals. While thinking can also occur falsely, and is present in none in which reason is not. That's kind of interesting the way he does that, right? So you give ten kids there, a piece of candy, and they're all going to say what? It's sweet, right? If you give somebody else something sweet, something that's what? Bitter, right? They're going to what? Right away. None of them are deceived, right? But you ask them some philosophical question, and you probably get what? Ten answers, right? Isn't it? So how can these be the same thing? Sensing, right? And thinking, right? Understanding. It's a very humble way, but a very, what? Proportioned way to us to see a difference between them, huh? Now, but it's much more important and much more difficult to see the difference between imagining and, what? Thinking, huh? Because in the case of the Alphabet senses, we can see the limitations of these, right? The eye knows only color, and what's to have with color? It doesn't know, you know, sweetness and so on. By reason, we'll talk about color and sweetness, etc., etc. It's just universality. But with the internal senses there, and the imagining, you seem to have something like the universality, so it's harder to separate the two. Now, Aristotle's going to have some very subtle ways of separating imagining and thinking, or image and thought, right? But most people can't separate the two at all. And if you read John Locke, let's say, huh? John Locke uses the word idea, huh? An idea can mean what? In English. Sometimes it can mean an image, right? And sometimes a, what? Thought, right? Okay. So, if the philosopher says, I got an idea, it should be a thought. But the girl says, the boy, I don't get ideas. He's probably, what? Time of images is there, right? Okay. The kids might have taken too much thinking there, so. And, you'll notice how we tend to use the word imagine and the word thinking almost interchangeably, right? I imagine that's so. I think that's so, right? And if you look at the beginning there of Hindu V, you know, where Shakespeare is appealing to his audience to use their imagination, right? And how can he reproduce, you know, the battle of Agincourt on this little scene, you know? And you see, one soldier you don't think of hundreds, you know? But he goes back and forth between these two words, right? You'll notice in daily speech, people will say, I imagine that's so. I think that's so. They all say that. It's interchangeably, right? So Aristotle wants to separate these two. But in Locke, I think there's a certain confusion of these two, right? And I mentioned how Locke and Barker got caught up in the idea. Is there a general idea of trying, right? And Locke says, well, he's attacking the idea that the general is more known to us in particular, right? And he's trying to talk about the difficulty of general ideas. And he says, he takes an example there of the general idea of trying, right? Is it equilateral, isosceles, or scaling? Is it right-angled, or acute-angled, or two-stand-angled? The idea of triangle in general. And he says it's all and none of these. Okay? Notice this problem, right? He's trying to imagine a triangle, right? When he's trying to think about a triangle in general. And any triangle you imagine will be either equilateral or isosceles or scaling. Right angle or piece angle. But it won't be all of these, right? But if it's just one of these, then it doesn't fit no more, right? So it's got to be all of these, and yet what? None of these, huh? Well, then along the scene comes Barclay. He quotes those words, huh? He says that to make any sense, huh? So we had no general ideas. So, in a way, what Locke is doing is imagining the general idea of triangle to be all of these particular images, right? Rammed together, you know, in some way, you know, and they've got this all and none, right? So you can't really separate the idea of an image from a, what, thought, huh? You can think about what the equilateral isosceles and scaling triangle have in common, right? And you can define that without any of those differences, right? But you cannot imagine what they have in common, because any triangle you imagine will be one or the other. You see? So he's mixing up the two, huh? Very common, huh? Okay. The next thinker there among them, Hume there, you know, he speaks of thoughts as if they're faded images, huh? Not so vivid anymore. So, I mean, it's not, you know, the ancients are not, you know, limited in these ways, huh? Well, when DeConnick, you know, would lecture on the physics there, you know, he'd go through the commentary of Thomas, you know, but he always, you know, after whites, every once in a while he'd stop, you know, and then he'd bring in Brady Russell or some modern, you know. He's in the same difficulty as the ancient Greek is, huh? And so you find the same mistakes being repeated again and again, the same errors that men get into. Now, so in 300, he's going to introduce now this question of the, or this business of the difference between them. For imagination, he says, is different from both sense and thought, and does not come to be without sense, and without this there is not belief. Now, he's going to give two arguments here, one in 301 and one in 302, right? Okay, the difference between imagining and believing, or might be better to say thinking here, huh? Now, the first difference, or first question of the difference, is this, huh? He says that I'm free to imagine, right? Right? Just about anything, right? Okay? But I'm not free to think just anything, huh? Now, the simple example I always use is this one. I say, I can imagine a terrorist out there with a machine gun, right? Who hates monks or hates philosophers or whatever, right? And he's about to come in here and mow us down, right? I can imagine that, can't you? You know, these guys, you know, with the hoods on and so on. Okay? And a big machine gun. Okay? I can also imagine a man out there with a cart with, you know, nice drinks and things to eat and so on, who's going to come in here and give us a little priority here now. I can imagine that, right? See? Okay. I'm free to do something good or bad. Imagine something good or bad, right? But am I free now? Am I free to think that there's really a terrorist out there? No. I need some kind of reason to think there's a terrorist out there, right? As I say to the students in class, I could imagine myself winning the Massachusetts Lottie or something, you know, $50 million, let's say, right? You see? But am I free to think that I've won? I haven't even bought a ticket. So, you know? I have no reason to think, right? See? So I can't really think I've won, but I can imagine myself winning and having this, right? Mm-hmm. You see? I can imagine myself being in, you know, in Rome right now. That's what I think. I don't think you're in Rome. Okay? So, notice that example there. It's taken from, what? Something like discourse. We have a reason for what you think, right? Your mind goes from one thing to another, right? As if that's what's most known to us, right? It's a kind of confirmation of what Shakespeare does, right? He defines reason, first of all, as the ability for discourse, right? The ability to know one thing to another, right? And then you see the difference between reason and imagining. You can imagine things in a new way. That's what Michi does, right? You know, the eternal, Michi has this idea, you know, that the world will teach itself in a cycle, right? So that I'll give this class to you people, somewhere in the future, right? We'll all be back here in the same room, you know? And Aristotle will be back in their room, giving them that tears, right? It's a long and long prayer, right? It's kind of interesting. It's just imagination, right? There's no reason to assert that this is true, right? You know? But this is somehow, you know, the way out of his despair or something, I don't know. It's pure imagination, right? There's no reason for it all. So, that's the first way he points out the difference between them, right? I can imagine something, right, good or bad, without any, what, reason for doing so, right? But I can't really think that something is or is not so without having some, what, reason to think so, right? Okay? And the second thing he points out is from the Cox points of the two, because if I thought there was a terrorist out there, I would be thump, thump, thump, getting very nervous or scared, right? And, you know, I'd get out the door, out the window or something, right? But now when I imagine a terrorist out there right now, and I'm, you know, I'm quite brave about it. I don't feel any fear, right? If I thought I had won $50 million in the thing, you know, I'd be kind of, you know, I'd go crazy, right? But imagine myself winning $50 million, I don't get particularly, you know, out of my mind, right? You see that? See? So there's a real difference then between thinking and imagining. He says, to imagine something good or bad is a little bit like seeing it in the theater. Not the same thing as, to think that somebody's really dying, right? Somebody dies on the stage, you know, it's not like, you know, somebody's really dying in front of you, right? And so he says, imagine it's a little bit like seeing something in the play. You see that? So that's the second argument there in 302. Now 303 is just, again, the side that you saw in the Premium to Wisdom, where he says we don't have to talk now about the differences between science and opinion and prudence. Those are talked about somewhere else, right? In the Nicomachean Ethics he talks about those differences, right? But now he's just concerned with seeing the difference between imagining and what? Thinking, right? Now, in the part we're going to look at next time, which starts in 304, and it goes to the end of this chapter, which is 5 and 6 in Thomas' Lessons, Aristotle's going to stop now and explain a bit what imagining is, right? Or what an image is, right? And that will add something to our understanding and the sensing, right? But then, assuming, you know, from what has been said here, the arguments we just saw, that there's a difference between sensing and understanding, right? And between thinking and imagining and so on, things are going to start to take up the part of the soul by which we think and judge and so on, right? And then in Chapter 4. But next time, I say, we'll look at Lessons 5 and 6 in Thomas, which is the rest of this chapter, okay? There's the common sense, and then another power, which in animals is called the estimated power sometimes. But in man, it's called particular reason, but it's still a bodily thing, right? But the second one perceives things that are not really, what, sensible, right? Like, for example, the animal perceives, what, something to be a friend or an enemy, right? Not because the sense qualities of that thing are agreeable or disagreeable, right? But in seeing my sensible qualities, it judges us to be a friend or an enemy, something to be a friend, you know? And I always remember one incident there with a kitten there. I went down to see... My friend Roy Monroe, he'd rescue a little kid with a tree outside his house, right? And, you know, kids like to get in little boxes and places. We'd put the kid in the drawer, right? You know, the kid would like to sleep in there, you know. It's kind of funny to make it that way, yeah? And, you know, if you leave a drawer in your bedroom or something open, you know, the kid would jump in there. I'd be afraid of being enclosed in there, but they do that. So we get a little kid, and now we start playing with the kid and sing. And we're using, you know, our belts, right? And, you know, the belt's fairly stiff, and you lay it down, and you need the cat, you know, like that, you know. So we just kind of play with it. And then Roy had a belt that was kind of, I don't know, like it had striated or things. And when he put that down on the ground after he'd been playing with the cat, she was afraid of it. And if you try to hold her, one of us, you know, they would make that little belt. You know, she was struggling, you know, and afraid of the thing. And the only thing I could figure out was that it looked like a, what, snake. You see, because the pattern on the belt really did make it look a little bit like a snake. And the cat, being a little kitten, you know, saw that as a, what, an enemy or something dangerous, right? As Thomas says, as the beginning or the end of some passion or action, right? And just as a mother kitten, when she smells her little ones, right, you know, then she goes to feed them, right, protect them, right? But it's not because the smell of her little ones is agreeable, right? And the smell of somebody else's animals or something is disagreeable, right? But because of this other power, right? You see? And they always talk about these little birds, you know, that are victims of the bigger birds, you know, that come down, you know? And then they're very young, you know, and they're in the cradle, so to speak. And one of these birds flies over, you know, they spontaneously, what, crouch, right? And it's not because the shadow of whatever it is that that bird flies over is. It's painful to them that they're reacting to it as if in pain, right? But because they see it as an enemy in some way, right? That's it. Something dangerous, huh? Is that instinct? You call it instinct, yeah, yeah, yeah. But Thomas used the term estimative power, right? And so you have basically these two powers, the common sense, which is the common terminus of all the proper sensibles, right? And they have this other power, which in animals knows something, right? It's not sensible as such, right? That this is a friend or an enemy or someone to be nourished or someone to be fought or something of that sort, right? You know? I must say with a kitten, you know, if you look around a corner at the cat, you know, they'll study it, you know? And it's just that's kind of a, what, instinctive thing, as you'd say, to your enemy, right? Yeah. You know? Or something that you have to watch, right? That's, you know? It depends on how you approach them. They'll be afraid of you. Yeah, yeah. So Aristotle, I think, are you going to be sitting here about the inward senses, huh? Thomas is a little more complete during the Zoom out there. Oh, gee. We'll look at that sometime. But then he has two more powers, or Avicenna, which he had two more powers, to preserve what either of these have, right? And that's based upon the idea that it's not the same one that can receive these things and that can, what, retain them, right? But based upon the idea that in material things, right, in these material organs, what easily receives something doesn't retain it, right? And vice versa, what receives a difficulty will retain it, right? More. And so water, for example, very quickly takes on the shape of something, but it doesn't... You know, it easily loses it, right? By a piece of metal, you know, it receives a shape of something, or a difficulty, but it holds on to that shape, right? So they have two more powers that will retain. And of course, what they call it in Latin, it gets confusing between Latin and English, because they'll call memory, I think, is the one that receives, retains what is gotten from the estimated power, right? And the imagination, what we see is in case of common sense, right? But we tend to use the word, you know, memory and imagination a little differently, I think, in English, you know. But whatever, it aims to the two powers there, the powers that keep, right? Here and now, right? Would that be the sense memory, that's what it's called? Yeah, yeah. I say, we might use the word memory for what retains the common sense, you know. And I have, you know, if I'm a wine taster, I have many memories, and I taste a different wine, you know. Someone gives me a wine, I'm not that good at it, but I mean, Brother Mark, you know, he'd kind of maybe tell you what the wine is, right? Okay, so yes. So you might use the word memory, you know, for what retains something gotten from the common sense, right? But Thomas, I think, uses the word memory, and more in Latin, for what retains. What the estimate of power has, right? And imagination is what retains. And imagination. Yeah. And we retain these words, imagination, for our memory and others, in our sense, right? And the ability to transform these images or combine them, you know, that sort of thing, right? Mm-hmm. But there's a little problem with how you would translate these things, right? But what's clear in the animals is that they act or react, right? To things that they sense, right? Not because the sense quality is such, right? They might, you know, if you're, you know, burning them or something, right? You know, that sort of thing. But they say, you know, it's how animals will sometimes sniff out somebody, right? And then they'll react either in a friendly way or in a friendly way, right? See? I remember when I was one of the catfish cats we had there, we didn't know what to do. We'd go on vacation. We'd do it with the cat. Couldn't take the cat on vacation, right? So we didn't know what to do. So we went down and boarded the cat at this pet place, right? Okay. Well, the cat hated that. Boarded it, right? And, um, and of course there was a smell of the dog or anything else down there, you know? So when he came to pick her up, or pick him up, it was a he. Uh, the cat said, just don't, don't, don't, don't, wait, I had to get my gloves, you know, let me go down there, you know? And I just went over and opened the cage, stuck my hand in it, right? She came right out to me, right? Or he came right out to me, right? And I put him on my shoulder, and I, of course, he dug into these. But, uh, uh, then, uh, you know, we took him home, right? Saying, uh, we're on to all his spots, you know? And he, like, you know, so happy to be home, because he'd cry all us, you know? So we'd do whatever, born a cat again, we didn't know what to do, you know? I mean, now when he'd go away, he'd get to see the grandchildren, you know? He still had one cat at the house, and, uh, um, maybe hire one of the little girls. And they went to go over and feed it, you know? Because it's really kind of mean, you know? But, I mean, the point is, what I'm trying to say is, you see, they'll sniff you out, right? See? And that's the way they know their offspring, to some extent, by sniffing them, and the smell. But it's not because the smell is agreeable that they come out to you, that I smell better than the other guy, you know? He stuck his hand. Because the cat's on the defensive, you see, because, you know, because, you know, you smell a dog around there and everything else, right? So the cat is, you know? See what I mean? So, um, there's something in them that recognizes me as a friend, right? And it's not because I smell good. You see what I mean? I say, okay. And, uh, they say, like, a lamb might know a wolf as being bad, right? The first time they see it, they've never even been taught to see. But, but it's not because the shape of the wolf is, is painful to their eyes or something, right? Or, right to their eyes, or like that. But, um, there's some, you know, it's, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a progeny sensible, right? To the common sensible, right? Even. Right? See? But that shape, which is a common sensible, you know, when you, when the animal sees that, then it recognizes in some way as something to be fledged from, right? So the way Thomas expresses it, it sees it as the beginning or end of some, some path. We had another cat out at the lake one time in the summer, you know, and the cat got awfully afraid of the dog coming around to ramp a tree there, and it got scared and ran under the bed, you know, and come out for a deer, so, finally, he wouldn't come out, he'd stay under the bed, you know, ran under the bed, we had two beds, I was in the thing. Finally, we coaxed it out, you know, to eat something, get hungry, I guess, like that. He went to the door, looked out, and saw that dog, he had it, ran under it, but why is it doing it, is it because the shape of the dog is painful to it? I don't think so, no, but he recognizes that it's to be fled from, you know, you see, so they have a power other than the common sense, right, or if I, they recognize something is supposed to be pursued or not, or to fled, or whatever it may be, right? It seems even in the recognizing itself, apart from how they react, that they're able to recognize something, something kind of more general, like some of these naturalists, you know, they'll try to do different things to see what exactly it is, like, you know, Conrad Loren said, you know, he was walking, and all these birds, like crows, started, like, swooping, attacking him, and he tried to figure out what wasn't, and it was his black swimming trunks, but, and so he was wondering, is it because it's black, or, so he got a camera that was black, and they didn't do anything. Yeah. So he said, it had to be something floppy. Yeah. And black. Yeah. And they thought it was like he was taking one of the birds away. But he said, but they didn't really think of it as a bird, it was just, when they saw anything floppy and black, they did, that's what they would do. Mm-hmm. But it's, but they're kind of sensing something a little more general than just a black bird. Yeah. You know, my brother Mark describes some later amount of time that he had to do with Ron MacArthur and some other people, right? And I guess, you know, my brother Mark and the other guy was in better shape than Ron MacArthur, right? So, Ron MacArthur was a little fog behind him, right? And the buzzers away, you see them, the vultures, they start circling over your head. And sometimes, you know, if you just kind of like that, they'll come right down to you, you know? You've got to whack them away with the thing, you know? Yeah. Because, you know, when we joke about it, you know, it's the idea, you know, that it's kind of like a lesson to be in good shape, right? You know? But I mean, I was just thinking of it now in regard to this thing, you know? You know, when it sees that guy falling behind the others, right? Kind of going slowly, kind of, you know? Then it recognizes it is what? You know, a possible meal, right? You see? Yeah, it's something that's dying right there. You know, about the... They feel a dead flesh right there. And they start circling around, right? Right, see? So there is something in them. But it's not because of it being, per se, pleasing to their senses, right? This one woman who's autistic, she designs a lot of the cattle facilities in the United States. She's designed, you know, like a third of them or something. Mm-hmm. Because she can go herself through, you know, they want the cattle to go through these things and not to just stop or run away. Yeah, yeah. To go smoothly. And they get afraid of certain things. Mm-hmm. And the ranchers won't exactly know what they're afraid of and what they like. Yeah. And she would go to one of these places and go through herself and be able to know what makes the cows afraid or not. It's just some shadows or something. She would see that. But nobody else would know that these shadows or something would make them afraid, right? Yeah. Somehow she has that sense. So she could design them so the cows like to go through. Yeah. But she said, she talked about how she, sometimes she feels more comfortable with cattle and people. But I guess it's that sense, you know, that somehow she has that power and a little bit more active. But she said she has a problem. She said most philosophy books she can't understand. Mm-hmm. It's very hard for her. She says when she reads words, she sees images. Mm-hmm. And she says she's like, she says something like, words like, to be. Mm-hmm. She said that doesn't mean anything to her because she can't imagine picturing it. Mm-hmm. So she has these other interior senses are too strong, I guess. Mm-hmm. You know, see, like if I, if I put on a Mozart CD, right? I don't have any reaction on the cat at all. But if you don't like, you know, scratch, you know, like on a sofa and like that, you know, a little scratching sound, you know? Yeah? See? Because that sound is recognized by this other power, right, as something to do with hunting or, you know, a house or something, right? Right. And I always think back upon that little kitten there with Roy Monroe and how he's definitely afraid of that bigger belt, right? Maybe an older cat would, would, would have a more developed, uh, estimated probably would not be, um, deceived by that, huh? Mm-hmm. Who was it? Was it the Indians used to put on the, you know, the, the, the animal skin, right? And then get down among the flock and so on. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha The union of soul and body, which is that of one kind of matter and form, is really before quantity, quantity is an accident, right? You know, the atheist, biologist, or mortician, whoever it is, or, you know, I never found the soul and the parts there that come to the body, right? You know, it's kind of imagining falsely, right, that the soul, if it is a part somewhere, it's going to be, you know, cut-offable from the other ones. And it's not that kind of a whole and part. I think, you know, if it's zero, in the case of the universal whole and its subject parts, they don't meet at any common boundary, do they? You wouldn't think of the equidado triangle and the isosceles triangle and the skating triangle doesn't mean to meet at any common boundary, would you? No. And then when you get into definition, which is the other remaining sense, is the genus and the difference, say, in the definition, do they meet at a common boundary? And it seems to me that the reason why they don't, in one way, one way of showing it, is the fact that they're like matter and form, and the difference is really determining what is already in the genus in ability, right? So when I say an equilateral triangle, right, you only have two sets of three lines. And so the equilateral, in that sense, seems to be determining something intrinsic there to the triangle already. It's their inability, you know? But if it was outside, like the left side of the line is outside the right side of the line, it couldn't be determining their, you know, the left side of the line can't determine the right side of the line, intrinsic there, can't it, because it's outside of it, right? But form is not outside of matter, that for a sense, I mean, outside. But then we have some kind of a boundary between the two, right? Don't go outside the yard. Tell a little kid, right? There's got to be some kind of a boundary there, right? And they train these dogs now with this, you know, system, is it a joke or something, right? Yeah. But there's a certain boundary where one is taught, right, not to go, what, beyond that as a child, maybe, you know? Don't play in the street or whatever it is. Don't go into that nasty neighbor's yard or something, right? My cousins live near a guy who, you know, if you touched one foot in his lawn or the ball and he bounced into his yard and you went in to get the ball, he'd call the police. The police kind of used to that to a while, you know, but they had to come out, I guess anyway, because he'd call the police. They kind of took a lot. So anyway, but you have to get some kind of a boundary, right? You see? So, well, we tend to fall back upon, you know, what we can imagine, right? So is the form of the matter, is the form of the matter outside of each other? If I ask you this about the continuous, huh? Is the left side outside the right side? Yeah. Is the left side of the circle outside the right side? Yeah. And how about, you know, you know, form and matter, are they outside each other? How can they be distinct? I see. You realize that the distinction is different than this here, right? And then you start to realize that they're on the thought, and that the one thought is not outside another, but the continuous has part outside the part, right? We speak like the soul leaves the body, but it's not in place. What happens at that? The soul just stops animating the body? Yeah, it's not going to be in the body, right? But it's not in the body, it's in the place, that's the point. It's in the body in a way, but not in place. Yeah, yeah, it's in there as a form as in matter, see? Yeah. And that's the fifth sense of in, right? Form and matter. But people, I mean, will falsely imagine the soul to be in the body, cool, inter-penetrating the body or something. What's interesting about that point in the continuous to what is not continuous is that there's sort of likeness, right? Whereby we carry the word over, right? So we carry the word part over from the continuous to these other kinds of holes, right? And parts. But then, in seeing the difference between them, we see the difference, meaning that these parts are not continuous. It's kind of an amazing thing, right? What's your thought about a triangle or about a square? You say, well, I think of it as being a quadrilateral. It's only a part of my thought about a square, so. You know? But how these parts come together, right? Adding, you know, the difference to the, what? The genus, right, huh? In the way you might add frosting to a cake or something, right? To finish the cake, right? But the frosting really is, outside the cake, really. Or at least the other part of the cake, right? But when I add the minor premise to the major premise, or add the difference to the genus, right? It's one outside the other, one here, one there. I remember my notes where you said, when we think about God, we think about Him, and we just drop the genus of the genus. So, like, when we say God is just, we drop the habit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that that's important, to be able to understand that, being able to understand God. I'm not sure how well I understand it. Yeah, yeah, because of the image of the Trinity, and then the footprint of the Trinity. And, you know, the image of the Trinity is in some ways easier to understand, because He says, well, if our mind understands itself, right, and forms the thought of itself, that's the mind understood, right? And if the mind understands itself, and then loves itself, then there's the mind loved. So, you've got the mind, as it were, itself, and then the mind understood, and then the mind loved, right? So, you can see the image of the Trinity there, right? Okay. And then He says, but in the irrational, you know, creatures, there's a more remote likeness, which eventually He says is called the astygium, you know, the footprint, I think that means. And I think He explains it sometimes in more than one way, but the way He explains it in the Summa Congentiles, is He says that the substance of the thing is one, and then it has a certain form, right? And then an inclination or order following upon that, right? Okay. Well, the idea that the inclination or order following upon the form is like the Holy Spirit, that makes some sense, right? Because that's kind of like a natural desire, right? Okay. So, even the plant, let's say, you know, seeks water and sunlight and so on, right? Inclination towards what is good for it, right? So, that's like the Holy Spirit. But, why should He, it isn't spelled out, but He's obviously going to compare the word to the form of the thing, right? And the Father then must be compared to the unity of the substance, right? That's kind of a strange thing, right? You know? I see Him explain the vestigenic in other ways in this. But, I can see, at first, better why He would call, He would compare the word to the form, right? Because the thought, in a way, is like a, what? We speak of forming our thoughts, right? Okay. Formation of the mind and so on. Why compare the unity of the substance of the...