Theology Matters – From Aristotle to Popular Mechanics and back again

Apologies to Etienne Gilson[1]

When you think about thinking, things can get weird. For example, you have the power to move things with your mind. You want your coffee cup, and you will that your arm moves, and it does move. How does an immaterial property like the mind move a physical property like your arm?

Also, where do we think? Presumably, in our heads, but no dedicated organ does the thinking, like the heart is dedicated to pumping blood. The brain is in our head, but the brain is composed of many parts, and the thinking part does not seem to be localized in any of these parts. Also, the brain is a physical object with dimensions such as weight, depth, and width. Thoughts don’t have those features. Close your eyes and think about your childhood room, and whatever you're thinking of exists in a dimensionless reality that seems to have dimensions but really doesn’t.

It is almost like the mental world is entirely different than the physical world, like it was a different “substance.” Philosophers of the Mind (“POM”) and scientists hate talk like that because “substance dualism” is far too religious for science to be comfortable with. POM and scientists compensate by talking about “emergent properties” from matter and, if they are daring, “property dualism.”

The differences between the properties of mind and the properties of matter were known to the ancients. Aristotle posited a “soul” that gave every living thing the characteristics of its type. For example, the plant soul gave plants the power to grow and reproduce. The animal soul gave animals the power to grow, reproduce, and move. The human soul gave humans the power to grow, reproduce, move, and think.

While the powers of plants and animals were expressed through bodily organs, it was noted that thinking was not. This left the human soul with a property called the “mind” that seemed to exist outside of the body. This extra-bodily property was not dependent on the body and, therefore, might outlast the body outside the body.

But thinking about the mind gets worse. There is the curious fact that our unembodied minds are capable of understanding the universe. The universe has a structure, and it seems that our minds are capable of understanding that structure because, in some way, it seems that our minds and the universe participate in a common reason and logic. This feature has led atheist philosopher Thomas Nagel to unhappily decide that there may be more to the god-thesis than he would like to admit.[2]

Nagel made a stir during the height of the gallop of the “Four Horsemen” of the New Atheists when he wrote:

My guiding conviction is that mind is not just an afterthought or an accident or an add-on, but a basic aspect of nature. Quite apart from antireductionist arguments in the philosophy of mind, there is independent support for the step to such an enlarged conception of reality in one of the background conditions of science. Science is driven by the assumption that the world is intelligible. That is, the world in which we find ourselves, and about which experience gives us some information, can be not only described but understood. That assumption is behind every pursuit of knowledge, including pursuits that end in illusion. In the natural sciences as they have developed since the seventeenth century, the assumption of intelligibility has led to extraordinary discoveries, confirmed by prediction and experiment, of a hidden natural order that cannot be observed by human perception alone. Without the assumption of an intelligible underlying order, which long antedates the scientific revolution, those discoveries could not have been made.

Nagel, Thomas. Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False (pp. 15-16). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

Minds work toward an end. Working toward an end implies teleology. Thus, Nagel brings Aristotle back into the picture:

But if we are trying to imagine a secular theory, according to which the historical development of conscious life is fully explained not by intervention but as part of the natural order, there seem to be only two alternatives: either this development itself depends entirely on efficient causation, operating in its later stages through the mechanisms of biological evolution, or there are natural teleological laws governing the development of organization over time, in addition to laws of the familiar kind governing the behavior of the elements. This is a throwback to the Aristotelian conception of nature, banished from the scene at the birth of modern science.19 But I have been persuaded that the idea of teleological laws is coherent, and quite different from the idea of explanation by the intentions of a purposive being who produces the means to his ends by choice. In spite of the exclusion of teleology from contemporary science, it certainly shouldn’t be ruled out a priori. Formally, the possibility of principles of change over time tending toward certain types of outcomes is coherent, in a world in which the nonteleological laws are not fully deterministic.20

Nagel, Thomas. Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False (pp. 63-64). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

Put together the curious notion that minds exist somehow outside the body with the curious notion that minds are in contact with the deep structure of reality, and you come up with this Popular Mechanics article.[3]

The article explains:

The universe has no brain. It has no gray matter, no nervous system, no neurons firing electrical impulses—and yet, that physical structure may not be where intelligence and consciousness actually come from. Intelligence may exist and evolve on its own, without emerging within living organisms.

This is the latest hypothesis from biophysicist and mathematician Douglas Youvan, Ph.D. who spent decades working at the intersection of physics, biology and information theory. He merged research involving enzyme engineering and machine vision with his decades of knowledge in genetics, leading him to realize something remarkable.

“I began to see that life and intelligence weren’t just reactive—they were predictive, efficient, and often mathematically elegant,” Youvan says. “Eventually, I came to believe that intelligence is not a byproduct of the brain, but a fundamental property of the universe—a kind of informational ether that certain structures, like the brain or an AI model, can tap into.”

His more recent work with AI only matured this hypothesis. With AI technologies advancing at what seems like light speed, Youvan felt that the many insights gained came so fast that “they felt more discovered than invented.” It was almost as if some outside force was generating them, and human researchers were pulling them out of the ether where they appeared, he thought. This experience fleshed out a controversial idea that suggests intelligence is a force of the universe that exists separately from living organisms.

"I suspect intelligence originates from what might be called an informational substrate of the universe—a pre-physical foundation where structure, logic, and potentiality exist prior to space and time,” he says.

Youvan’s concept of intelligence was partly inspired by quantum theory, whose outcomes are probabilistic until actually observed, such as Schrodinger’s cat paradox. In this case, the hypothetical cat, which is in a box with poison, can be both alive and dead until the box is opened. In other words, it exists in two states at the same time until it is measured. Likewise, our networks of neurons do not themselves create intelligence, but are instead made to connect with something that is much larger and outside of them. Youvan thinks this is how we give ourselves access to intelligence.//

It is almost as if some outside force was generating this idea, and Youvan was pulling it out of the ether; Youvan probably does not know that he has reinvented an idea from a 12^th-century Muslim philosopher.

Averroes was born in Cordoba in 1126. He was a scholar whose writings on Aristotle earned him the title of “The Commentator” from St. Thomas Aquinas. Where Aquinas and Averroes went sideways involved Averroes’ model of the human soul/mind, which involved a “collective intellect,” concerning higher mental functions, such as reasoning and judgment. Averroes’ position is explained as follows:

Averroes viewed the unity of intellect as a way to explain how humans access universal truths. If knowledge is eternal and unchanging, it makes sense, he argued, that understanding comes from a source beyond the limitations of individual experience. The universal intellect acts as a repository of truth, connecting all rational beings through a shared process of reasoning. For Averroes, this was not only a philosophical insight but also a reflection of the divine order of the universe.

This doctrine also addressed the problem of mortality and immortality in intellectual terms. If individual minds perish with the body, how can knowledge endure? Averroes answered this by locating the eternal aspect of intellect outside the individual in a shared, unifying source. This allowed him to reconcile Aristotle’s philosophy with the idea of immortality, even if his interpretation differed from traditional religious views.

Hassan, Raheem. Averroism for Beginners: The Intersection of Islam, Philosophy, and the West (pp. 50-51). Kindle Edition.

So, Averroes placed the mind outside the body, which is consistent with the idea that the mental processes are not bodily processes and somehow appear to be coordinated with the body, but not necessarily an act of the body. Putting the mind outside the body seems to have put it into a middle position between the individual and ….something else:

Averroism expanded on the idea of a collective intellect, emphasizing its implications for how humans think and learn. The collective intellect was not just a philosophical abstraction; it was a dynamic process through which individuals engaged with universal truths. Averroists believed that when people reasoned, they were tapping into a shared intellectual resource that transcended personal experience.

This collective intellect functioned as a bridge between the finite and the infinite. Individual minds, limited by their physical existence, could access eternal knowledge by connecting to this universal source. Averroists saw this process as a unifying force, one that linked people across cultures, times, and places. It explained why fundamental truths, such as the principles of mathematics or ethics, remained consistent regardless of who discovered them.

Hassan, Raheem. Averroism for Beginners: The Intersection of Islam, Philosophy, and the West (pp. 51-52). Kindle Edition.

And:

The idea of a collective intellect also had theological implications. Averroes saw it as a reflection of the divine order, where reason served as a universal gift connecting humanity to the divine. This perspective challenged traditional views of individual souls but also offered a new way of understanding human unity and purpose. For Averroists, the collective intellect was not just a philosophical theory but a vision of how knowledge could transform humanity.

Hassan, Raheem. Averroism for Beginners: The Intersection of Islam, Philosophy, and the West (pp. 52-53). Kindle Edition.

Along with addressing the mind-body problem, collective intelligence addressed the mind-universe problem:

The relationship between individual souls and universal reason was one of the most complex aspects of Averroes’ philosophy. He argued that while individuals have unique capacities for perception and imagination, these faculties are distinct from the act of understanding, which connects them to the universal intellect. This distinction allowed Averroes to reconcile the individuality of human experience with the shared nature of knowledge.

Averroes likened the individual soul to a mirror reflecting the light of universal reason. Each person has their own perspective, shaped by their experiences and environment, but the truths they access come from a common source. This analogy helped Averroes explain how people could arrive at the same conclusions through reasoning despite their differences. It also highlighted the interplay between individuality and universality in the pursuit of knowledge.

Hassan, Raheem. Averroism for Beginners: The Intersection of Islam, Philosophy, and the West (p. 53). Kindle Edition.

The “collective intelligence” idea reverberates through history under different names. It seems to have been revived in the 2025 Popular Mechanics article cited above. Even where it has been separated from Averroes, the idea seems to have some aesthetic appeal for a particular kind of person, a person who values “harmony”:

By connecting individuals to a shared intellect, Averroes envisioned a world where collective understanding could lead to greater harmony and progress.

Hassan, Raheem. Averroism for Beginners: The Intersection of Islam, Philosophy, and the West (p. 51). Kindle Edition.

Of course, a cynical person in the 21^st century might think that such people are usually on the bleeding edge of some totalitarian project that promises to bring the new utopia to mankind for its own good.

Averroes’ idea penetrated Christendom in the writings of Siger of Brabant until it ran up against the brick wall of St. Thomas Aquinas:

One of the most vocal critics of the doctrine was Thomas Aquinas, who saw it as incompatible with Christian teachings. Aquinas argued that if intellect were universal, it would negate the individuality of human souls, a cornerstone of Christian theology. In his writings, he rejected Averroes’ interpretation of Aristotle, offering an alternative view that emphasized the distinctiveness of each person’s intellect while still recognizing the shared nature of human rationality.

Hassan, Raheem. Averroism for Beginners: The Intersection of Islam, Philosophy, and the West (p. 56). Kindle Edition.

Not coincidentally, my Communio group is presently reading[4] Chapter 73 of Book 2 of the Summa Contra Gentiles [“SCG”], which involves Aquinas’s lengthy attack on Averroes’ claim that all human beings share a single “possible intellect.”[5] The “possible intellect” is that power in the mind (which is a power of the human soul) where the highest reasoning functions are done. The senses take in sense information with is ordered by the cogitative power into sense impressions (“phantasms”) that are presented to the “agent intellect” (the actively thinking part of the mind) who serves the phantasms up to the possible intellect to see universal attributes, draw inferences, and reach judgments. This possible intellect defines man as a species different from all other species. Without an individual possible intellect, and with only a common possible intellect, humans are just animals with a dial-up modem to something that defines real humanity. Aquinas explains:

[15] Moreover, the cogitative power, since it operates by means of an organ, is not that whereby we understand, for understanding is not the operation of an organ. Now, that whereby we understand is that by which man is man, since understanding is man’s proper operation, flowing from his specific nature. Consequently, it is not by the cogitative power that this individual is a man, nor is it by this power that man differs substantially from the brutes, as the Commentator imagines.

Aquinas, St. Thomas. Summa Contra Gentiles: Book Two: Creation (p. 219). University of Notre Dame Press. Kindle Edition.

All animals sense. All animals “cogitate” when they put together various sense impressions before attacking or fleeing. If the higher functions of the mind are not part of the human apparatus, humans are just animals with a long-distance phone line to the real human being, namely, the universe that is exercising the “executive functions” of the soul.

Previously, Aquinas had deconstructed the idea that human reason exists outside and apart from the body in the sense that it was “floating around” or “midway between” the individual and the universe. For Aquinas, the human soul is the substantial form of the body:

[3] Moreover, the soul is the form of the whole body in such fashion as to be also the form of each part. For, were it the form of the whole and not of the parts, it would not be the substantial form of that body; thus, the form of a house, which is the form of the whole and not of each part, is an accidental form. That the soul is the substantial form both of the whole and of the parts, is clear from the fact that not only the whole but also the parts owe their species to it. This explains why it is that, when the soul departs, neither the whole body nor its parts remain of the same species as before; the eye or flesh of a dead thing are so called only in an equivocal sense.2 Consequently, if the soul is the act of each part, and an act is in the thing whose act it is, it follows that the soul is by its essence in each part of the body.

Aquinas, St. Thomas. Summa Contra Gentiles: Book Two: Creation (p. 213). University of Notre Dame Press. Kindle Edition.

The human soul and the human body make a composite substance that is welded together. The human soul permeates the entire body and acts through the body, even to the extent of being dependent on the senses, phantasms, and memories of the body. The soul does not jump into the body and jump out of it like the driver of a truck. The soul and the body are one. There is no sense here that the soul is floating around like a balloon on a string, giving signals to the body by telegraph:

[1] It can be inferred from the foregoing that the soul is united to the body immediately, no medium being required to unite the soul to the body, whether it be the phantasms, as Averroes holds,1 or the body’s powers, as some say, or the corporeal spirit, as others have asserted.

[2] For we have shown2 that the soul is united to the body as its form. Now, a form is united to matter without any medium at all, since to be the act of such and such a body belongs to a form by its very essence, and not by anything else. That is why, as Aristotle proves in Metaphysics VIII,3 there is nothing that makes a unitary thing out of matter and form except the agent which reduces the potentiality to act, for matter and form are related as potentiality and act.

Aquinas, St. Thomas. Summa Contra Gentiles: Book Two: Creation (p. 212). University of Notre Dame Press. Kindle Edition.

The soul and the body are one and need each other:

[5]…. The soul, then, needs various organs in order to perform its operations, and of these organs the soul’s various powers are said to be the proper acts; sight of the eye, hearing of the ears, etc. For this reason perfect animals have the greatest diversity of organs; plants, the least.

Aquinas, St. Thomas. Summa Contra Gentiles: Book Two: Creation (pp. 214-215). University of Notre Dame Press. Kindle Edition.

Averroes’ idea might have led to “harmony,” but it was at the expense of “humanity.”[6]

Taking away the essential, immortal part of the soul takes away individuality and the significance of the individual. If the universe is doing the thinking and we are merely plugging in to the universe’s thoughts, then what purpose do we serve?

The Catholic church saw the threat to humanity and was forced to address the collective intellect idea on several occasions:

The controversies intensified when Averroes’ ideas reached medieval Europe, where the doctrine was taken up by the Latin Averroists. Figures like Siger of Brabant embraced the unity of intellect, interpreting it in ways that further provoked their critics. The doctrine was seen as a challenge to Christian theology, particularly the idea of individual souls and personal salvation. Church authorities viewed it as heretical, leading to the formal condemnation of Averroism in the Paris Condemnations of 1277.

Hassan, Raheem. Averroism for Beginners: The Intersection of Islam, Philosophy, and the West (p. 55). Kindle Edition.

As I noted in a previous essay, the Catholic Church has defined the human soul as the substantial form of the body at two different councils – the Council of Vienne (1311-1312 AD) and the Fifth Lateran Council (1513 AD.) We can see now that the Council of Vienne fits the time-frame of the Averroist controversy, namely, Aquinas writes his philosophical rebuttal of Averroes around 1260 to 1275 AD, he dies in 1275 AD, the Bishop of Paris condemns Averroes in 1277 AD, and the General Counsel condemns Averroism with a definition that repudiates “collective intellect” in 1311 AD. It may be the case that the subsequent definition was a matter of countering renewed interest in Averroes during the Renaissance.

But we can see that we are not done with Averroism. 512 years later, we see Averroism popping up again in the pages of Popular Mechanics.

Footnotes

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[1] From Aristotle to Darwin and Back Again is highly recommended.

[2] Mind and Cosmos by Thomas Nagel (2013).

[3] Popular Mechanics (April 18, 2025)

[4] May 2025.

[5] This chapter is written out in 41 sections, which is long by SCG standards.

[6] This is almost a definition of the collectivist temptation.