Why Do the Religious Reject Science While Embracing the Impossible?

[Alexis Jacobi]

Finally, Phyllo, we have something we can agree on!

[FlashDangerpants]

'Belligerent' means hostile and aggressive.

'Philosophy' is what you say, 'belligerence' is how you say it.

Go over your posts and count how often you insult people, how often you make negative personal comments about them, how often you talk down to them.

You have to admit that it is impressive that he managed to turn confession of that particular sin into an opportunity to indulge his other favourite vice by tooting his own horn.

[Alexis Jacobi]

[Latin belligerāns, belligerant-, present participle of belligerāre, to wage war, from belliger, warlike : bellum, war + gerere, to make.]

It must be understood: BigMike is deeply involved in an idea war. It is a battle against those older modes of seeing and understanding — defining — reality & existence.

And many and most who present themselves on this forum are involved in— philosophically and through science-terms — in a more or less atheistic project.

This all stems from the 17th century. And those who have studied intellectual history know this.

[Belinda]

…

Consciousness, ethics, morality, language and meaning all arose within Reality because they exist eternally. It is through concept such as these that I define what is “divine”. Preexisting order. Or an ordering principle.

They [consciousness, ethics, morality, language and meaning] existed before anything manifested, and similarly to what Alexiev says, they will exist even when there is no being there to enunciate language or to think with language. You are wrong (in my view) that all that will be left are scribbles or glyphs with no one capable of interpretation.

I fully recognize and I nobly accept that you regard the foundation of my understanding of reality (existence, being) as insubstantial and “unprovable”. And there is no part of your argument that is non-intelligible to me. And I understand how you are employing hard nosed mathematical reason to arrive at your belligerent opinions.

However, try as you might you will not be able to dislodge me from my operational understanding of Reality (life, existence, being) if only because you by your own chosen predicates lock yourself out of possibilities and alternatives to that belligerency.

You come here — obviously — to fight and to struggle. To attempt to knock down any view of Reality (being, existence) that does not conform to your rigid scientistic pseudo-philosophy. It is a pseudo philosophy I must remind you. This was demonstrated 50 pages back by other adept posters.

However, I want you and in fact I command you to carry on with your charmingly insulting but boringly repetitive communication methods.

I WILL ARISE and go now, and go to Innisfree, And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made; Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee, And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings; There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow, And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day I hear lake-water lapping with low sounds by the shore; While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray, I hear it in the deep heart's core.

Alexis, you just packed more mysticism, evasion, and flowery misdirection into one post than most people manage in a full semester of undergrad philosophy.

Let’s cut through the fog: you’re now claiming that consciousness, ethics, morality, language, and meaning existed eternally—before brains, before biology, before matter? That’s not philosophy. That’s mythology with a thesaurus. You’ve turned abstract human concepts into floating Platonic ghosts, existing independently of any mechanism that could produce, carry, or interpret them.

And when you say “this is what I call divine,” you’re not offering clarity. You’re doing exactly what I’ve been calling out since page one: using poetic labels to mask your refusal to explain anything. “Preexisting order”? “Ordering principle”? Those are placeholder phrases for “something I can’t define, measure, test, or explain—but I want it to sound majestic enough that no one presses me too hard.”

You say language would still “exist” even if no one could interpret it. No, Alexis—it wouldn’t. There’d be ink on a page, marks in stone, or data on a hard drive. But without a brain to assign meaning, all you'd have are meaningless patterns—like hearing thunder and calling it a symphony. Meaning requires a mind. Remove the mind, and meaning disappears. That’s not a radical view—it’s the basic structure of semantics.

Then you pat yourself on the back for “nobly accepting” that I consider your worldview insubstantial and unprovable. That’s not noble, Alexis—it’s necessary, because it’s true. You then accuse me of being belligerent because I hold ideas accountable to logic, evidence, and clarity. But guess what? That’s not belligerence. That’s philosophy. What you’re doing is ducking every challenge by slapping the label “scientistic pseudo-philosophy” on anything that makes you uncomfortable.

And as for this bit:
“You come here — obviously — to fight and to struggle.”

No, I come here to expose flimsy thinking. You just happen to be the loudest source of it.

And finally—you close with Yeats. Of course. When in doubt, quote a poem and flee into metaphor. But poetry won’t save you from the plain fact that your worldview is built on things you can’t define, explain, or defend, and you’ve made a career here out of acting like that’s some kind of intellectual virtue.

You say I lock myself out of “possibilities.” No—what I do is lock the door on nonsense. You’re welcome to stay in the bee-loud glade, whispering to ghosts of meaning. I’ll be over here, grounded in a world that actually explains itself.

If Cosmic order be the case then consciousness, ethics, morality, language, and meaning necessarily existed ,not always conceptualised by brainminds , but as unborn facts in the pipeline of time. The "floating Platonic ghosts " are an intermediate phase between the unborn facts and socio -linguistic reality. God is a deterministic idea. Take away superstitious fatalism , and we have Cosmic necessity. This is not "mysticism " , it's rationalism.

[BigMike]

And then your big “gotcha” is a sarcastic nudge when I say human behavior is caused, not freely chosen. But you didn’t refute it. You didn’t even try. Because deep down you know you can’t. All you can do is look sideways at the claim and imply it’s somehow unsavory to say out loud.

You live in the nostalgia of metaphysics because you can’t bear to face the fact that morality and meaning don’t need the supernatural. They just need honesty—about what we are, how we work, and what actually helps reduce harm and increase human well-being.

That’s not a denial of value. It’s the only way to truly preserve it.

It is like saying that an event depends on a previous event. That events follow from previous events. However, my consciousness creates causal events. And that is all I need to know and to realize. I thought IC explained this well enough 50 pages ago.

I would not use the word “unsavory” to encapsulate what I understand of the consequences of the scientistic religious-like philosophy that you hold to. A big part of my own endeavor (in philosophical-like thought) is to understand the consequences of ideas.

And the ideas you hold to, to which you are committed to with religious belligerency, are extremely destructive to “modes of knowing” and understanding that I value too much to relinquish them to over-mechanical thought.

Nostalgia you say?

[Greek nostos, a return home; see nes- in Indo-European roots + -algia.]

Here you might be onto something, but inadvertently as will likely always be the case with a lopsided existential philosophy.

The longing for home — like Odysseus I will suppose — is deeply seated in human being. And at a philosophical and spiritual level the idea of what home is, and what the Self longs for and what ultimately motivates man — yes, this is really what interests me.

I do not so much retreat weakly into okder forms of seeing and perceiving, as I seek to preserve conceptual pathways to the meanings that have been expressed by men throughout millennia.

You are a (ridiculous!) newcomer to The World, fool! I grant that you (i.e. science-methodology and also scientism) have claimed and also have immense power. But you do not determine, ultimately, what is right, good and productive for man in those arenas dealing with meaning, value and necessity.

Yes, I do not bother with refutation of your argument because they operate within a domain I believe I understand. I have an amphibious relationship to the issues of our time.

That is not nostalgia in your negative sense of badly utilized sentiment however.

My concerns involve issues and concerns that do not, and cannot, appear on your ideational radar. And that is because you are a sheer and absolute atheist and no concept of “god” or of “metaphysical reality” is admitted by you.

In fact, a huge part of your project is in insisting that there is a whole range of concerns and reality-definitions that are false and outmoded, and that you have the right and proper way to understand and explain — everything.

Alexis, your poetic footwork is impressive as always—but once again, your argument collapses the moment you’re asked to ground it in anything other than your own sentimentality.

You say, “my consciousness creates causal events.” No. It doesn’t. Consciousness doesn’t cause anything. It has no mass, no charge, no location independent of a functioning brain. It doesn’t exert force, it doesn’t transmit energy, and it doesn’t exist in any form outside of neural activity. You can’t weigh it, isolate it, or use it to push a marble across a table. That’s because consciousness isn’t a cause—it’s a consequence. It’s the brain’s internal model of its own processes, stitched together from underlying physical events. Your neurons fire. Chemicals interact. Circuits activate. And somewhere in that mess, your sense of “I” appears—after the fact, not before it.

Saying “my consciousness causes things” is like saying your shadow lifts the cup in your hand. It’s the result of your movement, not the reason for it.

You complain that I don’t make room for your metaphysical nostalgia, your longing for “home,” your vision of humanity stretching back through ancient myths. But none of that justifies smuggling in uncaused causes or giving consciousness magical powers just because the old stories made us feel purposeful.

I get that you see science—and yes, determinism—as cold and mechanical. But here's what you fail to understand: it’s not trying to reduce meaning, it’s trying to locate it in reality. We’re not machines in the cartoon sense—we’re causal systems, like stars, like hurricanes, like ecosystems. That doesn’t strip us of worth. It grounds us. It gives us tools to actually improve the human condition, not just write wistful prose about it.

You can cling to metaphysical poetry if it comforts you. But don’t confuse that with understanding. And don’t pretend your view is immune to critique just because it “can’t appear on my radar.” If you can’t explain it, test it, or even define it without diving into metaphor, then you're not presenting an insight—you’re offering a mirage and insisting it be treated like truth.

So no—your consciousness doesn’t create anything. It’s not a force. It’s not a god. It’s not above physics. It’s the glow of the machine, not its engine. And if you want to argue otherwise, you’ll need more than nostalgia and romantic footnotes. You’ll need a cause.

[Atla]

Consciousness doesn’t cause anything. It has no mass, no charge, no location independent of a functioning brain. It doesn’t exert force, it doesn’t transmit energy, and it doesn’t exist in any form outside of neural activity. You can’t weigh it, isolate it, or use it to push a marble across a table. That’s because consciousness isn’t a cause—it’s a consequence. It’s the brain’s internal model of its own processes, stitched together from underlying physical events. Your neurons fire. Chemicals interact. Circuits activate. And somewhere in that mess, your sense of “I” appears—after the fact, not before it.

Consciousness is part of deterministic causal chains, therefore both a consequence and a cause. The "I" is after some facts and before other facts.

[BigMike]

Consciousness doesn’t cause anything. It has no mass, no charge, no location independent of a functioning brain. It doesn’t exert force, it doesn’t transmit energy, and it doesn’t exist in any form outside of neural activity. You can’t weigh it, isolate it, or use it to push a marble across a table. That’s because consciousness isn’t a cause—it’s a consequence. It’s the brain’s internal model of its own processes, stitched together from underlying physical events. Your neurons fire. Chemicals interact. Circuits activate. And somewhere in that mess, your sense of “I” appears—after the fact, not before it.

Consciousness is part of deterministic causal chains, therefore both a consequence and a cause. The "I" is after some facts and before other facts.

Okay, Atla—if you're going to say consciousness is a cause, then let’s be precise:

Which of the four fundamental interactions does the "I" invoke?
Electromagnetism? Gravity? The strong nuclear force? The weak nuclear force?

Because if “consciousness” is doing causal work in the physical world, then it must interact through one of these forces. That’s not philosophy—that’s physics. Everything that causes anything does so via these four. So if the “I” pushes events forward in time, show the mechanism. Show the force. Show the measurable interaction.

Otherwise, what you’re calling a “cause” is just a narrative your brain tells itself after the real work is done—a shadow of the machinery, not the engine.

[Belinda]

And then your big “gotcha” is a sarcastic nudge when I say human behavior is caused, not freely chosen. But you didn’t refute it. You didn’t even try. Because deep down you know you can’t. All you can do is look sideways at the claim and imply it’s somehow unsavory to say out loud.

You live in the nostalgia of metaphysics because you can’t bear to face the fact that morality and meaning don’t need the supernatural. They just need honesty—about what we are, how we work, and what actually helps reduce harm and increase human well-being.

That’s not a denial of value. It’s the only way to truly preserve it.

It is like saying that an event depends on a previous event. That events follow from previous events. However, my consciousness creates causal events. And that is all I need to know and to realize. I thought IC explained this well enough 50 pages ago.

I would not use the word “unsavory” to encapsulate what I understand of the consequences of the scientistic religious-like philosophy that you hold to. A big part of my own endeavor (in philosophical-like thought) is to understand the consequences of ideas.

And the ideas you hold to, to which you are committed to with religious belligerency, are extremely destructive to “modes of knowing” and understanding that I value too much to relinquish them to over-mechanical thought.

Nostalgia you say?

[Greek nostos, a return home; see nes- in Indo-European roots + -algia.]

Here you might be onto something, but inadvertently as will likely always be the case with a lopsided existential philosophy.

The longing for home — like Odysseus I will suppose — is deeply seated in human being. And at a philosophical and spiritual level the idea of what home is, and what the Self longs for and what ultimately motivates man — yes, this is really what interests me.

I do not so much retreat weakly into okder forms of seeing and perceiving, as I seek to preserve conceptual pathways to the meanings that have been expressed by men throughout millennia.

You are a (ridiculous!) newcomer to The World, fool! I grant that you (i.e. science-methodology and also scientism) have claimed and also have immense power. But you do not determine, ultimately, what is right, good and productive for man in those arenas dealing with meaning, value and necessity.

Yes, I do not bother with refutation of your argument because they operate within a domain I believe I understand. I have an amphibious relationship to the issues of our time.

That is not nostalgia in your negative sense of badly utilized sentiment however.

My concerns involve issues and concerns that do not, and cannot, appear on your ideational radar. And that is because you are a sheer and absolute atheist and no concept of “god” or of “metaphysical reality” is admitted by you.

In fact, a huge part of your project is in insisting that there is a whole range of concerns and reality-definitions that are false and outmoded, and that you have the right and proper way to understand and explain — everything.

Alexis, your poetic footwork is impressive as always—but once again, your argument collapses the moment you’re asked to ground it in anything other than your own sentimentality.

You say, “my consciousness creates causal events.” No. It doesn’t. Consciousness doesn’t cause anything. It has no mass, no charge, no location independent of a functioning brain. It doesn’t exert force, it doesn’t transmit energy, and it doesn’t exist in any form outside of neural activity. You can’t weigh it, isolate it, or use it to push a marble across a table. That’s because consciousness isn’t a cause—it’s a consequence. It’s the brain’s internal model of its own processes, stitched together from underlying physical events. Your neurons fire. Chemicals interact. Circuits activate. And somewhere in that mess, your sense of “I” appears—after the fact, not before it.

Saying “my consciousness causes things” is like saying your shadow lifts the cup in your hand. It’s the result of your movement, not the reason for it.

You complain that I don’t make room for your metaphysical nostalgia, your longing for “home,” your vision of humanity stretching back through ancient myths. But none of that justifies smuggling in uncaused causes or giving consciousness magical powers just because the old stories made us feel purposeful.

I get that you see science—and yes, determinism—as cold and mechanical. But here's what you fail to understand: it’s not trying to reduce meaning, it’s trying to locate it in reality. We’re not machines in the cartoon sense—we’re causal systems, like stars, like hurricanes, like ecosystems. That doesn’t strip us of worth. It grounds us. It gives us tools to actually improve the human condition, not just write wistful prose about it.

You can cling to metaphysical poetry if it comforts you. But don’t confuse that with understanding. And don’t pretend your view is immune to critique just because it “can’t appear on my radar.” If you can’t explain it, test it, or even define it without diving into metaphor, then you're not presenting an insight—you’re offering a mirage and insisting it be treated like truth.

So no—your consciousness doesn’t create anything. It’s not a force. It’s not a god. It’s not above physics. It’s the glow of the machine, not its engine. And if you want to argue otherwise, you’ll need more than nostalgia and romantic footnotes. You’ll need a cause.

I agree it's best not to reify consciousness. It's best not to reify at all. Existence precedes essence. Consciousness is a socially constructed set of ideas. States of consciousness are socially constructed ideas and also one or more of those ideas correlated with physical measurements.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Saying “my consciousness causes things” is like saying your shadow lifts the cup in your hand. It’s the result of your movement, not the reason for it.

No, it is not at all like that! False claim.

You are free to see things, and explain things, in whatever way suits your fancy. And on the basis of your predicates to construct systems of activity. And I will assert time and again: I have agency; I begin causal chains (which yet occur within on-going causality); and I believe and I understand that my being and my consciousness is connected to “being” on other, metaphysical and supernatural levels.

The “proofs” through which or by which I know this to be so are non-demonstrable in the language and formulae of material experimentation. And I cannot explain to you why things are the way they are. I.e. why the universe of being is set up like it is. So I do not try! It is a wasted effort. And that is certainly so in your case!

I recognize that in the structure and purpose of your presentation that the appearance of winning and dominating is paramount for you. And I also think that you (and people who operate within your system of thought) can and do convince others that what you believe is true.

All that is so and yet I remain aloof, as it were, from believing your theories.

Because — as I have said a hundred times — I operate out of a gnosis beyond your ken. (That’s gnosis with a non-capitalized “g” by the way).

This evasion as you call it frustrates you to no end! I cannot help you here, m’boy.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Otherwise, what you’re calling a “cause” is just a narrative your brain tells itself after the real work is done—a shadow of the machinery, not the engine.

You are going to turn over this same assertion again & again & again & again until you expire!

You are fucked up Mike! It’s a neurosis not a coherent position for a man to hold.

One of those odd “mind viruses” that are making the rounds.

[Atla]

Consciousness doesn’t cause anything. It has no mass, no charge, no location independent of a functioning brain. It doesn’t exert force, it doesn’t transmit energy, and it doesn’t exist in any form outside of neural activity. You can’t weigh it, isolate it, or use it to push a marble across a table. That’s because consciousness isn’t a cause—it’s a consequence. It’s the brain’s internal model of its own processes, stitched together from underlying physical events. Your neurons fire. Chemicals interact. Circuits activate. And somewhere in that mess, your sense of “I” appears—after the fact, not before it.

Consciousness is part of deterministic causal chains, therefore both a consequence and a cause. The "I" is after some facts and before other facts.

Okay, Atla—if you're going to say consciousness is a cause, then let’s be precise:

Which of the four fundamental interactions does the "I" invoke?
Electromagnetism? Gravity? The strong nuclear force? The weak nuclear force?

Because if “consciousness” is doing causal work in the physical world, then it must interact through one of these forces. That’s not philosophy—that’s physics. Everything that causes anything does so via these four. So if the “I” pushes events forward in time, show the mechanism. Show the force. Show the measurable interaction.

Otherwise, what you’re calling a “cause” is just a narrative your brain tells itself after the real work is done—a shadow of the machinery, not the engine.

It probably involves all four fundamental forces, as the stuff inside the head - atoms, EM fields and so on - typically have all four. But whatever human consciousness is exactly, it has to be something physical.

Again we've arrived at the hilarious metaphysical nonsense at the heart of your musings. You are the one who elevates/downgrades human consciousness to a mystical, foggy, existent but non-existent status. You talk about consciousness, acknowledging on some level that it exists, but then you also pretend that it doesn't exist, you demand proof for its existence. That's just self-refuting metaphysical hogwash.

[BigMike]

Saying “my consciousness causes things” is like saying your shadow lifts the cup in your hand. It’s the result of your movement, not the reason for it.

No, it is not at all like that! False claim.

You are free to see things, and explain things, in whatever way suits your fancy. And on the basis of your predicates to construct systems of activity. And I will assert time and again: I have agency; I begin causal chains (which yet occur within on-going causality); and I believe and I understand that my being and my consciousness is connected to “being” on other, metaphysical and supernatural levels.

The “proofs” through which or by which I know this to be so are non-demonstrable in the language and formulae of material experimentation. And I cannot explain to you why things are the way they are. I.e. why the universe of being is set up like it is. So I do not try! It is a wasted effort. And that is certainly so in your case!

I recognize that in the structure and purpose of your presentation that the appearance of winning and dominating is paramount for you. And I also think that you (and people who operate within your system of thought) can and do convince others that what you believe is true.

All that is so and yet I remain aloof, as it were, from believing your theories.

Because — as I have said a hundred times — I operate out of a gnosis beyond your ken. (That’s gnosis with a non-capitalized “g” by the way).

This evasion as you call it frustrates you to no end! I cannot help you here, m’boy.

Alexis, you keep insisting that your consciousness “begins causal chains,” but you refuse—every single time—to explain how. Not metaphorically. Not poetically. Mechanistically. Because if your “I” is doing causal work, then I’ll ask you directly:

Which of the four fundamental forces does your ‘I’ employ?
Gravity? Electromagnetism? Strong force? Weak force?

Because those are the tools the universe provides. If your consciousness is more than a passive byproduct—if it’s pushing atoms, initiating action, influencing the world—then it must be interacting physically. But it has no mass. No charge. No field. So either you're invoking a fifth force (and should publish immediately), or you're dressing up post hoc narrative coherence as agency.

You say your “proofs” are non-demonstrable in material language—because of course they are. That’s the hallmark of beliefs that cannot be tested, verified, or falsified. You admit you can’t explain why the universe is “set up like it is,” and then confidently claim to know you can “initiate causality” in defiance of everything we know about how causality works. That’s not humility. That’s intellectual bluffing.

And your fallback? “I operate out of a gnosis beyond your ken.” Translation: I can’t defend this, so I’ll elevate it above critique. You’re playing the same tired game every mystic plays when cornered: claiming secret knowledge that conveniently doesn’t have to meet the standards of any other kind of knowledge. It's not just evasive—it’s a cop-out dressed as transcendence.

So stay aloof all you want. But don’t pretend you’re making an argument. You’re making a shield, and every time I press for details, you raise it higher.

You’re not describing reality, Alexis. You’re defending a story—because it feels better than admitting you don’t control the machine you live inside.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Alexis, you keep insisting that your consciousness “begins causal chains,” but you refuse—every single time—to explain how. Not metaphorically. Not poetically. Mechanistically. Because if your “I” is doing causal work, then I’ll ask you directly:

Why must I explain how?

You see, in my view Existence — that things exist and that Awareness exists (goes on) — is non-explainable. It is ultimately mysterious and impossible to encapsulate or rationalize.

This is knowledge of a very old sort. Not the result of science experimentation, but knowledge gained in other ways.

I know and I accept that you hold this to no account! I know that you feel you have a non-reducible epistemological system! You have an explanation system that is “ultimate” and “absolute”.

It is simply that I view it incomplete. Not valueless but simply not inclusive enough.

You are a man speaking out of his age however. And stoned on your own intellectual vapors.

That’s the hallmark of beliefs that cannot be tested, verified, or falsified.

Oh you could certainly verify. But you’d have to access modalities or perhaps techniques (?) that are unfamiliar to you.

[BigMike]

Consciousness is part of deterministic causal chains, therefore both a consequence and a cause. The "I" is after some facts and before other facts.

Okay, Atla—if you're going to say consciousness is a cause, then let’s be precise:

Which of the four fundamental interactions does the "I" invoke?
Electromagnetism? Gravity? The strong nuclear force? The weak nuclear force?

Because if “consciousness” is doing causal work in the physical world, then it must interact through one of these forces. That’s not philosophy—that’s physics. Everything that causes anything does so via these four. So if the “I” pushes events forward in time, show the mechanism. Show the force. Show the measurable interaction.

Otherwise, what you’re calling a “cause” is just a narrative your brain tells itself after the real work is done—a shadow of the machinery, not the engine.

It probably involves all four fundamental forces, as the stuff inside the head - atoms, EM fields and so on - typically have all four. But whatever human consciousness is exactly, it has to be something physical.

Again we've arrived at the hilarious metaphysical nonsense at the heart of your musings. You are the one who elevates/downgrades human consciousness to a mystical, foggy, existent but non-existent status. You talk about consciousness, acknowledging on some level that it exists, but then you also pretend that it doesn't exist, you demand proof for its existence. That's just self-refuting metaphysical hogwash.

Atla, you just did a full somersault into the contradiction you were trying to avoid—and faceplanted hard.

You say consciousness “probably involves all four fundamental forces.” Cute. But here’s the problem: all four of those are interactions. That means they occur between things that have physical properties—like mass, charge, or spin. So if consciousness employs any of them—let alone all—then it must be composed of, or instantiated by, physical stuff. Which means it obeys the same laws as everything else.

And if it obeys those laws, guess what? It’s not free. It’s caused. It’s determined. It’s a part of the machinery, not some magical overseer pulling levers from a metaphysical balcony.

Then you try to accuse me of “mystical nonsense” because I reject the cartoon version of consciousness you’re defending. No, Atla. I’m not pretending consciousness “doesn’t exist.” I’m saying it’s not special in the way you want it to be. It exists, yes—as a physical, emergent process. But it doesn’t float above physics. It’s not an independent force. It’s not the CEO of your brain. It’s a summary—the brain’s internal self-monitoring. That’s all. It has no powers of its own. It doesn't start causal chains. It rides them.

So if your “I” operates via gravity, EM, strong and weak forces, then congratulations: you just admitted it’s governed entirely by physics. You walked straight into determinism and didn’t notice the trap door slam shut behind you.

You don’t need to accuse me of hogwash. You served yourself the full buffet.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Much more that I can use here:

[Latin intelligere — inter and legere — to choose between, to discern; Greek nous; German Vernunft, Verstand; French intellect; Italian intelletto).

The faculty of thought. As understood in Catholic philosophical literature it signifies the higher, spiritual, cognitive power of the soul. It is in this view awakened to action by sense, but transcends the latter in range. Amongst its functions are attention, conception, judgment, reasoning, reflection, and self-consciousness. All these modes of activity exhibit a distinctly suprasensuous element, and reveal a cognitive faculty of a higher order than is required for mere sense-cognitions. In harmony, therefore, with Catholic usage, we reserve the terms intellect, intelligence, and intellectual to this higher power and its operations, although many modern psychologists are wont, with much resulting confusion, to extend the application of these terms so as to include sensuous forms of the cognitive process. By thus restricting the use of these terms, the inaccuracy of such phrases as "animal intelligence" is avoided. Before such language may be legitimately employed, it should be shown that the lower animals are endowed with genuinely rational faculties, fundamentally one in kind with those of man. Catholic philosophers, however they differ on minor points, as a general body have held that intellect is a spiritual faculty depending extrinsically, but not intrinsically, on the bodily organism. The importance of a right theory of intellect is twofold: on account of its bearing on epistemology, or the doctrine of knowledge; and because of its connexion with the question of the spirituality of the soul.

I do not negate the physical sensual basis. I say there is something else — and yes I cannot explain it through a proof! — that is operative in our World.