Eleonore Stump - What are Persons?

What does it mean to be a 'person'? How do persons differ from other living things? Must all human beings be persons? Always? When does personhood start-during childhood, at birth, in the womb?
Click here to watch more interviews on persons bit.ly/2cqbnfu
Click here to watch more interviews with Eleonore Stump bit.ly/1Oxcf1e
Click here to buy episodes or complete seasons of Closer To Truth bit.ly/1LUPlQS
For all of our video interviews please visit us at www.closertotruth.com

[@arturoluna475]

For all you materialist reductionists, you have to give up on personhood or downgrade it to some kind of illusion. It's beyond me how anyone can deny their own personhood, yet here we are

[@theophilus749]

Amen to that. Indeed, I would regard the conclusion that we are not really persons (or not really free, or not really conscious - I'm sure you are familiar with this sad litany of the materialist/reductionist) as an undefeatable _reductio ad absurdum_ of any theory that entailed it.

[@333_studios]

For some who do meditation such “realisations” are not a choice

[@Domispitaletti]

Lets talk about people multiples personalities? How it would fit in your religious delusions?

[@robertmiller5258]

Illusion as a solution . As an illusion has to be had by some person!

[@discerningheart1944]

Verdi dissociative identity disorder is a fragmenting of the sense of identity to cope with early repeated overwhelming trauma, and it is treatable and curable resulting in a integral sense of identity and a cohesive sense of self.....it has nothing to do with proving believers are delusional, or that atheists are specially enlightened

[@ericday4505]

I would have loved to take a class with her.

[@haimbenavraham1502]

What a beautiful, enlightened soul is this lady. Yes, animals too relate to God .

[@darkknightsds]

There are few things in this life I know for sure, but I know this - Eleonore Stump knows God.

[@Appleblade]

Women have a tendency to emphasize the interpersonal ... and here it pays off perhaps. It's feminism I don't mind. :)))

[@ggarza]

God has relationship with all creation. All creation bears marks of personhood bestowed upon it by God.

[@williamburts5495]

What are persons ? Answer: An individual who is conscious that he exist. Animals are also conscious but do not possess the level of consciousness that we have still they can affectionately interact with us thus they are persons also.

[@jedi4049]

Sweet woman

[@benwrong6855]

I would love to hear all of the guests who have appeared on closer to truth, speak about such matters after doing psychedelics, if they haven't already!

[@grumpyunclenick205]

That’s what they should do for the series finale.

[@markdulworth797]

Those thoughts are silly at best

[@zatoichiable]

God doesnt need to create human beings but why is Man created?

[@m3131m]

Zatoichiable entertainment?

[@zatoichiable]

How did you guess so quick? Have fun!

[@noseefood1943]

without brain there is nothing. including god.

[@zatoichiable]

explain nothing.

[@theophilus749]

You ask a perfectly good question and it needs a decent answer. God creates nature because it is good to create that which is good - and nature is, in some fundamental sense, good.

[@samuelarthur887]

Eleonore is original!

[@jjcm3135]

She has been given the wisdom of Solomon.

[@paulmoore-LPC-LMFT-NCC]

She is so knowledgeable but not arrogant. I could listen to her tell me why I’m wrong and it not bother me.

[@333_studios]

Nature is beautiful. It is also cruel. It balances populations and ecosystems. Is Thanos your God?

[@chrisvanallsburg]

666th view!

[@ronjohnson4566]

its not mind reading, its just like a new born kangaroo. it crawls to the tit and sucks.

[@infov0y]

Ron Johnson: She talking about something like the innate 'theory of mind' we develop in relation to other people, plus empathic/mirroring responses. Admittedly 'mind reading' is a bad way to put it.

[@ronjohnson4566]

i appreciate your time responding to my comment, but you can get this drivel any sunday morning in appalachia, or delphi (on a bad day), or any guru at the top of any mountain.... Rocks have empathy for other rocks. God talked with a boulder and told it to go forth and multiply so it dropped pebbles as it careened down the mountainside. My pet rock is a direct descendant of Mt. Everest. "all creation will bear the marks of personhood too". "god told the ocean, so far and no further". "There are traces of personhood in all beings". and she says, "she doesn't know what that means". The only thing good about this interview is the mission furniture. Actually, Kuhn doesn't tell us that he is in a loony house and this lady thinks she is a 17th-century puritan.

[@infov0y]

I read your comment several times but can't see how it relates to my correction of your taking her 'mind reading' phrase as something other than what she meant, which is relating to the scientific concepts of a Theory of Mind, empathy etc. What your comment does seem to addressing is something like the philosophical position of panpsychism? But again, despite re-reading I can't find any arguments against it, just in other words an assertion that it's not true.

[@ronjohnson4566]

just because you can't see it doesn't mean it isn't there. and wtf are you doing arguing with me. i'm not arguing with you. The reason we have religion is because of people like you who have the need to use big words and long phrases to express what someone else said. Yet, you never answer any question. This is nothing than more drivel about what she meant when she says something. Please explain to me why god had to tell an ostrich where she left her eggs. Does this give you confidence that she has something scientific or philosophical to say to you? Do you believe this conversation was intellectual, deep, profound? Were you enlighted by what she said? Do you feel as if you're just a little closer to heaven? a little lighter on your feet? Alan Watts, beware of planets made of rocks because sooner or later rocks turn into pebbles, pebbles to sand, sand to slime and slime into life. That is not god (god did it in 7 days). That is time and evolution plus erosion. Give yourself a break and comment on something that needs comment. She says that Aristotle said, "everything is a mode of being": the nature or essence of a person. And traces of god are in all beings. Esse in scholastic philosophy : actual being. The next time you hear a rock say, "to be or not to be", let me know. Both Pan and Psyche long dead and gone. They only live in universities and in graves around the Greek Empire. Words like the words you and I use can be meant to mean anything. So you don't know what she meant. You are only trying to show your relevance. If you look to her to find your path you will find that sooner or later we will all be rocks again. albeit godless rocks.

[@j-r-m7775]

@@ronjohnson4566 Douche bag I know you think you are wise but really you're just a pretentious twat.

[@aloser09]

i'd like to see Dr. William Lane Craig's input to this question as well as her response. Not sure how Dr. Stump expands the concept of interpersonal relationships with God through the state of being to inanimate objects....but cool stuff

[@theophilus749]

That's a very good, sharp-minded query. The traditional answer would be to acknowledge that indeed inanimate objects could not possibly have an _interpersonal relationship_ with God but that they still (to use Stump's traditional language) exist ('have their being') only by dint of participating in God's own (essential) being. That applies to all things but while in our case, that participation is inter-personal, in the case of a rock, it is not. I'm not too sure what WLC's take on what Stump says might be, at least in detail, but they do (largely) occupy two quite different ends of the theological spectrum. I know I'm with Stump on this but it would take me a little time to defend it.

[@marcosglasner6412]

The problem with science is the mission to anserw questions that do not need an anserw. When we start to make questions without need to anserw it, the truth comes out. The beauty of nature is that there is no a universal true without love. Only love can understand the reality, and what's back inside it.

[@marcosglasner6412]

The reality is pure ilusion!!! The same to ourself. There is no myself, there is no ego, just the prision we have made and living in it.

[@BugRib]

Who's living in this prison of their own making?

[@marcosglasner6412]

@@BugRibIt's a choice, nobody can live your life for you. The prision is made by ourself. It's a choice to get out there. There is no meaning, it's a choice and that fire you need to respond by the way we live. Compassion, love, greatfulness.

[@MattsYoutubeChannel]

8:26 He has the "please just get it over with" face

[@HardKore5250]

Matt Not sure on that seemed puzzled or intrigued

[@darkknightsds]

No he doesn't. He's one of the most open minded people and he would not invite Eleonore on if that's what he thought of what she had to say. She is a brilliant person.

[@MattsYoutubeChannel]

@@darkknightsds Ok. Point stands. I think he looks bored. You can keep your opinion and I'll keep mine. Don't bother me with responses.

[@charlesbrightman4237]

She says, "I like that answer". Too bad that reality itself is not really based upon what we "like" or "don't like". Reality appears to be what it is, whether we like it or not. I am sure some people in the past "liked" that we existed on a flat Earth and/or "liked" that we existed in a geo-centric solar system. It's just that later modern science showed those people to be wrong, regardless how much they may have "liked" their viewpoint of reality.

[@theophilus749]

Two points: Firstly, Stump is not saying "I like this particular theory (or, rather, approach) _therefore_ it is true", which would indeed be fallacious. She is giving it a rational defence, not just resting on her likes. Secondly, people did not believe in geocentricism because they _liked_ it but because, so far as could be discerned, it seemed _true._ Given the evidence then available, it was indeed more rational to believe in geocentricism than heliocentricism - even (for a time, at least) after Copernicus.

[@charlesbrightman4237]

+Theo Philus And hence, truth is still truth and reality is still reality, regardless what we like and/or believe to be really true. One could equally say basically the following then too: Two babies are in a womb and talking to each other. One says to the other one, hey, I just know there is a whole world out there that is so much bigger, brighter and more beautiful. The other one says, you're crazy. Just take a look around you, this is all the world there is, nothing else exists but what we experience with our senses. The other one says, hey, believe whatever you want to believe and I will do the same. Hence also though, some people believe a conscious afterlife exists for at least some of us if not even all of us although it can't yet be seen. Others say no. But, what is the very real truth?

[@theophilus749]

You say, "truth is still truth and reality is still reality, regardless what we like and/or believe to be really true". The first part of your statement is simply an instance of the law of identity and the second part a colloquial affirmation of Realism. Who exactly is quarrelling with you? Not me, and not Stump, so far as I can see. As to the 'real' truth (whatever 'real' truth is that just plain truth isn't) about the afterlife, I don't know. I take myself to trust Christ, but I don't know. I'm not sure we actually can (altogether, at least) just believe what we _want_ in any case. Beliefs are not fully under our conscious control. One finds oneself with them. Sometimes one can find good grounds for them, as Stump seems to be doing, and sometime one cannot. Forgive me, but at bottom, I am not quite clear what your complaint is?

[@charlesbrightman4237]

+Theo Philus This is a comment section, not a complaint section. While it appears to be true that some complaints can be comments, not all comments are complaints. As far as "truth" goes, a minister once told me that they were "religious truths" that we believed in. I asked him, if something is not really true, what else can it be but a lie? He walked away. So, at times I might verbally over-emphasize what I mean by "truth", the "real truth", against what other people might utilize the term "truth" for.

[@theophilus749]

Hello Charles, I take your point and I apologise for being rather pedantic on the mater of truth and 'real' truth. Weren't you being a little complaining though about Eleanor Stump, perhaps even ticking her off a bit about thinking that something could be true just because she liked the idea? As I said earlier, if she was guilty of this, the ticking off would be entirely justified, but I don't think she is. As for your 'minister', I don't know why he walked away. I, too, am a minister (lay) and would never walk away from a challenging question about religion unless, of course, a person was being abusive or had made it clear that they did not want to continue. I am sure you meant your question sincerely. To answer it, though, an statement need not necessarily be a lie just because it is not true. It may just be a sincerely held but nonetheless false belief. I'm sure we must all entertain a number of those from time to time.