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Articles

Certain Angelic Characteristics of Computers

Howard Kainz thinks the Ghost in the Machine might in fact be an angel.

If the title seems strange, some background information may help to clarify things: To fulfill the requirements for my Master’s degree during the sixties, I wrote a Master’s Thesis on Thomas Aquinas’ metaphysics of ‘separate substances’ (the mediaeval philosophical terminology for, and counterpart of, ‘angels’). In the early seventies, with a still-recent Ph.D. in hand, I revised that thesis (‘Active and Passive Potency’ in Thomistic Angelology) and submitted it for publication. It was accepted in (for me) record time by an editor, who mentioned that he was impressed by the fact that this was uncharted area, and that he had nothing on his ‘lists’ on the subject.

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