Dualism (Identity)

by dhw, Saturday, March 14, 2015, 18:06 (3328 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

DHW: In your computer analogy, you specifically said that consciousness was the equivalent of an independent user, and you said that NDEs confirmed this analogy. It's clear from your entire post, however, that this is not the case, and consciousness does depend on the material self, so you are not a dualist. May I then assume you believe that your consciousness emerges from the brain and eventually dies with the brain, unlike David's, which is a quantum pattern of energy that the brain receives from God and that goes back to God when we die?-TONY: Consciousness IS an independent user, in a sense. The mistake you are making here is a form of absolutism. Nothing, aside from perhaps God, is absolutely independent. Everything is dependent upon something. Like any analogy, if you take the computer analogy too far, it will of course fall apart because it is only an analog not an exact duplicate of the situation. 
It is independent in the sense that, even if the brain, body, information, or energy is damaged, corrupt, or even missing for a limited time, it can still function. It is independent in the sense that it can examine or even diagnose any of the other elements. It is independent in the sense that it can exert direct control over the other elements. There have even been reported cases of where a person "wills" themself to die, and others where the consciousness has simply given up and caused the rest to die. Much like shutting down a computer because you don't want to play anymore.-All of the above makes perfect sense, and we all know that the mind can influence the body just as the body can influence the mind, but as you will have gathered from the heading of this thread, I am grappling with the concept of dualism, which basically argues that mind and matter are two separate things. The concept of the soul which survives bodily death is totally dependent on this view of the mind (which is inseparable from consciousness). It IS an absolute. Either the conscious mind is part of and therefore dependent on the material self, or it is not. David's God-given quantum pattern of energy is clearly not, which leaves him free to believe in a non-physical identity that may survive the death of the body. I suspect from your answer and the rest of your post that you do not share this view, but I'd still like to know what you think IS the source of consciousness: materials, or something else?