Different in degree or kind: An essay captures Adler (Introduction)

by David Turell , Monday, November 16, 2015, 15:16 (3295 days ago) @ dhw


> dhw: What part of each human controls the brain is a mystery. It's the usual business of pots and kettles. You object (in my view quite rightly) when someone assumes a material source for thought, or a material control mechanism for the brain, but I must repeat: “Anyone who states categorically that the mind (intellect, will etc.) is immaterial is offering subjective opinion as if it were fact.” -It seems to me that I control my own brain with my brain. It responds to my habits and learning issues with the proper plasticity to mold itself to my wishes. It is a perfect seamless feedback system between immaterial and material. We just don't know how it all works, since we don't understand the source of consciousness. 
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> DAVID: Frankly, it is fact to me. Our ideas here are presented in written material, BUT they are ideas. Touch one and show me that you did. You can't. The content and meanings of thought are totally immaterial.
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> dhw: Of course thought itself is not tangible,.... Nobody knows the source of thought, and so although I would agree that our intellectual powers set us apart from other organisms, we cannot claim that we have an immaterial faculty whereas all other organisms are wholly material. ...so once again I would argue that our mental superiority denotes nothing except our mental superiority.-Here I agree with you. Animals obviously have a degree immaterial thought. They act on desires, as an example.-> dhw: Regardless of your reservations about aspects of the theory, your own belief in some form of “theistic evolution” restores the balance that is strikingly absent from his article.-Thank you.