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

by dhw, Friday, November 20, 2015, 20:56 (3291 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: And that is my point. If an aged, diseased or drugged brain can change “you”, how can we say with any conviction that the “you” is an immaterial being that controls the brain? If the brain is “normal”, it may control the person “normally”. 
DAVID: Just the other way 'round. It is only when the brain is sick that the person loses control. Just when does your brain control you? Does it write your plays?-We have no way of knowing it's ‘the other way round' except for a gut feeling. I truly haven't a clue where my ideas come from. They come to me. I don't consciously hunt for them.
 
dhw: We simply do not know what makes “you”, regardless of the fact that you “feel” fully in control.
DAVID: True. But our ignorance of the mechanism does not mean that anything goes. My impression is I run my brain. No one can prove the opposite, since we don't understand the mechanism. I'll take my viewpoint, as anything else is unprovable.
-Our ignorance of the mechanism means that no-one can prove your version or the materialist version. A materialist would dismiss your theory of the immaterial self as “anything goes”.-dhw: The original post and your comment that our fellow animals have “a degree of immaterial thought” make it plain that our degree is (vastly) greater than theirs, and if you believe that we and apes had a common ancestor, “specially created” sounds like a contradiction in terms.
DAVID: I don't see your contradiction. It is the vastness of the difference that makes us different in kind. And he doesn't mention the anatomical changes which are also vast.-The contradiction lies in your belief that we share a common ancestry (= we evolved) and yet you think we were specially created.
 
dhw: I can't believe that they really mean cells are automatons. I then feel free to speculate on the possible implications of their observations.
DAVID: Shapiro says that the bacteria's genome is a 'read/write code' mechanism. How do you interpret that?-In precisely the same way as Shapiro does - that the genome is an active and not just a passive mechanism. On the James Barham thread, I reproduced a quote from Shapiro: “Living cells and organisms are cognitive (sentient) entities that act and interact purposefully to ensure survival, growth and proliferation. They possess corresponding sensory, communication, information-processing, and decision-making capabilities.” If you take this in conjunction with the quote below, and in particular with the McClintock footnote. which he endorses so wholeheartedly, I really don't see how you can claim he is on your side:- The_Read_Write_genome_Physics_of_life_James_A_Shapiro_2013
	jeffreydachmd.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/The_Read_Write_geno… • PDF file-SHAPIRO: “As we begin the second decade of the 21st century, accumulating empirical evidence has thus shifted the perspective on genome variation to that of an active inscription process changing the information passed on to future generations.2
In other words, we now have to reconsider the genome as a “read-write” (RW) information storage system highly sensitive to biological inputs.”-Footnote 2: "Barbara McClintock most vividly expressed this view in her 1983 Nobel Prize lecture when she described her work analyzing the mutagenic effects of X-rays in maize: “The conclusion seems inescapable that cells are able to sense the presence in their nuclei of ruptured ends of chromosomes and then to activate a mechanism that will bring together and then unite these ends, one with another... The ability of a cell to sense these broken ends, to direct them toward each other, and then to unite them so that the union of the two DNA strands is correctly oriented, is a particularly revealing example of the sensitivity of cells to all that is going on within them... There must be numerous homeostatic adjustments required of cells. The sensing devices and the signals that initiate these adjustments are beyond our presentability to fathom. A goal for the future would be to determine the extent of knowledge the cell has of itself and how it utilizes this knowledge in a “thoughtful” manner when challenged... In the future, attention undoubtedly will be centered on the genome, with greater appreciation of its significance as a highly sensitive organ of the cell that monitors genomic activities and corrects common errors, senses unusual and unexpected events, and responds to them, often by restructuring the genome.”[7]. (My bold)