Dualism versus materialism (Identity)

by dhw, Tuesday, July 18, 2017, 08:32 (2684 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: This was my statement: As long as my soul/me is in charge of this seamless mechanism, I'm OK with your statement. I view me, in life, as material with my soul onboard in my brain as immaterial.
This is a perfect dualistic statement that you have trouble accepting. I am, as I live, occupying a material body with a material brain, but that is working with an immaterial self/consciousness that is seamlessly interconnected, and the self/consciousness will disconnect at death and rejoin the universal consciousness.

I have no trouble with this dualistic statement. The trouble I have is that it directly contradicts your later statement that it is your material self that is currently in charge of running your immaterial self!

dhw: This is the nub of our dispute. The material self is the body including the brain. Your latest statement means that you now think your body/brain runs what you call the immaterial self (the “soul”), which puts “you” at the mercy of your neurons and chemicals.
DAVID: Of course, my body/brain responded in my earlier life to fright (adrenalin), pretty women (testosterone directed to my male parts with lust), etc. My material body is directly connected to my brain responses, but my thoughts, my intentions, etc. always appeared as immaterial concepts.

Once again you are ignoring the contradictions I keep pointing out. Was your material testosterone in charge, or your immaterial will?

DAVID: Dualism means two parts. I see the two parts clearly. You don't. In life I have a wet material brain which I (immaterial) control, using the mechanism of immaterial consciousness which was received by my brain. That advanced degree of use in my sapiens brain is possible because of the advanced complexity of that brain which allows that degree of use…

Of course dualism means two parts, and I am the one who keeps trying to clarify their roles, as in the proposal you agreed to earlier: that in dualism the brain (largely through the senses) provides the immaterial self with information and allows material implementation of the self’s ideas. Now once again you are saying that it is the immaterial self (“soul”) that controls or is in charge of the brain. The testosterone example above illustrates your confusion: Do you agree that the will is part of your immaterial self? If so, how can you claim that “my material self in life is currently in charge of running my immaterial self/consciousness”?
Your sentence beginning “That advanced degree of use…” is a complete fudge: in your dualistic world, whatever size brain you have will “allow” use by the immaterial self, but that does not make immaterial ideas dependent on the size of the material brain! You agreed before that it was the IMPLEMENTATION of the ideas that depended on the size of the brain. Now we are back to the simple question which you resisted answering for so long: do you believe that the material brain is the SOURCE of your ideas, thoughts, emotions, will etc. (materialism) or that these stem from your immaterial conscious self or “soul” (dualism)? Skip the fudge.