Immunity: detecting dangerous bacteria (Introduction)

by dhw, Saturday, November 25, 2017, 08:32 (2556 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Autonomous intelligence results from having consciousness, for which the brain is a receiver. Consciousness is not created by the brain. It exists separate from it and when received is used by the brain (soul). We've been over all of this.

dhw: We have indeed, and you are still getting confused! Since when did you regard the brain as the soul? We have agreed time and again that if there is such a thing as the “soul”, that is what does the thinking and the brain provides information and then obeys the “soul’s” instructions. And so if consciousness (and hence autonomous intelligence) is not created by the brain – which is only a receiver – and according to you can survive the death of the brain, how can you claim that only an organism with a brain can have consciousness and autonomous intelligence?

DAVID: We are still in full agreement about souls. The parenthetic 'soul' simply was a reminder that the brain was the operating point for the soul. I accept God's consciousness is everywhere, but only brains 'receive' useful consciousness with which they can functionally think.

I don’t know about “accept”. You believe your God’s consciousness is everywhere, except apparently in bacteria, which are automatons that have no idea what they’re doing, and in immune cells, which learn about bacteria by experience and change their DNA to fit their discoveries but are also automatons, because without a brain apparently nothing can be autonomously intelligent. I don’t know how you distinguish between consciousness and “useful” consciousness, and I don’t know how brains can “functionally think” if the thinking is done by the “soul”. And I still don’t understand how consciousness (autonomous intelligence, the soul) “exists separate” from the brain (see first quote above), can even live on when the brain is dead, but cannot exist without a brain. In brief, your response is somewhat confusing.