Consciousness: and brain damage (General)

by David Turell , Wednesday, January 10, 2018, 15:02 (2507 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: […] the brains suddenly enlarged in each new stage and then the products of that new-sized brain appeared. That sequence tells us the new cortex could produce new thoughts and concepts, whereas the smaller brain could not.

dhw: But according to you, the cortex does NOT produce thoughts and concepts! You keep forgetting that you are a dualist!

I never forget I am a dualist as I sit in front of my computer, from which I am totally separate. I view ( and you refuse to do so) my brain as a wet biologic computer which I (s/s/c) use within my body, but the s/s/c is a separate software as shown by NDE's.

dhw: However, if the cortex is indeed the producer of thoughts – materialist view, which may well be correct – it is perfectly feasible that individual old cortexes produced new thoughts and concepts (you don’t seem to recognize that just like sapiens some individual hominids might have been cleverer than others), but these required additional abilities for their implementation, and so just as the illiterate women’s brains rewired themselves IN RESPONSE to new concepts, the pre-sapiens brain expanded IN RESPONSE to the need for new abilities, i.e. the implementation of the concept was the cause of the expansion.

Twisted thought, backwards. An existing large cortex shrinks with use! These is no evidence that new desired uses forces expansion, but it is a neat theory to avoid God.

DAVID: The mental processes are biochemical processes at the base of consciousness functioning. But they are the living wet hardware!

dhw: Once again, you the dualist are telling us that mental processes are biochemical!

Of course they are! Read above.

DAVID: You keep refusing to accept my analogy that the brain is used as a computer by the s/s/c and for the living person, the brain is the access to the s/s/c. After death that connection is not required.

dhw: The computer analogy leads to nothing but confusion. What is your dualistic self/soul/consciousness if it’s not the living person?

My s/s/c is immaterially existing within me and can separate from me. NDE's!

dhw: So apparently the brain is the living person’s means of access to the living person. What does that mean? If the s/s/c is NOT confined to biochemical processes (your dualism), then mental processes are NOT biochemical processes, and no amount of obfuscation with computer analogies can disguise this contradiction! (See “learning new tasks” for yet more computer obfuscations).

Just try to imagine what I clearly see. Our personalities cannot be seen or felt. I know your personality but I can't see it or touch it. But I can see your face in my memory and recognize it, all immaterial. All of us are wet biology with functional immaterial s/s/c's existing in us to run the brain.