Big brain evolution: brain size and intelligence (Evolution)

by David Turell , Monday, April 09, 2018, 18:16 (2418 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: I have a very specific dualistic theory: the s/s/c functions differently in life and in death/nonfunction. In life it must use the brain it attaches to and use it with the ability the brain has to handle whatever level of complex thought it is built to handle/allow. Thus my statement above. In death the s/s/c acts as an independent entity by a different quantum mechanism.

dhw: We have agreed on all this, and it is not the issue! The issue is the roles played by the s/s/c and the brain IN LIFE. So once more: (a) do you believe that IN LIFE your immaterial thoughts are the product of your material brain, or (b) do you believe that you have an immaterial self that gathers information from and gives instructions to your material brain, so that your immaterial thoughts can be given material expression and/or implementation? Or are you stumped? (Dhw’s bold, with the insertion of the letters (a) and (b) to make it simpler!)

DAVID: I'm not stumped and happy with my conclusion. The s/s/c cannot IN LIFE work on its own! It must use the brain to gather information, to think and to develop instructions for the brain to move onto implementations. The brain and the s/s/c are tightly interfaced, not in any way separate as you constantly try to imply. The s/s/c is a quantum software using a material brain, but in death/ non-functional state it is a slightly different quantum software interfacing with the afterlife.

dhw: You have virtually repeated everything I have been saying for the last couple of years, but have modified it with tiny obfuscations. Let us ignore the fact that initially you were stumped like the rest of us but are no longer stumped, though we may have to come back to that!
Of course the s/s/c cannot work on its own in life, because it needs the brain to gather information and to give instructions that will enable implementation of its thoughts. But you have popped the word “think” in the middle. The s/s/c does the thinking, (my bold)

And that is our difference. My view is that in life the s/s/c cannot think without using the brain. You keep proposing there is some sort of separation in function between the s/s/c and the material brain. I (s/s/c) use my material brain to produce my immaterial thoughts. Same statement as always.

dhw: and you have ignored the question I asked you: “do you believe that IN LIFE your immaterial thoughts are the product of your material brain…etc”. “The brain and the s/s/c are tightly interfaced.” Of course they are, and I do not imply that they are “separate”, but that if dualism is correct they have different functions: the s/s/c does the thinking, and the brain does the information gathering and the implementing.

The brain must be used to do the implementation of the thinking mechanism supplied by the s/s/c. Without the brain the s/s/c will not produce thought in life. But what I am describing is a proposed material quantum mechanism in the brain which facilitates the brain to have consciousness and produce thought. That mechanism is a gift from God's universal consciousness. This is dualism in a different form from yours.

dhw: What happens in death is irrelevant to our discussion on the different roles in life, but it is blindingly obvious that an s/s/c without a brain will have to function differently from an s/s/c with a brain, since it will not be interfacing with materials. We would therefore appear to be in agreement on the different roles of the s/s/c and the brain IN LIFE, but to be on the safe side, perhaps you could just answer the bolded question above with a simple (a) or (b).

I'm close to your (b) but with nuanced changes as above. I look at the s/s/c mechanism as a quantum construct, differing in form in life and death.