Big brain evolution: brain size and intelligence (Evolution)

by David Turell , Tuesday, April 10, 2018, 15:24 (2417 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: “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.
DAVID: The brain must be used to do the implementation of the thinking mechanism supplied by the s/s/c.

dhw: Agreed.

DAVID: 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.

I’ve sat here trying to puzzle this out, but you’ll have to help me. The idea that there is a material quantum mechanism which enables the brain to have consciousness and produce thought means nothing more to me than that somehow or the other the material brain produces consciousness and thought – which is clearly pure materialism. But “that mechanism is a gift from God’s universal consciousness” is not clear at all. If you mean that your God gave us a material mechanism which enabled us to think, OK. Materialists call it the brain, but call it a material quantum mechanism if you like. However, if you mean that the mechanism is a part of your God’s own consciousness, then is his own consciousness a material quantum mechanism?

See below.

DAVID: I look at the s/s/c mechanism as a quantum construct, differing in form in life and death.

dhw: You said that in life it was a material quantum mechanism. You have agreed that in death your s/s/c is still you: NDE patients, whose brains are non-functional, are aware of what is happening around them, whether in the operating theatre or in another world, and when it’s the latter they can communicate and even express their own wishes (some do not want to return). Clearly the mechanism for consciousness in death has to interact differently with its new surroundings (e.g. using telepathy), but are you now saying that although it retains all the attributes (thought, memory, emotion etc.) it had when inside the brain, it suddenly becomes an immaterial quantum construct? Is there such a thing? If there is, why would your God need to manufacture a material one? Why wouldn’t the immaterial one perform the same thinking/remembering/feeling functions inside the brain as outside it, and as we have agreed over and over again, use the brain simply to gather information and give material expression and implementation to its thoughts?

I view a purely quantum mechanism as pure quantum energy in an immaterial form. This is why we have had so many discussion of quantum reality and trying to understand the uncertainty of how we view it and try to understand it. Quantum reality underlies our universe and is the basis of it in my view. God's consciousness is quantum reality, pure energy, and we have a portion of it in our brains where it interfaces with the living us.