Big brain evolution: learning new tasks (Evolution)

by David Turell , Wednesday, April 25, 2018, 20:21 (2402 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: There is no confusion on my part. Dualism means TWO: one is material and the other immaterial, no matter how interdependent they are, and this two-ness only applies to life. Yes, I think in words (but I also have feelings, which are not words), and they are immaterial until I use my materials to speak them or write them. I don’t know what you mean by “implement the active thought to the living person”. If there is a “soul”, it is the source of the living person’s thought, and interacts with the living person’s material self in order to give material expression or implementation to their thoughts. Of course an immaterial soul in an immaterial world must operate differently but, as you have agreed in the past, you will still be “you” if there is an afterlife. “You” are then your thinking soul and – a point you steadfastly go on ignoring – it is NDEs, i.e. the experience of a separate thinking “you” or “soul”, that provides believers with their evidence for dualism in life, i.e. a thinking “soul” and a materially implementing brain/body.

DAVID: I don't ignore NDEs. I don't know where you got that idea. They are the reason I stick firmly to dualism. I agree with your review above. It is my insistence upon identifying how the parts of the brain the s/s/c interacts with that bothers you.

dhw: I didn’t say you ignored NDEs. What you ignore is the fact that they are used as evidence for the existence of TWO components in our living selves: 1) the immaterial “soul”, which is the thinking self and lives on, and 2) the material brain and body which gather information and express or implement thought. I am not in the least bothered by your identifying which parts of the brain the s/s/c interacts with. I am bothered by your insistence that your God had to expand pre-sapiens’ brain before pre-sapiens could come up with new ideas, which means that the soul depends on the brain to be able to think, which in turn directly contradicts the whole basis of your dualism.

Obviously I don't agree with your interpretation of my theories. I am totally aware of what NDE's mean. But I insist that the soul must interface with the brain in life to produce recognizable thoughts: the software/hardware analogy. I am me. You are you. You direct your brain to think as I do. We cannot separate from our brains except in NDE or death. You keep presenting the s/s/c as a totally separate entity from the living brain. It isn't and it is developed as a personality from birth. The s/s/c is structured as a personality unique to each individual. The memory of that structure is carried by the brain. The two are inextricably intertwined in life. Consciousness, as a result, is the HARD problem. You and I have not solved it, as shown by our differing views. Dennett is convinced it is totally an illusion.

I know I initiate thought. I just did and manifested it through my somewhat trained fingers. No monkey can do that with any sense of purpose. I know I made the thought initiated in my prefrontal cortex, which then told my motor cortex what to do. Immaterial thought appeared in this material entry. Obvious dualism.