A THEORY OF INTELLIGENCE Part Two (Identity)

by David Turell , Saturday, May 05, 2018, 16:01 (2396 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: Which of your statements do you now stand by? That the s/s/c’s thought is proper, but the diseased brain does not express it properly (garbles it), or the diseased brain causes the s/s/c to think improperly?

The s/s/c must use the brain to think during life, so it is likely the s/s/c cannot produce a proper thought with a damaged brain, and may not be able to even form a proper initial thought. I view the s/s/c and The brain as entirely interdependent.

dhw: Then your use of the word “formation” above is another obfuscation. The s/s/c uses the brain to give the thought MATERIAL form. The thought itself, however, can hardly be a meaningless blob when it is initiated by the s/s/c, and if it has meaning it is already “formed” when it uses the networks. “To produce thought” is another obfuscation. The thought has already been produced (software), but the material production takes place through the brain (hardware).

Thought is always completely immaterial unless written or spoken and depends on the s/s/c using the brain networks in life.

DAVID: In this current discussion you have come across as a pure materialist.

dhw: In this discussion I am offering an explanation which reconciles materialism and dualism, and I do wish you would read the 5 Jan post I keep referring to under that thread. The basic argument is that the materials produce a form of energy which may continue to exist independently – just as light waves survive and we can see what happened in the past. You yourself believe in conscious energy which has an existence of its own, and you call it God. So why do you dismiss the possibility of your God creating materials which can produce conscious energy? That is the point where materialism can link up with dualism.

Your quote: "This ties in with two of the ideas we have already discussed: emergence, as the process whereby the property of the whole cannot be explained by the properties of its parts, and Sheldrake’s morphic field, which I take to mean all the attributes and information that comprise the identity of the individual. Once we think of consciousness in terms of energy produced by materials, and we link it to the analogy of the image produced by light, it seems to me that we have a reconciliation between materialism (materials are the source of consciousness) and dualism (the energy exists independently of the source)."

I have said that consciousness may well be a quantum energy mechanism in the brain (Penrose) which allows the appearance of consciousness, provided by God. It doesn't solve the problem of consciousness, but is a reasonable theory.

Under “Evolution of consciousness”
QUOTE: “Awareness is not the “special sauce” that brings dumb biological processes to subjective life but an emergent property of immensely complex neurological processes. This does not so much eliminate the mystery of consciousness as make it no more or less mysterious than the ultimately inexplicable existence of the universe itself."

DAVID’s comment: This book is a materialist view which invokes the uncertainty of of quantum uncertainty and completely ignores the evidence from NDE's. But he certainly emphasizes the enormous complexity of the brain.

dhw: The “emergent property” neatly summarizes the materialist argument I have tried to describe on this thread. But it does not consider any of the points I raise in my post of 5 Jan. under “Reconciling materialism and dualism”. The reconciliation I have attempted is no more than that, and of course it doesn’t eliminate the mystery of consciousness. But it does take NDEs into account, and it leaves open the possibility of an immortal soul.

Yes.