Introducing the brain (Introduction)

by David Turell , Tuesday, June 05, 2018, 14:47 (2361 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: We do differ. In life I think the soul uses the brain networks to think. You don't.

dhw: First you manufacture a “mid-air” difference, and then you scurry back to the ambiguity of “uses...to think”. So let’s try to pin this difference down. I say that the dualist's soul is the thinking part of the self that uses the brain to gather the information it thinks about, and then instructs the brain to give material expression and implementation to its thoughts through the brain’s network of connections with the rest of the body. Please tell me what you disagree with in this version of dualism.

DAVID: I've been quite clear in the past, as I was in the sentence that precedes your comment above. In life the soul uses the brain's networks to think. That is unchanged.

dhw: “Uses the brain networks to think” may be clear to you, but it is not to me, and that is why I have tried to resolve the ambiguity above, explaining the different FUNCTIONS of the two parts that make up the dualist’s self. Do please tell me what you disagree with in the version of dualism I have offered.

Your statement: " I say that the dualist's soul is the thinking part of the self that uses the brain to gather the information it thinks about, and then instructs the brain to give material expression and implementation to its thoughts through the brain’s network of connections" does not describe WHERE the soul 'thinks' about the info it uses the brain to gather in order to instruct the brain to express. I say it uses the brain's own networks. You say that the soul doesn't do that is the impression I get from your statements.

dhw: What do you mean by “action”? We have agreed that the soul (if it exists) must use different modes of observation and communication in the two different realms. Again you are manufacturing a difference between us. The conundrum you refuse to recognize is your insistence that the same soul is incapable of THINKING without the brain except when there is no brain to think with.

DAVID: Difference not manufactured! Two mechanisms in two different realms. Same basic soul personality at the core.

dhw: No difference here. Unless you are referring to “mechanisms” other than those of observation and communication. If so, please tell us what they are. The same “basic soul personality” has to include the ability to think, feel, remember etc., unless you believe you can be you without these attributes. But according to you, in life the immaterial soul does not have this ability because this ability depends on the brain, and yet in death the same immaterial soul does have this ability without the brain. That is where the incongruity lies.

Why can't you accept the soul functions differently in life and death in its thought mechanisms? We are both theorizing.