Introducing the brain: where the spiritual happens (Introduction)

by David Turell , Saturday, June 16, 2018, 14:59 (2350 days ago) @ dhw

dhw:... If I don’t mean what you mean by a different form, we are left with the following question:
dhw: […] what else changes? Why does anything else NEED to change, if the soul is already a “separate consciousness structure” which in both worlds uses and processes the information provided?

DAVID: Because the living brain is run by me, and we know where, if not how, thought is manufactured, it seems obvious to me a soul interlocked with brain circuits, then uses those circuits to initiate/produce thought. since it can't do that in death it changes its mechanism to operate a a solo thought processor.

dhw: Back you go to separating “me” from your soul! Your soul IS you. That is the identity supposed by dualists to survive the death of the body.

But that does not have to mean the soul uses the same mechanism to think in life and in death. I/soul use my brain to think in life, but have no brain in death, therefore the soul produces thought in death by a different mechanism. The soul/software in life changes to a hardened form in death, acting as both hardware and software. I have maintained this point always.

DAVID: It is just the same as me using my brain to produce thought which I 'hear' in my head.

dhw: Once more: you ARE your soul. And you use your brain/computer to give material expression to your thoughts, as you explain below with three exclamation marks:
dhw: So when you sit at the computer to write down your thoughts, you (your soul) has not yet generated any thoughts for the computer to write down. Your soul (you) “uses the computer to generate” the thoughts.

DAVID: In material form!!! But my soul has to use my brain to direct my fingers to respond appropriately as the thoughts in my brain appear!! […]

dhw: Precisely! Your soul uses your brain to give material form (implementation/expression) to the thoughts provided by the soul, which is housed in the brain. (What do you think the soul is doing, if the thoughts only “appear”?) You keep confirming my description of dualism, which you then keep rejecting.

Your words about the soul are interpreted differently by you and me. We are taking at each other. My point from above won't change:

"But that does not have to mean the soul uses the same mechanism to think in life and in death. I/soul use my brain to think in life, but have no brain in death, therefore the soul produces thought in death by a different mechanism. The soul/software in life changes to a hardened form in death, acting as both hardware and software. I have maintained this point always."

DAVID: How do you know that so assuredly when we do not know how consciousness arises? Especially when you state that without a brain the soul must operate by a different mechanism.

dhw: I don’t “know” or believe any of this. I am simply trying to explain what dualism means and entails. And I keep emphasizing that the “different mechanism” is that of observation and communication, because if the dualist’s “separate consciousness mechanism” or soul survives the death of the brain, clearly both processes will have to be psychic since there are no material means of observing and communicating. But the same SEPARATE consciousness mechanism will continue to analyze and respond etc. as it did in life, and as you keep agreeing and then disagreeing.

My answer is above, twice.