Introducing the brain: where the spiritual happens (Introduction)

by dhw, Sunday, June 17, 2018, 12:14 (2349 days ago) @ David Turell

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.

DAVID: 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.

Your basic premise always seems to be that in life, despite your dualism, the soul does not have the ability to THINK without the brain. If your God inserts a piece of his consciousness, or “separate consciousness mechanism” into your brain, what function does it have if not to think, to “analyze and respond” to information provided by the brain, and to give instructions to the brain to implement its thoughts (to all of which you keep agreeing)? Last Thursday again you agreed that it was the SAME separate consciousness mechanism in life and in death, but now suddenly it is different because it is “hard”! You have never before told us that the immaterial soul becomes “hardened” in death, and I have no idea what you mean. We have agreed that in death the dualist's soul must fulfil the expressing/implementing function of hardware by using psychic methods, but its software function of providing the thoughts that require expression/implementation will remain unchanged. Below is your own example of how soul and brain interact in life, and your changed and “hardened soul” (whatever it means) is totally unnecessary once you accept your own account of the interaction between soul and brain:

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.

DAVID: 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…

Your point is that the immaterial separate consciousness mechanism, or piece of your God’s consciousness, is unable to think without the brain, and so when the brain dies the already separate mechanism or piece of God's consciousness, becomes ‘hard’ and then it can think. How about this for a hypothesis? Your piece of your God’s consciousness or “soul” or “separate consciousness mechanism” is the ABILITY TO THINK. He inserts it into the material brain, and it thinks about the information provided by the brain, instructs the brain to give its thoughts material form, and when the brain dies it returns to God complete with all the thoughts it has thought during life, and is still able to perform the same function of thinking, though it now uses immaterial (psychic) methods of observing and communicating. What objections do you have to this description of dualism, which dispenses both with a materialistic dependence on the brain for the ability to think, and with some nebulous “hardening” of the soul in death, and is completely consistent with the processes you described on 9 June and above, in which your soul uses your brain to direct your fingers to give material form to the thoughts which it (the soul) has created from inside your brain?