A THEORY OF INTELLIGENCE Part Two (Identity)

by David Turell , Friday, June 22, 2018, 19:01 (2345 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: What you quote includes your persistent misinterpretation of my theory. I view the soul in life as interfaced with the brain's networks and REQUIRED to use those networks in developing thought, just as the software of a computer enters the actual transistors to produce its work.

dhw: It is not a misinterpretation of your theory, but an argument against the logic of your theory, which purports to be dualistic but in fact is materialistic! (I remain neutral on the subject, but have offered a form of reconciliation.) I use your own quotes to point out how you contradict yourself. And so I keep asking you WHY a “separate consciousness mechanism” REQUIRES or NEEDS the brain to perform its function of thinking, and your only answer is that it does! I have no problem with the software/soul entering the computer/brain, but you know as well as I do that the transistors do not CREATE the programme/thought: they help to give it material implementation/expression. Hence the relevance of software/hardware as an analogy to the dualist concept of mind/body.

Of course the transistors express the thought. But since I own my brain and use it to express thought I think it requires more than the complex brain networks to do it. It requires a consciousness software which is part of the universal consciousness. Once again you have ignored my full theory, in order to claim it is materialism!

DAVID: Before a fresh new thought appears, where is it? It doesn't exist. It has to be created and expressed. I view my soul as an immaterial mirror image of the real me. In Death that image of me joins the universal consciousness which gives me the ability to actually think in the afterlife. Two different thought mechanisms for the soul.

dhw: Of course the new thought doesn’t exist until it is thought. And the creation and expression of thought are two different processes. If there is such a thing as a soul or “separate consciousness mechanism” or “piece of your God’s consciousness” (your terms) which he has inserted into the brain, WHY do you believe it is NECESSARY for it to be connected to the brain before it can think (as opposed to absorbing information and expressing thought materially, which DOES require connection to the brain)? WHY do you deem it impossible for the dualist’s soul to do the thinking in life, while the dualist’s brain does the expressing/implementing, and then for the same dualist’s soul to go on thinking in death (though changing its mode of observation and communication)?

You persist in presenting a static soul thinking mechanism, unchanged in life and death insofar as it thinks. I'm not arguing the reception of information which definitely requires the brain's input in life. But in death we both agree the telepathic reception of information and thought requires a different mechanism. So why can't thought operate differently in death, using a part of the universal consciousness? I see my theories as equal to your theories, which you present as a defense against my bigger brain produces more advanced thought theory about the evolution of the human brain.