A THEORY OF INTELLIGENCE Part Two (Identity)

by David Turell , Saturday, June 23, 2018, 18:41 (2344 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: 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!

dhw: “I” = your dualist’s soul. Yes, your dualist’s soul uses your brain to express thought. In your next sentence what requires more than the brain to do what? All your references to “it” are very confusing. However, you keep telling us that the soul requires the brain to do its thinking. So what requires the consciousness software (soul) to do what?

I don't understand why you cannot follow my reasoning. I view my soul software as initiating the process of thought, but to complete the entire formation of the thought requires use by the soul of the brain's frontal cortex networks, where it obviously is interfaced.

dhw: You persist in telling us the mechanism HAS to change because the soul HAS to depend on the brain for its ability to think, and I keep asking you WHY, but you never answer.

In theory, my reason is the obvious interface with the brain's networks to initiate thought as well as express it.

dhw: According to you the soul, the SEPARATE consciousness mechanism, is ALREADY a part of the universal consciousness, or a piece of God’s consciousness which he inserts into the brain. What purpose can it have, if not to think? WHY should a piece of God’s consciousness only be able to think when it is attached to a brain, and yet the same “SEPARATE consciousness mechanism” or part of the universal consciousness or piece of God’s consciousness can continue to think when it leaves the brain? Leaving the brain would only mean leaving its material means of observing and expressing, which we have agreed.

Again you want a single static mechanism for the soul to think in life and death. I see it working with the brain in life and without the brain in death, and therefore thinking with a different mechanism.

DAVID: 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.

dhw: It is not a defence of anything. It is an attack on the idea that a duality of mind/soul and body/brain depends on the brain for its capacity to think. If the brain produces thought, you have materialism, but I have offered you a compromise which removes this discrepancy!

Your usual distortion of my thoughts. The soul uses the brain to produce thought. The brain is not initiating thought all by itself, which is true materialism. You remain blind to my difference in my theory!

dhw: I’m reluctant to let this get lost in all the fluff, so here it is again, and again I invite you to find fault with it. Logically the expanding cell communities of the bigger brain can only “produce more advanced thought” if they are the source of thought.

The brain cells are not the source of thought. The soul is the initiator using the brain's networks for creation of the thought. You are certainly lost as you refuse to recognize the nuance of my theory.

dhw: However, in fairness to “pure” dualism, I find no logical discrepancy in the theistic theory that your God puts a piece of his consciousness into the brain to do the thinking – i.e. to absorb and process information delivered by the brain, and to instruct the brain to give material expression to its thoughts – and the same separate consciousness mechanism or piece of your God’s consciousness continues to be its thinking self when the brain dies. Can you, as a dualist and theist, find any logical flaw in that theory?

Your statement dos not include my theory that the soul is the initiator of thought by using the brain networks, to repeat over and over. Note you accept the soul relies on the brain to receive information in order to form thought. Why then not accept the soul uses the brain to form thought, all in one relationship with the brain?

dhw: If not, why do you see any logical NEED for the soul first to depend on the brain for its ability to think, and then to develop some vaguely different kind of ability to think in death?

It is logical in the way we see the soul interface with the brain. The vagueness is always present in all theories where science has not provided a clear picture. I view your cell community theory as equally vague, a stretch beyond any science I understand.