A THEORY OF INTELLIGENCE Part Two (Identity)

by dhw, Sunday, June 24, 2018, 16:07 (2343 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID (from: “How plasticity works”) A soul which is the software using expanded brain size and complexity hardware to produce thought which is more complex than in previous species of homo. TWO parts, hardware and software are required for the thought to be originated.

Here you have the brain and the soul both being necessary for the origin of the thought, but...

DAVID: 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.

...here you have only the soul software initiating the process of thought. Which is it? And what exactly do you mean by the formation of the thought being completed by the soul’s "use" of the frontal cortex? Of course the concept will develop as the soul processes new information from the brain and gives further instructions in its efforts to give the concept material form, and that is the conventional interactive duality which you yourself have illustrated with your references to the soul enabling introspection and conceptualization and instructing the brain to use your fingers and computer. But you seem to be saying that as well as helping 50/50 to initiate the concept (statement one) the brain also helps out 50/50 in deciding what to do next (“to complete the formation of the THOUGHT”). This leaves us with the soul AND the brain as two separate consciousness mechanisms that must work together to initiate and develop thought, and so when the brain dies, the soul has to find another separate consciousness mechanism because…and this gets really confusing…although it initiates the thought process (statement two), it can’t think of any new thoughts (= initiating the thought process) unless it is coupled with a brain that also thinks (statement one). Once more, what is your objection to the clear dualistic split into thinking soul (initiating and developing thought) and information-supplying, materially expressing/implementing body/brain? And I still await objections to my reconciliation theory.

The rest of your post deals with the same problem.