A THEORY OF INTELLIGENCE Part Two (Identity)

by David Turell , Sunday, June 24, 2018, 19:44 (2343 days ago) @ dhw

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.

dhw: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.

dhw: ...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”).

I am not saying what you seem to want to interpret. The soul drives the initiation of the thought and uses the brain networks to complete it. The brain does not initiate or contribute. The brain is a recipient of the working soul's output. This what I feel as I (soul) think and receive the thought.

dhw: 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).

You are repeating my idea that in the afterlife, the soul is connected with the universal consciousness in order to originate thought.

dhw: 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 add that the process involves the soul using the brain networks initiates and completes the thought.

dhw: And I still await objections to my reconciliation theory.

And my objection is still the same. You have the soul arising from the material brain through God's work, and I've agreed that it is possible God did it that way, but it becomes a material source of the soul and I don't view it as dualism but an extended form of materialism.