A THEORY OF INTELLIGENCE Part Two (Identity)

by dhw, Thursday, June 28, 2018, 13:55 (2131 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: I see absolutely no difference between our versions! […] It is the soul that is in charge of the thinking and processing and immaterial development, and it USES the information from the brain to complete the concept and achieve “final expression”. What have I “twisted”?

DAVID: The difference is that I view the soul/me as unable to initiate a thought unless it is attached and uses the brain's networks in the initiation process. Your proposal does not recognize this relationship. You seem to have the soul, at a distance (however tiny a gap) dictating to the brain as a recipient.

dhw:The term “recipient brain” was yours, not mine! 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.” (Your post of Sunday June 24). The thinking soul and the recipient brain are the two parts of the dualistic self! But of course the active soul uses the “passive participant” brain (your term) in the initiation process: if it didn’t have the information provided by the brain, it would have nothing to think about! There is no gap. In our efforts to define dualism, I have never opposed your idea that in life the soul works from inside the brain and the two different parts of the dualistic self are interlocked. (And in my “theory” they are not just interlocked but are initially a single unit!)

DAVID:It seems as if you have finally accepted my ideas.

It seems as if you have finally agreed that there is no "twisting" and no difference between our versions of the nature of dualism, in which the soul, or “separate consciousness mechanism”, or “piece of God’s consciousness”, does the thinking and uses the passive, non-contributing brain to acquire information and to give material expression and implementation to its thoughts. Since you agree that the passive recipient brain does not initiate new thoughts, it is therefore illogical to argue that your God had to expand the pre-sapiens passive recipient brain before the “separate consciousness mechanism” could initiate new thoughts! It is equally illogical to argue that the same “separate consciousness mechanism” used in life requires a different consciousness mechanism in an afterlife. See below.

However, in our joint quest for “truth”, it is important to stress that the illogicality of your argument concerning the enlargement of the brain only relates to your concept of dualism. The enlarged brain as the source of increased intelligence is the materialist view, which is why I have been trying to reconcile the two approaches through my “theory”.

dhw: [..] in death the “SEPARATE consciousness mechanism” (again this is your coinage, not mine) is no longer interlocked with the brain. That is why it must use psychic means of observation (i.e. obtaining information) and communication as a substitute for the material means. But you keep insisting that in death this same separate consciousness mechanism, or “piece of God’s consciousness” – the mechanism that “enables introspection and conceptualization” (your term) – requires a different mechanism to fulfil exactly the same function as it performed in life! Why?

DAVID: You've raised the issue of psychic means in death. That is not the brain networks which you've agreed in life must be used. You've just admitted the mechanism of thought is different in death. I see the difference that requires a difference in mechanism: in life our consciousness may be a portion of the universal consciousness in a form that requires the brain networks, but in death it must operate in a different way. That is logical.

In dualism the “mechanism of thought” is the soul! In death the mechanism of thought is still the soul. There are not two different mechanisms of thought. There are two different mechanisms for observation and expression, one material (the “separate consciousness mechanism” uses the recipient brain for information and material expression) and the other psychic. That is the logical distinction you have agreed to above. And I think most dualists would believe that those psychic powers are already present during life, but in the majority of cases stay unused because the material world is dominant.