A THEORY OF INTELLIGENCE Part Two (Identity)

by dhw, Friday, July 06, 2018, 10:38 (2331 days ago) @ David Turell

Dhw: The complexification of the concept must precede the complexification of the networks which are to express the concept. It makes no sense for the networks to complexify themselves in advance of the concept they have to express!

DAVID: This is totally backward. I view my relationship to my brain as if I am siting at my computer creating a more complex output than I could with my last, less complex computer.

“I” is your thinking soul, and you use your computer to express your thoughts materially.
Your more complex computer does not think the more complex thoughts you express when using it, although it will provide you with information to think about if you ask it to, and it will provide the material “appearance” you describe below.

DAVID: […] Your soul is filled with immaterial memories of your life. As I type at the computer I must spell from memory or use the spell check the computer supplies. The only material appearance is on the screen or printed paper.

Yes, your soul uses the computer to give material expression to its immaterial thoughts, memories, imaginings, concepts. You keep repeating my own arguments, and making it seem that you disagree with me!

DAVID: Further we find that only certain brains are of a genius quality. Why the difference unless their brains are different from the low IQ folks?

You still can’t see that if the different brain is the cause of the genius, that is evidence for materialism, not dualism.

DAVID: Soul/I/you drives thought which it makes in the brain networks and it appears as immaterial thought to you/I. The soul is an immaterial mechanism which makes thought appear to us immaterially from wet ion filled neurons connected by wet dendrites, all of which are material.

If immaterial thoughts “appear from” material neurons and dendrites, we have materialism. If the latter are the means by which we give the “soul’s” immaterial thoughts material expression, we have dualism.

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DAVID: As explained above soul drives the thought process by using the brain networks as its tool, but what it also does is makes it appear as immaterial thought to us in a way we don't understand.

Agreed. Nobody understands how thought “appears”. Dualists believe in a soul that uses the brain to gather information and give its thoughts material expression, as you describe with your computer image, whereas materialists believe the brain is the source of thought, as you suggest with your references to Einstein and to neurons and ions.

dhw: The dualist’s soul is what you have described as a SEPARATE consciousness mechanism, which is interlocked with the brain. It does all the thinking, which is why dualists believe that it constitutes the thinking self which survives the death of the brain.

DAVID: That is not the way I view the soul and I've stated that over and over. That is YOUR dualism concept. My view of the soul is that it drives thinking using the brain networks and makes it appear as immaterial thought.

No difference at all. The soul does indeed use the information provided by the brain to come up with its immaterial thoughts, and you will not deny that it also uses the brain for material expression. You have never been able to describe any other function that the brain performs in the thought process.

dhw: In life, expansion/complexification are the consequence of its thinking, as illustrated by modern science.

DAVID: Only in the completely enlarged sapiens brain, the only one we have to study. Do you think erectus could do differential calculus or even think to invent it? The concept existed at their time of evolution. All those complex concepts existed before some bright mind found them.

Ah, so Shakespeare’s plays existed before Shakespeare wrote them. Believe that if you will. But to answer your question: no, I don’t think erectus could do differential calculus. I think pre-sapiens and sapiens have undergone a process of ever increasing learning, as one generation builds upon the discoveries and inventions of its predecessors. The soul, if it exists, has a great capacity for learning, and uses the brain to provide information and to implement its thoughts.

dhw: This supports your dualism. But modern science also shows that the brain affects the thinking (e.g. through drugs and diseases), which supports your materialistic theory that the brain changes before thoughts are initiated. I’m sorry you can’t see the dichotomy.

DAVID: No dichotomy. A sick brain makes the soul have sick thoughts, when recognizing the brain networks are used by the soul to think.

If the brain engenders sick thoughts, that is evidence that the brain engenders thoughts (materialism).

DAVID: The soul initiates thoughts which is it then fully creates using the networks, and then acts as a bridge to allow immaterial thoughts to appear, normal or sick.

Yes, in dualism, the brain is the bridge from the soul’s immaterial thoughts to their material expression. I do not believe for one second that your faulty computer makes you think sick thoughts. But that is where the dichotomy arises and the analogy breaks down: there is evidence that the bridge goes two ways, because faults in the brain DO cause people to think sick thoughts. Hence my attempt to explain how the two-way process might work, i.e. to remove the dichotomy which you refuse to recognize.