A THEORY OF INTELLIGENCE Part Two (Identity)

by David Turell , Friday, July 06, 2018, 21:58 (2123 days ago) @ dhw

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?

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

You keep forgetting that in my concept the soul must use those complex genius networks to produce genius thought

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.

dhw: 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.

Again you have a separatist view; the soul does not dictate to the networks. it uses them to think.

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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.

dhw: 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.

Again ignoring my point that the soul must use the brain networks to actually think.

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.

dhw: 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.

Totally different: your separate soul dictates to the brain and I view the soul as using the brain networks to form thought.

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.

dhw: 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.

Silly! Math concepts are actually rigid, and simply must be found. Will's plays are inventions.

dhw: 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.

To the limits of the complexity of its brain networks

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.

dhw: 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.

My computer has and does produce bad results when it is sick and I have to get the IT guy on the phone to straighten it out. I know you've called Neil for help! I do not accept how you relate the soul to the brain because you are approaching dualism in an entirely different way. The soul having to use the material brain is not materialism. The brain thinking totally on its own is materialism, no soul involved.