A THEORY OF INTELLIGENCE Part Two; addendum (Identity)

by dhw, Friday, July 27, 2018, 11:58 (2103 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: I'll repeat it again. My soul is me. I know that I create thought in life by using the brain networks. Therefore the soul uses the brain networks to create its/my thoughts. Why do you try to separate your soul from you?

dhw: I don’t. I keep asking you the same question! And I also keep asking you what other “uses” the soul makes of the brain besides information and material expression. And then you tell me that “thought is created by electrical activity in the brain”, and the waves are translated into English by the soul, although elsewhere you have told me that the English-speaking soul initiates the thoughts and the brain makes no contribution.

DAVID: I have always thought the brain contributes its networks for I/soul to use to create/form thoughts, despite how you have tried to interpret what I write.

Back you go to “use”, and back I go to asking, as above: what other uses?

DAVID: My brain networks allow me to receive God's consciousness. It is his gift to us.

dhw: A moment ago you accused me of separating “me” and the soul. Now you have your soul “receiving” your soul (a piece of God’s consciousness) thanks to the brain networks.

DAVID: That doesn't separate the soul from me.

If you are your soul, and your God’s consciousness is your soul, how can your soul receive your soul? Or are you now separating your soul from your God’s consciousness?

dhw: And you haven’t answered my question. Why can’t God’s consciousness be conscious in life and death? Also see below.

DAVID: I don't see why it can't be.

Thank you. So if the soul is conscious in life and in death, why do we need all this rigmarole about it having to translate its thoughts into electrical waves and then translate them back again into English in order to be conscious in life?

DAVID: I'll repeat: I/soul drive/originate the thoughts created through the electricity in the brain networks. The networks never can do it on their own as you try to imply about my theory.

dhw: If your soul “originates” the thoughts, in what way are they “created” by the electricity in the brain?

DAVID: Because the soul initiates and uses the networks to create the thought just as I do in life. I know I can't originate a thought without the networks in action. I am my soul. The logic is obvious.

Why are you comparing what your soul does to what you do? You ARE your soul, as you keep forgetting and then remembering. So back we go: the same piece of God’s consciousness can’t think without a brain (life) until it can think without a brain (death), though above you can’t see why it shouldn’t be conscious in life and in death.

dhw: If you/your soul has a thought, is it not a thought until it’s been “translated” into electricity? One of your theories was that the soul then translated the thought back into English, so that the soul could presumably understand the English thought that was translated into electricity. Does this make any sense to you?

DAVID: I'm sorry you are so confused. Introspection will show you and your soul uses those network ions to think.

I agree that if there is such a thing as a soul, it uses the brain, but I keep asking what other “uses” there are besides information and material expression. All you can offer is your translation theory, which I’m afraid I do find utterly confusing.

DAVID: There has to be a material side to thinking. I think it is the soul that allows consciousness to appear from the material side, as you know.

dhw: I have immense difficulty understanding your theories, because firstly they keep changing, and secondly you use terms that cry out for explanation. What do you mean by the soul “allows consciousness to appear from the material side”? The soul, by your definition, IS consciousness – you call it a piece of God’s consciousness – and so if it is housed in the brain, yes, it “appears” from the brain when given material expression, but until then it stays in the brain.

DAVID: Because the soul, coming from God, contains the mechanism that creates consciousness from electricity in the brain networks.

So the piece of God’s consciousness, which you agree is conscious, has a mechanism which creates consciousness from electricity. Why does consciousness need a mechanism to create consciousness? Of course it makes perfect sense that your God might invent a mechanism of brain networks and electricity which produces consciousness. But that is the theistic theory you reject.