A THEORY OF INTELLIGENCE Part Two; addendum (Identity)

by dhw, Tuesday, July 31, 2018, 10:25 (2306 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: I am me and my soul is me. No separation. When I think my soul thinks, because in life we are one and the same. You are the separatist. For you only the soul thinks.

DAVID: In life I am a material me, and I run everything. I view the soul as recording all of me as I live and develop and producing the immaterial consciousness we cannot otherwise explain.

dhw: I am not separating me from my soul but am doing precisely what you have just done: distinguishing between the two parts of the dualist’s self (the “me”), which are the immaterial soul/mind and the material body/brain. […]

DAVID: I start from the recognition of material existence and the obvious use of the brain by me.

I think we all recognize our material existence. It’s the immaterial existence that’s problematical (materialism versus dualism). Your dualistic “me” consists of your soul and your material self, as you bolded above. And yes indeed, your soul uses your material self, as below.

DAVID: God's consciousness is also me when I use it to create conscious thought. Your theory makes God consciousness gift to me independent of the brain. It is inconsistent.

Your piece of God’s consciousness, according to you, is your soul, which is "you". Your soul doesn’t use your soul to create conscious thought. Your soul creates conscious thought. In life it is not “independent” of the brain, because it needs the brain to provide information and material expression, and you have offered no other “use” except a translation theory, which mercifully keeps disappearing.

DAVID: The living "me" initiates all thought, as I have free will and my soul reflects it.

Your living “me” consists of your soul and your brain/body. Now all of a sudden both your soul and your brain/body initiate thought, whereas previously the soul initiated thought. What does “reflects” mean? If the soul IS you, what does it “reflect”?

DAVID: So what is my soul? It is an immaterial recording immaterial reflection of me, much like a CD in my computer as I create a file of my thoughts. But unlike a material CD it is a living immaterial copy of me.

dhw: But you keep telling us that your soul IS you. Why does it have now to be a copy of you? Yes, it records what it and your material body experience in life. That is called memory. But doesn’t it also process information, feel emotions, make decisions?

DAVID: You are fighting an old concept of mine. I've changed my theory to better express how I feel about how my soul represents me.

You change your theory from day to day. My soul represents my soul and my brain/body, instead of processing information, feeling emotions etc. Meaning?

DAVID: And my soul is the immaterial source of consciousness as it resides within me since it is connected to God's universal consciousness to which it returns in death.

dhw: Thank you for this. Yes, the soul is the dualist’s source of consciousness, which is what I keep telling you.

DAVID: Don't thank me. I view the soul as creating consciousness for me from electricity I create as I think.

So now this representation or reflection of you creates consciousness. Why can’t the piece of God’s consciousness (your soul) simply BE conscious? And once again, you are separating your dualistic “I” from your soul. If the soul is the immaterial source of consciousness, then it is the immaterial source of thought. If the soul creates electricity as the soul thinks, the soul is already thinking, and so the electricity must be the product of the dualist’s conscious thought, not its creator.

dhw:… [the soul] is the immaterial thinking, feeling, decision-making you, which in life works together with the material information-gathering, materially expressing you.

DAVID: Not if it is just a reflection of me, my new view.

You keep saying your soul IS you, just as your material self is the other part of you – see the start of this post. But now your soul is not you, it’s a reflection of your soul and your body/brain. So it doesn’t actually do anything, but reflects what it is doing. Meaning?

DAVID: In life I am in charge. In death the soul exists as a representation of me.

So in life your soul and your brain are in charge, except that your soul only reflects your soul and your brain, and in death it represents the reflection of your soul and your brain. It doesn’t think, feel, remember…it just represents thinking, feeling, remembering. Meaning?

DAVID: Our criticism of each other does produce deeper and perhaps more important considerations. We are still not close.

I like the ambiguity of your last comment! Your theories leave us far apart, except that you keep confirming every statement I make about dualism. But then, as I noted last time, you scrabble around with theory after theory to find ways of reconciling or ignoring the dichotomy between dualism and materialism. On the other hand, we are still not “close” to solving the great mystery. However, at least my “theory of intelligence” offers an explanation in which you have so far failed to find any logical flaws.