Consciousness: Egnor on dualism: another example (General)

by dhw, Saturday, August 04, 2018, 09:21 (2302 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: So either the mind reorganized it (dualism), or it reorganized itself in order to produce the same “normal” mind (materialism).

DAVID: A six year old cannot tell his mind to think I must redo my surgically destroyed lobes so I maintain my IQ. We know it happens automatically with brain plasticity, but I can understand the mind/soul containing a mechanism of direction for plasticity.

dhw: What is a “mechanism of direction”? If the soul directs the reorganization of the brain, you have dualism, and the reorganization is not “automatic”. If the brain reorganizes itself, you have materialism, but that is not automatic either, as is clear from this quote:
“They also note that in a recent review of similar cases, published by two of the authors, recoveries weren’t nearly so promising. They suggest the boy’s case may have been helped by the fact his pre-operative cognitive function was at a high level, and that his slow-growing tumour gave the brain enough time to re-home some of those visual tasks.”

dhw: You could hardly have a clearer pointer to the brain being the source of intelligence, and in this case the brain cells working out what needed to be done. In other cases, the brain cells were not intelligent enough to do it.

DAVID: I suspect in his developing brain, the pressure of the growing tumor stimulated some corrective plastic changes before the ablation surgery occurred. Somehow plasticity is related to level of cognition, which suggests the soul is involved in plasticity.

If plasticity of the brain is related to the level of cognition, and in this case the brain was given enough time to re-hone some of the visual tasks, it suggests to me that the brain is related to the level of cognition and also does the re-honing! I see no suggestion anywhere of a soul doing anything at all.