A THEORY OF INTELLIGENCE Part Two; addendum (Identity)

by David Turell , Saturday, August 04, 2018, 18:28 (2302 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: Not what I've proposed at all. My soul is immaterially conscious and produces consciousness for me from the electricity I create when I think.

dhw: You keep accusing me of separating the soul from "me", whereas this is precisely what you keep doing! If the soul IS you, you now have the soul BEING conscious and yet producing consciousness for the soul from the electricity the soul creates when the soul thinks? How can the soul think before consciousness has been produced?

Doesn't conscious thought have a beginning? An analysis of the role of soul, if it exists, has to start by recognizing physical/material evidence. The material me thinks with the brain networks. Somehow conscious thought appears to me. Logically if the soul is the immaterial essence of me, the soul and material I initiate thought together. I view this relationship much as we have discussed quantum reality. Quantum mechanics is the basis of our reality, but somehow the quantum basis is on the other side of a wall of uncertainty so we live in reality but suspect there is another reality across the 'wall'. ( Remember Ruth Kastner) I view my soul in the same way, based on the discoveries that consciousness appears to control the results of quantum experiments as in the late choice findings. Yes, my soul is my essence, but there may well be a wall of separation as my soul may exist primarily in quantum reality but finds expression in this reality through its contact with my brain. In this concept my soul is part of the quantum reality, which is the mind of God, which under girds the universe. When you follow this pattern thought, my view of what a soul might be makes sense. The immaterial quantum soul goes to the afterlife across the 'wall' to he quantum layer of reality where the afterlife exists.

DAVID: Tell us your concept and we can critically study it. How do you view your essence acting?

dhw: I’m surprised that you can’t remember my concept of dualism (not to be taken as belief in dualism). The self consists of two components: the immaterial soul and the material body/brain. The soul, or the “essence” of me, comprises all my immaterial attributes such as consciousness, thought, emotion, will, memory etc. In life it acts by using the body/brain to gather information and to give its thoughts material expression. When the body/brain dies, it survives as the same immaterial “essence” of me, but it uses psychic means to gather information and to communicate.

I know your definition. It doesn't include my considerations of the quantum portion of reality, or of how the soul might be the mechanism that produces consciousness from electricity. Note that Penrose has a theory about quantum activity intrinsic in the brain. Thought occurs only in the brain in reality. All analyses of the possible existence of a soul and how it functions must begin with that fact.