Consciousness: Egnor on dualism: another example (General)

by David Turell , Friday, August 24, 2018, 23:22 (2281 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: That our consciousness is part of God's has never changed.

dhw: You still haven’t explained your unintelligible translation theory. I hope this means you’ve quietly withdrawn it.

Never! Thoughts are fully represented by the brain's electric waves. Whatever solves the problem of consciousness translates them back

DAVID: Not so. I use my brain to think. I control my brain . It does nothing until I tell it to act. That is the material side of the issue. I view your thought at totally confused.

dhw: Yet again you separate your soul from you! “You” in your dualistic life are your soul and your brain. Your soul uses your brain and controls your brain and your brain does nothing until your soul tells it to act.

You've separated again: I am my soul and we together use the brain to think.

dhw: You say the soul does what we do. THAT separates soul from us! Soul and brain are the two parts of your dualistic self. The soul part of you uses the brain part of you to think (in the manner I keep describing).

And I keep rejecting, because you refuse to accept the electricity as representing the thoughts created

DAVID: Having the brain invent consciousness is materialism.

dhw: Not invent. Produce. Yes, my theory attempts to reconcile materialism and dualism by inverting the conventional approach, and showing how materials might produce a soul.

The consciousness we experience is presented by the soul; consciousness by itself is not the soul . your inverted mechanism is still materialism.

DAVID: […] When Libet asked his subjects to think and timed EEG results why did he measure EEG timing ?

Why must you muddy the waters with Libet’s experiments? They support the belief that the brain initiates thought, and so we do not have free will. Dualists object. If anything, I can use Libet to support my theory.

The point is Libet was measuring latency periods for thought by measuring electric wave appearances as his subjects responded to him. He was thinking of thought as I do! Most studies do this, assuming that thought is electricity; again the material side of the problem that upsets you so much..

xxxxxx

DAVID: This article is about a scientist who studies comatose patients and others who have brain damage and might or might not be conscious and may or may not have consciousness:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-can-we-tell-if-a-comatose-patient-is-con...

QUOTE: It remains to be discovered whether the brain is the entire story. Scientific research has to be conducted with an open mind. The topic of consciousness is rife with philosophical implications and questions.

dhw: Absolutely. Hence dualism and materialism, and my attempt to reconcile the two.

And mine. Note he approaches brain waves as representing the the ability to think and possibly act on the thoughts as represented by EEG and scans.