Consciousness: Egnor on dualism: another example (General)

by dhw, Monday, August 27, 2018, 09:53 (2062 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Usual answer. My soul is not separated from me, as you constantly imply.

dhw: Never implied. In dualism, I am my soul and my body/brain. Look at your own comment: “My soul and I think together using the brain as described.” THAT is a separation of my soul and me, and you keep doing it!

DAVID: My soul is me. All I mentioned is both parts, which does not imply separation.

If my soul AND I use the brain, there are three parts. You do it all the time. Once more: the dualistic self consists of soul and brain/body.

DAVID: In material life I use my brain to think. My thoughts are those electric waves we see on EEG. How they are created in electric waves and then appear in our minds as words is the mystery of consciousness.

dhw: The electric waves come from the brain. If they are thoughts, then the brain is the source of thought, and that is materialism. If the dualist’s soul is the source of thought, then the waves are the result of thought.

DAVID: Separate again. In life I/soul think by using the brain, not the soul alone!

There is no separation of soul and ME. There is a distinction between soul and brain/body, which are the two parts of the self that work together in life. Meanwhile, do you or do you not agree with my two "ifs"?

DAVID: I am my soul, no separation, and I propose the soul has a mechanism to accomplish the conversions into electricity and out again. My soul does not think for me.

dhw: Your soul IS you, and so once again apparently you/your soul thinks thoughts, converts them into electric waves through the brain, then converts them back again into the thoughts you/your soul started with. No matter how often you repeat the theory, it still doesn’t make sense.

DAVID: What doesn't make sense to you is the hard problem of consciousness. Those electric waves are thought in a material form.

What doesn’t make sense to me is your whole translation theory. Nobody has solved the “hard problem of consciousness”, which is why we have different theories. The material form of thought is expression, which comes about through the use of electricity. If the soul thinks, it directs the brain to give material expression to the thought. It makes no sense for the soul to think, have its thoughts translated into electric waves and then sent back again for it to translate into its original thought, which it then sends back again to the brain to translate into material expression (e.g. speech).

DAVID: [...] any immaterial entity arising/created from the material is materialism.

dhw: That is not a rebuttal of the theory! Please explain why you think it impossible for your God to have created a material mechanism that produces an immaterial soul.

DAVID: I don't think souls arise from material forms. God breathed a soul into Adam making him a living being, to quote the Bible.

I know what you believe. That doesn’t explain why you think it is impossible for your God to have created a material mechanism that produces an immaterial soul.