Consciousness: Egnor on dualism: another example II (General)

by David Turell , Tuesday, August 28, 2018, 18:40 (2277 days ago) @ dhw

David: Your rigid fixation on your concept of dualism is amazing. Of course this is all pure materialism, as it is the current concept of brain and thought with neuroscientists as they research. I accept this as true. The problem is the how we 'hear' the words in our heads, which you keep ignoring by having the soul think separately and dictating to the brain like a dictation machine.

dhw: According to your belief in an afterlife, the soul DOES think separately, so why do you think it can’t think separately in life as it processes information provided by the brain (but provided by psychic means in an afterlife) and instructs the brain to give its thoughts material expression (but expressing its thoughts psychically in an afterlife)?

Explained in previous Egnor entry. The soul/I use the brain in material life and the soul uses the universal consciousness in death.

DAVID: I believe the universe is mind centric under God:
https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/what-does-it-mean-to-say-mind-is-primary/

QUOTE:
1. Mind is the universal substrate of existence and experience, not matter.
2. There are universal and local principles by which mind operates and by which experience is generated.
3. There are many different kinds of experience one can have in mind, such as: consensual physicality (what we call the conscious, waking world); non-consensual physicality (such as dreams); non-physical & non-consensual thought & imagery (such as imagination, visualization); and consensual thought (such as self-evident truths, morality, logic and math). There are other kind of experience that are less accepted, but which have been researched successfully, such as consensual visualization, semi-consensual experience, and others.
It is my view that this is a much more elegant theory of experience than those which include an actual material-world component, because an actual material world is (1) philosophically unnecessary, (2) unsupported by the evidence, and (3) impossible to verify or validate outside of mental experience anyway."

dhw: I doubt if anyone will disagree that “there are many different kinds of experience one can have in mind”. As for the rest, I suggest as I have done many times before that the author should step in front of a bus and, if he survives, tell us if he still thinks that an actual material world is unsupported by the evidence. We both agree that in life we have a material brain, and our discussion concerns whether there is such a thing as an immaterial mind or soul, and if there is, what role it plays in life. The above goes to extremes in its rejection of a material world, so I don’t see how the author could possibly support your claim that in life the soul/mind can’t think without translating its thought into electrical waves from the material brain, which it then translates back into its original thought so that it can understand what it was thinking about in the first place. As far as he is concerned, even the brain is "unsupported by the evidence"!

I know you have problems with quantum/consciousness theories, but there is a immaterial mind without question and quantum reality is the basis of our reality. Ed Feser, a Catholic philosopher, in this video explains his view, using Descartes and Aristotle/St.Thomas as contrasting views. About 55 minutes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6GmCyKylTw