Consciousness: Egnor on dualism: another example (General)

by David Turell , Wednesday, August 29, 2018, 19:34 (2276 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: The soul can only think during material life if the brain is functioning and the soul uses it.

dhw: Yes, it can only think if it has something to think about, and the brain supplies it with information. This does not explain why the soul can’t think in words until the brain translates its thoughts into electric waves which the soul re-translates into the thoughts it had in the first place.

I am my soul and I/soul think using my brain. Yes, that is the materialistic side. The problem is how does electricity in the brain become words in my head.

DAVID: When the soul leaves the body in death it joins God's universal consciousness and thinks through that mechanism.

dhw: And according to NDEs does it think in electric waves or in words?

By using the universal consciousness of God it thinks in words.

DAVID: Straw man. The scientists use an atheistic approach to their science no soul involved.

dhw: You just told us that research scientists support your translation theory! Now you’re telling us they don’t. Research scientists interpret the electric waves materialistically, so why did you mention them?

Because I recognize brain research assumes a material side to thought. I'm sure you do to.

DAVID: The true 'hard problem' is how electric waves in the brain are heard as words in the brain, not your inventive description, in all I have read.

dhw: Yes, that is the problem for materialists: how do electric brain waves become thoughts in the brain? Dualists solve the problem by claiming that there is a SOUL which does the thinking (generally in words), and the soul uses the brain for information and for material expression, which both require electric waves.

I am not one of those dualists. I see you cannot think independently of that supposition.

dhw: I don’t know why you regard this conventional and perfectly straightforward view as “inventive”, especially by comparison with your translation theory which is so inventive that it has the English-speaking soul thinking gibberish until the brain translates the gibberish into electric waves which the soul then translates into English.

I'm simply accepting the materialist observation that the brain thinks in electric waves and explaining words in my head by the mechanism of soul.

DAVID: I think the immaterial has to be injected into the material.

dhw: I know you do. That is not a logical reason for rejecting the proposal that your God might have created a material machine which can produce immaterial consciousness. It’s simply a reaffirmation of your rigid belief.

DAVID: I said anything is possible for God. I just don't accept your proposal as likely.

dhw: Then clearly you can’t find any fault with the theory except that it isn’t your theory.

Theories are not proofs. We each have preferences. You will stick with yours, and I with mine