Consciousness: Egnor on dualism: another example (General)

by dhw, Thursday, August 30, 2018, 08:20 (2276 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: The problem is how does electricity in the brain become words in my head.

If you believe in a soul that thinks in words, the problem doesn’t arise. You have a problem because despite your dualistic belief in your thinking, English-speaking soul, you doggedly stick to the materialistic idea that thoughts are formed by electricity in the brain, but you can’t see the contradiction. (See also below.)

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?

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

If the dead person’s soul thinks in words, why can’t the live person’s soul (which you say is part of your God’s universal consciousness) think in words, instead of this pointless rigmarole of having its thoughts translated into waves and then translating them back again into words which it must have known from the start if it is able to use them in translation? David, this theory is an embarrassment. I do wish you would drop it.

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?

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

Yes, brain research favours materialism not dualism, let alone your translation theory. Of course there is a material side to thought: either the materials engender thought (= materialism), or there is a soul that engenders thought and uses the brain for information or material expression (= dualism).

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

My theory of intelligence is totally independent of that supposition. Your own form of dualistic materialism leads you to the unnecessary problem you create at the start of this post, and to a solution (your translation theory) which makes no sense.

dhw: I don’t know why you regard this conventional and perfectly straightforward view as “inventive”, especially by comparison with your translation theory.

DAVID: 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.

So now you “accept” that it’s the brain and not the soul that thinks, but the brain’s thoughts are gibberish until the soul translates them into words. Slightly different from the soul’s gibberish thoughts being translated into waves so that it can translate them back again into the words it knew in the first place. But just as muddled.

DAVID: 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.

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

I’ll be happy to have you pick holes in mine, but I do wish you wouldn’t keep falling down the holes in yours!