Consciousness: Egnor on dualism: another example (General)

by David Turell , Thursday, August 30, 2018, 18:21 (2066 days ago) @ dhw
edited by David Turell, Thursday, August 30, 2018, 18:48

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

dhw: 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.

I see no contradiction, since I don't accept your approach. I fully accept the idea that I/soul think by using my brain and its electricity. I see the soul as having a translation mechanism so I hear the words in my head. I will not change.

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.

dhw: 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.

Why should In drop it if this is what I believe? You have no idea if your type of soul mechanism is true.

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

dhw: 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).

I don't accept your form of dualsim.

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

dhw: 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.

To you, not to me because of my different starting point.

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

You can be conventional. I am not.

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.

dhw: 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.

Twisting me again. I/soul initiate and use the brain to create thought. The brain is simply a mechanism I/soul use.

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.

dhw: 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!

Why can't you think originally as I do? You simply will not accept that I/soul use the brain as a mechanism to think? We might as well move on as we never will agree. I've read Chalmer's essay and he looks at neuroscience as showing consciousness in brain waves but offers nothing like immaterial dualism to explain it. He is pure materialism.

http://www.consc.net/papers/facing.html