Free Will: Egnor shows neurological proof (Introduction)

by dhw, Wednesday, November 18, 2020, 11:23 (1466 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: I did not say independent experiences. I said the soul (if it exists) uses the brain to gather information and to implement its thoughts. It is the soul that does the thinking, not the brain. (Otherwise you couldn’t even have NDEs.) The fact that a diseased brain gives rise to diseased thought is a powerful argument against dualism.

DAVID: Our difference is the soul in life and death. While living the soul cannot think without the brain. In death or total loss of brain function the soul becomes free to in dependently think. My dualism is not your dualism, as previously noted many times.

While living, the soul cannot gather information or materially implement its thoughts without the brain. We could hardly live our material life without any means of perceiving and using materials! But the dualist's brain does not do the thinking, even in your form of dualism! Therefore it makes no sense to argue that the same soul which processes information from the brain can’t process the information that the brain is acting weirdly. And I thought the whole point of the NDE argument was to prove that there IS such a thing as the soul, and that it does all the thinking. Once again, a diseased brain giving rise to diseased thought suggests that the brain is the source of thought and is an argument against dualism.

dhw: You gave me the example of the IQ but proceeded to ignore it. Would you say your level of intelligence has had an influence on your decision-making?

DAVID: Sure it does, but my IQ is both inherited and developed by my own efforts to improve it. I'll stick with an intellect/personality 40% inherited, 40% experienced, and 20% self developed.

dhw: Since your intellect and personality are the decision-makers, already you can’t escape 40% of influences beyond your control!

DAVID: 40% is in the past and I am making a decision in the present with my personality formed from the past but acting in the present.

Yes, that is a somewhat truncated version of the second half of my argument (in favour of free will). But the first half argues that there is no escape from the influence of the past. The 40% you were born with, plus every other past “cause” that has been beyond your control, influences your present decision (argument against free will). Why can’t you acknowledge that there are two approaches to the subject, and the conclusion depends entirely on what you think free will is free from? The rest of your post circles round the same point.

DAVID: Romansh's point was our brain particles in action limited our free will since we depend upon them. I ignore that approach as not valid.

dhw: I have a very different memory of his approach, which was based entirely on the principle of cause and effect. I haven’t got time to look up his exact definition, but it was along the lines of decision-making independently of the universe. In other words, he defined it out of existence.

DAVID: That is what I meant by particles of the universe running our decision-making.

Sorry, I thought your reference to brain particles was a reference to brain particles.