Free Will: Egnor shows neurological proof (Introduction)

by dhw, Thursday, November 26, 2020, 10:45 (1458 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: […] when the brain has a seizure, apparently the soul does NOT produce abstract thought. Why not, if it is the soul and not the brain that does the thinking? But how many patients have recovered and told you and Egnor all about the abstract thoughts they had during the seizure?

DAVID: The answer to your question is never. If the brain is the primary source of all thought (materialism) Egnor's point is a seizure should be able to produce such thought and never does. Seizures can produce all sorts of sensory experiences. I had a patient who smelled the ocean!

dhw: So the brain is able to provide information about the material world (sometimes false), but your patients’ souls never come up with abstract thoughts!

DAVID: Weird misinterpretation from nowhere. I've always stated the soul creates abstract thoughts and in life must use the brain circuits.

We are talking about the effects of seizures. The patient’s brain can apparently provide information, but apparently the soul can’t think about it. I asked you why not, and you have answered:

DAVID: The sick, let's say psychotic, brain stops the soul from rational thinking, since the soul is forced to use the brain to think with in life. Your dualism is muddled.

It is your dualism that is muddled. You have agreed that in life the dualist’s soul does the thinking and it uses the brain to provide information and implementation of its thoughts. So the soul should be able to think rationally about information provided by the sick, psychotic brain. It doesn’t. Your patients never tell you that during the seizure they had rational thoughts about what was happening to them. How, then, can you conclude that there is a soul that does the thinking if the soul can’t think when the sick brain sends it information (whether true or false)? The clear implication is that if the patient can’t think rationally when he/she has a brain seizure, it is because the brain is the source of thought!

dhw: Whether you think your will is free or not depends on which of these approaches you take: 1) you are not free from all the causes that have made you what you are and that therefore influence your decision (no free will); 2) you are what you are, regardless of the influences, and it is you who take the decision, and nobody else. You are free from all constraints other than those of the situation and of your own limitations. (You have free will). I still can’t see why you refuse to acknowledge that belief in free will depends on what you think the will is free from.

DAVID: I don't agree. As time passes I can think and analyze about all my past influences, and choose to ignore them. I can be what I wish to be. I'm not like you, always taking both sides of a discussion.

If you actually know ALL your past (and present) influences, you are the superest of all Supermen.

DAVID: You are agnostic on this point, and I have a positive view. Note this also carries over to our discussion about God's personality: yours is wishy-washy and mine very purposeful.

A positive view of one side of an argument indicates a negative view of the other, and although the following most emphatically does not apply to you, positive views of one side at the expense of another have led to the most appalling examples of human conduct, still horribly rife in today’s society. In short, being positive is no guarantee of being right. As for purpose, you totally refuse to accept ANY form of purpose beyond your God designing the universe and life for the sake of designing humans. You refuse to contemplate what purpose your God might have had in designing humans, and you have absolutely no idea what his purpose might have been when designing all the life forms and food supplies that had no connection with humans, or when designing bad bugs. Why you think that creation out of interest is “wishy-washy” I really don’t know. It can hardly be wishy-washier than your inability to come up with a purpose for humans and for bad bugs.