Free Will: Egnor shows neurological proof (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, December 07, 2020, 12:01 (1235 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: […] a soul must work with the brain. Sick brain, sick thoughts. They are tied together in life.

dhw: Yes, the dualist’s soul and brain are tied together in life because the soul works with the brain by using it for information and for implementation of its thoughts, but it is the SOUL that does the thinking. Even under normal circumstances, if the brain is deceived by some trickery and sends false information to the soul (the lady was sawn in half but came out whole), the dualist’s soul will process the information sent by the brain, in order to test it.

DAVID: The brain does not send anything to a separate soul. The soul is intimately tied to the brain circuits and receives info from brain memories or senses by extraction initiated by the soul. What you seem to neglect is the brain is entirely passive under the soul's directions. The soul extracts what it wants and thinks what it wants using the brain.

That is precisely what I keep telling you, and have repeated above, though rather more precisely. The thinking soul uses the brain to acquire information, thinks about the information, and then directs the brain to implement its thoughts. You keep agreeing with me as if you were disagreeing with me!

dhw: So 1) why is the soul incapable of thinking about the false information provided by the sick brain? 2) Why is it that when the brain is cured of its sickness, normal reasoning returns?

DAVID: See explanation above. Sick brain traps the soul into sick thinking, because the soul MUST use the brain's sick circuits to think.

According to you and Egnor, the soul is incapable of "thinking" (i.e. abstract reasoning) during a seizure. Once more: The brain’s circuits provide the information which the soul thinks about. The thinking soul is supposed to be the immaterial partner of the brain, so why should the immaterial partner be unable to recognize the faulty information provided by the material partner? (See above) In seizures it doesn’t - its ability to reason abstractly has disappeared. And yet it appears again when the sick brain returns to normal.

DAVID: View the brain as an instrument the soul must use. The abnormal electrical wave can make muscles move. It does hit the pre-frontal cortex, but no abstractions appear as the fit ends. If they had been created they should be sitting there ready to be recognized.

What do you mean? The abnormality hits the front cortex and the patient can’t think, but when the abnormality has disappeared, normal thinking is resumed. So how could normal thoughts have been created if the thinking part of the brain had been put out of action? But if the soul does the thinking, then abstractions should never have ended. The soul is still linked to the brain and (petit mal) is receiving false information, and so when normality returns, the soul should be able to direct the brain to express all the thoughts it had been thinking during the seizure. But that doesn’t happen. The dualist’s soul ceased to think! You said earlier that the soul wasn’t involved. The blindingly obvious conclusion is that there is no soul, and the front cortex is the source of thought!

The rest of your post goes over the same points.