Free Will: Egnor shows neurological proof (Introduction)

by David Turell , Monday, December 07, 2020, 20:41 (1447 days ago) @ dhw

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.

dhw: 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!

What you always seem to slide over is how the soul thinks. It must use the brain circuits to formulate any thought during life with a useful normal brain. It is the bold I created above that is non-descript to 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.

dhw: 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.

Exactly, as above the soul can only think when using brain circuits that are functionally working.

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.

dhw: 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?

The material brain according to materialists produces concepts by itself. Just as seizures move muscles, if the frontal cortex has a self-created thought available before a seizure, why doesn't it appear? Just like a memorized smell of ocean I've mentioned.

dhw: 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!

What a distortion of this discussion. Note my bold of your thought. The soul cannot prevent brain sickness, and is uninvolved in causing the transient or permanent brain damage, which present it from normal thought or any thought. During a seizure a sick wave of electricity washes over the brain and the soul is blocked from proper use of the neuronal webs, because the brain is temporarily out of commission. Sick brain equals sick thought or no thinking possible. It can drive muscles from the motor areas, it can resurrect memories of smells, but it can't produce an abstract thought the brain on its own created. The soul can't think during seizures. The sick brain won't let it happen. The schizophrenic can't help his weird distortions of thought. That soul is trapped with a bad brain machine. Normal thinking can only come from a normal brain. The soul is always normal, but must submit to the quality of the brain it MUST use. Even the level of IQ fits this approach. A true psychopath connot socialize properly because his brain makes him that way. From a human standpoint, we mustn't kill him for his serial murders, but institutionalize him for life. He can't help what he is.