Free Will: Egnor shows neurological proof (Introduction)

by dhw, Saturday, December 12, 2020, 09:07 (1442 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: This is extremely confusing. Previously I thought you had agreed that it is the dualist’s immaterial soul that does the thinking, and it uses the material brain to gather information and to give material expression to its thoughts. Do you now disagree with this “division of labour”? Please answer.

DAVID: There is no division!!! See below.

Not “division” but “division of labour”. (See below) And why don't you answer?

DAVID: This is where you have always been confused about my theory of dualism. The immaterial soul does initiate and create thought, but only with a functional brain during life using the neuronal networks to actually create the thought.

dhw: This is where you have always muddied the waters by glossing over what the soul uses the brain for. You have agreed in the past that it “uses” the brain to gather information and then to give material expression to its thoughts. What else does it use the brain for? Please answer.

DAVID: I have over and over. I/soul/self can only initiate a thought by activating the brain's networks and using those specific networks exclusively to create the thought and then express it.

You continue to dodge my question. Over and over you say the soul uses the brain. There is no disagreement between us, but you continually gloss over WHAT IT USES THE BRAIN FOR! It uses the brain to gather the information which it then thinks about, draws its conclusions, and then uses the brain to express the thought. There is nothing in your answer that contradicts what I have written here. You simply couch it in less precise terms.

DAVID: Your previous impressions about dualism have been locked into not understanding my descriptions, with the soul in your version, at some separate distance dictating to the brain. The soul must use the brain circuits to form thought.

What on earth does “at some separate distance” mean? My interpretation of dualism is that just as different compartments of the brain are believed to be responsible for imparting different sets of information, the soul is the immaterial self that resides within the brain. And yet again, of course the soul uses the brain: for information and implementation.

DAVID: Thus a sick brain can only produce sick thoughts which the soul cannot prevent from appearing in sick form.

dhw: But the dualist’s sick brain does not produce thoughts. It produces the information that the dualist’s soul thinks about. It is the dualist’s soul that “forms” the thought. Yes or no?

DAVID: No. Only by using the brain as I describe above. Egnor and I have the same view.

This is the strangest “no”. What does it use the brain for? See above, and see post after post. You wrote “I am my soul”. Is the dualist’s soul the thinking, decision-making part of the self or isn’t it?

dhw: You gave us an extreme case of permanent sickness: the psychopath commits murder. Your verdict: “Normal thinking can only come from a normal brain”. The sick psychopath “cannot socialize because his brain makes him that way. […] He can’t help what he is.” But if the brain makes him what he is, and normal thinking comes from a normal brain, then it is the brain that makes all of us what we are. So what is the function of a soul? You could hardly make a clearer case for materialism, or for determinism. (And of course, you may be right.)

DAVID: Still total confusion. Absorb the above explanation without reverting to your previous teaching.

Without glossing over how the soul uses the brain, please explain how “normal thinking can only come from a normal brain”, and “his brain makes him that way”, and “he can’t help what he is” all comes to mean that there is an immaterial soul which has free will.