Free Will: Egnor shows neurological proof (Introduction)

by dhw, Sunday, December 13, 2020, 12:48 (1220 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: 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: It is you who is imprecise in the bold.

Then let me spell the bold out for you with a simple example. The dualist’s immaterial soul processes the information passed on by the material brain, makes a decision and instructs the material brain to mobilize the material mechanisms of the voice to tell the world: “This is my decision.” The same process applies to every decision the soul makes: it mobilizes the material brain to mobilize those parts of the body that are able to give material expression to the soul’s thoughts.

DAVID: In order for the soul to create a thought it enters the brain networks and uses those networks to actually form the complete thought.

Earlier you accused me of separating the soul from the brain. Now you have it entering the brain! Where was it before, then? And HOW else does it “use” the networks of the brain, in addition to processing the information which the brain has given it, and then to giving material expression to its thoughts, as explained above? This is the question you continually avoid answering.

DAVID: Without that attachment no thoughts can form...

Of course the soul can’t form a thought if it doesn’t have something to think about!

DAVID: ...and because of that required attachment, if the brain is sick the soul can only have sick thoughts and the soul can't even realize they are sick, since the soul must use those circuits to create and to interpret what is created.

That means the soul is incapable of thinking about the information passed on to it by the brain if the information is false! You complain that “uses the brain to express the thought” is imprecise! What does your last comment mean? Circuits = the material brain. What does the soul create? It uses the (circuits of) the brain to gather information concerning which it creates its thoughts! It doesn’t interpret its thoughts (“what is created”); it has created its thoughts by interpreting the information given to it by the brain. And if it thinks the information is wrong, it will challenge that information. If it didn’t, we would believe every word our brain passes on to us from our newspapers!

DAVID: […] You have a soul simply dictating to a separate brain which responds. I have them intimately bound together to form thought as described here.

It was you who said above that “the soul enters the brain”, and I wrote that the soul is the “immaterial self that resides within the brain”. In fact the binding is so “intimate” that materialists believe the thinking is actually performed by part of the material brain, as you frequently but accidentally imply whenever you talk of the brain producing thought. And you have not described how they form thought together. You have merely stated it. I have described how they do it, and all you have done is gloss over the different stages of the process.

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

dhw: […] Is the dualist’s soul the thinking, decision-making part of the self or isn’t it?

DAVID: It is the driver of thoughts and decisions, but it must be fully attached to the brain circuits which are used to create and form thoughts under the soul's direction/initiation. One does not work without the other...

Again trying to gloss over HOW the soul “uses” the brain circuits. See above.

DAVID: ...which is why sick brain equals sick thoughts, and the soul can't stop or correct them.

But the function of the soul is to process the information given to it by the brain. If the information is false, no matter what the cause, an immaterial soul should be able to think about it and even detect its falseness (magician saws woman in half...dictator gets ten million votes from nine million voters). Where do you draw the line between false information and sick information? A theist says God told him it’s right to kill Mr X because Mr X is an atheist. Is this decision due to false information, a sick brain, a sick soul? When you say “normal thinking can only come from a normal brain”, what are your criteria for “normal”? Someone who thinks like you? If in life abnormal thought is inevitable as a result of an abnormal brain, and what you call normality is dependent on the normality of the brain, and if during a seizure “sick brain can only produce sick thoughts” and “sick brain equals sick thoughts”, and normal thoughts return when the brain is no longer sick, the same conclusion must apply to “normal” as to “abnormal”: “His brain makes him that way...He can’t help what he is.” The so-called “soul” has no role to play and might just as well not be there. Unequivocal support for materialism and determinism.And maybe that is the truth. But some psychic experiences, including NDEs, suggest otherwise. I remain neutral.