Free Will: Egnor shows neurological proof (Introduction)

by David Turell , Tuesday, December 15, 2020, 17:51 (1228 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: [the soul] gathers information from the brain, thinks about it, works out its concepts/takes its decisions etc, and then instructs the brain to give material expression to its thoughts.

DAVID: It uses all those mechanisms. But it also forms thoughts using the brain networks, and cannot do so if the brain is any way sick. The thoughts will be distorted and the soul cannot fix them, as it must use the sick brain to do so.

dhw: First you say the soul cannot form thoughts if the brain is sick. Then you say the thoughts will be distorted.

Misinterpreted. The soul can always form thought, but a sick brain will always make them distorted.

dhw: Are there thoughts or aren’t there, and what thinks them?...All suggesting that the brain is the source of thought (= materialism).

The soul using the brain networks is the source of thought. The brain cannot think without the soul driving it. I use me as example. I am a living soul.

dhw: You now have the soul making the brain think. (In dualism, one would expect the brain’s passing of information to make the soul think.)

That is your contrary form of dualism to mine. I/ living soul drive my brain to think.

DAVID: If the brain is sick, the soul trying to use its circuits will only receive false information or incorrect analytic thought.

dhw: Here you have the soul receiving not only the information, but also the brain’s analysis of the information. If the sick brain offers a sick analysis, the soul can do nothing about it, and as “normal thinking can only come from a normal brain”, there will be no need for the soul to do anything anyway. This makes the very concept of a soul unnecessary, because the thinking, analysing brain = materialism.

All of this is from your backward view of my dualism. The analysis is performed by the soul using the brain networks. Sick brain, sick analysis. I have the soul driving the brain's processes, and you want the brain to drive the soul. Don't you/your soul make your brain think?

DAVID: The psychopath example I used is for the purpose of showing you a psychopath cannot develop a conscience, but the examples you are tortuously using above are all folks who can know or learn right and wrong, and are therefore guilty of crimes.

dhw: This is the point at which I would like to summarize the arguments, ... There is no role for a soul. But this is only one third of the argument.

The soul's role is to drive thinking in the brain. The brain does not think unless the soul wishes to think.

dhw: Your second point can be extended: although we know that changes to the brain can cause changes in thought patterns (materialism), we also know that changes in thought patterns can change the brain. Immaterial thoughts, emotions, new experiences, learning etc. can release chemicals or result in new connections. This known fact does not provide evidence for either theory: the immaterial factors may be the product of a soul, or it may be that the brain produces them. We don’t know the source of consciousness, and so we don’t know the source of our thinking.

You are complicating the issue. I don't have to know the source for consciousness to know I am conscious. I am a living soul who uses my brain to think. My brain never tells me what to think. I know I form my thoughts and use my brain to form thoughts I wish to form. The brain plasticity to which you refer is simply the brain reacting to handle my particular usage in a useful form.

dhw: The third part of the argument is so-called psychic experiences, including NDEs. If they are real – and I for one am not prepared to dismiss them – then they are evidence for dualism.
As is so often the case, I remain neutral, because it seems to me that there is no conclusive evidence for either theory, and the same applies to free will, which also depends on what we believe to be the source of consciousness (plus certain other factors that we have discussed elsewhere).

Now we have reached the consideration of the eternal, immortal soul. NDE's produce strong evidence it exists and can work/thinking without a functional brain. After 'real' permanent death, the NDE evidence allows us to propose an afterlife top which the soul goes. So I view my soul as in a dual form: living soul and immortal soul, same soul in two ways of operating. And finally, your view of this dualism theory is diametrically opposed to mine.