Free Will: Egnor shows neurological proof (Introduction)

by dhw, Wednesday, December 16, 2020, 10:12 (1438 days ago) @ David Turell

This post present an astonishing reversal of your own statements. I can only highlight the contradictions.

DAVID: [The soul] forms thoughts using the brain networks, and cannot do so if the brain is any way sick. The thoughts will be distorted .

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

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

I’m simply drawing attention to your contradictory statements..

dhw: Are there thoughts or aren’t there, and what thinks them? Quotes from you: “sick brain can only produce sick thoughts”; “sick brain equals sick thoughts”; “normal thinking can only come from a normal brain”. All suggesting that the brain is the source of thought (= materialism).

DAVID: The soul using the brain networks is the source of thought.

Agreed. The dualist’s soul uses the brain for information and implementation. The brain does not produce the thoughts.

DAVID: The brain cannot think without the soul driving it. […]

And back you go to your thinking brain! The dualist’s brain doesn’t think! The soul does the thinking!

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.)

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

So what does the dualist's brain think about? More to the point, what processes the information provided by the brain, and what draws conclusions/makes decisions etc.?

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.

DAVID: All of this is from your backward view of my dualism. The analysis is performed by the soul using the brain networks.

But that is not what you wrote! I’ve bolded it: “the soul will only receive…incorrect analytic thought.” And over and over again you talk of the brain thinking.

DAVID: 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?

Where on earth do you get that from? What “processes” are you talking about? It is you who keep telling us that the dualist's brain thinks. I keep hammering home that the dualist brain only provides information and material expression of the dualist soul’s thoughts!

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

What does this mean? You seem to be saying that the soul tells the brain to analyse all the information and come to a conclusion or decision! What else is there for it to think about?

dhw: […] 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.

DAVID: 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.

But you have told us that you/your soul tells the brain to think! What does it think about? I didn't say you need to know the source to know you are conscious! That's silly. What I said is we know the brain changes thought, and thought changes the brain, so we can’t know from this whether the source of thought/ consciousness is soul or brain.

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.

DAVID: 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 to which the soul goes.

Yes, that is one reason why I remain neutral.

DAVID: And finally, your view of this dualism theory is diametrically opposed to mine.

No it isn’t. I have presented both sides of the argument, and remain neutral. What I have criticized is that you continually ignore the question of what the dualist's soul uses the brain for, and you present the case for materialism by insisting that the brain thinks – even to the point of analysing the information it gathers.