Free Will: Egnor shows neurological proof (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, December 16, 2020, 15:08 (1438 days ago) @ dhw

PART TWO

DAVID: The other aspect of it comes from NDE's. It tells us a non-functioning brain allows the soul to separate from it and somehow think on its own, and this implies that the same circumstance happens after true death.

dhw: Your “somehow” is the crux of the whole matter. But NDEs clearly denote that the soul is the immaterial thinking part of the self (evidence for dualism). However, if the soul is capable of thinking without the brain, it makes no sense for it to lose its ability to think while it is residing in the brain, even if the brain is sick. (Problem discussed in Part One.) The concept of an afterlife also raises the intriguing question of what sort of soul the psychopath will have when he/she has got rid of the brain – but that’s another subject!

DAVID: The NDE evidence forms my theory that the soul in life must think using the material brain. but it has dual roles and in death is capable of conscious thought without a brain.

dhw: NDE evidence only suggests that the soul does the thinking in life, but it uses the brain to gather information and to give material expression to its thoughts. Otherwise, we would be unable to live in the material world. NDEs contradict the theory that the immaterial thinking soul is unable to think when the brain is sick or not functioning.

Agreed. But are we clear that a sick but functioning brain distorts thoughts the soul tries to create as it uses the brain to think?