Free Will: Egnor shows neurological proof - PART ONE (Introduction)

by dhw, Wednesday, December 23, 2020, 11:30 (1431 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: I am not disputing that the soul must use the brain’s networks to form a thought! But the brain supplies the information, and the soul thinks about it!

DAVID: Only by using the brain's networks to think and analyze the info.

This is the constant theme of your posts, and you constantly gloss over what the dualist’s thinking, analysing soul uses the brain for! When I point out that it uses the brain to gather information and to give its thoughts material expression, you agree – and then you go back to this nebulous formula.

dhw: The networks do not create thought, whether sick or "normal".

DAVID: Agreed. Only if the soul uses them to create thought.

You see, you agree. The dualist’s soul uses the brain to provide the information, and the dualist’s soul does the thinking and the analysing to create its thoughts.

dhw: If the soul is capable of distinguishing true from false, then it should make no difference whether the false comes from a sick or a healthy brain, because the dualist’s brain does not analyse the information!

DAVID: The soul cannot distinguish true from false if the brain is sick, as it must use the sick brain networks to make any analysis.

And this is how you ignore what you have agreed to. The dualist’s soul uses the brain, whether sick or normal, to gather information – whether true or false - and then it does the analysing.

dhw: Belief that the soul is responsible for thought does not “separate” it from the brain! But just like different parts of the brain, it has its own function – namely, to do the thinking.

DAVID: I will not accept this theory in bold. The soul can think only by forming thoughts actively using the brain's networks to create the thought. My living soul is myself, and I do this.

WHAT DOES THE THINKING SOUL USE THE BRAIN FOR, IN ADDITION TO INFORMATION GATHERING AND MATERIAL EXPRESSION?

DAVID: The soul can only analyze using the networks.

WHAT DOES THE ANALYSING SOUL USE THE BRAIN FOR, IN ADDITION TO INFORMATION GATHERING AND MATERIAL EXPRESSION?

dhw: There is no difference whatsoever, except that again you leave out the functions: here, you have the brain “broadcasting”, but you omit the soul’s instruction to the brain to “broadcast”, i.e. type, speak or write the soul’s decision. That is the “dictation”.

DAVID: I agree, after the soul creates thought by using the brain's networks, it has the brain broadcast the thought in as many ways as it wishes.

Thank you – that is the second function of the dualist's brain: to give material expression to the soul’s thoughts. The first is to provide the soul with information to think about and analyse.

dhw: […] the very fact that brain abnormalities have been found in psychopaths, and that drugs and alcohol interfere with the brain’s networks and hence the nature of the person’s thoughts, offers strong support to the materialist view that the brain is the source of thought.

DAVID: The source of thought the soul creates is by using the brain's networks to actually form the thought. The psychopath's self/soul doesn't have any way of knowing right from wrong because his brain is permanently incapable of that judgement. We institutionalize, not execute, as a result.

And there you have the result of your refusal to consider what the soul uses the brain for. How can a dualist attribute judgement of right and wrong to the brain? That is the task of the thinking, analysing, decision-making, free-will soul! Once again, the psychopath provides an impeccable example to illustrate the case for materialism!

DAVID: Illness and drugs can always change the functions of the material brain. A depressed soul can be helped by using mitigating drugs to change its brain, but that is because the soul can now form normal thought with a normalized brain. The material brain cannot think without the soul using it to form thought, not dictating thought to the brain as your theory insists.

You agreed above that the soul “dictates” its thoughts to the brain, so that the brain can give them material expression. The fact that illness and drugs can change the functions of the material brain, thereby causing abnormal thought, is evidence that the source of thought is the brain. The fact that mitigating drugs can cure the abnormalities in the brain, thereby restoring normal thought, is also evidence that the source of thought is the brain. The soul has no role whatsoever in the two processes. Even in your scenario, it is helpless if the brain is diseased. It may as well not exist, and indeed maybe it doesn’t.

The rest of your post repeats over and over again that the soul uses the brain, which we both accept as a fundamental feature of dualism. But until you take into account what the dualist’s thinking soul uses the dualist's non-thinking brain for, we will continue to go round in circles.